Many things in the world are still unknown to human beings. UFOs may exist and may be one of those unknown things. Here are some reports about sightings of mysterious UFOs.

    It is sometimes reported that strange objects have been seen high up in the air. These Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have caused a lot of interest. Some of the reports about them are difficult to believe. Some have been explained in scientific ways. Others have never been explained.

    It is not easy to decide whether a report is true or not. One report of an unidentified object came from a British aeroplane on its way from New York to London in 1954. The British machine was flying over an island at 19,000 feet when the captain and others on board noticed something on the left and rather lower than their aeroplane. It was about five miles away.

    “It became clear,” the captain said, “that it was not one object but several. We saw one large object and six smaller objects. I sent out a radio report about it, and I received the answer that fighter planes were coming out to meet us. Before the fighters were in sight, the smaller objects entered the big object. The big object then became smaller and moved away fast — unbelievably fast.”
The captain later answered a lot of questions from newspapermen.

    “How long did you have for studying the objects, Captain Howard?”

    “They stayed with us for about six minutes.”

    “What shape were the objects?”

    “The large one was continually changing its shape, but each of the smaller ones was round like a ball.”

    “What do you mean by ‘changing its shape’, Captain?”

    “Well — at one time the big one had the shape of a telephone receiver, but sometimes it was round. When it flew away it seemed to be rather like a very big plate in shape.”

    “Tell us, Captain Howard — er — were you afraid?” “I can truthfully say that I wasn’t. None of the people in the plane felt any fear. We talked about that, and we all agreed that in fact we felt friendly towards the objects.”
There are other accounts of flying objects which have been seen from the air or from the ground. And many of those who have told us about them are men like Captain Howard — men of sense and experience, men whose word can be trusted.

    Dennis Bardens, who wrote the book Mysterious Worlds, tells us that he once saw a UFO himself. He had dinner one night with a friend near Tripoli, Libya, and after dinner the two men walked across to his room to look at some papers. Bardens noticed a light high up over the sea. It was a red light.

    He turned to his friend, and mentioned that the moon looked strange that night.

    “It isn’t the moon,” was the replay.

    They watched the light and saw that is was moving. It seemed to be an object rather like a big plate. In some ways it looked like smoke with a light on it; but it was not smoke because it did not change its shape. It was moving in a regular way. That is to say, it did not go suddenly faster or more slowly, and it did not go higher or lower. So the two men decided that there must be men in it.
When it came nearer to Libya, Bardens says that he felt eyes looking at him. He was being watched in the darkness.

    When it was nearer, they noticed that the bottom parts were brighter than the top. The bottom was yellow and the top red. Then the object suddenly turned away and left Libya, moving very fast.

    On a later day Bardens talked to other people about it, and he found some who had seen it. They all described it in the same way. Could they all be mistaken?

    Other people in different parts of the world believe that they have seen UFOs. Those who used to laugh at the idea do not laugh so often now. A lot of reports and books have been written on this subject, and it seems impossible to take no notice of them. Few people really believe in UFOs, but perhaps they will in the future. Let us consider another of the reports. Let us describe the landing at Kelly.

    Kelly is a small town north of Hopkinsville in Kentucky, North America. The event was seen by several people, and was reported in the newspapers. The police and the Air Force were also interested in it.
It happened on the night of Sunday 21 August 1955. Three children and eight grown-ups were present at the time. At seven o’clock in the evening Billy Ray Sutton, young son of the family, went out of his father’s farmhouse to get some water for a drink. When he came back, he told the family that he had seen a UFO. He added that it had landed behind the farmhouse.

    Nobody in the house was very surprised. They all thought that Billy had seen a “falling star”. But about an hour later, a moving light was noticed outside the windows. It was coming towards the farmhouse. Soon, when the light was nearer, the family could see a little man. His hands were held high up as he came towards them.

    The people in the farmhouse were now really surprised; they did not understand this at all. The men got out their guns, and two of them fired shots at the unknown man. He was hit by the shots and fell down. Then he disappeared in the darkness.

    The two men went back into the house, but then they saw another “little man”; or perhaps it was the same one. He appeared at the window, and they fired at him again. He disappeared again (if he was the same one). The two men went outside and saw another “little man” on the top of the house. They fired at him and also at another who was up a tree. They hit the man in the tree, but he did not fall to the ground like a man who has been shot. He fell gently and slowly like a piece of paper falling through the air.

    It appears that shooting these “little men” did not kill them. Taylor, one of the men in the farmhouse, saw another and shot him too. He heard the shot strike him and then fly off his body. The “little man” fell down. Taylor continued to shoot at these men. Everyone was now rather afraid and soon they all left the farmhouse and drove in their car to the Hopkinsville police station.

    In our world, any story of this kind makes people think of drink. Perhaps the Sutton family had been drinking rather too much and were not telling the truth. But everyone who was there said that the Suttons had not drunk anything, and indeed did not often drink. They were not a drinking family, as someone said. It was also generally agreed that the Suttons, when they reached the police station, were very much afraid of something.

    The police acted at once. Policemen and officers drove towards the farmhouse, and one of them noticed moving lights up in the air. These were coming towards the farmhouse from the southwest, and two of them could be heard above, making a strange sound.

    The family naturally did not want to go back into the farmhouse. They only did so when the officers had gone inside and found nothing unusual there. The officers asked a lot of questions about the “little men” and learned a few facts. The eyes of the “little men” were very big and could not bear a strong light. They always arrived from a dark corner. Indeed, one way of stopping them from coming to the house was to turn on all the lights. Then they stayed away. They did not seem to walk as we walk, but to move through the air above the ground. They stood about four feet high and had pointed ears. They wore some kind of metal clothes.

    There are hundreds of reports of this kind. Must we believe them? If these things are not objects from other worlds, what are they?

    The lights of cars on the roads may sometimes have strange effects up in the air, and people may notice these. Scientists do send objects up so that they may study the weather. Perhaps some governments build new space machines and send them up to find out if they work well. Perhaps people think they see things when there are none; but this cannot explain anything if a lot of people report the same thing.

    Time may tell us the answer to this mystery, but it may be a long time.

From Mysteries, ed., G. C. Thornley, Longman, 1974.

Approximately 1450 words.