The article below appeared in the Leicester Mercury, 21/5/1977.

“I was nearly asleep” said 11 year-old John who lives off Coleman Road, Leicester. “The first thing we heard was a humming noise and when we looked out, we saw this thing about five feet off the ground with red lights flashing and making strange noises. We thought it was going to land but it flew away after about fifteen minutes.”

John’s statement to investigators was as follows:-

“We were camping out at Launde Abbey, we were trying to sleep, I heard a noise, it sounded like an aeroplane at first. It then made a humming noise which changed from one noise to another, so I looked out of my tent and saw something in the sky. I called my two friends and asked them what it was but they didn’t know. We all saw something spinning in the sky, it had lights flashing, and the noise was constant with the flashing. Then it sloped down as though it was going to land. When it got to about five feet off the ground it started going up again. We carried on watching it until it disappeared into a wood in the dark. You could see the shape of the trees on the horizon.”