2003-05-10 - Boscastle (Cornwall) (UK/England) - Sphere

Small balls of light in the woods UK

I am a police officer stationed in cornwall uk. I am not sure if i have the site for what i have to say but if i don't get it off of my chest i am going to go mad. About 3am on sunday 5th october, my shift partner and i get a call to check out a disturbance on the Tintagel/Boscastle road. Report indicated a motorist had passed an area close to the Boscastle end and had seen a lot of flickering light beyond the main road. Normally around this time of year we get reports of this nature because of the sale of fireworks everywhere during the build up to Guy Fawkes night. Kids somehow get hold of them and can be a real pain causing all sorts of problems and sometimes fires due to misuse. We headed toward the area from the south and arrived at 03:35 approx. About a quarter of a mile before Boscastle we pulled into a small parking area opposite a tea-house on the main road. By the tea-house there is a small gathering of houses/buildings all which were in darkness. We started to walk up the main road toward Boscastle, but after walking for five minutes my partner called my attention to the area back toward the tea-house. Above the visible horizon at the back of the tea-house we observed low level flickering of amber/white light. So we turned and headed back toward the tea-house. We then continued to walk up along side the tea-house in the direction of the lights. After passing a few more buildings the path sloped downward toward a wooded area. As we approached the the wooded area the flickering was still visible just above the outline of the treetops. We followed the path along crossing a small stream and heading further in to the woods. After about ten minutes we could see that some of the trees ahead were being lit up by dim flashes of light so we carried on toward these trees. I think we were both expecting to find a bunch of drunk teenagers fooling around with fireworks as in years gone by but it was not the case. I was first to see what looked like round white lights moving at all kinds o! f speeds in and around the trees. We walked another ten yards or so then stopped and crouched down by a large fallen tree to asses the situation. Each ball of light was a little larger than a tennis ball and they way they flew reminded me of the way a fly does with no true path of flight, they were all over the place. I tried to count them but it was very difficult due to the speed and way they were flying but i think there must have been around 40 of them.After another ten minutes a few of the balls flew in the same direction just inches above the ground toward one end of the area in which they had been flying and seemed to join up making a larger ball of light which intensified and hovered in that one area. Looking at the ball of light i could make out 7 black specks in a circle in the center. These black specks started to rotate and the light got brighter and was too bright too look at. I looked away from the main ball and back to the flying smaller ones. Each of these had intensified also and went beserk, flying at incredible speeds in such an enclosed area. I could hear the noise of leaves being sucked into the air when they flew inches from the ground. My partner shifted his position and broke a branch on the fallen tree with his arm making a loud crack. Immediately the lights stopped and rose to tree top height and then, a few at a time quickly faded out light a headlight going off until there were none left. We heard continueous cracking of branches high up and moving away from us through the woods. I got quite unsettled and insisted that we return to the car though my partner insisted that we examine the area with our torches. In the leaves were trenches and spirals and small piles of sticks. Some areas had earth scooped out with more twigs and sticks in piles around these areas. All the while in the distance we could hear the sound of breaking branches and i was feeling really not good about being there so i shouted at my partner now was the time to leave. We returned to our car. I don't know w! hat the hell it was. Surely ufo's are big things these were tiny. We have not reported the incident and i have not even told my wife and my partner does not want to talk about it either. I don't even know why the hell i have typed all this here as i don't feel any better for it.