Storyteller: Close encounters with a weather balloon or UFO?

Stories of weather balloons on spying missions, and other UFOs being shot down over American airspace, have re-ignited public interest in sky borne unexplained phenomena, an aspect of paranormal investigation that had gone a bit quiet of late.

I must confess it's not my favourite subject to study, you are either in the right place at the right time to witness something unusual in the sky or you aren’t, there isn’t much else you can do.

However, I must confess even my attention has been drawn to this current ‘flap', as it’s known among the world’s UFO studying community, for I had my own encounter with a balloon-shaped object back in the summer of 1999.

It’s not the first time that authorities have tried to explain away UFO activity with a crashed weather balloon. The infamous case at Roswell, in 1947, that sparked stories of aliens being retrieved from the wreckage, leading to accusations of government cover ups and conspiracies, was attempted to be put to bed by issuing pictures of the military holding pieces of such a balloon... not everybody was buying it!

I’ve been intrigued enough to take a look at the ongoing reports into these latest incidents.

The first balloon, that the Americans claim was a Chinese spy satellite as they tracked it, was said to be as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Pictures show it as having solar panels, and other equipment, hanging beneath it. Being unmanned, it was ordered to be shot down as soon as it had passed over the land mass, so it would come down safely over water.

So far, some of the wreckage has been recovered but, as yet, no further identification or information has been released. As for the other shootings down, these appear to be a case of shoot first and ask questions later!

All that the authorities will say, thus far, is that the craft were unmanned, about the size of large cars, no suggestion of spying, but the altitude they were floating at made them a hazard to commercial aircraft and, as such, needed to be brought down swiftly.

Due to the remoteness of where they all landed, efforts to retrieve them for further inspection have been slow, but I for one await further developments with great interest.

As for my own encounter, back in 1999, we were on our way to visit what was to become our first ongoing investigation for Torbay Investigators of the Paranormal (TIP), that would keep us occupied for the majority of that summer. The invitation had come via a caller to a phone-in show we were taking part in on local radio.

She was a key holder to a building in her village that was allegedly haunted and, having had her own experiences there, she was eager for us to come and investigate for ourselves.

On the evening in question, our journey took us through Woodbury and, on the outskirts of the village, our attention was caught by a small balloon-shaped object hovering over the trees, crossing the road in front of us and heading into the field on our left.

We were still miles away from our destination, our thoughts and conversations were full of ghosts and hauntings, plus how we might conduct our first commissioned investigation, as it were, that having a UFO encounter was the last thing on our mind.

As the object passed into a neighbouring field, we pulled over into a lay-by and watched as it began to dip downwards as if it was going to land. Next minute, it went out of sight behind a small mound, and a flock of birds flew up as if they had been disturbed by a strange object landing among them.

Our first impression was that it was a party balloon that a child had lost hold of but, as it turned, it appeared flat like a hockey puck. It wasn’t floating higher, just travelling in a straight line across the fields almost as if being controlled remotely in some way.

Eager to get a closer look, being the intrepid Investigators we were, we decided to try and locate it, by taking the next left turn we came across, following the hedgerow bordering the field it had come down in. This turning was signposted to a place called Postlake, which turned out to be an abattoir opposite the gate to the field we were after.

Parking up, we headed through an open gate, stepping over an ankle-high electric fence and started our search for the landed object. Sadly, our endeavours were in vain, finding no foreign objects there, nor signs that anything had landed in the field.

Disappointed, we headed back to the car, not wishing to be late for our prospective first clients. We had all just reached the other side of the lane, when suddenly a silver Mercedes came speeding towards us and, without slowing, turned into the field, over the electric fence, and continued on down a grassy incline, until it disappeared from view.

The most curious thing about this whole episode was that there was a couple in the car, both dressed in smart suits, not too dissimilar from the characters of Mulder and Scully in The X-Files. Slightly shaken by this near miss, we tried to get our heads round what had just happened. The only conclusion we could come to was that they were just as eager to find the object as we were - and that they must have been watching us otherwise how did they know where to look, and that the gate was open?

Our thoughts full of UFOs and close encounters, we continued on our way to our date with destiny but we couldn’t help think how different the outcome might have been, if only we’d had the luxury of shooting the thing down and being able to study it at our leisure...