Article found at CSETI.org Ashley Rye wrote to SKYWATCH (Internet UFO News Server) the following e-mail report concerning an event that occurred in the early hours of November 12, 1987, at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England, UK. "On the night of November 12, 1987 a freak storm, or freak 'thunderbolt' damaged a number of properties in the Kirkby area, including one house that was almost destroyed. Mike West, who dealt with many of the insurance claims, will verify that this was no ordinary meteorological phenomenon. He told local residents, ''This just doesn't make any sense. Every claim that I've dealt with in the last 26 years has been logical and reasonable... but this defies reason. It did not even travel in a straight line (as you would expect with a thunderbolt, following the line of least resistance) It zigzagged across the sky, and people even saw it dive down over the hills... It's as if the whole area was blanketed with electromagnetic radiation." Effects were felt over a wide area. Mansfield residents were rudely awoken at 1:30 am by a sound 'like an explosion'. Appropriately, perhaps, a few were immersed in an old war movie, The Battle of Britain, on TV, which by bizarre coincidence had just reached the point where German bombers were dropping their payload on a British aerodrome. During the explosion, lights reportedly switched on by themselves, while others which were already on exploded. Some TV aerials split in two. Forty insurance claims were made in one street for Video and TV equipment damaged by the 'thunderbolt'. A local Video and TV repairman working late at home that evening reported that the lights suddenly dimmed and light bulbs started to pop in the house; furthermore, the electrical 'trip switch' blew and next day he was inundated with phone calls from individuals who's equipment had been damaged. Some suggested ball lightening was the cause of all this, but one old lady saw it flying straight towards her house, looping, double-looping, and performing other manoeuvres. Another man watching from a distance described how the sky suddenly became bright red. The explosion was heard and felt over an area of 7-8 square miles, throwing some people out of bed, somewhat more energy than is required for a standard manifestation of ball lightning, one is tempted to conclude. Mike West has dealt with numerous claims related to ball lightning and thunderbolt damage, but has never encountered anything to compare with this event. Newspaper headlines described how lightning had struck one house, demolishing its gable end. Residents witnessed an object zigzagging very slowly over Mansfield, making a whining noise as if it were in trouble. Two more objects were subsequently observed coming down near Blidworth, close to Sherwood Forest. According to the insurance claims objects came from three different directions and collided in mid-air just south of Mansfield. The UFO's were reportedly heading towards Kirkby when one of them seemed to encounter difficulty, apparently losing power and coming down in a large wood near Blidworth. It appeared to 'bounce' on impact, releasing a tremendous shockwave. One report suggested that one object was a craft in trouble and the other two could have been missiles. Numerous persons reported structural damage to their property. Powerlines collapsed. Curiously, meteorological reports confirmed that there was neither cloud, wind, rain nor lightning active that night, resulting in a number of property damage claims not being met, in spite of investigation. Other witnesses spoke of a still and cloudless night. Eyewitnesses describe a number of balls of white light streaking to the UFO as it descended, near Annesley Hall which stands on private grounds, hampering attempts to obtain further information. At 2:15 am seven military helicopters, including what appeared to be troop-carrying Chinook surrounded by Gazelles and Lynnx's flew in at low speed scanning the area with searchlights, over Normanton, Sutton-In-Ashfield, and Kirkby. The police subsequently cordoned off the impact site and erected roadblocks that remained for several days. Trees at the site are still badly incinerated and many marked for removal. The army remained at the impact site for 3-4 days. The first impact of the object, before it bounced, caused a raging conflagration which burned some trees down, and caused others to burn on the opposite side of their trunks from the fire. Damage left in the wood was calculated to have been made by an object approximately 60 ft across, confirmed visually by one witness. The trees were oddly bent from the base to a height of six feet and further. In microwave-like fashion pinecones were burnt from the inside out. The day after the incident heavy military lorries arrived at the site. Armed guards were posted to prevent access, Government officials and spotter planes were seen. At the first impact site top soil was then found to have been removed down to a level of about 9 inches. This was replaced with clay and covered with new topsoil; new pines and silver birch were planted". This excellent report is extremely interesting from a number of angles, especially as it involves intense electrical activity and nigh-time light emission phenomenon. The sightings of actual "objects" need to be treated with caution as (in common with most nighttime observations) it is highly likely that only light emission was actually observed and thus the object or mass was assumed to be present behind the visible light - and this may, or may not, be the true situation. This Mansfield event may represent either a secret military test of an advanced propulsion system gone horribly wrong, or a similar nighttime flight of three such operational craft, or a true alien UFO accident scenario, or perhaps it consisted of three separate Tesla ray/wave plasma EM slugs ("three objects coming from different directions and colliding") being transmitted to one target point where mutual interference released an EM pulse (similar in character to a nuclear EMP blast) ? The "number of balls of white light streaking to the object as it descended" could be observers describing a dielectric Earth EMP effect blasting up (toward ?) the incoming EM pulse - similar to those seen in several early film recordings of nuclear blasts where a multitude of white lights streak upwards curving around the central fireball plasma - looking like rockets - but actually consisting of induced EM energy slugs derived from the Earth's own dielectric field by the sudden massive EM field in the nuclear blast's plasma fireball. It is this mechanism that actually creates a nuclear blast's EM pulse (EMP) and causes widespread regional damage to unshielded electrical systems. If the later postulated EMP cause is correct for the Mansfield incident it is a perfect example of a defocused EM weapons strike. Perhaps a UK test ?, or more likely a Russian test ? - designed to ascertain if UK authorities would recognise the technology and react - it being quite probable that the UK defence units would not know what had actually taken place. The subsequent high level UK military activity at the Mansfield site demonstrates a very strong interest in this type of event - so someone at least was on the ball - in sharp contrast to our Australian authorities who appear to be adopting an Ostrich type approach................... Such zigzag or angular sine wave type fireball/lights have been quite commonly observed in the skies over the Kimberley region of Northern Australia in recent years. These events appear to be mega scale examples of oscilloscope type action with the moving EM energy light slug being controlled by electrostatic wave grids in the atmosphere/ionosphere. |