Tom Kane

UFO or not UFO: that is the question

September 23, 2009 |  6 comments
Image Credit: iStockPhoto I've seen one or two odd things in my lifetime but I have to admit I’ve never seen so many UFOs in one place since I moved to Cyprus a year ago. At the ripe old age of twenty-four I once saw what looked like a star in a bright blue clear sky on a sunny summer afternoon near Ledbury, Herefordshire, England. I and two companions were walking down a small lane when I noticed a ‘star’ in the sky. I pointed it out and all three of us looked up at it. As we watched the ‘star’ grew smaller and smaller until it eventually disappeared.

Our reaction to this was stunned silence. What was it we had seen? My belief was that it was a vehicle leaving earth orbit. I did check the papers that day (no such thing as the internet in those days) and couldn’t find any evidence of a launch by NASA. Now that’s not to say there were no launches. The former USSR and the US military could well have launched a spy satellite and wouldn’t have advertised the fact in the local paper.

That was my first UFO. The second came on an equally sunny and cloudless summer afternoon.

It was about twenty years later and I was walking home from my local shops in Rotherham. Again, I was looking at the sky – something I do a lot, I must say. I happened to notice, again, a bright star in the sky. This was at about one o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. The object was really bright and quite large for a star. I assumed it was a planet, but couldn’t believe I could see a planet in such a clear sky at that time of day. Then the object moved. I was standing still, watching this object for a couple of minutes, when it simply shot across the sky extremely fast and disappeared. Gob smacked would be an apt description. That ‘encounter’ has stayed very vivid in my mind.

The third encounter was witnessed by myself and a scene of crime police officer.

It was another sunny day, but slightly hazy and with a little bit of cloud. I was at home, outside my house, where the scene of crime officer was dusting my car for fingerprints. It had been stolen a couple of days before and the police had kindly found it for me and told me where to collect it. The scene of crime officer was telling me how easy it is to steal my make of car, giving me pause for thought about my wisdom in choosing to buy a Vauxhall Astra, when I looked up into the sky. What I briefly saw was a huge object passing over us. ‘What on earth is that?’ I said. The officer said, ‘What’s what?’ I looked down at her and said, ‘That, in the sky above us.’ We both looked up as the object moved slowly above us. What I could see was something that had depth to it. I was big and sort of egg shaped. It seemed to have what I can only describe as aerials sticking out of it. It reminded me of the big mother ship in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’.

The scene of crime officer and I looked down and looked at each other. I could see in her eyes that she too had seen something unusual. We both looked up again… and it had gone. That was my last encounter in the UK and it was about five years ago.

My wife and I moved to Cyprus a year ago and since that time I have seen three UFOs The latter happened about three days ago and was altogether startling and bewildering and was seen by both my wife and I. The first two were a little tamer, but nonetheless startling.

It was late evening and quite dark in August 2009. We were on our veranda looking across the valley. We live in the hills above Paphos and the stars at night are very striking and the Milky Way is something to behold. We occasionally see shooting stars and have a good view of the ISS at certain times of the year.

I was giving my wife a lesson in what was in the sky. I was regaling her with tales about different types of suns and if life existed outside of our solar system. Until she met me, my wife didn’t even know that the stars were suns. She has no interest in space or the possibility of life on other planets. Sit her in front of the TV with Corrie on the box or give her a good slushy book and she’s as happy as Larry. Start a sentence with, ‘You see that star on the right…’ and she will immediately yawn.

So in this particular night she was getting very yawny, when suddenly she sat bolt upright and said, ‘What’s that?’ What she, and I, had seen was a shooting star. So I explained about meteors and meteorites and had just got onto the subject of comets when it was my turn to say, ‘What’s that?’

I pointed to our right and my wife turned to look. ‘Oh,’ she said. I thought that was something of an understatement, but who knows what rocks a woman’s boat!

‘You can see it to?’ I asked in awe.
‘Yes,’ she murmured.

In the dark sky, two stars had begun a low traverse across the sky, right to left and were now gaining height. They were not moving quickly but were nonetheless gaining height. But they moved in unison, from just above the horizon to our right and now were moving up and to the left. They began moving more quickly and as they did they diminished in size just as quickly, until suddenly they shot away from us and simply disappeared from view.

‘Did you see that?
‘Yes, what was it?’ My wife asked.
‘Something leaving orbit, I think.’
‘Oh,’ my wife said. ‘I’m off to bed, are you coming?’


On Tuesday, 25th August 2009 at approximately 3.30pm on a glorious hot afternoon my wife and I sat around our pool after taking our customary afternoon dip. We both work from home and get very hot and sweaty in our offices. The temperature was very high so we couldn’t wait for 3pm to come round, time to finish work and cool off in the pool.

