Are They Here?

By Jean Christou
Cyprus Mail
4-29-05

Wednesday’s ‘UFO sighting’ reopens the case

     A BRITISH resident in Cyprus yesterday reported seeing a UFO as he traveled along the Nicosia-Larnaca highway on Wednesday night.

     The man, who did not wish to be identified, said the UFO had been witnessed by several other motorists who had all slowed down their vehicles to watch the spectacle at around 8.45pm.

     “At first I thought it was a helicopter. It was in front of me and as soon as saw it I started slowing down and so did the people in front of me and then it speeded up at an incredible speed, hundreds of miles an hour in seconds and literally disappeared in front of our eyes,” the man said.

     He said the sighting happened at around 8.45pm. He said al the cars in front of him had slowed down trying to digest what they had seen.

     “It was amazing. I don’t know what it was but it was bizarre. It was up in the sky. It looked like the kind of height of a low-flying plane or a helicopter. That’s why I didn’t immediately think it was odd and then as it started to move and speed up I thought, ‘This is weird’. It was bright white sphere of light hovering slowly,”

     The man said he checked online yesterday morning and found that UFO sightings were not all that uncommon in Cyprus.

     “I had heard about UFOs. I’m not a sceptic but I think you can’t really comment unless you have had an experience and for me when I can’t have a sane explanation for what I see… I can’t think of anything else it could be. It was not the kind of thing you could miss. It was incredible,” he added.

     Police said yesterday no one had reported any UFO sighting, as did the Larnaca Airport Control Tower.

     “The only thing written in the log book for that time last night is ‘We need new chairs for the control tower’,” said one Civil Aviation official.

     The official said however that the radar does regularly register what seem to be aircraft but which disappear after three revolutions of the radar.

     “We call them Angels,” said the official adding that they generally put these ‘phantoms’ down to weather interference. “Of course we are angels here ourselves,” he said.

     Ioannis Fakas from the Fakas Institute of Astronomy said nothing had been reported to him either. In fact he said he had been called to Limassol to look at a reported crop circle in a field outside the town.

     He decided however that the crop circle, which was around 150 metres wide, was probably man-made. Crop circles, which are said to be mathematically precise designs imprinted into a field of crops without actually damaging or killing the plants, are often associated with aliens.
Fakas said he believes people see UFO’s but does not believe they are of alien origin. As an astronomer he said he does think it’s logical that life must exist elsewhere in the universe, but does not believe they visit earth.

     He said that research has shown that 93 per cent of all UFO sightings are explainable.
“I don’t believe men from other worlds would come all the way here and then try to hide from us,” he said.

     Whatever they are, UFOs have been spotted over Cyprus on many occasions in the past. In March 2002 a Swiss playwright who had just retired to Paphos, said he spotted a silver, saucer-shaped object 'emerging from the clouds' as he walked along the beach. The UFO apparently hovered before 'floating down' and disappearing behind some rocks."

Linda Leblanc said she and John Knowles, her partner at the Paphos-based Pyschognosia, which looks into paranormal incidents, said they had seen UFOs on several occasions over Coral Bay.

     She said Wednesday’s sighting by the British resident was interesting as there appear to have been other witnesses. “We keep a roving eye on things and of course we are always looking ourselves,” she said.

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