Goodness, gracious - what’s illuminating the skies over Stockport?
Great balls of fire, apparently.
This grainy snap shows the celestial sight that had Bredbury residents wondering whether the martians were coming.
It was taken by Stockport Express reader Antoinette Hamilton last Wednesday night [Feb 20].
She said: "At around 8.50pm I was standing on Bents Lane walking into Bents Lane Social Club. Then I and three other people spotted a fire ball travelling through the sky at a constant speed at a constant height of approximately 500ft in the air."
The unidentified object was travelling from the direction of the M60 at Denton to Gee Cross and Mottram.
Antoinette took the picture on her mobile phone and began her investigation.
"After asking many people and searching the internet I still have no idea what this may be," she said.
The Ministry of Defence refused to comment on the sighting.
But a spokesman for the Merseyside Anomalies Research Association said further investigation could be merited. After viewing the photograph, expert Ian Tomlinson said: "Sadly the picture is very hard to consider as proof of anything at all.
"However that in itself isn’t enough for anybody to dismiss the sighting out of hand.
"There are two questions we would normally ask of anybody seeing ‘lights’ in the sky in the north west area.
"Are you familiar with the night sky in the area that you live? And, on a more technical level, could the area of sky that the lights have been seen in be a part of the ascent or descent pattern of Manchester airport traffic?"
Mr Tomlinson has 12 years experience in investigating and discovering the scientific truth behind unexplained anomalous phenomena and paranormal activity.
He added: "Bredbury being around six or seven miles from the airport it is quite possible that the lights that the person has seen have been created by an aircraft, and considering the timing is early to mid evening it is probably a fairly busy time for Manchester Airport and I wouldn’t discount that as a possible cause."
The last reported UFO incident in Stockport was of two glowing objects in the air over Portwood on New Year’s Eve.
It later emerged these were windborne lanterns which had been released at a party.
(Original headline: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Or are martians landing in Bredbury? )
