Halewood Lights In The Sky (LITS) 2002-2006
By Bill Bimson
Jump to Photo and video evidence in 2002 LITS sightings in 2003 LITS sightings in 2004 LITS sightings in 2005
Introduction Update: November 21st 2006. A member of the public has sent me a photograph and admitted to launching fire balloons from the Mackets Lane are of Halewood over a period of years. He also stated that a colleague of his had made similar launches of these devices in the Fleetwood area. A photograph of the balloons in the garage of the launcher just before launch is shown below. MARA thank the launcher for putting the cause of the LITS beyond all reasonable doubt .
Haelwood LITS Fire Balloons consisting of a plastic bag with a suspended open flame heat source to make the bag rise into the air using the hot air balloon principle Sightings in 2002
Hi I
have just encountered a strange phenomenon with my family and a small amount of
neighbours. The "ufo's" were in perfect formation and orange in
colour, there were about 12 to start with that disappeared vertically into the
sky one by one only to return again in perfect formation with less lights
visible (maybe 6-9 lights). We called the John Lennon Memorial Airport to
see if they had anything on radar or visual and they called us back to report
they don't have neither and were told it may be fireworks or the like. In
my experience fireworks and flares don't stay in perfect formation over the sky
for over 15mins moving over the skies of Liverpool. I am living in
Halewood close to the Airport and this was my 1st encounter. Here is the
weird part though, after my older brother called the airport our phone would not
work for about 3-5mins (no dial tone what so ever). We did take a picture
of the sighting on a normal camera with a flash but not sure if they will turn
out. Maybe you have seen this for yourself on this night? Either way
it was an experience which I haven't had before, but it was great as we sat here
for a while discussing exactly what it could be. Thank you for your
time. Phillip Gilks PHIL@psgilks.fsnet.co.uk had a similar sighting to Ian Nico's (described below). Phillip has since modified his statement to say that the lights covered an area of sky equivalent to about ¾ of the size of the constellation of the plough as opposed to the full size of the plough. The next paragraph are Phillip's own words.
Hello Bill,
On Friday (18th October) night I was
walking home at around midnight, on Higher Rd, Halewood. I saw 8 or 9 gold
spheres moving from South to North in the following formation:
. .
. Direction >>
.
. . .. .
They where moving faster than an aircraft and were at an altitude of above 2000-3000ft (being a weather observer for the Met Office for more than 10 years, I am very good at estimating cloud heights). I know this because, unfortunately, they disappeared behind cloud at this height. If they were around this height their spread would have been large. In perspective, they were as big, if not bigger, than the plough. The weird thing was that, a smaller sphere came from the second sphere and then disappeared. I watched amazed for less than a minute, before they went behind the clouds. A few people apparently rang Roger Phillips phone in today on Radio Merseyside, reporting similar.
Regards
Photograph of the Halewood LITS A photograph of the LITS came in from one of the witnesses (see below). The left picture is the low resolution picture that first was sent to us, the second is the same picture after increasing the Gamma in a photo-editing package to increase brightness and the third is a zoomed in section of the high resolution picture that was sent to us on the 7th November. In the right picture, there is obvious clear sky between the lights and hence they are not part of the same craft. If you would like to view the full size picture Click here (750K, approx 4 minutes download time on a 56K modem) The lights were described as orange or golden in the reports but they appear white in the picture. This may be because they are very much brighter than the ambient light and the camera has compensated for the low overall light level.
First video evidence of the LITS In January of 2003 we obtained video footage of LITS from a security camera at Halewood train station taken on 8th November 2002. To view the video on MARA's Myspace site, click here then click on view my videos, then click on Halewood 1. Click back on your browser twice to return here. A picture from the footage is shown below and analysis of the video follows.
