Bonsall UFO

The Bonsall UFO was an incident said to have occurred at 21.15 on October 5 2000, in Bonsall in Derbyshire, near Matlock, where a woman named Sharon Rowlands of Slaley claims to have observed a large luminous object, with a shimmering pink colour, hovering and rotating over a nearby field. She captured many minutes of the object on a camcorder. The video shows an out-of-focus ball of light that at one point appears to be made out of concentric circles similar to that of a photographic orb. The video she made is slightly out-of-focus as she tries to zoom in closer to the object. Rowlands reported it to her local newspaper, the Matlock Mercury, which then reported on her story.

The story was quickly picked up by ufologists who recognized Rowland's object as being similar in appearance to an object observed in a video taken as part of the STS-75 Space Shuttle mission in February 1996Fact|date=May 2007.

If the two objects are analysed, there are distinctive features to the circular object that are almost identical.or|date=May 2008 Although both are circular, each has a similar indentation on a section of its outer circumference. The diameters of the inner circular ridges on both structures and at their centres, can be measured and expressed as a percentage of the total diameter. If these two objects represented similarly-shaped, large, three-dimensional objects, then it could be expected that their physical characteristics would be similar.or|date=May 2008 For both objects, the ratio of the outer diameter to the diameters of physical ridges or troughs on both objects are the same, to a closeness of 0.3%.or|date=May 2008 The measurements from the blurred pictures will introduce errors, yet every physical feature of both 'objects are found in exactly the same position to fractions of a percentage point or|date=May 2008 Fact|date=February 2007. On the other hand, the similarity in features can equally be explained by similarity in optics and the fact that both cameras were digital and, as such, subject to similar digital aberrations.

External links

* [http://www.ufos-aliens.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ukufo.htm Film clips]
* [http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/a2002/jan/uforeport.htm More information.]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1363848.stm BBC article.]
* [http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-75/mission-sts-75.html The STS-75 Mission - Nasa.]
* [http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicsg.html Discussion of the STS-75 film.]
* [http://www.rense.com/general19/3_UFOs.htm Image analysis]
* [http://www.rense.com/general69/orbs.htm The Trouble with 'Orbs'] , an explanation of photographic orbs.