A FRESH investigation has begun into the sighting of an unidentified flying object over Wilmslow 30 years ago.
Researchers are going through files from 1966 when the "craft" was spotted by a policeman behind Hoopers on Alderley Road.
The close encounter was by PC Colin Perks who saw the image with his own eyes while on duty in the town centre.
In his report afterwards he says he was checking the back door of a shop at 4.10am on January 7.
At the time he heard a "high pitched whine" and when he turned to look over the car park behind he saw "a solid looking object, stationary, some 35 feet above the grass of the meadow beyond the car park and about 100 yards from where he stood.
"The upper surfaces glowed steadily with a greenish grey colour, a glow that did not hide the definite shape of the object."
The policeman compared the image size with that of a bus estimating the UFO had a diameter of 30 feet for the base.
He said after about five seconds it moved off in an east, south east direction with no change of sound and then disappeared.
Nowhere could he see openings like portholes, he added.
A full report was published in the Flying Saucer Review which is the leading and longest established international journal dealing with UFOs and similar encounters and a published case study tells of a "strikingly similar" sighting a year later in Streatham.
Now files are being updated and researchers want to interview PC Colin Perks for verbal evidence and to contact anyone who might have experienced mysterious goings on during the same night.
Derrick Wood, 74, of Sale, a retired safety consultant, who says he has a keen interest in UFOs said another witness had come forward since the sighting.
"There is to be a website set up so that people can give evidence about this and other sightings which have been recorded in the past.
"Someone has been to see the policeman in the case of the sighting in Wilmslow in 1966 and an investigation is going on to find out if there are other witnesses."
He is hoping memories will be jogged and wants any flashbacks to be recorded in full detail. There are no records of the sighting at the Wilmslow Express archive.
