Cylinder over Thornton Heath, Croydon, SURREY · United Kingdom
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
Driving back to my house it now gets darker earlier. I looked up at the almost full moon. Between the clouds, it was very good visibility, with the night sky , stars were bright and clear. To the left of the moon the cylinder, it passing through clouds a large gray?/metal? cylinder passed in the opposite direction of my travel. Straight over head, back behind me heading south towards Gatwick. It looked like it was slightly lighter than surrounding cloud as if reflecting light from below. Straight line, steady pace, fast. No other features were visible.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #172873). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
Ask for the records
What would the paper say?
UK sighting reports were handled by the MoD's UFO desk until 2009; later records answer to the Freedom of Information Act 2000, earlier files sit at the National Archives. Through Aletheca, the house instrument, anyone can commission the request — filed, chased, and published in the open, refusals included. The draft goes over already written: the records sought, and the date window they would live in.
Routed to: UK Ministry of Defence · records window 2022-11-05 → 2022-11-22