Our email correspondence below:-
Hi there,
I thought I’d drop you a line as something strange occurred a couple of nights ago that I thought you might like to hear about.
I live in Fareham (specifically Wallington village). In the middle of the night I was disturbed by this unusual droning sound outside, apparently moving from the general direction of Fareham town centre, towards the motorway/Portsdown Hill. I listened as this sound passed overhead from one side of our house to the other, and I thought I saw an orange glow through our en-suite bathroom skylight on my right (towards the back of our house where there aren’t any street lights) which faded out as the sound became more distant.
I only say I thought I saw this as I was laying in bed and could have imagined it, still being sleepy. But as I recall the orange glow was similar to how it might look if an amber street lamp had been moving overhead, albeit with a more diffusely spread and less yellowy light, more of a red-orange. The light did not flicker or flash and I only saw this glow for a short time (perhaps 5-10 seconds) before it faded away. I heard the droning sound in the distance for a while after that though.
Having lived near naval and/or military installations most of my life I am very used to the sounds of various aircraft but this droning sound was not like that of any plane or helicopter I know of. It’s hard to describe from memory but it was just a constant hum of a non-varying pitch/frequency that was loud enough to disturb me from my sleep. It was not unlike the sound of a large road vehicle travelling at a constant speed down the motorway (we are in earshot of the M27 here), but due to the direction the sound was coming from and the way it passed over I knew this was not logistically possible. The sound was definitely coming from overhead and there are no long straight roads in the direction that it took. Also, there were none of the distinctive sound properties that one might associate with wheels on a road.
After this occurrence took place I just went back to sleep and didn’t think a great deal of it, other than perhaps to check later to see if anyone else had noticed it apart from me. When I told my husband about it yesterday he had no recollection of such a thing and had presumably slept through it.
I thought to mention the incident on a Facebook update this morning and strangely enough a friend living in Portsmouth said that he heard the sound as well! He said:
“I heard the same thing over our house too! Never got to see what it was though. Made, like you say, a weird droning sound that definately wasn't a plane.”
Well, that’s just reassured me that maybe I’m not completely mad and just imagining things.
Oddly enough, this may not be the first time I’ve witnessed something like this though. I remember having a similar experience of hearing a hard-to-explain droning sound moving overhead in the middle of the night years ago, back when my hubby and I lived in Poole. At the time I reasoned that it seemed like the sound of some sort of large aircraft going over - though I think it was a deeper and louder sound than what I heard a couple of nights ago. There may even have been a low frequency vibration that accompanied it… but again it really didn't sound like any plane or helicopter. So bizarre!
Well, that’s it from me for now… I hope this report may be of some interest. I’m certainly curious about any answers there might be for what I witnessed, as my little bit of snooping around online for local incidents thus far has highlighted the Portsdown Hill area as something of a UFO hotspot. It’s also how I discovered your site, which I think is great by the way!
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Hi
Thank you for your email. We have not had any reports of that nature but what you have reported is more common than you think. When I was younger I lived in Portsmouth and I used to hear the same sort of noise. Not a conventional aircraft noise as you say. I used to hear a low humming noise (hard to describe in words) I also remember getting up and seeing lights in the sky that never flashed like a plane. I could see Portsdown Hill from my window and I can recall them travelling in that direction. It scared me sometimes so much that I used to put my old cassette walkman on. I have heard people suggest the noise is coming from submarine radar but does not account for the light(s) witnessed by yourself, me and other people. In fact it seems that nearly all of the stories I have heard over the years and now since starting the group, Portsdown Hill appears to be a hotspot. Whether this is conected to the milltary base there I dont know but its something i want to investigate.
Can I ask if the time in Poole was the only other time you heard it? Do you remember hearing anything odd when you were younger? With your permission we would like put your story up on the website to see if any one else heard/saw anything. Could you ask your friend for the time they heard it and where they live as well as we can work out which direction it was travelling.
Thank you again and we hope to hear from you soon
Zoe and Ian
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Hi Zoe and Ian,
Thanks for getting back to me, that's really interesting to know. Seems like whatever this is, it's been going on for a while then!
That one time back in Poole was the only other obvious incident I can think of... it would have been around the year 2000/2001. I've got a feeling that I may have got up and looked out of the bedroom window that night because I was that curious to see what could have been making the noise, but didn't see anything. I just remember it sounded 'big' from the resonance it seemed to emit. Again it didn't last very long but the sound seemed to move overhead and disappear off into the distance somewhere. I think it was moving eastward as I have a memory of trying to look out in that direction, thinking that's where the sound was headed. But the flat we were in didn't afford clear views at that particular angle, so if there was anything to be seen in the sky the rest of the building may have blocked it.
I don't have any memories of events like this from my childhood, which was spent in Weymouth. I've known people to see UFOs in that area though, one time my mum saw a set of orange lights in the sky over the sea. It was in the evening as the sun was going down, I believe what happened was that one by one, five lights rose into the sky from the horizon (taking roughly a minute each to rise into position). They then hovered in a static horizontal line for a while before eventually all descending from view again together, still locked in that linear formation. I remember Mum saying the lights looked for all intents and purposes like amber street lamps in the sky, but she couldn't explain what they were. They could have been flares from boats but their movement and formation didn't really tally with that idea. Likewise my mum's then boyfriend who also witnessed the incident couldn't offer any obvious explanation. I believe other people witnessed this too as I think they were in a pub garden on a hill overlooking the sea at the time. I'm pretty sure the lights appeared in the west where the sun was setting.
Well, back to the recent report... I'm happy for you to put my story up on your website to see if it rings any bells with anyone else. I think it must have happened the night of the 7th or the early hours of the 8th April. I asked my friend if he could elaborate at all on his experience of it and he said: "I would say it was around midnight sort of time as that's the time I usually go to sleep. It was a strange sound, a low humming sound, exactly as the Zoe and Ian describe it. My wife heard it too. I wish I'd looked out of the window to see what it was. It definitely wasn't a plane as I've heard planes going over all the time. And it definitely wasn't a car, I can't decribe it, but it sounded unlike anything I'd heard before, it gave me the heebie geebies! I heard it where I live, which is in Waterlooville."
There have been odd occasions here in Fareham when I've been lying in bed trying to sleep and I've heard a quiet hum from a source that's hard to pin down. I wasn't sure whether it was in my head or not as I'd change position and find it might get louder or quieter. When I was searching online forany reports of the big droning sound from the other night, I discovered plenty of articles on what some describe as "the hum". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum I think this may be the other thing I've experienced here on occasion although it can't have happened more than a few times. I don't think it's likely to be related in any way to the big one from the other night though, which was totally different.
All the best
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