Video Analysis Details of
capture, timing and labeling. Uncompressed AVI file used for analysis captured at 25 frames per second using MGI Videowave 3.5. Time of start of video 00:38:53 Time of end of video 00:43:55 Duration of video real time 5 minutes 2 seconds Duration of video at normal playback speed 34.28 seconds Total number of frames 857 The video runs about 9 time faster than normal speed on a normal video recorder because it was recorded on a security recorder which only takes frames at a much slower rate than a normal VHS recorder. Two times are
given for each analysis point. The
real time on the video in minutes and seconds (RT) and the duration into the
video clip or clip time in seconds (CT). The time and date in the video are incorrect by one hour because the clock on the video had not been reset to GMT after BST has ended, so the correct time and date are 11:40 pm on the 8th November.
We requested help from Peter Van Doorn at the tornado and storm research organisation (TORRO) www.torro.org.uk Peter showed the video at a TORRO lecture and the consensus was that the sighting was probably caused by birds flying late at night, possibly swans. When the video is run at normal speed some of the LITS occasionally appear to have a movement which suggests the flapping of bird wings and the consequence of this is that some critics suggested we were definitely looking at birds. However, when the footage is slowed down to run in real time, it is obvious that the LITS are moving too slowly to be birds. In addition, the illumination analysis below shows that they are far to bright and individual frame analysis below shows that the apparent flapping motion is caused by a synchronisation error in the video footage. Illumination analysis at 39:06 RT If the LITS had been caused by birds, they would only be reflecting street lights so I have chosen the frame at 39:06 RT to demonstrate that this is not at all likely to be the case and that in fact the LITS have their own illumination. Looking at the two LITS on the left in this frame, it is obvious that they are some considerable height above the street lights and yet they are brighter in illumination than the roof barge boards in the bottom left of the picture which are obviously painted white (see blowups). The roof bargeboards are very close to the street lights and so they should appear to be much brighter than any birds which are much further away. I believe this proves that the LITS have their own source of illumination and hence they can not be birds.
Individual frame analysis reveals a synchronisation fault When individual frames are analysed, it is obvious that the recording equipment suffers from a synchronization problem when going from an odd numbered line to an even numbered line in the raster. Zoomed in sections of four consecutive frames are shown below with clip times of 1.84, 1.88, 1.92 and 1.96 Seconds respectively. The frames at 1.84 and 1.88 seconds show the problem while the frames at 1.92 and 1.96 seconds do not have the problem or suffer it to a much lower degree. This change in shape of the objects when going from frames with the problem to frames without the problem is what gives rise to what some have interpreted as the flapping of bird wings. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that it is not even consistent within individual frames. For example, in the frame at 1.84 CT, the problem is evident in the LITS but not evident in the tree top at the bottom of the frame, but by the time we get to 1.92 CT, the problem has largely disappeared from the LITS but shifted to the tree top a the bottom left.
39:10 RT 1.84CT 39:10 RT 1.880CT 39:10 RT 1.920 CT 39:11 RT 1.960CT Speed and direction analysis of LITS in video The LITS appear to be at their brightest at the beginning of the video footage when their direction is along the train line towards Hunts Cross Station (east). It is difficult to estimate their speed because we don't know the distance to the LITS but they appear to be moving slower towards the end of the video footage when they are further south and are also far less bright. Hence, it is probably reasonable to assume that the LITS are closer to the camera early on and further away as time progresses. If they have traveled in a straight line, they have probably gone from north west to south east on an approximate course of 130 degrees, although this figure could quite easily be in error by up to 30 degrees. They first come into view not far from Hunts Cross train station and finally fade out after crossing the Jaguar car factory near Liverpool John Lennon airport. Their speed is obviously slow and the frame rate of the video has to be changed to 3 per second to make the footage play in real time. I estimate the LITS to be moving somewhere between 5 and 20 miles per hour. Other information We interviewed two independent witnesses to the LITS and examined four witness report forms and these confirmed the high strangeness of the events. There were some minor earthquakes in the Manchester area prior to the LITS sightings but experts from the British Geological Survey and Liverpool University's Geophysics department stated that the seismic events in Manchester would have made little of no change to tectonic strain in the Halewood area and hence earthlights were unlikely to be the cause of the sighting. Weather reports were obtained from the Proudman Oceanographic Institute in Bidston Observatory. Sightings in 2003 27th October The next couple of reports came in after sightings on the 27th October 2003. The reports are shown below, but we did not receive any video footage or photographs from the sighting on this date. Never done anything like this
