16th May 2021
Report by Abigail Hyslop
Additions by Ash Ellis
Three separate sightings were reported all in the west of Scotland, all in the early hours of Sunday 16th May 2021. Two reports were filed detailing two very bright lights flying at a relatively low altitude and travelling in at a slow speed and seemed, according to the witnesses, to be under intelligent control. The third report detailed only one light. All three reports were submitted to UFO Identified by three different witnesses (despite similar initials), one of which wished to remain completely anonymous.
Brief details of sightings:
A: 01:55am East Kilbride, West Scotland (Reported by J.H.) – 2 objects, seemingly in formation travelling in a south easterly direction at low speed, one flashing light. Weather conditions were relatively clear with minimal cloud cover. No noise detected. No other aircraft in the area.
B: 02:00am Rothesay, West Scotland (Reported by John H.) – Small bright light travelling in a southeast direction for approx. 20 seconds, light seemed to have a halo, travelling at high speed. Weather conditions were relatively clear with minimal cloud cover. No noise reported and no other aircraft in the area.
C: 02:30am Strone, West Scotland (Reported by anon) – 2 bright objects flying seemingly in formation travelling in a northerly direction at relatively low altitude and slow speed. Weather conditions were relatively clear with minimal cloud cover. No noise detected and no other aircraft in the area.
Further Reports:
There was a further report made in Mold, North Wales where two lights appeared to be travelling behind the International Space Station at 01:53. The lights followed the ISS for around a minute before moving upwards and then disappearing from sight. Although the timing of this report (submitted to MUFON) as well as the description of two lights is very similar to the ones made in Scotland, I do not believe that these are the same objects being observed due to the direction of travel and behaviour, and thus this sighting will not feature further in this report.
Initial opinion
My initial thought was that these sightings were connected, the two at 1:55 and 2am being of the same object(s) viewed from different angles as all 3 sightings were within the same geographical area also. The relative slow speed led me towards more terrestrial based explanations for these sightings. Two of the reports note slow moving objects while one said it moved at speed, this however is a second-hand account as the reporter was not actually the witness..
There is no photo or video evidence to compare in any of the three cases reported which restricts the investigation somewhat so my next step was to reach out to the witnesses in each sighting. No further information could be added to their initial reports, however two of the witnesses are happy to be contacted further should the need arise.
Investigation
With the lack of photographic and video evidence it is difficult to compare and contrast the objects sighted. The regional weather data was clear with some high and patchy cloud cover. Examining all three reports separately and as a group, sightings B and C as listed above (Rothesay and Strone) in my opinion were witnessing the same object, due to the speed and trajectory of the sighting.
I contacted Frank Conn at the Astronomical society of Glasgow who was kind enough to send me a PDF of the numerous known objects that were in our skies at the time of the sightings (shown in the table below) and provided a valuable source of information for future investigations.
On a night of relatively clear skies, and that the times of the sightings were approximate it seems more than likely that what was seen from these locations was satellite activity as there were no reports of sudden acceleration of the objects or erratic movement or sudden directional change and the descriptions of the objects observed.
Sighting A was described by the reporting person, who has reported on behalf of the witness and has an interest in UFO/UAP’s, as having a halo effect. This could be caused by high hazy thin clouds slightly obscuring the object. The difference in approximate speed can be explained, as different orbiting objects can travel at different speeds, the ISS travels at a lower orbit (around 400km) and seems brighter while some satellites are around 28,000km and 11,000km, the higher the orbit the faster the speed of the object orbiting the earth.
Conclusion
As previously detailed, the description of the object’s movement and speed, the lack of photo/video evidence and with the addition of information from the Astronomical society and publicly available airport data it is my conclusion that the objects spotted on the 16/05/21 are in all probability orbiting satellites. However, without accurate times of sightings this cannot be an absolute certainty so therefore these sightings shall be categorised as Unidentified.
Should further information or evidence become available then these cases will be reassessed.
