MYSTERY surrounds a set of dark round objects seen drifting across the sky in Basingstoke last night.

Claire Whettem, 31, spotted the unidentified flying objects, which each had orange lights, when she went out for a cigarette in the back garden of her home in Cliddesden Road about 9pm yesterday.

She said: “There was five round objects and they had orange lights around them and they were dancing around each other.

“I was a bit freaked out because I definitely knew they weren’t a plane because they didn’t make any noise.

“The way they moved through the sky was bizarre.”

She thought the lights were moving, some slowly and some more quickly, from north to south and watched them for a few minutes until they moved out of sight.

Miss Whettem, a project co-ordinator, said her housemate also saw the lights and agreed they were not aircraft.

Last summer, a few streets away in Loggon Road, David Osborne, 47, saw strange orange lights in the night sky south of Basingstoke and recorded the sight on video.

It emerged that the likely source of the strange sightings were Chinese lanterns – flame-powered rice paper lanterns – launched by a wedding party at Audleys Wood Hotel, in Alton Road.

However, Miss Whettem does not believe the objects she saw last night were Chinese lanterns.

Did you see the lights, or have pictures of them?

If so call the Gazette news desk on 01256 337444.