before, but have you had any reports of strange light red lights above Halewood
last night at about 20:55 hours. They were moving from Liverpool towards Runcorn
in direction. There were two main spherical lights which were then joined by a
third and possibly a fourth towards the end of the sighting. The lights were to
far apart to be joined by a structure and seemed to move closer together at end
of sighting. I viewed them for approx. 3-5 mins through my binoculars (10x50)
they were quite slow moving. Could not see a proper structure apart form the
lights but there was slight cloud cover. However, could see planes quite clearly
through it about 15mins later. The strange thing was that there was no
sound to them. The next set of reports came in from sightings between 2nd and 4th December and there were so many that it is not appropriate to mention them all on this page, so I have selected the most important ones below. 2nd December Last
night (2/12/03) at approx. 10:45pm I saw about six red lights in close proximity
making up a circle. At first I thought they were stars or aeroplanes but they
looked really odd and were flying really close together. Did anyone else see
these? Hi, 3rd December Hello John, 4th December
Hello Bill,
Further to the postings on your site. I
too witnessed the lights in the sky (in Halewood) on 2/12/03 and on 4/12/03
and was totally astounded and baffled by what I saw. I have
decent video footage of the second sighting on 4/12/03. Glad I did
because found the whole thing is unbelievable. It lasts
approximately 2-3 minutes. I would like to send the film in to you to
see if you can confirm their/it's origins. How can I get it to
you? I copied the film onto DVD, is that OK?
Thanks,
To view the video on MARA's Myspace site click here then click view my videos, then click on Halewood 4. Click back on your browser twice to return here. Snapshots from the DVD footage are shown below. MARA are very grateful to the witness who sent this footage which is of excellent quality.
Hi,
hiya, I was looking on the internet to find information on unexplainable lights I had saw in the sky last night, and I found your website, when I read some of your reports from the 2nd and 3rd of December my experience was the same. last night (4th Dec 03)at about half nine me and my boyfriend had just come back from town and we were walking down Barford Road, Hunts Cross when we saw 10-12 reddish orange lights, travelling in a east to west direction. some of them were travelling in twos at first, a fair way apart then, as we continued to watch them they changed round and it became just a mixture of lights constantly moving around. I ran down to tell my mum and dad to see what they thought, and my dad said apparently the lad who lives over the road has been watching them for the past 3 nights at around eleven o'clock, they have been travelling in the same direction and disappearing one by one when they are online with trees from Camphill that are visible at the bottom of Barford Road (towards the Asda). We stayed out to watch them along with other people that were out near the top of the road. And just as the lad over the road had said they took the same course and disappeared one by one exactly on line with the trees. please, investigate to find out what they are, I've never experienced anything like this before. though I will be looking out tonight around half nine and onwards to see if I can catch them on video. please reply ASAP. Looking forward to hearing from you, regards, 29th December MARA was lucky enough to obtain video footage from two independent witnesses from the next batch of sightings on the 29th December. The footage taken by Neil Walsh is clearer because it was taken with a digital camcorder, but the footage only lasts for a couple of minutes whereas the footage taken by Keith Smith lasts for about 20 minutes and shows clearly how the LITS move relative to each other. This would indicate that they are not just carried by the wind and makes a fire balloon solution to the case look less than perfect. Here are two snapshots from video footage provided by Neil Walsh of the Halewood LITS on 29th December 2003. The one on the left shows the LITS while the camcorder is in ordinary daylight mode where as the one on the right was taken a few seconds later after switching the camcorder to Nightshot (0 LUX) mode. MARA thank Neil Walsh for allowing us to use the video footage in our investigation. To view the video on MARA's Myspace site click here then click on view my videos, then click on Halewood 3. Click back on your browser twice to return here. Keith Smith MARA thank Keith Smith for the supply of the video from which some snapshots are shown below.
Below are 6 snapshots taken about 5 seconds apart from Keith Smith's video footage. They show how the LITS move relative to each other. The two LITS on the left of the first picture remain relatively still, while the other two LITS move down and to the left of them over a period of about 25 seconds. It would appear from this that they are not all moving at the same speed and hence it is not just the wind that are driving them. However if they are fire balloons, then it can only be the wind that is driving them which leaves some mystery in this case. To view the video from Keith Smith on MARA's Myspace site click here then click on view my videos, then click on Halewood 2. Click back on your browser twice to return here.
