After reading about the recent UFO activity in the borough I felt it was my duty to contact you after experiencing a similar episode myself. New Years Eve just gone I was watching the fireworks at 12 midnight from my backdoor, as they died down at aroun

After reading about the recent 'UFO' activity in the borough I felt it was my duty to contact you after experiencing a similar episode myself.

New Years Eve just gone I was watching the fireworks at 12 midnight from my backdoor, as they died down at around 12.10am I noticed an orange light in the distance which was coming towards my direction I jokingly said it was another firework and myself and my Stepdaughter waited for it to go out and disappear....which it didn't!

It was a small orange light with a dim glow that didn't flicker or change colour tone, it carried on its path at an elevation of approximately 500-1000 feet and flew over the top of my house, shocked we went into the living room to tell the other members of the family and as we made our way back to the garden we saw another two orange lights fly over from the same direction, these two were at exactly the same elevation and were the same colour as the previous light, they were both a dull orange colour and they travelled at the same speed. I was impressed with the formation flying and how they were able to keep what seemed like the same distance between each other until a member of our party said that the object must be huge if those two lights are on the same entity! A fourth light flew over a minute or two after and at this point a family member stood on a garden bench and looked over the trees south towards the A13 and saw another 5 lights that were flying in a 50p/pentagon formation (a light at each tip) we tried to take pictures of these objects but when we looked at the camera all we had were plain black images.

My motivation to contact you is due in part to an article in the Dagenham Post dated 24/02/10 where a local ufologist has suggested that these orange lights that people are witnessing in our borough 'may be' Chinese lanterns. I would like to point out that what I witnessed was not Chinese lanterns, what myself and my family saw 'moved' rather than floated through the air, they moved at speed and they moved against the wind (lanterns follow the wind direction) they did not deviate from their course they did not flicker like a candle in a lantern would and their movement was a constant forward motion unlike a Chinese lantern that would wobble with slight wind changes. I live under the London City Airport flightpath and these lights were of the same speed as the planes we see daily, Id like to see a lantern fly at that speed against the wind.

I appreciate Mr Lakes experience in the field of ufology but lending his name to the Chinese lantern theory only gives credence to the idea that what is going on in our borough is nothing more than a few pranksters with some candles.

Z. Scott

Address withheld