THERE have been two reports recently of UFO sightings.

THERE have been two reports recently of UFO sightings. Your explanation that one of them was Japanese Lanterns is not convincing. If the police helicopter crew had not time to take a photograph it must have moved away at very high speed. Not what one would expect from a hot air balloon which is initially what you described.

The other report elsewhere concerned a UFO over junction 21 which moved off at high speed. This explanation is reminiscent of the often ridiculous 'weather balloon' stories. This is not the first report of a UFO over Weston. Some when between 1947 and 1951 whilst I was living in Thornbury I together with several others watched a bright light stationary at a fixed altitude over the Severn.

It was evening and the sun was in the west so it could not have been a reflection. Over a conserable time the brightness did not waver as a reflection would have done. It then moved off a high speed against the wind.

I later heard that a UFO had been reported over the Odeon in Weston earlier that day. The explanation - a weather balloon. A weather balloon which remained at a uniform altitude and then moved off against the wind? Perhaps some of your readers remember. Could we be in for another spate of UFO reports? They are reported in the Old Testament as fiery chariots and there was a spate of reports in the nineteenth century and again in the mid twentieth from all over the world.

In the 1950s I studied many of these reports. The greatest reason for believing in their existence is the ludicrous explanations given: weather balloons, Venus below the horizon; plasma clouds on Dartmoor; simultaneous faults on two totally unconnected radar stations and downed aircraft for no reason are just a few.

Governments ridiculed these reports possibly for fear of panic.

K F TUCKER

Milton Road, Weston