I'll set the scene. I was walking home from a party in the Sale area of Greater Manchester (UK). It was the early hours of the morning on the sixth of November with the smell of bonfires and fireworks, from the evening before, still hanging in the air. My route would take me across an open field and over a stream (known locally as Baguley Brook) that ran through it.

As I approached the field I saw that it was covered by dense, thigh high ground mist that completely obscured the grass beneath. It looked quite spooky; if there had been ancient, moss overgrown tombstones rising up out of that mist they wouldn't have looked at all out of place. I stopped to light a cigarette and check that there wasn't any potential muggers loitering about before stepping from the relative safety of the well lit street out onto the much darker field.

As cold as the night was: somewhere in the low singles Celsius, it did not prepare me for the sub-zero temperature of the mist that penetrated the fabric of my jeans with an icy, crystalline coldness. 'Best not hang around here too long' I thought.

I proceeded carefully as the ground was uneven and I couldn't see where I was putting my feet. Once across the footbridge that spanned the stream I followed a path that diverged, diagonally, away from it at a tangent of about forty five degrees.

It was when I'd reached a position approximately fifty feet from the watercourse that I noticed them. Two bright points of light skimming about, below the level of the mist, on the bank of the brook – they seemed to be cavorting or playing with one another. This was strange – this was decidedly weird.

Composite picture - not actual event.

'What the f....! is going on here?' I wondered. I stood there a moment watching and shivering. Still watching I lit a cigarette with hands that were trembling almost uncontrollably – it wasn't just the cold. Without thinking I started to walk slowly toward the lights. As I walked I could feel excitement spreading like a physical force throughout my entire body – I was, quite literally, shaking like a leaf.

After covering about half the distance I stopped – I stopped because they had stopped. They were no longer zipping wildly about; they were now hovering with a slight up and down, side to side, motion about three feet apart. Were they aware of me? Was I witnessing some form of sentience here?

From my closer vantage point the lights now took on the appearance of small, opalescent orbs – like tiny stars - but, as they were obscured by the mist, I still couldn't make them out clearly enough to identify exactly what they were or relate them to anything within my own experience.

It was this fact – the not knowing bit – and my growing awareness of the vulnerability of my situation: I was alone - confronted by an otherworldly, perhaps malign, presence - that decided my next move. I wasn't going to approach them any closer. I was going to get the f...! out of there.

As I retreated the orbs reverted to their former behavior: flying about, for what seemed like the sheer fun of it, and circling rapidly around one another.

When I eventually stepped off the field and out of the mist back onto a familiar street I turned and looked to where the lights had been – I could no longer see them. Should I go back for another look? I was cold to the core, physically aching with tension and sweating profusely - I thought it more prudent to go home, get warm and go to bed. The unknown would have to remain precisely that: unknown - for a little while longer.

Over the ensuing years I have, in my mind's eye, revisited that scene many times. I have also sought explanations (ball lightening?), rationalizations (two guys, hunkered down in the mist, using battery powered model cars to beguile the unwary?) but nothing seems to fully account for what I saw. As I write this, on a drab gray day in February, I am - in fact - looking out over those same fields; the spot where my otherworldly encounter played out is clearly visible from where I sit. It seems a very ordinary place right now.

The lasting impression I am left with of that night does not solely concern the weirdness of the actual event: my reaction to it - and the 'what if' factor - both haunt me in equal measure. Why did I react with such fear and apprehension to the presence of what were, on the face of it, two tiny innocuous objects?

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