Published: February 17 2010

www.jmwentertainment.com

By Alison COMYN

A DROGHEDA Independent reader in Cumbria, England has claimed to have seen the same UFO lights as reported by this paper last week - just 20 minutes after the sighting over the town.

Cliff Ismay read our story last week of John Smith's footage of the unexplained lights over the town and contacted us with his story.

'My wife was looking out of the back door at around 12.20am, on New Year's morning. The rear of our house faces west toward the Isle of Man, and then Ireland, if you could see over the horizon.

She shouted for me to come and see what she was looking at. I looked outside and saw a series of around six lights in the sky.

They were moving from the direction of the Solway Firth and came inland, then travelled in a southward direction before seeming to turn west and back toward the Solway Firth / Irish Sea before fading out of sight. I would guess that we were looking at the lights for just less than ten minutes,' he stated.

The lights were orange and were in perfect formation and were spaced equally and precisely. I soon realised the lights were not aeroplanes or helicopters because of the unrelenting perfect formation - it was a clear, quiet night and there was no sound.'

He then assumed they were Chinese Lanterns.

"But for this to be the case they must all have been caught up in the same air current which must have been precisely consistent and able to hold all the lanterns at exactly the same height, for almost ten minutes.

'Even though I had reservations about the lantern theory, it did satisfy my children who were a little worried after seeing the lights.

'But then I read the news item from you and thought wow! that's almost identical to what I was looking at a little later; but Chinese Lanterns can't travel that far can they? Surely they would burn up!'

According to a spokesman for the Irish Aviation Authority (Air Traffic Control), there were a number of similar unusual sightings reported in Ireland that night.

President of the UFO Society of Ireland Betty Meyler says she would like to see the footage written about last week, but commented that both sightings could not be chinese lanterns.

'They could not fly that high and not in formation,' she said. ' We have tried it at an annual conference and they can be ruled out in these cases.'

Last week, the Drogheda Independent featured a possible solution to the lights, a recently married couple letting off a series of light -filled balloons around town on that night.

However, John Smith's video is the second one seen by the Drogheda Independent. The previous one was done by local woman Emma Murphy on the same night and featured in this paper in early January.

Alison COMYN