UFOs in the daily press:

DID HE SEE ANOTHER UFO?

Retired telecoms engineer Jerry Horlan stood in his Broadfield kitchen at 05:00am on Thursday, January 31, 2002 when he was gripped by an eerie sense that he was not alone.

He was astounded to see a circle of strange lights hovering over the south side of Gatwick Airport. He explained: "I had been up all night and was just making myself a cup of coffee when I saw something very strange out of the window. Hovering over the south side of the airport were 12 bright lights circling slowly round. I just could not believe what I was witnessing."

The father-of-two tracked the objects for more than an hour until dawn began to break last Thursday morning and the lights slowly moved away from the airport and disappeared.

Mr Horlan, 58, who lives in Farnham Close, Broadfield, continued: "It was a unique experience. I have travelled all around the world and never seen anything like that before. I am not saying it was definitely a UFO but it would be good to get some sort of explanation to account for what I saw."

The skies over Gatwick Airport have seen a number of close encounters over the years with witnesses reporting seven suspected UFO sightings alone in the summer of 1996. This prompted skywatcher Larry Dean, from Brighton's Skysearch agency to suggest aliens were watching Gatwick to study earthly air travel.

But Government officials and BAA have continued to dismiss these strange events and refused to recognise the existence of UFOs. Commenting on the latest spotting, a BAA spokesman said: "We have run a check and can report nothing out of the ordinary at that time, but we have passed the information on to air traffic control which is looking into it."