1990-02-07 - York (UK/England) - Cylinder

Very small cylinder type object viewed close up. Changed direction and dissapeared upwards.

I am a BA Honours Graduate and have always been reasonably bright at school. I had no interest in UFO's at the time I made my sighting and was a run of the mill schoolboy living in a typical street in York. When I had this sighting I was around 11 years old. I am not sure of the exact date but I am aware that it was sometime in the summer holidays as I was not at school and it was a bright sunny day. We lived in an estate of semi detached houses at the time. Our garden was small and there is a small drive that seperates our house from the house to the right of us. The house is located in the suburbs of York. The incident happened very quickly but I am clear in my mind of what I saw, how it behaved and what it looked like. Although the incident happened a long time ago I was so taken back by what I saw that it has left a clear imprint on my memory. I was standing at my patio doors (which were closed) and looking into the garden. My mother was hoovering the living room behind me. As I was looking into the garden 1 Object entered my vision from the right. A small cylinder shaped object floated over the fence on the right of the garden. Its trajectory showed it had come between the houses and it was only 1 or 2 feet away from the corner of the house as it passed over the fence. The trajectory was a slow curve as it seemed to have risen up to avoid the fence and then continued downward after clearing the fence. (the downward curve took the object from about 8 feet in the air to 6 feet and the object was travelling between 5-10mph). As I first seen the object it was rising though, so i am sure that it had risen over the fence and dropped again into the garden. At this time it was travelling away from me but coming across my vision. I was only around 10 feet away from the object at this time. It then curved sharply upwards and at this point I grabbed my mother who was hoovering behind me. "whats that" I said and pointed. She looked at it for a good few seconds and we both watched it dissapear out of view. It floated almost like a balloon but rose at such a pace that it was soon out of site. It also clearly moved in several directions before its steep climb, which shows it was not being blown by the wind. The object was of a grey black colour, of a cylinder shape and very small. (One of my first thoughts was that it was a balloon but it was the wrong shape,too small and made at least three clear changes in direction. The object cannot have been more than 5-10 cm from top to bottom and 2-3 cm diameter. I could not make out any detail on the object so you could say that it was smooth. I heard no noise. Although I was a little intrigued, the fact that this was such an unremarkable and small object made me put it out of my mind. The only thing that really intrigued me is the way that it moved. It was totally unexplainable how an object this small could be capable of self powered flight. One further thing to mention is that the cylinder remianed upright throughout flight and did not spin or wobble, as would be excepted from an object floating in the wind. I realise how easy it is to discredit stories like these and I admit that moments after I had seen the object I began to look for a 'rational' explanation. I could not think of one. Perhaps other people have seen similar things or could shed some light on a possible rational explantion.