In 1979 before migrating to Australia and worked as a Paramedic with the Devon Ambulance Service in North Devon UK. My colleague and I had to respond to a 999 call around 1 Am in the morning. All emergency lights were operating on the Ambulance as we drove through the narrow country lanes there was no moon that night so it was pitch black’. We had just passed through a small village when we observed coming in the other direction on the right hand side of the road at speed where we though were headlights of a small car possibly the size of a Mini. On seeing the supposed vehicle I started to brake hard and started to pull into the side of the road due to the width of the road there would have been a collision. All of a sudden the headlights seem to mount the bank in its path fearing that the on coming vehicle had met with an accident, my colleague called up our Control to inform them what had happened during this process the object seem to explode and rise directly upwards in the air in a shapeless orange glow it then proceeded to cross the road to the left very slowly like balloon drifts about 30-40 ft up we had stopped by now and observed it dissolve into yellow and orange sparks when it hit a large tree and slowly descended to the ground. We reported to our control what we had seen and reported that we thought we had encountered a UFO which of course ought forth some comments, but observation was one of the skills like police we were trained in. We decided to proceed on our way as this was not in our scope of handling and still had an emergency to go to and by now we were pretty shook up, Control informed the police to attend the incident, who apparently found nothing. On driving away we observed were the object had been, there were glowing red and yellow embers on the road. On returning to base we were interviewed by the police and also some guys from the Government who took a statement also. It was a big joke around the Ambulance Staff and Hospitals for quite a time, but at the time it happened it shook us up. NOTE: The above image is a rendering.
Special thanks to Dave Goodenough for his sighting report. This event was recorded in the local newpaper.
