The Chinese lantern Syndrome

During the latter half of 2008, and the first half of 2009, several strange and unusual things were taking place locally concerning the subject of UFOs. The local press seemed to have a sudden fascination with the subject and began printing articles concerning a rise in localised sightings without any prompting from local ufologists, society members or otherwise, which is a relatively unique event, albeit a very welcome one, in itself. At the same time, after going through a relatively quiet period, our report line started ringing again and UFO reports suddenly were coming in on a virtually daily basis. which is usually classed as quite a good thing, especially after such a long period of calm, at least that’s what was first thought.

In this particular instance though, it seemed that something wasn’t quite right. Unlike previous UFO waves which usually concerned a variety of UFO types being witnessed over a certain length of time, all the latest reports seemed to be almost identical to each other. They all appeared to confirm that a spate of orange glowing lights in the sky were being seen quite frequently, and that sometimes, they would fly in formations of two, three or even as many as fifty +. “Flames” were seen too, and objects falling to the ground.

Our first report was of a red/orange light moving steadily through the sky above the John Cleveland College, Hinckley. (A noted UFO hot spot). The light finally disappeared suddenly and without a sound. This was October 2008. Almost identical phenomena were continuously reported over both Hinckley and Nuneaton until April 2009, then, coinciding with lighter nights, the reports subsided for a time.

Being determined to see a representation of these repeating phenomena for myself, during April , along with our son, we staged a sky watch from our loft-room window one evening. We have an excellent view across both Hinckley, and nearby Nuneaton, and it wasn’t long before our curiosity was satisfied. A solitary orange light came into view, sailing silently through the night sky. It was low, and seemed intelligently guided. Our first thought was a model aircraft of some kind, but then that thought was put on hold as the object suddenly de-materialised, without a sound. We were puzzled, but determined to uncover the truth of the matter if we could.

The next night, around the same time, we saw two identical lights hovering above houses nearby, and, just like the first sighting, the objects suddenly vanished without a sound. We checked wind directions and speeds for the nights in question and found that both sightings could have been wind driven phenomena.

The reports continued, and a press release was issued to the local papers asking for any information regarding the orange invaders, and basically informed the public that so far, we had drew a blank regarding just exactly what they were.

A Leicester lady called to say she had spotted a dome-shaped UFO taking off from a field at the back of her home. She stated that it was filled with flames and lifted off the ground “like a sheet blown in the wind”.

A week later, totally unconnected, a strange object was found in our back garden. It looked like a large paper sack, and at the open end there was a bamboo ring with thin wire attached.

The next day, whilst we were travelling along the A46 road almost in Six Hills, Leicestershire, an almost identical sack was spotted fluttering in the road in front of us, yet another clue!?

Things were beginning to become clear, could we be in the middle of a wave of model hot air balloon sightings?

The Leicestershire UFO Research Society say that they have solved the mystery of at least some of the orange lights and ‘burning objects’ seen in the sky and ‘landing’ on the ground during the last four months.

After making a public appeal for information, it has been discovered that most of the globes seen between April and July were, in fact, Chinese “glo-Lanterns” which are constructed from coloured paper and carry a flame inside. “They are miniature hot-air balloons” said a society spokesperson, “They are usually released at partys etc. and can appear strange in the night sky as they hover and glow and move along in the wind, they can be purchased on the internet. They have been reported all over the U.K. in recent months” he said.

The Society say that they proved their point recently when they released some of the balloons deliberately. Within 24 hours they received 10 new reports of orange UFOs over the region.

“We invited witnesses to view the balloons as they were released” said society co-ordinator Graham Hall. “All of them except one said that the balloons resembled the objects they thought were UFOs” he added. The only one exception was a disc-like object hovering near a wooded area.

The society, who have been investigating UFO sightings from the Leicestershire region since 1971, added that not all UFOs turn out to have mundane explanations and around 5 percent each year remain unexplained.

The article brought forth yet another crop of sighting reports, together with some comments from another type of witness, the UFO believer. This latter group of people, of which certainly, some LUFOIN members are, whilst understanding our above mentioned ‘experiment’, were questioning our motives in debunking UFOs in the area, whilst at the same time, maintaining we were a UFO research society.

Sticking to our guns, we retaliated by stating what we meant by the term Unidentified Flying Object.

i.e. an object in the sky that, after investigation, remains unidentified, without any preconceptions or bias as to what we believe that object may or may not be. We were not out to debunk the subject, only to identify, if possible, what exactly had been witnessed on certain occasions.

