It was seen by others too!

The sighting of an unidentified flying object over the area on Christmas Eve exclusively reported in last week’s Gazette has been confirmed by a number of readers who have added fascinating details.

Mrs Arthur Pridham, of Chircombe, Bideford, was loading her car outside her home around 9pm when she saw what she described to her husband as “a funny light in the sky” over Westleigh. He as ill and confined to his bed on the opposite side of the house, but told his wife “it must be a flare.”

“I still looked in amazement,” Mrs Pridham told the Gazette. “It was a great big orange ball, quite round with a bluish-tinged circle shading to purple at the edge. I thought ‘the moon is never over there’ and turned to find it where I expected it to be.”

When she again looked at the object which was definitely solid, it had taken on an elongated shape, but it still had a bluish tinge around ti. The next time she came out of the house the object had disappeared, but she saw a flare go up and then sparks falling. Fiver minutes later helicopters appeared on the scene.

Schoolgirl Rae Gray, of Kentweare, New Road, Bideford, said that about 9pm she was walking to Old Ford House when she saw “a round object, orange in colour with a ray of light behind it, which seemed to be descending towards Bideford along the same path as the Torridge.” It disappeared behind the buildings of North Devon Farmers Ltd.

Rae added that about a month previously her mother was closing a bedroom window at about 11pm when she saw a similar object travelling in the same direction but “at a terrific speed.”

The mystery is deepened by a report from Mrs Beatrice Curtice, of 48a Meddon Street, Bideford, that she was watching television while sitting near the undraped window at about 8.45pm when the small enclosed yard at the rear of the house was suddenly illuminated. “I thought the outside light had been switched on, but then realised the illumination was orange” she said. Looking through the window she saw that the light was coming from an object “like an orange only much larger” moving slowly over the rooftops towards East-the-Water. She called her grandson., 15 year old Jeremy Williams. Both agree that the object made no sound.

Mr G Hewitt, of 14 Myrtle Grove, Bideford, has been prompted to reveal that a week previously when riding his motor-cycle towards Bideford he saw on the approach to Instow “a bright glowing orange object” rise almost vertically from the ground on the hillside near the navigational light. “As it rose it appeared to drop three or four elongated blobs of the same orange light” he said. “It shot off horizontally to the right and disappeared suddently as thought it had been switched off.”

Unprompted, he shared with Mrs Muriel Cobley, who first reported the UFO, the strong feeling that there was no danger and that the object ‘wanted to be seen.’

Most of the observers have contacted Mr Harold Cobley of the British Flying Saucer Bureau whose home is at Bideford since the Gazette’s report.

Gazette article dated 6 January 1978