3.30pm and we were out of the pool and sitting discussing business when the most amazing sight I have ever seen came into view. When we see high flying aircraft we usually notice two things, the sound of the aircrafts jet engines and the view of the aircraft with its two wings and tail plane. The air is so clear up here that we get really clear views of the limited number of aircraft we see. We’re nowhere near Paphos airport and any planes we do see are high flying going from/to the Middle East and Africa. What I was seeing now though was something I never ever thought I would see. The craft was cigar shaped, mainly white but with glints of silver. It was ‘flying’ sedately with the rear end being rounded and a blunt end at the front, i.e., the direction the craft was moving in. It was big and it was slow and it raised the inevitable question.

‘What is that?’ I said.

My wife looked to where I was pointing, to the left of where we were sat.

‘A plane?’ She ventured.
‘A plane without engines,’ I said, somewhat sarcastically.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘That’s odd.’
‘I’ll tell you something else that’s odd,’ I said,’ it’s got no wings.’

It was moving very slowly, far to slow for a conventional jet aircraft. More like a single engined Cessna. But there was no engine noise, no wings and no tail plane.

I decided to fetch my binoculars for a better look.

Two minutes later I was standing next to my wife gazing at this strange object through my binoculars. It was moving left to right as we watched, moving north east towards the Middle East. It had no wings, no tail plane and there was no engine noise. It was moving slowly, as slow as a light aircraft. But this was no light aircraft. This was no aircraft I had ever seen and I have been a keen observer of the aviation industry, both commercial and military, since I was a boy. I’ve watched Mil Mi-35 attack helicopters from the Cyprus National Guard fly through our valley and watched the helicopters used to put fires out and this was not one of them. I also know the CNG uses Elbit Hermes 450 unmanned aerial vehicles, which have a pretty big wingspan and a wankel rotary engine, and it wasn’t one of them either. I also know what an airship looks like and it doesn’t look like the vehicle we saw on Tuesday last.

In the space of about fifteen minutes the object, vehicle, UFO if you like, had passed from left to right, immediately in front of us in a clear sky and without making a sound. Soon it was out of sight and on its way toward the Middle East.

What it was I have no idea, but as I couldn’t identify it I’ll call it a UFO. And I’m of the school that says yes, there has to other civilisations out there, but no, I don’t think we’ve been visited and I doubt we ever will be. Interstellar travel is probably not possible… for us!

Tom Kane[!gad]I've seen one or two odd things in my lifetime but I have to admit I’ve never seen so many UFOs in one place since I moved to Cyprus a year ago. At the ripe old age of twenty-four I once saw what looked like a star in a bright blue clear sky on a sunny summer afternoon near Ledbury, Herefordshire, England. I and two companions were walking down a small lane when I noticed a ‘star’ in the sky. I pointed it out and all three of us looked up at it. As we watched the ‘star’ grew smaller and smaller until it eventually disappeared.

Our reaction to this was stunned silence. What was it we had seen? My belief was that it was a vehicle leaving earth orbit. I did check the papers that day (no such thing as the internet in those days) and couldn’t find any evidence of a launch by NASA. Now that’s not to say there were no launches. The former USSR and the US military could well have launched a spy satellite and wouldn’t have advertised the fact in the local paper.

That was my first UFO. The second came on an equally sunny and cloudless summer afternoon.

It was about twenty years later and I was walking home from my local shops in Rotherham. Again, I was looking at the sky – something I do a lot, I must say. I happened to notice, again, a bright star in the sky. This was at about one o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. The object was really bright and quite large for a star. I assumed it was a planet, but couldn’t believe I could see a planet in such a clear sky at that time of day. Then the object moved. I was standing still, watching this object for a couple of minutes, when it simply shot across the sky extremely fast and disappeared. Gob smacked would be an apt description. That ‘encounter’ has stayed very vivid in my mind.

The third encounter was witnessed by myself and a scene of crime police officer.

It was another sunny day, but slightly hazy and with a little bit of cloud. I was at home, outside my house, where the scene of crime officer was dusting my car for fingerprints. It had been stolen a couple of days before and the police had kindly found it for me and told me where to collect it. The scene of crime officer was telling me how easy it is to steal my make of car, giving me pause for thought about my wisdom in choosing to buy a Vauxhall Astra, when I looked up into the sky. What I briefly saw was a huge object passing over us. ‘What on earth is that?’ I said. The officer said, ‘What’s what?’ I looked down at her and said, ‘That, in the sky above us.’ We both looked up as the object moved slowly above us. What I could see was something that had depth to it. I was big and sort of egg shaped. It seemed to have what I can only describe as aerials sticking out of it. It reminded me of the big mother ship in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’.

