While the British Ministry of Defence quietly removed itself from the UFO reporting loop late last year, it still did manage to publish all the reports it received during 2009 – you can download a PDF listing the date, location and short description of each sighting from the MoD’s website.
Though I haven’t counted them, there looks to be in the region of 600 to 700 reports up until December 1 (when the MoD decided to stop recording/investigating sightings). Plenty sound like chinese lantern sightings (though interestingly, a number of reports state directly that the lights seen weren’t chinese lanterns…showing some familiarity with this modern faux-sighting), but in amongst them are some genuinely interesting reports ranging from a “shiny black flying cylinder” sighted by a pilot above his aircraft, to phenomena which sound very much like manifestations of ball lightning.
You can also browse reports from previous years at the same website (again as PDF downloads).
