UFO Sightings

Mysterious light in the fog

June 20, 2014 |  3 comments
Image Credit: sxc.hu My story is one only a few in my family have been told, partly because at the time I feared ridicule and partly because, well I don't know what I saw or experienced exactly. In my youth and into my early adult years, through until my mid twenties, I used to race cycles competitively. I was passionate about it and used to have all the best equipment thanks to my parents supporting me and being careful with my money. I took meticulous care of my equipment and indeed myself, keeping a firm regime to my training.

Of course real life being what it is with education, commitments etc, I used to have to make time for training at whatever hour afforded the free time. This was usually early in the morning or late at night, only the weekends giving a more social time frame. One of my regular routes from my home in the East of the City of Kingston Upon Hull, used to take me beyond the outskirts into the countryside to the local village of Ganstead, there I would take a right and travel down Longdales Lane past the golf course which surrounds the first part of this road and down the lane which stretches for around a mile of total empty open unlit countryside becoming Holmes Lane midway down the road. The road would then emerge in the quiet village of Bilton where I would turn right again and head back into Hull. As this was a true 'back road' there was never any traffic on it, and today you rarely meet another vehicle.

One Autumn morning in 1990 I awoke early ready for a training ride, enthused to be out riding as always. The layer of fog that hung over Hull didn't bother me as I have always quite liked the fog, and being the coastal town you could hear the fog horns in the distance. Still dark I flicked on my lights and set off on what I intended to be two or three circuits from Hull, through Ganstead, then Bilton and back into Hull, and then re-riding the same route again.

The fog was still heavy when I left the last houses of Hull behind and entered the countryside, the roads were blissfully quiet, just through the fog you could see the vague change in the light as dawn started to appear. It was still very dark when I turned into Longdales Lane, made my way around the 'S' shaped road through the golf course and towards the long remote stretch leading to Bilton.

Accustomed to the eye widening blackness of the remote stretch I was surprised to see a glow of light in the sky, my first thought was the sun was up higher than I had expected and was punching through the fog... Then I realized as I looked towards its position that it was in a SSE direction in line with the road. The faint light of the coming dawn was towards my left where the sun still sat below the horizon. It wasn't the sun...

I slowed a little as I saw that it wasn’t far off in the distance, but actually above the road. There were no street lights down here at all, besides the light seemed to be a pure white one, even if there had been a street light I hadn't known about, back then they were all orange in colour...this was something different. It was penetrating the fog shining a cone of light down towards the road, a feature I had not seen further away due to the fog. Still nothing but silence. I was a little nervous as I came closer as the bright light was covering the road before me, I mentally chastised myself for being a jittery idiot, it was just a light from somewhere that I hadn’t seen before and I rode through it. As I entered the blindingly bright circle of light which covered a 25 to 30ft foot stretch of the road roughly and the surrounding hedges caught in the circular I suddenly became aware of a hum, and a gentle heat from above on my head (we didn’t wear helmets back then). I couldn’t look up it was too bright but quickened my pace through it. I stopped beyond its periphery and turned in my saddle to look towards the light again....it was now moving, slowly but definitely moving down the road away from me, still all around was silent....its pace quickened a little as it perfectly tracked and mirrored a slight bend in the road. Then with no explanation the light began to dim, and the source of the light seemed to lurch away towards the east and upwards at a great rate of acceleration, the hum I had heard in the light growing a little louder. It was gone. A second later I heard what sounded like a sonic boom or huge clap of thunder from the same direction.

I know what I thought it was in that minute and I set probably the fastest time ever down that stretch of road and began to head for home.

It was then that I glanced down at the small handle bar mounted distance and timing digital clock / cycle computer, the screen was blank, it wasn’t the batteries as they had only been replaced that week, this compounded my fears of what I saw. I never wore a watch when training as I used the handle bar mounted cycle clock / computer.

When I arrived home, I checked the time; it was exactly how it should be given the length of time that journey normally takes, so no time loss, I had heard about time loss in these experiences.

I changed the batteries again in the cycle clock / computer and it wouldn’t work still. I returned it to the manufacturers eventually as it was still under warranty and they replaced it saying it was an unknown fault with the device, which could have been a dismissive term for not being bothered to check it; or it had been subjected to something they couldn’t explain.

That morning as well, my mother noted that I had a faint look of what appeared to be sunburn on the top of my head. I checked in the mirror and she was right. My hair was close cropped, my idea of aero-dynamics, and there was a slight reddening to my scalp, forehead and tops of my ears. It was gone within 48 hours never revealing any other symptoms, and leaving no lasting effect.

I never spoke about what I had experienced for a long time, it felt cliché, and something almost sci-fi and would never be taken seriously. I still do not know what it was, just because I cannot explain it I am not automatically going to scream UFO, but further research since does seem to suggest that I had witnessed this phenomenon. I will never know, but it did start my open minded look at the subject, one which will always fascinate me in my pursuit for answers to what I witnessed.

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