Unidentified flying banana: a blue banana-shaped object with dangling human-like arms and legs, seen in London in 1989 Photo: PA
UFO alien sketches include banana with dangling limbs
Sketches of aliens and UFOs spotted by members of the public have been released by the Ministry of Defence.
By Sarah Knapton
Last Updated: 7:26PM GMT 22 Mar 2009
The drawings include a blue banana-shaped object with dangling human-like arms and legs, seen in London in 1989.
Another sketch, by a 65-year-old housewife, shows a circle of flashing red lights surrounding a constant red light which she saw in the early hours of June 21 1984 over Highwood, south of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire.
But many of the drawings are from a single sighting on August 16 1987.
A man in Derby saw a bright white object in the sky as he pulled onto his driveway and got out of his car at 10.15pm.
"The object was moving in a slightly downward arc and was bright and left a trail of bright 'blobs' behind it," he said.
The man said he had studied astronomy and added: "My immediate thought was that I had seen a meteor but the way it disappeared suddenly from being very large and bright and the size of particles in the tail were not what I would expect."
At 10.57pm a woman also spotted a "very bright" light over Breadsall Hilltop, north of Derby, which she first thought was a low plane.
"It was massive, the lights were brilliant and it hovered," she said. "All I saw at first were these very brilliant lights either side of it and a red glow underneath then as it hovered and moved I saw I saw more lights, looking like big cabins all lit up like a double decker bus up in the sky but very brilliant.
"The lights were so bright there was no definite outline."
The woman added: "It takes a lot to frighten me normally but I was frightened inside."
The investigator's report said he was "very impressed" with the witnesses and felt "certain that they came very close to a very unusual object on the night in question".
And the object was seen by three other people on the Chaddesden Estate in Derby around 11pm.
A middle-aged couple said they watched the object - which they said was the size of a large bus - for around 15 minutes.
Just before it disappeared from view, they heard "a slight whining sound, like an electric motor" and saw the object open out from its original oval into an shape more like an arrow head. They sketched both shapes for investigators.
Half an hour later, a 35-year-old charge nurse saw two bright spheres of light with smaller spheres below them over Mackworth, Derbyshire, when he opened his back door to let the dog out.
A "pie-shaped" flying saucer with a brown light and a yellow/green light on its side was drawn after a married couple spotted the object hovering over trees in Staffordshire, between 9.20pm and 10pm on August 17, 1987.
The couple, described as 'high-calibre' witnesses, said the object above Crake Marsh, just north of Uttoxeter, had a funnel-shaped searchlight beam coming from its underside.
It was "as if it was looking for something", said the man - whose name is not revealed in the report.
A 45-year-old professional artist drew a pencil sketch after seeing strange circular lights in the sky over Marland, near Rochdale, Lancashire, in late August 1987.
He said they were "a tremendous size" and had a hazy edge, as if they were rotating, with three bright lights on the underside of each circle.
West Yorkshire Police were given two drawings of UFOs in March 1988.
A Hemsworth-based taxi driver said he was on his way to pick up a fare at 11.50pm on March 24 when he saw a silver craft with bright red, white and green lights and stopped his car to get a better view.
The cabbie said he sketched a diagram on a notebook as the UFO hovered above him, making a low humming noise.
At 8.50pm the next evening he saw the same bright light again and spotted a craft the shape of an "elongated spinning top" which was three times the size of a hot air balloon.
A third drawing was given to West Yorkshire police after another sighting on April 20, 1988.
The Huddersfield man said his daughter called him to see what he described as a rectangle with five lights which gave off a very bright light.
After getting his binoculars, he realised it was a "wedge shape" which appeared to moved "very slowly but smoothly".
A resident of Ardingly, West Sussex, described seeing a five-sided object with "two very, very powerful" front lights flying over woods on September 4, 1989.
A detailed description and drawing was given to Gatwick Airport but a note which was later added to the file says it "looks suspiciously like a sighting of an aircraft".
