It's not aliens... it's just the weather

nlnews@archant.co.uk
25 June 2009

THE mystery of UFO sightings in the skies above newly-dubbed "Roswell Hill" may have been unravelled by a super-sleuth pensioner.

Retired secretary Elizabeth Bowles believes a strange weather phenomenon could explain bizarre sightings of cube-shaped objects high above Muswell Hill in recent weeks.

The pensioner, who has lived in Mayfield Road since 1957, developed the theory after reading about "halos" in The Times' Weather Eye column.

She said: "It seems that there's most likely

a connection. UFOs and so on, they may or may not exist, but some of them are very strange. You can go on speculating all day and all night.

"Having read this [the column], my mind went back to the Journal's article and I thought - this seems to be the answer!"

Halos form when water in thin white cirrus clouds, created at heights above 20,000 feet, is frozen into tiny ice crystals that act like prisms splitting sunlight into a spectrum of colours in different shapes and sizes.

But the sun needs to be low in the sky, usually in the early morning or evening, for this to happen, the column says.

Mrs Bowles contacted the Journal after an appeal by a UFO spotter in May - and she hopes her discovery may be of interest.

Actor Sam Lathem, 44, was so spooked by a sighting of a cube-shaped "ship" with orange flares at 10.30pm on Wednesday,

May 20, that he went public with a sketch of the object hoping to hear from others who spotted it.

Chris Penny, of Colney Hatch Lane, then revealed he had seen what looked like "an airplane on fire" with four flashing lights above Muswell Hill Road just after midnight on Thursday, May 28.

Sujesh Sundarraj saw a static colourless object floating in the sky while waiting at a Muswell Hill bus stop at 9.15pm on Monday, May 25.

Earlier in the year, 33-year-old Emma Hall, of Kings Avenue, saw a bright orange ball the size of a helicopter speeding through the air from her living room at 2am on Sunday, January 24.