The scene of crime officer and I looked down and looked at each other. I could see in her eyes that she too had seen something unusual. We both looked up again… and it had gone. That was my last encounter in the UK and it was about five years ago.

My wife and I moved to Cyprus a year ago and since that time I have seen three UFOs The latter happened about three days ago and was altogether startling and bewildering and was seen by both my wife and I. The first two were a little tamer, but nonetheless startling.

It was late evening and quite dark in August 2009. We were on our veranda looking across the valley. We live in the hills above Paphos and the stars at night are very striking and the Milky Way is something to behold. We occasionally see shooting stars and have a good view of the ISS at certain times of the year.

I was giving my wife a lesson in what was in the sky. I was regaling her with tales about different types of suns and if life existed outside of our solar system. Until she met me, my wife didn’t even know that the stars were suns. She has no interest in space or the possibility of life on other planets. Sit her in front of the TV with Corrie on the box or give her a good slushy book and she’s as happy as Larry. Start a sentence with, ‘You see that star on the right…’ and she will immediately yawn.

So in this particular night she was getting very yawny, when suddenly she sat bolt upright and said, ‘What’s that?’ What she, and I, had seen was a shooting star. So I explained about meteors and meteorites and had just got onto the subject of comets when it was my turn to say, ‘What’s that?’

I pointed to our right and my wife turned to look. ‘Oh,’ she said. I thought that was something of an understatement, but who knows what rocks a woman’s boat!

‘You can see it to?’ I asked in awe.
‘Yes,’ she murmured.

In the dark sky, two stars had begun a low traverse across the sky, right to left and were now gaining height. They were not moving quickly but were nonetheless gaining height. But they moved in unison, from just above the horizon to our right and now were moving up and to the left. They began moving more quickly and as they did they diminished in size just as quickly, until suddenly they shot away from us and simply disappeared from view.

‘Did you see that?
‘Yes, what was it?’ My wife asked.
‘Something leaving orbit, I think.’
‘Oh,’ my wife said. ‘I’m off to bed, are you coming?’


On Tuesday, 25th August 2009 at approximately 3.30pm on a glorious hot afternoon my wife and I sat around our pool after taking our customary afternoon dip. We both work from home and get very hot and sweaty in our offices. The temperature was very high so we couldn’t wait for 3pm to come round, time to finish work and cool off in the pool.

3.30pm and we were out of the pool and sitting discussing business when the most amazing sight I have ever seen came into view. When we see high flying aircraft we usually notice two things, the sound of the aircrafts jet engines and the view of the aircraft with its two wings and tail plane. The air is so clear up here that we get really clear views of the limited number of aircraft we see. We’re nowhere near Paphos airport and any planes we do see are high flying going from/to the Middle East and Africa. What I was seeing now though was something I never ever thought I would see. The craft was cigar shaped, mainly white but with glints of silver. It was ‘flying’ sedately with the rear end being rounded and a blunt end at the front, i.e., the direction the craft was moving in. It was big and it was slow and it raised the inevitable question.

‘What is that?’ I said.

My wife looked to where I was pointing, to the left of where we were sat.

‘A plane?’ She ventured.
‘A plane without engines,’ I said, somewhat sarcastically.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘That’s odd.’
‘I’ll tell you something else that’s odd,’ I said,’ it’s got no wings.’

It was moving very slowly, far to slow for a conventional jet aircraft. More like a single engined Cessna. But there was no engine noise, no wings and no tail plane.

I decided to fetch my binoculars for a better look.

Two minutes later I was standing next to my wife gazing at this strange object through my binoculars. It was moving left to right as we watched, moving north east towards the Middle East. It had no wings, no tail plane and there was no engine noise. It was moving slowly, as slow as a light aircraft. But this was no light aircraft. This was no aircraft I had ever seen and I have been a keen observer of the aviation industry, both commercial and military, since I was a boy. I’ve watched Mil Mi-35 attack helicopters from the Cyprus National Guard fly through our valley and watched the helicopters used to put fires out and this was not one of them. I also know the CNG uses Elbit Hermes 450 unmanned aerial vehicles, which have a pretty big wingspan and a wankel rotary engine, and it wasn’t one of them either. I also know what an airship looks like and it doesn’t look like the vehicle we saw on Tuesday last.

In the space of about fifteen minutes the object, vehicle, UFO if you like, had passed from left to right, immediately in front of us in a clear sky and without making a sound. Soon it was out of sight and on its way toward the Middle East.

What it was I have no idea, but as I couldn’t identify it I’ll call it a UFO. And I’m of the school that says yes, there has to other civilisations out there, but no, I don’t think we’ve been visited and I doubt we ever will be. Interstellar travel is probably not possible… for us!

Tom Kane Comments (6)

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