Further reports from 29th December Dear Bill, On Monday last 29/11/2003, I came out of my drive in Hunts Cross and looking up the road due west, I saw a formation of what looked like six or seven bright orange stars low down in the sky. I called to my wife and we both stood in the road and looked at them. What happened next has had me both baffled and euphoric in equal measure. As we were looking at orange lights, a movement in the sky to my right caused me to turn and look, just above roof height and a little way off was what looked like a fairground carousel in the sky. The object was circular and glowed with a very bright white light, the bottom of the object was made up of about 10 or 12 orange lights which seemed to pulse. The object was either spinning or the white lights on the upper surface were in some sort of sequence to give it that effect. This object moved in a westerly direction and seemed to be heading for the orange lights that I have already mentioned. I drove my car to the top of the road to have a clearer view across Woolton golf course, at that moment I looked directly above me and saw what looked like 3 lit up parachute shaped objects heading in the same direction. After a few seconds, a further two similar objects appeared and they headed to the west. What did I see?
Dear Bill, Tonight (29 December 2003) I was walking my dog through Woolton Woods to Camphill Woolton at 9.00pm. As I was getting towards Camphill I saw the bright orange lights which are described on your website. The behaved exactly like the other observers have described. In all, I saw 12 lights in groups of three. They appeared to be coming from the Halewood direction and moved in a haphazard way in a general westerly direction. At one time I watched two lights as one circled the other. Like the lights described on your website they where bright orange in colour (the colour of street sodium lights). By 9.20pm they had disappeared. The sky was quite clear and the moon was bright. Denis Foy. Bill
Having just read your article on 'Lights
over Halewood', I can report having just seen the phenomena. It actually came
as no surprise, rather a visit from an old friend, as I first saw these lights
about 3/4 years ago at the same time of year. On this occasion I
was in the 'Asda' car park Halewood - today 29th December at about 8:45pm. I
saw three lights at first in triangular formation moving from the direction of
the airport towards Springfield cemetery. The lights moved slowly and then
seem to come to a stop all at once. Then from the same direction a further 5/6
lights started to appear, these moving more quickly. As the second set started
to gain on the first, one of the second batch seem to increase it's speed and
overtake all the others, while at the same time two of the lights started to
flicker and extinguish.
In the following 5 minutes or so a
further 6-8 lights appeared in the same manner following a similar path.
During the event
several aircraft were passing through the area at various altitudes and the
objects appeared completely unaffected. It
is difficult to say what they may be but I doubt they were balloons or free
floating devices as they appeared to move at different speeds, stop, slow down
then speed up etc and as there wasn't even a breeze I can't see how it is
possible for them to be simply drifting.
I will be looking out tomorrow at the same time
as, if my last experience stands, they invariably return.
Cheers
Hi Bill,
My family and I witnessed 'strange lights' in
the sky on a total of 3 occasions since the end of November 2003. On
Monday 29th December, this event was on a much larger scale and was also
witnessed by approximately 6 of our neighbours, one of whom works
for Manchester Airport.
The sighting on 29/12/2003 was at approximately
9:00pm and we witnessed a total of 8 orange lights which moved silently from
the Halewood area towards the direction of the River Mersey. The
event lasted for about 15 minutes and was very different from the 2 events
previously observed, in fact some of the neighbours where quite shocked by what
they had seen.
The lights first appeared in the sky directly
opposite our home, which is in Leafield Road and seemed to just come into view
suddenly. This event was much different from the other two events we
have witnessed because the lights were actually travelling very low in the sky
and when they first came into view they appeared to be spaced out in an random
alignment. Also after 10 minutes the lights stopped and
arranged into a large pyramid / inverted V formation of six orange
lights. The other two lights remained close together and moved very
slowly at some distance away.
