Three Anglers Film a 'Diamond' Light over Rollesby Broad

Wind had ended the fishing at about 3 p.m. Mark Wilkins, Bill Deuters and Stephen Farrow were unloading at Rollesby Broad when Farrow pointed at "this bright light a long way away". Deuters filmed it for about six seconds on a Panasonic MC6 camcorder. It seemed to come straight at them, and when he zoomed in it "turned into an intense diamond". All three then saw a very bright light pass over them from south to north without a sound. They took it at first for a military aircraft or a flare.

What is on the record

Two Ministry of Defence files at the National Archives carry it. In DEFE 24/1958 a loose minute of 8 February 1994 from Nick Pope of Sec(AS)2a notes that the Mail on Sunday had the video and that the MoD already held a copy from a member of the public. Pope set the press lines: "no obvious explanation springs to mind" and a more detailed look was under way. DEFE 31/184 keeps the paper's article of 20 February 1994. It supplies the date and quotes Pope's letter of 7 January calling the tape "intriguing".

The experts the paper asked did not agree. An AAIB inspector suggested an aircraft or a prism effect in the lens, and the Royal Observatory and BUFORA's Philip Mantle an aircraft or an optical effect. Panasonic said it looked like the camera's iris. A forensic video firm said it "depicts a genuine object". The Met Office ruled out a weather balloon, and military aircraft and North Sea helicopters were eliminated. The paper settled on the iris reflected in the lens, which it said "still leaves a mystery of the dazzling light the men saw". Its report of a call to Great Yarmouth coastguard the next night is the newspaper's claim, not an MoD record. According to the Great Yarmouth Mercury, the MoD found no evidence that the UK Air Defence Region had been compromised and its interest ended there.

Why it sits where it does

L4 · OFFICIAL RECORD — a released government record names who saw it. Identification rests on the cutting the MoD filed, which names Wilkins, Deuters and Farrow, and the archive holds no account beyond these files. Sourcing sets the tier; truth is a separate question. What passed over Rollesby Broad is not resolved here.