Tuesday, April 15, 2008

UFO 'gave me the heebie-jeebies'


A RING'S End man has described how a strange light in the sky gave him the 'heebie-jeebies' on Thursday night.

Andrew Warren and his son, Stephen Whitrod, spotted a series of lights in the sky over their March Road home at around 11pm as they were checking on their chickens.

Mr Warren said he initially thought the lights were from the police helicopter, but then realised there was no noise.

"It was low enough and near enough for there to be noise, but there wasn't much. There was a slight engine noise, but nothing you could really identify," said Mr Warren. He said initially there

was a diamond pattern of lights, which were like nothing you would normally associate with an aeroplane, and again the lack of noise made him dismiss it as being a military aircraft.

Then a second and third set of lights appeared from different directions and these were different to the first set. One set was in a V-shape.

Mr Warren said they seemed to hover before moving off and disappearing.

He said the lights were red, and also a blue-white colour and certainly did not fit the patterns normally seen in the skies when there are jets doing flying exercises.

"We have a lot of jets and other military aircraft flying over here, so I know what they look like and I also know there is a lot of noise, and this was just not normal.

"Whatever it was it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I tried looking at the lights through binoculars but I still couldn't see very well," said Mr Warren. - fc

1 comment:

Ann said...

"Heebee Jeebees", that's an interesting phrase. Since I haven't heard it used often, I looked it up. It's associated "ants in the pants", a feeling of uneasiness or nervousness, the jitters, the screaming meemies (another interesting phrase), a creepy feeling or just the creeps, extreme nervousness. One source defined it as a bodily reaction to something frightening or revolting, wherein your body actually shivers (with fright). And another said, that the medical name of this condition is akithisia

According to several sources, it was invented about 1923 by the American cartoonist Billy De Beck. Its first appearance, in a slightly different spelling, was in one of his Barney Google cartoons in the New York American on 26 October 1923: “You dumb ox — why don't you get that stupid look offa your pan — you gimme the heeby jeebys!”

Another source says that Within a few months it started to be seen everywhere. By 1927 at the latest, it had reached the UK, as witness this comment from Punch magazine in February that year: “It is interesting to observe that in spite of artificial sunlight, television, winter sports and the heebie-jeebie there are still some stalwarts who stand by the old traditional amusements of the English people.”