Residents across Leicestershire have spotted mysterious blue “dancing lights”, appearing in the skies and wondered if they were aliens. However, instead of being men from Mars, they are searchlights on top of Eden nightclub, in Churchgate, Leicester. Bosses installed the searchlights on its roof to send the high powered beams into the sky. Joint owner Johnny Gill said: “They are just searchlights like those used in the second World war, they are used in Hollywood and London for big film premieres. This end of town is not that great, and we wanted to show that the club has changed. I cant see a problem with the lights. On major nights, we put them on full power and you can see the beam, for other nights we just put them on half power, and the beam is very slight, but, where it makes contact with something like a cloud or a building, you see a spotlight.” Dozens of Mercury readers contacted the paper to find out what the odd lights were: Janet Howard of Countesthorpe, said she watched the lights in the sky. “My Husband spotted four blue light patches moving left to right and back, up and down, disappearing and then returning to a different place.. We watched them for more than 30 minutes. They were disappearing behind the clouds, and also in front of the clouds at times, some of the time the light patches were bigger and brighter than others.” An Oadby resident, who did not to be named, “The lights could be easily mistaken for UFOs. It was really weird, you could see how people would believe they were UFOs.” John Gillis, of Oadby, called the Mercury late on Friday. He said “ I saw them at 11 p.m., there were three hazy lights in the sky, moving to and fro. I thought that they were searchlights for a moment, but there was no beam, it was very strange. icky Shay, of Spinney Hill said: “I watched the lights over the park for more than half a hour, they looked like a UFO.”(7).

A WELL-KNOWN local figure has described the recent sightings of UFOs as nonsense. Roger Moreton, chairman of Nuneaton’s Carnival Committee, local scribe and ex-RAF man, has a far more down to earth theory about the sightings. He said: “I believe that the sightings are down to people seeing planes changing their flight path in the area. - At night when a plane’s lights are coming towards you it can give the impression of hovering, which is a very common phenomenon. - I think people are sadly misled if they think it is saucer-shaped, perhaps it is wishful thinking, but lets put an end to this UFO nonsense once and for all.” Mr. Moreton contacted the Evening News following several reported sightings of mysterious craft in the area were published in recent editions. (37).

A MIDLANDS UFO society is appealing for witnesses to an extra-terrestrial activity which they say took place near the village of Croft on Sunday. Mr. and Mrs. Rob Aldsworth of the Birmingham UFO Society received a report from a couple who said they saw a “fairly large black cigar-shaped object” in the sky and they want to hear from anyone else who saw the same strange activity. The sighting was made at about 12.20 p.m. The couple were travelling in a car through country lanes at the time and they said the object drifted slowly over fields fairly close to the ground with a much smaller object following close behind. The smaller object then rose above the larger one and moved in front of it before they both disappeared from view. (8).