STANHOPE — A handful of Islanders and tourists thought they witnessed their first UFO sighting last week.
Well, almost.
It turns out the UFOs were actually special fireworks associated with a wedding ceremony in Stanhope.
Reports began swirling to The Guardian after a number of individuals on the province’s north shore believed they had seen little green men’s ships in the sky on Saturday, July 16.
“There’s nothing I’ve ever seen that comes close to this,” remarked one individual who witnessed the unidentified flying object. “It goes to show that we are not in charge.”
Many close to the Stanhope area reported seeing groups of three or four round spherical globes lifting above the trees and into the calm night’s horizon.
One person inspected the globes with binoculars and said they looked to be on fire. Others tried to take pictures of the unknown objects.
About 40 of the globes lifted into the sky, in what some described as a “procession,” resembling a religious ceremony.
The globes would hover for a few moments before floating towards the direction of Charlottetown and gradually fading from the sky. While no one who witnessed the near-phenomenon could tell how high up the objects were, all agreed they weren’t any type of plane or aircraft.
“Anything we (humans) have that flies makes noise,” said one individual.
“There were no UFOs that any of us saw, just fireworks,” said Audrey Firth, general manager of the Stanhope Beach Resort and Conference Centre, with a chuckle. “They were quite lovely, but someone on staff said there’s a type of firework that does look like a UFO.”
While technically not a type of fireworks, it turned out that a certain sky lantern, or “Chinese lantern,” is a tradition at many weddings.
Candles are placed in the paper lanterns, which lift into the air once heated to a certain temperature. The balloons eventually burn out and dissolve in the air.
Indeed, there was a wedding at the resort Saturday.
The last reported UFO sighting on P.E.I. was in March during the East Coast Music Awards in Charlottetown.
Many had phoned RCMP about seeing large glowing lights in the sky. Those lights turned out to be caused by the massive ECMA spotlights shining outside the Delta Prince Edward.
That is a huge misconception. There is plenty of woods that can burn and burn fast, the problem is the size of the Island cannot sustain a large forestry industry due to the time it takes to grow them back..40+ years..The size of some of the forest fires in ON (back in 04/05 i thing) were the size of PEI. Or a more recent one to compare to would be Slave Lake..and yeah you better bet there are a lot of clear cut areas there..