UFOs in the daily Press:

WAS 'UFO' JUST A HAPPY COUPLE?

BY PAUL JAMES

Two life-size blow up dolls used at a wedding in Torquay may have been the UFOs which caused a stir across the resort on Tuesday evening.

Eddie Lee-Danby, who works at the Grosvenor Hotel in Belgrave Road, admitted today: "It might have been us." He revealed that he and his colleagues could well have been guilty of sparking the flying saucer frenzy which the Herald Express reported yesterday.

Readers rang in excitedly to declare they had seen a mysterious object in the sky over the Bay. Some had pictures to prove it.

But now Eddie reckons he can rule out Martians and weather balloons as the likely explanations for the apparition.

He is confident the helium-filled "wedding guests" - a suitably attired man and woman - were the fly-away culprits. They were leftovers from a wedding at the hotel on Saturday.

"They are used as decorations at receptions. They were still around on Tuesday, so we decided to let them go for a laugh. We thought they would end up at Land's End or beyond," he said.

The happy couple, who had been hugging the ceiling, were duly launched in the morning and flew off towards Paignton before a change in wind direction brought them back over Torquay.

He says the woman was silver-coloured while her chap was brown.

All witnesses said the object they saw was dark and long, but none could guess how large they were because they were confused by the distances involved.

One said the end of his UFO had a tinge of yellow, which Eddie confirmed was the hair colour of the inflated gentleman.

The dome shape in the middle of the cylindrical-shaped figure seen by another may have been flapping limbs, Eddie suggested.

"The dolls were bought from a shop in Lucius Street. They were used for a wedding on Saturday. They were about 6-7ft tall," explained Eddie.

One witness estimated his UFO was at 10,000ft and probably the size of a Jumbo jet.

No one saw the object moving at any great speed. And no one reported seeing two of them.

Adam Nesbit, who lives in Starpitten Grove, Watcombe, insists that what he saw was not a balloon, and definitely not in human form.

"All I do know is that it was an object I could not identify. If it was a balloon it would not be moving in the way this cigar-shaped object was. It was far too big to a be a blow-up doll," he said.

Herald reader Douglas Day said: "There is absolutely no doubt this was not an illusion. My wife and I definitely saw this over Torquay at around 6pm. I went into the house to get my binoculars. It seemed to stay in one place for about 10 minutes then moved on to stay in another place for one or two minutes and then disappeared."

Alison Cutts said she saw the same shaped object last year.

"It seemed to stay motionless in the sky for about 20 minutes and then it just disappeared. I live just outside Ipplepen and I would imagine it was in the distance above Newton or Kingskerswell," she recalled.

She added: "I remember it very well and even called my husband and father-in-law out to have a look at it.

"We wondered if it was some sort of balloon but it did not seem to move at all and then it was just gone. I told a few people about it but they just thought I was mad so I didn't think any more about it till I saw the Herald Express story."

One theory is the "thing" was an "8 metre solar airship" sold in shops for under £13.

The mystery continues.