STRANGE LIGHTS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Sin,—I should be glad if you or any of your readers could identify the following phenomena. At about 10 p.m. on the 6th inst. I was motoring with my wife along the north side of the South Downs, and when between Poynings and Upper Beeding I saw a very bright star-like body cross the road, apparently about 100 yards ahead and 50 feet from the ground. It continued its "fluttering-gliding " course, and settled in the rear edge of a wood, about 100 yards on my right. It moved at the apparent speed of about ten miles per hour, had a peculiar fluttering-gliding movement, scintillated like a star, was about twice the brilliance of Sirius, left absolutely no trail like a meteor, passed between the wood and myself, and disappeared at about ground-level in the wood on the near edge. The wind was blowing from the west at about twenty-five miles per hour, and the object was travelling to the west. I called my wife's attention to it. She saw it, and said that when we were above Poynings—about three miles back—she had seen a similar thing, but had said nothing, thinking it might have been an optical illusion. At that point I had been carefully watching the road as it runs along the face of a hill above the Devil's Dyke and Poynings, which accounts for my having missed it. The same thing; or anOthei," again, appeared when we were between Steyning and Washington—about four miles beyond the second one. All three were travelling toward the west and up wind. As an amateur astronomer, I am certain that, whatever' they were, they 'were not meteors:: They were not birds, as they flashed star-like colours. Bog-lights are out of the question, as there are no.marshei near the vicinity. Imagine, tion is out of the question. Have any of your readers observed similar, lights, and can any one' etplain-*hat they were?— I am, Sir, he., :ERNEST M. Gamer, Lieut., late R.A.F.
Berwyn, York Avenue, HoVe. _
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