This seemed to satisfy our critics without any of them taking further offence at our actions. At the same time, we believe that our publicity may have some effect in the long term, as sighting reports of obvious ‘lanterns’ within our area, at this time, seem to have now been drastically reduced.

Typical witness statement:

“I saw three (example figure, could be one to infinite) very bright flame-like orange lights rise up and then hover in the sky and then move off in a triangular formation at speed, they moved too fast to be normal aircraft. At one point, the formation changed direction, and then they just vanished without a sound. They were definitely UFOs”.

About a mile away there is a birthday party in the garden. Ground wind speed is light, probably around 10 miles per hour with winds aloft, probably much stronger. Three glo lanterns, i.e. hot air balloons, purchased on the internet especially for the occasion, are lit and gradually rise up into the night sky with the hot air produced by the fitted fuel cell underneath trapped inside the balloon. When the balloons eventually meet with winds aloft, possibly as high as 1,000 feet, they, in turn, start to travel in the direction of that wind, and also match its speed. Thus, on the ground, the toys will be seen as three bright orange flame-like objects sailing quickly and silently through the night sky along a straight flight path, although directional changes will sometimes occur during this time according to sudden changes in wind direction(s), the balloons apparently flying as an intelligently guided formation. Depending on the type of device, horizontal flight will continue this way until their fuel cells run out, perhaps as long as 10-15 minutes. In the case of double fuel cell lanterns, the flight time is extended to quite considerable periods . After the fuel cells have burnt out, the remains will then, one by one, simply fall back to earth, a process which will usually be invisible to the witness because of distance and the surrounding dark sky. Therefore, the objects simply appear to vanish on the spot, and all in total silence.

Baffled, having probably never heard of Chinese Lanterns, the observer immediately mistakes the strange observation as a UFO sighting in the context of alien visitors, this being the usual concept of what a UFO is, and reports it accordingly, even going as far as writing to the Ministry of Defence in the hope of an explanation.

These fascinating toys, as pretend UFOs, are very convincing, and, like fireworks, have now, very quickly, become part of our modern society, but, they should be recognised for what they actually are, by a misguided public who, through no fault of their own, are filing, what they believe are UFO sighting statements, at an alarming rate, wasting time and money, and filling the filing cabinets and hard-drives of many UFO study organisations, (and occasionally governmental bodies), both in this country and abroad, with accounts of alleged UFO sightings.

The purpose of our publicity is to try and reduce this imbalance within the general Leicestershire UFO data by educating the public at source on just exactly what it is they are viewing so often in our night skies.

The balloons sit alongside other less easily mistaken natural aerial phenomena, such as aircraft, blimps, satellites, birds, planets, stars, sun-dogs, weather balloons, clouds, model aircraft, kites etc.

FARMERS are calling for a ban on releasing Chinese lanterns into the sky because they say they are putting the lives of cattle at risk.

Livestock owners say that the popular kite-like floating candles are landing in their fields where their paper, bamboo and wire structurs are a hazard for cows.

Farmers say the sharp fragments of lantern remains can be swallowed by beasts, puncturing their throats or stomachs, particularly when they get mixed up with silage grass collected for winter feed. There have been reports of cows being killed in Derbyshire and Lincolnshire, while farmers in Leicestershire say they are recovering increasing numbers of the lanterns from their land.

The coloured lanterns are used in celebrations in the Far East, and are becoming increasing popular in the UK at weddings, funerals and birthdays.

They have frequently caused UFO alerts as they are capable of floating up to 1,500 feet and travelling for miles before the candle that keeps them airborne burns out and they fall to Earth.

Farmer Pat Stanley has a 200 head herd of cows at Spring Barlow Lodge, near Shepshed, and has found five of the lanterns on her farm in the last week.

She said “ These lanterns are Lethal. Their frames are made of such sharp material . If they were to get into the machinery that prepares our silage for winter feed they will get chopped upinto shards three inches long and you can imagine what they would do to the insides of a cow”.

THIS is the latest picture of the UFOs that have got the whole town talking about whether aliens are on their was to Hinckley or not.

The Photograph was sent to the Hinckley Times by Lorraine and Dean Seyman, whose sighting at New Year sparked the great debate which has seen more than seventy readers call in to have their say. And they are positive that they saw something not of this world and are now looking for expert help to help explain what they saw.

Dean said “ These pictures are better than the ones we got out before and it is something that we would like. So if someone has the capabilities to make them more distinctive, then that would be great”