Longniddry 1963 UFO
Many years ago when I was a school boy living just outside the village of Longniddry in East Lothian, Scotland my brother and I had an experience that I have never forgotten and still haunts me to this day.
It was probably about 1963 but I cannot remember the exact year.
It was late on in the year around harvest time and it was just starting to get dark.
We had been playing football in the village park and we were making our way home up the Coal Road to the house we lived in at Redcoll Farm.
The sky was quite cloudless and it was a lovely late summer's evening.
An object appeared from the horizon in the East.
The object was the size of the Moon when you see it sometimes in the countryside, very large and very bright.
I said to my brother to look the moon is moving, the object moved slowly but was obviously out in space.
It appeared to be covered in craters that were quite visible.
It continued moving up into the sky until it reached the two o'clock position and it reduced in dimension to the size of a pin head and disappeared.
It was like someone switching off an old fashioned TV.
Just writing this has again brought back the fear and a shiver to my neck that I felt that evening.
No one to this day has been able to provide an explanation.
When my brother & I arrived home that evening my mum and dad were sitting watching the TV.
We were obviously excited and frightened by what we had just seen and asked if there had been a news flash or any reports on the news?
No there wasn't so we asked our friends at school the following morning if anyone had seen this object? Again, no one had seen it.
I thought at least there would be a report in the local paper but again there was no mention.
Years later whilst installing a kitchen in a house in Houghton I asked the occupier whom I discovered was a trained astronomer, if he could throw any light on the incident?
His only explanation was that it was a fire ball or a phenomena caused by lightening.
I can say quite categorically that it definitely was not ball lightning.
I have seen this phenomena during a storm and the object that we saw was definitely cold and massive and nothing like a fireball.
A few years ago Halley's comet came into view on its travels around the solar system.
I had expected to see something quite large and spectacular like our UFO and was quite disappointed to discover that it could only be seen with a telescope or binoculars.
Even Hale-Bopp was quite visible from our house in Houghton, and it was nothing like this object.
This object was not like a comet and it did not have a tail.
Although I do not understand the workings of the universe I can see how a comet is in view for a period of time as the world spins on its axis.
How could this object appear and disappear so quickly, maybe 10 to 15 seconds at most.
It started off large and grew larger as though we were looking at it from outside the end of an ellipse.
It then diminished in size to a dot as it disappeared from view at an incredible speed. Anyway, there we have it- a real mystery.
Now at the age of 60 it's maybe time to find out, maybe some of the members can throw some light on it?