A RECENT potential UFO spotting in Hadleigh may have just turned out to be a trick of the camera lens reacting to the light.

An mysterious green light was captured by chance on Monday, February 6 by Danielle Jaye, 22, who was taking a photo of the beautiful sunset in Hadleigh.

Following much debate, the Echo believes the shot was the result of light from the street lamp reflecting into the camera lens.

However, there have been numerous other occasions across the last 30 years where eager observers believe they saw a UFO in the skies across south Essex.

Some are logged officially with the authorities while others are filed on UFO tracker sites.

Although some sightings are questionable - such as the report made to the Ministry of Defence in 2005 of “a spacecraft with grey aliens sitting on top of a bungalow in Basildon,” or “Lucifer-type things floating around and being annoying,” in Carlisle, there are many made by police officers, seasoned star-gazers and pilots (such as in 2003 when a pilot captain described seeing “a ball of fire, very bright, with no colour,” over Stansted Airport).

Reports to UFOstalker.com:

  • Benfleet - April 5, 2020: “Witnessed a fireball orb for nearly 30 minutes. hovering for a while. it was directly to our west, began slowly moving north and getting lower in height. Changing direction once or twice before then going extremely low in comparison to the houses and moving off the west at speed until it was out of sight and over the tops of the houses.”
  • Southend - July 20, 2016: “Very large triangle of star-like lights but a little brighter seen to the south, approx 40 degrees above horizon 11.10pm.The area between the lights appeared opaque/filled/black and no stars/atmosphere seen in that area. The object was very large, I would estimate the size of a 747 at about 500ft away perhaps.”
  • Southend - February 7, 2017: “My mother and I were stood outside the Odeon Cinema looking up at the moon. From my right I saw three bright, but small, lights suddenly appear to travel over the roof tops. I pointed them out to my mother and she saw them straight away.
  • Tiptree, north Essex - October 4- 2009, 7.45pm: “Fire in the sky, orange, moving slowly, hovered, the flames went out and it was 45 degrees from the ground.”
  • Billericay - August 15, 2009, 8pm: “No flashing lights, orange looking object. Looked like it was hovering, flew towards observer’s car and faded slowly into the distance.”
  • Rayleigh - August 11, 2009: “UFO visible for six to seven seconds. Changed direction by approx 60 degrees downward towards the horizon before disappearing. Object was a dull brown colour, with a magnitude of 3.5 to five and resembled a slightly luminous brown paper bag. “No sound was heard.”
  • Canvey - January 20, 2001, 1.15am: “Seven foot, silver dome, with a blue glow. Was climbing vertically in the sky, in stages.”
  • Orsett - December 9, 1999 - 5pm: “Large crystal ball object. It was the size of a light bulb. Travelling in a diagonal direction.”
  • Southend Beach - March 9, 1997: “A metallic blue object. “It hovered above the sea and then crashed into it.”