As the lights faded, we witnessed
two fast jets travelling towards them, which seemed to be a catalyst
for the lights disappearing. As we have lived close to Liverpool
Airport all our lives, we are well aware of the appearance and normal
speed that passenger planes are capable of. The trajectory and
speed that these jets where travelling made it apparent that these where
not ordinary passenger planes and also because they where flying very
close together. The last of the lights faded out before the jets
reached it, seeming to suggest that whatever the lights where, they had
responded directly to the appearance of these airplanes.
We later phoned Liverpool Airport and asked if
they had witnessed any strange lights in the sky or seen anything on
radar. They informed us that they had seen nothing unusual and seemed
very disinterested. They did state that no planes where in the vicinity
of the Hunts Cross Area on that night and went on to say that these lights
have been reported previously by many people in the South Liverpool area but
they are unable to explain what they may be.
However, the statement that no planes where
in the Hunts Cross area was untrue as we saw a passenger plane going
overhead directly opposite the lights, behind our house during this event.
The person at the airport we spoke to stated
that the police have said these unexplained lights may be caused by the newly
built Mersey Wave, but which they later agreed was probably just a guess
. In fact on a previous occasion when we saw the strange lights
on the last Sunday in November 2003 at approximately 10pm, we telephoned
Liverpool Airport who again told us that they had not seen anything
unusual. They also gave us the telephone number for a UFO sightings
line, however, after several tries to get through to this number
unsuccessfully, we came to the conclusion that this was an unmanned telephone
number..
As I and my family are totally over-awed
by this unexplained display of lights, we would be pleased to hear
from others who have also witnessed these starnge lights in the Hunts Cross
area.
Sightings in 2004
The most recent sighting report was from the
29th February 2004 and the witness statement is given below although the
location is several miles from Halewood.
Further to other
items on your web-site- on morning of 29th February 2004 (12.10 am)
Childwall- witnessed orange lights in sky flying in a formation of 3
lights in a horizontal line traveling from east to west - (Broadgreen M62
towards River Mersey) fourth light seemed to be following at a different
angle - lights then moved in to a triangular formation - again with fourth
light slightly behind - low in sky and completely silent - seemed to have the
ability to stop and start immediately and hang in the sky - through
binoculars they seem to be the shape of an ice cream cone (appeared to be a
solid structure )- bright orange with a halo around them - it was a stunning
sight and we hope to be able to have a further sighting - gradually
moved towards the river and eventually out of sight.
All of the sightings of this type of UFO have come from Merseyside and Fleetwood in North West England up until April 24th 2005 when we received the following report from Ingle Farm on the outskirts of Adelaide, South Australia and a further reports from Witham, Essex, England on the 9th July 2005 and Cheltenham UK on 25th August 2005. The witness accounts of the incidents are copied below along with a picture from the Witham sighting
The following report comes from
the Gloucestershire Echo and remains copyright to the Gloucestershire
Echo. The article is reproduced with permission and describes a
very similar phenomenon to the Halewood LITS in the Cheltenham area.
DOZENS REPORT SEEING SPOOKY ORANGE LIGHTS
Lights in the sky over Witham in Essex 9th July 2005 I saw exactly what has been described in your website last night, Saturday 9th July 2005 - over Witham, Essex.
Here is what I sent to the Sky At
Night email address:
Can you tell me what these lights
might be which we witnessed around 22:30 on Saturday, 9th July.
Attached are some still
images but we also have some video. There
were dozens of orange lights moving approximately north to south. They
moved steadily and quite slowly, all at the same speed. It took about
20 minutes for them to pass.
Here are a couple of images.
Unfortunately the resolution of my camcorder (which took video &
stills) is not that great hence orange colour is not evident.
Regards
Gerry Shepherd
Still taken from camcorder footage of the Witham LITS. MARA thank Gerry Shepard for supplying the video footage to MARA for publication and analysis. To view the video from Gerry Shepard on MARA's Myspace site click here then click on view my videos, then click on Witham. Click back on your browser twice to return here. LITS in Australia April 24th 2005 Hi Bill, My friends and I were outside a few hours ago and a set of strange bright orange lights passed over us, and then disappeared gradually. This whole process took about 10 to 15 minutes and they moved very slowly, and also formed into a kind of "U" shape before the disappeared. Some people in a car passed by, and said they had phoned the airport, and that the "LITS" were definitely not any form of aircraft. This was fairly obvious already, because of the speed they travelled and the total absence of any sound. None of us had a clue what these lights were, so I decided to look it up on the internet, and then was relieved to see we haven't been the only ones, LOL.
