Qualla: 2007 Alderney UFO Sighting

2007 Alderney UFO Sighting: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel Kraft, CC BY-SA 3.0. At first Ray Bowyer thought he was looking at sunlight bouncing off the greenhouses of Guernsey. He had eighteen years of flying behind him, the Channel Islands run was familiar territory, and pilots learn to identify glints, reflections, contrails - the optical mischief of a maritime sky. But the cigar-shaped brilliance hanging off his nose on the afternoon of 23 April 2007 did not behave like a reflection. It hung there, stationary, off the approach to Alderney, looking - he later said - like a CD balanced on its edge. Then he saw the second one. For roughly nine minutes, somewhere over the English Channel near the northernmost Channel Island, the most experienced flier in the cockpit could not name what was outside his windscreen.

Image: Daniel Kraft | CC BY-SA 3.0

2007 Alderney UFO Sighting: Two Pilots, One Sky

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NMOS332, CC BY-SA 2.0. Bowyer was fifty years old, flying for the regional carrier Aurigny Air Services, and methodical about what he reported. He pulled out binoculars and looked directly at the object - which, he noted with mild puzzlement, did not hurt his eyes. He estimated it first at the size of ...

Image: NMOS332 | CC BY-SA 2.0

2007 Alderney UFO Sighting: What the Passengers Saw

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chickenofbristol at English Wikipedia derivative work: Dekel E, CC BY-SA 3.0. If Bowyer had been alone, the report would have stayed easier to dismiss. He was not alone. Two of his passengers spoke to the Evening Standard afterwards. One described an orange light shaped like an elongated oval. Another described it simply as sunlight-coloured. Patterson, in...

Image: Chickenofbristol at English Wikipedia derivative work: Dekel E | CC BY-SA 3.0

2007 Alderney UFO Sighting: The Quiet Response

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Juan Gutierrez Andres, CC BY-SA 4.0. Within two days, the MoD had decided not to investigate. A week later, it clarified its reasoning: the sighting had taken place in French airspace, so it was not Britain's problem. Two weeks after that, it released the file anyway, including a statement from the second pilot. The...

Image: Juan Gutierrez Andres | CC BY-SA 4.0

2007 Alderney UFO Sighting: The Possible Explanations

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter__Brown, CC BY-SA 2.0. Two natural explanations followed the file out the door. A local astronomer, Michael Maunder, attributed the sighting to sun dogs - the optical effect where sunlight refracts through high-altitude ice crystals to produce bright spots at exactly 22 degrees from the sun. Maunder no...

Image: Peter__Brown | CC BY-SA 2.0