Briton Andy Satterthwaite, who owns a holiday home in Carvoeiro, Algarve, was among the first people to witness otherworldly late-night phenomena this year.
Mr. Satterthwaite said he had been on the patio of his villa during the early hours of Sunday, 10 July, enjoying “a spot of star-gazing” with three other family members when they spotted what they initially thought were “eight or nine airplanes.”
“It soon became clear that the ‘airplanes’ were not normal and at first I thought they must be stars because of their brightness and increasing numbers and that somehow we were experiencing an atmospheric phenomena.”
Mr. Satterthwaite recalled how the lights approached in ever-increasing numbers until they were directly above the party.
Based on his experience of watching aircraft on takeoff and final approach at East Midlands Airport, where the flight path crosses directly over his Leicestershire home, Mr. Satterthwaite explains “they were all flying on a straight course at approximately two to four thousand feet, and all at a speed I estimate at circa 250/300 miles per hour.
“What was so unusual, apart from the numbers, was the fact that they were flying too close to each other to be conventional aircraft and there was total silence!
“They flew over us and away in a south-westerly direction towards Carvoeiro. Although it was difficult to count them I estimate (by counting in pockets of ten) that there were approximately sixty to ninety of them.”
The “extraordinary” episode lasted seven to nine minutes and has left the family baffled.
“None of us have ever experienced or reported seeing anything like this before, but as previously stated we are at one that it should be reported and recorded.”
That same night a similar sighting was witnessed in Palmela (Setúbal, just south of Lisbon), about an hour earlier at around midnight.
Recalling previous reports in The Portugal News, the observer noted the phenomenon is always witnessed “around the same time of the year.”
“I have done a little research and a couple in London saw some strange lights on the same day and they posted a video on YouTube”, the contributor said, adding: “Coincidence or not who knows. Keep watching!”
Last Sunday, 17 July, three more sightings were reported via The Portugal News website.
The first described “a large cluster” that “moved across the sky until it faded”, which was seen at around 10pm near Albufeira (Algarve).
The second was witnessed at the same time, 10pm, although the onlooker did not specify say what part of Portugal they were in.
The observer depicted “thousands of light ‘structures’ (like triangles, quite high in the sky)” which “shone and moved slowly.”
“They seem to extend for hundreds of kilometres. This ‘group of structures’ moved slowly but still keeping the same shape. On the right, a white and variable form. After a few minutes, the white structure disappeared. The group of structures then moved faster to the left (Axis March - Moon). And disappeared.”
And the third witness, a Ms. Rebecca de Knegt, said: “We too experienced this ‘moving star phenomenon’, in Olhos de Água, in the Algarve on the night of 17 July at approximately 10pm. We too were amazed at what we saw.”
She recalled: “We were sitting on our balcony looking at the sky when we saw a moving cluster of twinkling lights move across the sky, to watch it gradually disappear! Was the weirdest thing we have ever seen. We managed to get a photo of it, but it was too high in the atmosphere to get a clear shot. The photo can only be seen when fully zoomed in and viewed in a dark space. Would love to know what it was.”
In 2013 a spate of strange night light activities were reported in the Cascais area of Lisbon, and more cases have been reported in the years since.
Environmental and meteorological experts have offered a number of explanations for the phenomena, including putting it down to a type of fire-fly that becomes more active at this time of year, or LED balloons that have become popular at trendy summer events.
However, Mr. Satterthwaite refutes these possible explanations, claiming that due to the fact, in his case, the objects were all travelling in a straight line and at a constant altitude and speed, “this absolutely rules them out as being fire flies or balloons.”
In a posting on Sunday 17 July 2016, blog UFO Portugal said that it receives “countless reports” of “dozens, hundreds and sometimes thousands of blinking lights” that “move in clusters, at night, in a profound silence, which have caught the attention of people all over national territory.”
The occurrence, the blog says, is not set within or categorised as a UFO phenomenon, but “these lights are well identified even though their existence is a true mystery for many.”
The Portugal News asked the National Observatory for Astronomy if it had received any similar reports, or if it had an explanation for what the occurrences may be, but no answer had been received by the time of going to press.