A FORMER US airman has been left scratching his head after spotting a mysterious red light in the skies above his home - similar to those seen over the skies of the Great Yarmouth area recently.

A FORMER US airman has been left scratching his head after spotting a mysterious red light in the skies above his home - similar to those seen over the skies of the Great Yarmouth area recently.

David Galvan, of High Street, Wickham Market, was closing the curtains of his living room when he saw the strange glow.

The ex-USAF air crew member, who was based at Bentwaters, at Rendlesham, near Woodbridge, spotted the large reddish-orange glow on Thursday at 7pm.

The 67-year-old, who came to Suffolk in 1979, said: “I was closing the curtains in the living room and I saw a large red light coming from the south/south east.

“I told my wife to run out back as it would be coming over the house soon. I joined her and saw the light turn north/north west. It started climbing and then disappeared. There was no sound.

“It certainly wasn't an air balloon or anything like that because it was moving too fast. It didn't appear to have any navigational lights on either.”

Mr Galvan said it was not the first time he has spotted a red glow in the night sky.

“It's the second one I've seen in quite a short space of time,” he said. “I'm beginning to think that these things are military and it's some kind of testing. But it's only an assumption.”

Over the years Suffolk has become a hot spot for UFO enthusiasts who claim to have seen many a mysterious object soaring in the night skies.

It includes Britain's most famous close encounter - on December 27, 1980 when strange lights were reported in Rendlesham Forest by American airmen at USAF Woodbridge.

Earlier this year the National Archives released military documents of 1,200 UFO sightings between November 1987 and April 1993, many of which were in Suffolk and prompting readers from across the county to get in touch with their stories of mysterious objects in the night sky.