2007 Alderney UFO sighting

On 23 April 2007,[2] Ray Bowyer, a fifty-year-old pilot with eighteen years flying experience for the Guernsey-based airline Aurigny,[3] was flying a Britten-Norman Trislander from the British port of Southampton towards Alderney, a small island near Guernsey in the Channel Islands, off the French coast.[3][1] His aircraft was flying at 4,000 feet (1,200 m), approximately 30 miles (48 km) from Alderney.[4] In the British government's publication of Bowyer's report, the time of the reported sighting was given as 14:09,[5] though The New Yorker reported it as 14:06 following a 2021 interview with Bowyer.[6]

Bowyer reported seeing "a cigar-shaped brilliant white light"[3] in the sky. He stated that he initially suspected that it might be reflected light from greenhouses on the nearby island of Guernsey,[1] but subsequently judged it to be stationary, approximately the size of a Boeing 737 and flying at an altitude of around 2,000 feet (610 m) at a distance of 10 miles (16 km) from his own aircraft. According to Bowyer's report, he approached the object, reassessing its distance as closer to 40 miles (64 km) and the size of the object as "as much as a mile wide".[3] In 2021, Bowyer said that the object was "the size of five or six battleships", and that it had been "a very sharply defined, solid, bright yellow-gold object with a couple of black bands on the side that were kind of shimmering".[1] A BBC article published in July 2007, two months after the incident, quoted Bowyer as describing the object as "like a CD on its edge".[7]

Bowyer said that he approached the light and looked at it through his binoculars, and later remarked that he had been "able to look at this fantastic light without discomfort".[6] He reported seeing a second object shortly after the first, which he said had moved in formation with the first set of lights.[6] The Evening Standard, a British newspaper, quoted Bowyer as describing this object as "exactly the same … [but] further away", being closer to the island of Guernsey. He stated that it was "clearly visual" for approximately nine minutes.[3]

According to Bowyer, the passengers on his aircraft had noticed the light, one of whom had tapped him on the shoulder to ask about it;[1] Bowyer handed the passenger his binoculars to observe the apparent object.[6] Another passenger, named Kate Russell, would later say that she and her husband John had seen the objects, which she described as "sunlight-coloured".[6] John Russell, meanwhile, reported seeing "an orange light … like an elongated oval".[3]

Second pilot's account

A Trislander in the livery of Aurigny Airlines, similar to that flown by Bowyer

According to Bowyer's account, he had radioed an air traffic controller between the two sightings, and was informed by the controller that another pilot, flying to nearby Jersey from the Isle of Man, had seen a similar phenomenon. The British newspaper The Times further reported that Bowyer had been told that the object was visible on radar.[1]

When interviewed by The Register, a British online newspaper, Paul Kelly, who had been the duty air traffic controller on the island of Jersey[6] and spoken to Bowyer during the incident, said that he had seen nothing on radar, but received what he called a "similar report" at the same time from a pilot from the Channel Islands airline Blue Islands. According to Kelly, the second pilot had been passing the island of Sark when he reported "an object behind him to his left". Kelly reported that "the description was very similar to Captain Bowyer's" and that the pilot had given its altitude as 1,950 feet (590 m), approximately the same as Bowyer had.[4]

Approximately three weeks after the reported sighting, the British Ministry of Defence released information connected with the report, including a statement from a second pilot.[6]

After landing in Alderney, Bowyer made an official report to the Civil Aviation Authority, labelling the incident as a "near-miss"; his report appeared in Pilot magazine in June 2007.[3] Bowyer added a sketch of what he had seen to this report, in which he described the objects as approximately the size of a "reasonably large town."[6] Bowyer subsequently flew the return leg of his flight to Southampton, but did not see the apparent objects again.[1]

The British government's publication of the incident reads:

First object was bright orange/yellow. There was a gap in light or darker area. Second object was identical.[5]

By 25 April, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) had stated that it would not investigate the reported sighting.[8] Approximately a week after the reported sighting, the MoD stated the incident had taken place in French airspace and so was outside its responsibility.[6]

Bowyer later reported to the BBC that he was "pretty shook-up" by what he saw, describing the incident as "pretty scary".[8] He rejected the suggestion that he had claimed to see an alien vessel, only remarking that he had "never seen anything like it before in all [his] years of flying."[3] He also accepted the possibility that he had seen earthquake lights,[7] a scientifically-debated phenomenon where flashes of light appear over areas of seismic activity,[9] connected to the earthquake in south-eastern England that took place on 28 April.[7]

According to Matthew Campbell, writer forThe Times, Bowyer's report is "regarded as one of the most impressive and perplexing testimonies to have found its way into MoD archives".[1] In 2008, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported on the incident in connection with what it called a "huge rise" in reported UFO sightings in the United Kingdom.[2]

• Clarke, David (2015). How UFOs Conquered the World: The History of a Modern Myth. London: Quarto Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-78131-304-6.