One of my friends took some photo's with
their phone, but other than that we could only admire this strange
occurrence. Well
I'm not sure if you include sightings from Australia, but in case, we
witnessed them in Ingle Farm, South Australia. The witness gave their exact location as outside "Hungry Jack's" at Ingle Farm on the outskirts of Adelaide and the time of the sighting was around 10-11pm. It is impossible for MARA to investigate this sighting properly because of the distance from Merseyside, but the description of the sighting appears to be very similar to the Halewood LITS and this is our first report of the phenomenon from outside of England. Note that winter is just approaching in Adelaide in late April and all of the Halewood LITS sightings have been during winter. The witness later confirmed that the picture taken on the camera phone didn't turn out, probably because the CCD chip on the camera phone was not sensitive enough. He also stated that it was unusually warm in Adelaide for the time of the year which probably rules out any atmospheric explanation for the LITS because all of the Halewood sightings have taken place during cold conditions. Halewood Lights In The Sky (LITS) Make A Comeback: 13th November 2005 MARA have had several reports of the Halewood Lights In The Sky phenomenon from the 13th November. Some people phoned in to a local radio station to report the sightings. They were described as 6 or 7 orange balls of light which drifted slowly across the sky. We have received a video showing 3 of the LITS and a snapshot from the video is shown below. 3 LITS can be seen on the left and the flare on the right is caused by the moon which is just out of shot. One amazing fact about this video is that it was taken by MARA's youngest ever witness James Doughty, aged 9 of New Hutt School, Halewood. The LITS were described by James' family as being at about the usual height of the Merseyside Police helicopter (around 500 feet). Initial estimates put the course of the LITS on a flight path going from East to West on a course through central Halewood, Liverpool UK. Their speed is very slow. One of the lights in the video shows what appears to be a small light drop away from it which might indicate a fire balloon solution in this case (see Project IFO for a description of fire balloons). A picture of James is shown alongside the picture of the LITS. MARA have permission from James and his parents for his picture to be displayed here. If anyone has any further information on this sighting, please contact Bill Bimson To view the video on MARA's Myspace site click here then click on view my videos, then click on Halewood 5. Click back on your browser twice to return here.
Conclusions The LITS are too bright and slow to be birds. They are not astronomical objects because of the way they move and appear and disappear. They are not aircraft because they carry none of the normal anti-collision lighting of normal aircrafts such as strobe lighting or red and green lighting. In addition, the proximity of these LITS to each other would make it extremely dangerous for aircraft especially at night and so close to a major airport. Video evidence of at least one sighting shows that the LITS are able to move independently at different speeds which indicates they are not simply wind blown. It appears that some of the sightings around Essex and Gloucestershire and Halewood are Fire Balloons, see the bottom of http://www.mara.org.uk/Project_IFO.htm for a full description of Fire Balloons. This was confirmed in November of 2006 when a member of the public admitted to several launches of the fire balloons and sent us a picture which is the first one on this page. However, the video and descriptive evidence that we have from Keith Smith from the 29th December 2003 along with that of other witnesses prevents us from concluding that all of the Halewood sightings are caused by Fire Balloons. The person who launched the balloons stated that they were launched from Mackets Lane which ties in with the location of the LITS sightings It would be simple to categorise all of the Halewood sightings as fire balloons, but the evidence from 29th December 2003 leaves some doubt about this which leaves us with an unknown element. We don't understand how two independent witnesses could describe a carousel type object. If the carousel type objects were simply nothing more than fire balloons, then this case presents an example of how a sighting can be misrepresented by witnesses who have nothing but the best intentions in solving the case. Back to Halewood LITS sightings in 2002 Back to Halewood LITS sightings in 2003 Back to Halewood LITS sightings in 2004 |
