In March of this year, MARA investigators Mark Rosney and Anthony Eccles had journeyed to Thorburn Road to interview a couple called Mike and Donna. On Wednesday 20^th January 1999 at approximately 23:15 GMT, Mike was out in the back garden looking up at a clear sky, it was a cold yet dry evening. What caught Mike’s attention was a dozen dim red lights that were in motion together appearing in what appeared to be triangular formation. Each of these lights were not typical of aircraft lights in that they were not small and round, they were individually arrow shaped.

Mike ran inside and called for his wife to come outside and look at this unusual sight for herself. The formation of lights was actually perceived to be to be low level, at a height that appeared to be close to the rooftops of the houses on the street and Mike compared the light formation to that of a small single engined aeroplane. The lights were traveling from the south-south-west in a straight line to the west of the New Ferry area. The lights disappeared from view as they passed over the roofs of neighbouring houses. At once Mike called the Ministry of Defence and Granada TV, who were kind enough to put them in touch with MARA.

There was no reported sound and smell from the light formation and the weather data shows that a westerly wind of 6 knots was present at the time. It might have been possible that if the lights belonged to an aeroplane the witnesses should might have been able to hear the engines, depending, of course, on the actual height of the craft and the possibility of cross winds at that height. Temperature and humidity factors did tie in with the witness's statements.

Both investigators, Mark and Anthony, immediately began to follow up the case, however, information from the police and Liverpool Airport was not forthcoming in relation to placing an aircraft at that time and date of the event of feedback regarding possibly other witnesses who might have called in with their sightings. As time passed by, and getting worried concerned that time was against them for obtaining data, Anthony Eccles corresponded again.

RAF Valley replied in May stating that none of their aircraft were in the area. A Letter from the national Air Traffic Services stated that they could not help with the enquiry due to the fact that radar reports are not kept after a three month period, and therefore they were unable to help any further, except to say that the description of the object could possible be caused by a small civilian plane. This is a likely explanation behind this sighting.

The MoD responded stating that because New Ferry was within an area controlled by Liverpool and Manchester airports, and that for flight safety reasons, military aircraft do not generally conduct low flying training in this area.

However, there is an insufficient data here to clearly state what it was that Mike and Donna had actually seen. To them the object did not appear to be a light aeroplane, and I appreciate the problems with visual perception, which is a shame why the airport and the police are not as helpful as I would like them to be. For now, the case remains open and Mark and Anthony are interested in talking to anyone who may have witnessed this light formation around that date and time.

What was discovered to be of further interest, particularly towards the present Witness Studies conducted by Anthony, was that during the course of the interview Mike had described a number of other unusual experiences that had happened to him on previous occasions.

As a boy, Mike was living in Liverpool in the Old Swan area in the 1960s. He distinctly remembers being in an upstairs room of his house and looking out of the front window as he could hear a deep rumbling around him which shook the glass. Through this window he was shocked to see German bombers from the Second World War actually flying over his street and dropping their bombs! Going downstairs and outside, Mike soon found that that the streets were unaffected and the bombers were no longer there, even the rumbling of the aircraft engines had suddenly ceased.

It sounds like a typical time slip event, but Mike has recently experienced poltergeist type phenomena where electrical equipment, such as their child’s stereo, going on and off by itself (a malfunction in the remote control?) and objects moving about the house such as a knife.

What I like about this case is that even though the UFO sighting may have an misperceived sighting of an aeroplane it still does not remove the fact that the person has other "paranormal" experiences, which ties in neatly to Anthony Eccles’s Witness Study.

If anyone else has witnessed the formation of lights over New Ferry, could you please contact Anthony Eccles on 0151 727 4057

52 Hawthorne Avenue, Halewood,

Liverpool, L26 9XD

tonyeccles@yahoo.com