It must have been in the summertime, but I'm not sure which year. One of the training Squadrons was on the first night of a night-flying session. The first (dual) phase of the programme had been completed. Up in the top Tower we relaxed. Approach and Talkdown were in the Approach Room. Upstairs there was a F/Sgt on Local, the Duty Instructor, an Assistant and I. The tea had just come up.
I saw it first. Gently sipping my Typhoo Tips (well, I can dream, can't I ?), I gazed absently through the West panel of the octagon across to Londonderry (yes,
Geriaviator , we have one of those in North Yorkshire, too, just off to the side of Leeming). At the end of the few street lights was a very tall poppy indeed. Leeming village lights gave a pretty fair horizon. 16 statute miles West the ground rises quite steeply to some 1700 ft, the skyline 1º 9 min above the Horizon. (Great Whernside [2500 ft] lies, like a great stranded whale, about the same distance, but more SW). Directly West, the Dales and Pennines lie lower in the line of sight (0º 55 min elevation).
What interested me was a tiny, fuzzy white light. It was 2º or 2½º above the horizon, clearly in the air above the hills. Could it be the tail light of an aircraft? No, it didn't move an inch. I watched it for a half minute through the binoculars (there was little or no apparent magnification). It didn't twinkle, it wasn't a star. There were no planets low in the Western sky at this time. I turned to Local: "
What d'you reckon that is, Chief ?" He looked at it for a few moments, then brightened "
Oh, it's the Met Cloud Light, sir".
At all permanent flying Stations (IIRC) there is installed a small powerful spotlight, about half a mile from the Met Office (which is normally in the ground floor of the Tower), fixed to shine a narrow beam vertically into the sky. If there is low cloud over the airfield at night you'll see this little patch of light reflected from it. Met man has a simple sextant, knows the accurate distance to the light, a bit of trig, it's easy. And my spot
did look exactly like a Cloud Light reflection. The only thing was, at the elevation of my spot, it would be indicating cloud at 50-100 ft - and I could see stars in the sky round it !
I called Radar below, to see what was on the AR-1. "
Take the MTI out", I said, "
the thing isn't moving". In or out made no difference. Nothing out in that direction up to max range - not even an owl.
Duty Instructor came in with a useful suggestion: "
Let's ask the Cowboy". Whenever a solo Bloggs is in the air, there must be a solo Instuctor in the air too - the "Cowboy". His task is to "ride the range" around the Station, to warn of any "nasties" - lowering cloudbase, a wandering snowstorm, the ominous Cu-nim, which might be coming at us down the wind, or (at night especially) any signs of fog forming in the known hollows. We called the Cowboy. Yes, he could see our spot all right. What did
he think it was ?:
"
It's the Moon", he said, "
a scrap of Moon peeping out from behind clouds". The difficulty with that explanation was - there was
no Moon that night (as he might have learned, had he been paying attention to the Met man at Briefing).
Clearly there was no help to be expected from that quarter. I now had to recap: It wasn't an aircaft. It wasn't the Moon. It wasn't a star or a planet. It wasn't the Met Cloud Light. One last hope remained - Call in the Experts ! I squawked the Met box; "Would you mind coming up here, please - we've something we'd like to show you".A slightly out-of-breath young man came puffing in. Wordlessly we pointed out our spot and handed him the binoculars.
He looked long and hard: "Ah", he said, "Mmmn", he said, and laid down the binoculars decisively. "Well ?", we said, "It's a sort of little white fuzzy spot", he said. "
When you have exhausted all other possibilities", said Sherlock Holmes (or words to that effect), "
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". We had a
UFO.
But it wasn't behaving as any well-brought-up UFO was supposed to do. It didn't flash from one end of the firmament to another, or whizz round like a Catherine Wheel, or flash multicoloured lights. It just sat there, motionless, and did nothing.
I realised everyone was looking at me - it was
my problem ! I had no way of estimating its range. The Thing might be sitting over Londonderry at 200 ft, for all I knew. Suppose it suddenly came into Leeming and landed ? Suppose a posse of little green men were coming up the stairs ? What is the Protocol for
that ? Suppose they displayed hostile intent - what defences have we ? (only the Verey pistol, and it is not a Good Idea to discharge this in a confined space). If I cannot fight, I must surrender. I have no sword to offer. Perhaps my Chinagraph pencil would do in token of submission ?
Local crystallised my unenviable predicament: "
Shall we log it, sir ?" That was the $64 question. "
Hang on a moment, Chief", I said, took the Hand Bearing Compass out its box on the inner wall of the Tower, went through the little door at the back onto the flat roof outside, and took the most careful bearing of my life. For if I log it, I must
do something about it.
The D.I. must tell OC Night, he cannot allow take-offs till this is sorted out. I must tell (now long closed) Preston Flight Information Centre. This might not be well received. Our Powers that Be do not like pilots and ATCs who report UFO - it gives rise to Alarm and Despondency all round, and brings Contempt and Ridicule on the RAF.
And suppose I do report it, and cause maximum chaos, and then my UFO just switches off and vanishes ? (I still bore the mental scars from Manby'56 and the Horse that Never Was). But I had a pistol to my head, there was no way out. "
We'd better tell S/Ldr (?)", I said to the D.I. And to the Asst: "
F.I.S, please". He handed me the phone: "
Hello, Leeming", said a cheery voice, "
what can we do for you ?"
Falteringly, I told my story and passed my Bearing. "
Oh", he said,
"don't worry about that. Valley and Prestwick have already reported the object. We've got a good long baseline; we've triangulated it; it's about 100 miles West of Ireland, out in the Atlantic, and by the way, we've just plotted your QTE, it gives a nice little tight "cocked-hat. Thanks, Leeming". "Hang on", I said "
What does your Met man say it is ?"... "Oh, he says it's just a little (etc)........!".
With one bound, Danny was free !
"Tell S/Ldr (?) it's all right, let the second Phase go, the thing's hundreds of miles away"... What is it ? ..."
We don't know". Fortunately we hadn't told the SDO: if he'd turned the Station Commander out of bed on this wild-goose chase, I wouldn't be SATCO's blue-eyed boy in the morning !
Ten minutes later, F.I.S. rang back:
"We thought you'd like to know; we've found out what it is, it's a Noctilucent Cloud". It seems that, in the summer months, a cloud of ice crystals can form at immense heights (I roughly reckoned : 80,000 ft at 450 miles at 2º) ,in defiance of the laws of physics, and remain for hours, illuminated by the setting sun, after dark in the night sky. We passed the news around: our Met was very interested.
The Second Phase passed off without incident: "
we counted them out, and we counted them in".
Goodnight, all.
Danny42C.
"... Then felt I like some watcher of the skies. When a new planet swims into his ken..."