Above: Helicopter and UFO; cropped original image;
please click to enlarge
"I took the photo from quite a distance
and at the time was only interested in catching the helicopter, I
didn't notice the object until I looked at the photograph on my
computer some days later,"
Taken from the Daily Echo - 28-06-2008
'Remarkable new evidence of UFOs in the skies over Hampshire can be revealed. Daily Echo newspaper readers captured these bizarre images of what appear to be flying saucers zooming through our skies.
The UFOs were snapped over Beulieu and Woolston by pure accident and only noticed later by photographers.
Above: Mystery object enlarged
Hampshire has been in the grip of an X Files - style UFO mystery after black triangles were seen flying over Millbrook and Shirley in recent months.
Last week the echo thought it had explained the phenomenon - a mini-hot air balloon made out of four bin bags. But the latest sightings are clearly something completely different - and remains a mystery.
Keen amateur photographer Richard Branch was in the garden of his Brockenhurst home when he photographed an American Huey Helicopter on display at Beaulieu on May 26.
It was not until he later checked his photographs that he noticed there was a strange flying object on one of them. "I took the photo from quite a distance and at the time was only interested in catching the helicopter, I didn't notice the object until I looked at the photograph on my computer some days later," he said.
"I can't explain what it is. Others have said balloon, drone or bird, but if this was the case it would have shown up in the first photo taken one minute earlier. The light reflecting from the object looks to me as though it's metallic and moving quite fast."
"I cannot believe that we are alone in the entire universe. Many of the pictures that I have seen of so-called UFOs can be explained as hoaxes, some cannot."
University of Southampton student Loiza Loizou also received a shock after searching through photographs she had taken of the night sky over Weston Shore.
Her brother, Yiannkai, said:
"She had no idea an object was in front of her but it was clearly visible in the photo when the flash illuminated it, as can be seen from zooming in on the object and noticing the glass reflecting the light," he said.
"Maybe there is an obvious explanation we're missing but she assures me there were no lights near by and that it was totally dark.
Above: Another mystery flying object; this picture was taken by Loiza Loizou
at Weston Shore
I am one of the most sceptical people there are but, because I know the person that took this photograph, I am puzzled."
Meanwhile, Daily Echo reader Leon Gill also had a close encounter when he spotted a UFO while on a tea break at his work in Chandler's Ford Industrial estate on June 13.
"It was 10am and we were outside on our tea break. One guy looked up and said 'What's that?' We looked up and there was something moving across the sky, white in colour at a very high speed."
"It was a clear day but there was no jet stream behind it. As we watched, it began a kind of S-shaped manoeuvre which is also something that cannot be done at that speed."
"As it passed in front of a white cloud, the object turned black and was then instantly, from out of nowhere joined by a second black object.""They both then darted across the sky.
As we followed them, they all of a sudden both disappeared."
Above: Full original photo - please click to enlarge
