23rd April 2007

Aurigny pilot Ray Bowyer spots a UFO near Alderney

The Channel Islands hit international headlines in 2007 when Aurigny Captain Ray Bowyer spotted a UFO. He was flying a Trislander from Southampton to Alderney at the time, and wasn’t the only person who saw it.

Both he and his passengers spotted what looked like a compact disc or DVD hovering to one side. It was described as brilliant yellow, with light emanating from the interior and a graphite grey section around two thirds along its length.

Bowyer first spotted the UFO from around 40 miles away, while flying at 4000ft. It was 3pm and the sky was clear with good visibility all around, so it certainly wasn’t the sun shining through an unusual cloud.

A second witness

Neither were the occupants of the Trislander the only ones to see it. Another pilot, flying a Blue Islands aircraft over Sark, spotted it at the same time.

Bowyer used binoculars to examine the craft in more detail, and later said it was long, with a length to height ratio of around 15:1, and bearing no similarity to any normal aeroplane. This doesn’t even hint at its remarkable size, though.

When interviewed on TV, Bowyer said the object could have been a mile long. It was sitting absolutely still at an elevation of around 2000ft. His sighting lasted for around quarter of an hour and was backed up by official, technical records.

Jersey airport radar was picking up “traces” of the object at the same time, which remained detectable for almost an hour. However, Jersey couldn’t actually say what it was or how big the thing making the traces might be. Its radar equipment relied on objects to be moving for definitive detection.

And a second UFO

As he approached Alderney, Bowyer spotted a second unidentified object. This one was closer to Guernsey, and remained visible for about nine minutes.

The sighting is particularly interesting as it came a little over two months after 20 to 25 unexplained lights were spotted flying in formation over Alderney’s north cost at 6.15am on 14 February 2007.