A black triangle and escort!

Some years ago I spent a pleasant day in Suffolk with Martin, an old 'birding' friend. We were often out in the field once a fortnight to indulge our joint passion for unusual birds: in this case a Sandhill Crane which had been blown across the Atlantic by the recent hurricanes:

Having enjoyed close and sustained views of this astonishing vagrant, we drove the short distance to Orford Quay for a cup of tea in the excellent cafe that looks out towards the disused MoD establishment and soon-to-be demolished lighthouse.
Martin has no particular interest in UFOs or the paranormal, but nevertheless I shared with him the story of the events of 1980 and suggested we stop off at the East Gate on the way home: to this he readily agreed.
As we were walking back from the gate to our car, he decided to share with me an experience of his own.

Some years ago, Martin lived with his lovely young partner Kerry in the beautiful Broadland village of Coltishall: at the time, the famous RAF base was still operational, and it was not unusual to see and hear Jaguar fighters flying over. In the early Summer of 1997, my friends were in the garden when the loud roar of jet engines caused them to glance upward. To their astonishment, they saw that the two Jaguars they had heard were accompanying (or being pursued by) a much larger, all-black triangular craft! Martin called out to his neighbour, a civil airline pilot, who was also incredibly excited by the spectacle.....



The following night, Martin happened to be in his back garden. As is the wont of birdwatchers, he glanced upwards and was astonished to see the black triangle gliding silently across the sky, this time with a bright light at each corner angle!


An interrupted car journey....


One Sunday night in October 2011, Linda & I were driving home from a meteorite show in London. As we left the A11 and turned onto the A47 that loops eastwards to the south of Norwich, we chatted quietly, reflecting on our unexpectedly uneventful journey on some of the busiest roads in the UK. I remarked that the satnav was predicting our ETA for exactly nine o' clock, ten minutes having been shaved off by the light traffic we'd encountered...

I should explain that there is just a single roundabout between our joining the A47 and the turn off to the tiny village where we live: it is brightly-lit with a garage and Little Chef, and hardly something you could miss: in fact, it is nearly always necessary to come to a halt to await a gap in the traffic from the right.

And yet on this night Linda suddenly exclaimed "You've gone past our turning!" I replied that we couldn't have done: we hadn't reached the roundabout yet. The previously clear and starry night suddenly seemed darker, with an intense blackness to the sky. I slowed down to look for familiar landmarks: sure enough, we were a mile past our turning! Glancing at the satnav, I was astonished to see that the predicted arrival time was now 9.10!
What had happened during the missing ten minutes? We have no idea!