Hi, I am 51 years old and have served in my younger days as a sergeant in the British army and also worked for local newspapers (as a courier) for 20 years. My wife is the Deputy Editor of a local newspaper series here in N Ireland that covers the area of this event.She has worked on these papers for 26 years.To the best of both our knowledge no one has ever reported what I am going to relate to you below, either before or since. Very few people have ever been told this story as those who have (in a weaker moment!) laugh! Therefore it is one of these things that you tend to keep to yourself. I watched a documentry last night on the History Channel about your organisation and this has inspired me to seek an answer elsewhere (if possible) after 34 years. My many years of trying have come to nought. In my army days I asked many questions of pilots (both helicopter and aeroplane) who flew this short stretch of water on a regular basis and none had seen anything out of the ordinary.There is also a regular ferry run to Scotland (on a daily basis) from Larne and those I have spoken to who worked on the boats again reported nothing. I have attached a picture of the area that I found on the internet and although taken from 5 miles more northerly on the coastline will give you an idea of the area. In 1972 i did not have any camera. In the backgound you can see the Scottish coastline (22 miles away) The lighthouse is arrowed in red and the approx area of exit of the objects is in black and the path followed in green. 'At approximately 10.45pm on the evening of November 3rd 1972 (I remember it well as it was my 17th birthday) I was with a girl in a covered seafront shelter at Larne (Co Antrim, N Ireland) and we were enjoying each others company! The shelter was on a hill top (100 feet above sea level) that looked out over the Irish Sea (North channel) towards Scotland that lay about 25 miles away to the east. A lighthouse (called 'The Maidens', manned at that time and 75 feet tall) is situated about 7 miles out to sea from this point and warns ships of rocks that crop up out of the sea here. I had lived beside the sea all my life (up to this point) and was familiar with the lighthouse and the pattern of it's beam. I had been out to it on field trips while at school to study the rocks it sits on. On this night (we had been to this place many times before) we had been friendly for a while when the girl drew my attention to a blinding green light out to sea. I turned out to look towards the sea and some distance beyond the lighthouse ( which was continuing it's usual pattern of horizontal flashes) we watched for some 15 minutes as a blinding (much much brighter than the lighthouse beam) series of green fluorescent cylinders exited the sea and shot straight and vertically heavenwards.They came every 30 seconds or so and we knew when they were coming as the sea itself around the exit point would glow bright green for a few seconds before we saw the cylinder exit the sea and fly at great speeds upwards and disappear into 'space'? Even at seven or eight miles away this glow in the sea lit up the whole area around it. After 15 minutes it just stopped! No more came, we watched for another hour. These cylinders were huge as I was able to determine (using the lighthose as a guide) that they were at the very least the height of the lighthouse (80 feet) and certainly as thick as it. They left no trial behind. Pattern was that the sea glowed green, cylindar emerged and shot upwards so quick that you almost cricked your neck with the upward movement of the head following it. They came at regular 30 second intervals,almost perfect timing.They all followed exactly the same path upwards,something about the timing made me feel very uncomfortable. Nothing natural would be able to do this.I was absolutely awestruck.' The nearest that I have come to an explanation was several years ago when information came to light that an area beyond this (The Beaufort Dyke, a deep underwater trench in the North Channel) had been used to dump munitions in since WW1 times. These munitions included phosphorus items. I wondered if some of these munitions could have caused such an event. I have since discounted this as it does not explain several things. Why has it never been reported again, does not explain the shapes (in each case they were identical),the timings of the exits, the identical path they followed up and the enormous speed of the things. The intensity of the green light was again the same with each one that emerged. They were perfectly controlled and not a random 'explosion' of anything. It was nothing to do with the lighthouse beam (which has always been white and horizontal) as we had a clear sight of it all the time, as the exit point was on an almost straight line between our eyeline and the beyond the lighthouse. Submarines have always been about in the North Channel as they make their way to Fastlane (Scotland) but what the h*** would a sub be doing launching such enormous cylinders (even if they could back then) and these things were faster than any rocket, their speed was breathtaking. I went out with this same girl for eight years after this event before we parted company. We had shared many many things to-gether. I met her a few years back after not seeing her for 20 years or so and the first thing she said to me was ' Remember that strange night". It had stuck in her mind all these years to the extent that it was the first thing that sprang to her mind after such a long absence.She also told me that it had 'freaked' her out and that she had never told anyone and never will speak of it again.She told me that even now she wakes up and gets very scared when she thinks of it. At the time she was too awestruck to be afraid. I never saw anything like this again and even to-day after huge amounts of 'logical' thought time I am still at a loss.Even with all the advances in military technology which I try to keep up with, I would still say "I have never seen anything like this"! I am glad that i have taken the time to write this down as it has vexed me many times over the years, I like explanations and this thing I cannot get to grips with even now. Only one other event troubles me. A few years back I woke from sleep (was at home, just a normal night) to find that the skin on the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet were bright red and burning. Had trouble walking on my feet and had to take a few days off work. This went away after a few days and a lot of cooling with water. On waking that morning my wife told me that I had something like a small black 'thorn' stuck in my right temple. It was so small that she ended up getting tweezers to get it out with. It was about one eighth of an inch long and black.I have no explanation how it got there. We thought it was some sort of wood thorn that had managed to get on the pillow and I had 'rolled' on to it in the night. I decided to cut it with a small penknife and to my great surprize it turned out to be metallic like a needle point. I then tried to cut it with a small pair of scissors but again was unable to. It started to show silver under the black as the implements had 'rubbed' the black coating off. It was the broken tip of a black needle. Sharp and pointed at one end and rough and jagged at the thicker end. I still have it somewhere in a small sealed plastic bag. Not sure where, but am pretty sure that it is here somewhere, unless the children have made off with the bag not knowing what was in it. So unless my wife was trying to inject me in the temple during the night without my knowing (she assures me she wasn't!!) then I have absolutely no idea how this point came to be there .I was nowhere where such a thing would have been and if it had happened i think that I would have felt the pain, after all this fragment was lodged an eighth of an inch in the side of my head.I have no recollection of anything unusual that night, went to bed, slept and got up next morning. No explanation. I have never spoken to my wife in great detail about the cylinders and have always insisted that i was alone, as the 'girl' with me at the time was my first wife and my present wife of twenty years and her have never been anything closer than enemies!! Would appreciate not mentioning that i was other than alone if you decide to send any emails on this subject. I have never written these stories down before and never contacted anyone about them. Thank you for listening and if you can offer any ideas on these events I would be more than grateful as they have perplexed me for a very long time. I know it was a long time ago and it may be of little interest to you but I felt I needed to pass it on as I have been convinced since that night that, ' there are more things in heaven and earth. Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy' . Thanks, George Martin.

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