UFO Case Report:

Woman in Guernsey, UK watches circular UFO for 20 minutes

Date: , 1978
Location: Grandes Rocques, Guernsey, United Kingdom

A woman from Grandes Rocques awoke in the early morning hours and saw a bright golden light, going very slowly. The circular object was in her view for around 20 minutes before it vanished from her sight, allowing Mrs Wilson to get a good look at it. 'It stopped quite often, and just hung in the air. As it stopped, it let out some stuff.'

Gill Wilson's drawing of the mysterious object which she and a friend saw early one summer morning several years ago. (credit: Guernsey Evening Press)

Classification & Features

Type of Case/Report: PressReport
Hynek Classification: 
Shape of Object(s): Round
Special Features/Characteristics: Witness Sketch

Full Report / Article

Source: Mark Ogier, Guernsey Evening Press (Guernsey, England), Jan. 12, 1993

'Gill,'like her UFO, was on edge!

IT WAS a quiet morning in early summer, 1978. The sun had just crept above the horizon, and puffs of coastal mist had begun their slow transformation into the mellow haze that foretold a hot day.

As on many other summer mornings, Gill Wilson [not her real name] was awake early. Knowing that she would not get back to sleep, she thought she would enjoy a cigarette in the peace of the early morning scene around her Grandes Rocques home.

She opened her bedroom window to avoid disturbing her sleeping - and non-smoking - husband. 'I looked up at the sky,' she says. 'There were no clouds about, and I could see it was going to be a lovely day.'

by Mark Ogier

The image of what she then saw has remained with her to this day, to the extent that she is wary of going out in the early morning.

'In the air, quite a way away, 1 saw a bright golden light. It was travelling north to south from Grandes Rocques, going very slowly. It was lower than a Aurigny plane.'

The circular object was in her view for around 20 minutes before it vanished from her sight, allowing Mrs Wilson to get a good look at it.

'It stopped quite often, and just hung in the air. As it stopped, it let out some stuff. It wasn't smoke, nor steam. It was thick and grey, and "fluffed out". I couldn't make out where this stuff was coming from.

'It wasn't from the front, or the back, so I presumed it came from the sides. There was a noise, but it was very high pitched and only just audible - a bit like a generator but heard from a distance.'

As she watched, she speculated as to what the odd object might be. A balloon? A helicopter? A plane? Each time she asked herself the question, the answer she gave herself was the same: 'No way.7

She had no camera handy, and was so entranced by the object that she did not think to wake her slumbering husband. She simply sat and watched and pondered.

As the object passed by her home, she got a good look at its rear side. 'I could see the object had no edges, but the back of it was brightly glowing red, with three black circles in the middle.

'I was tempted to go outside so it could see me, to see what would happen, but I got scared so I didn't. I watched it until it disappeared, over the top of the Mare woods.'

She notes that all the 'flying saucers' one reads about are described as travelling 'flat side down', but this looked more like a saucer on its edge.

After the UFO disappeared, the odd blue/grey substance remained in the sky. It was still there when Mrs Wilson returned to bed, but had vanished when she rose later on.

i would love to see it again,' she says, 'But I know I would be frightened."

She kept her odd experience mostly to herself, confiding only in people she trusted. One of these was a close friend, whom she told about her sighting some months later.

Her friend had a tale to tell, too. Early one morning she and her husband had been in their boat, setting out from L'Ancresse on a fishing trip. Both of them saw a red disc in the sky, moving slowly in the direction of Grandes Rocques.

It did not take the two women long to realise that their sightings had occurred at roughly the same time on the same day.

Case ID: 763 edit: 763

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