At 6:30 p.m. on March 16, 2026, a witness standing at Skinningrove Beach on the North Yorkshire coast watched a large, bright orange light appear over the North Sea and vanish — then come back, and vanish again — for three straight minutes.
The witness filed a report with the National UFO Reporting Center the same day. In their own words: “It was over the sea. It was striking as it was bright and large in shape. We assumed it was a helicopter, but it disappeared and reappeared repeatedly.” The report logs the object’s shape as circular, its color as bright orange, and estimates it at roughly 50 meters across, sitting about three miles offshore at a 45-degree angle of elevation to the south.
What the NUFORC Report Says
NUFORC report number 196590, posted March 23, 2026, records the duration as three minutes with one primary observer. The characteristics field notes lights on the object and emitted beams. Under explanation, NUFORC has flagged the sighting as “Aircraft — Possible,” which is the center’s standard notation for cases where a conventional aircraft cannot be ruled out but does not fully account for what was described.
The “aircraft possible” tag is worth taking seriously. Helicopters, commercial drones, and offshore patrol aircraft all operate along this stretch of coastline. The North Sea sees significant maritime and energy sector traffic, and certain lighting configurations can pulse or appear to disappear depending on weather, angle, and atmospheric conditions at dusk.
What the tag does not resolve is the disappear-and-reappear behavior. A helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft does not blink in and out of visibility in the same position multiple times over three minutes under clear enough conditions to be filmed.
Yorkshire’s Coastal UAP History
Skinningrove sits on the North Yorkshire coast between Staithes and Saltburn, a stretch of rugged cliff and headland that has quietly accumulated one of the more unusual UAP records in Britain. Government records and civilian reports document a cluster of unexplained coastal light sightings in this region as far back as the 1950s. In 2009, a series of unexplained light reports along a 25-mile stretch of the East Yorkshire and North Yorkshire coast drew enough attention that RAF personnel reportedly landed on a local beach to investigate. North Yorkshire as a whole has logged over 840 UFO reports since 2008, more than any other county in England according to civilian tracking data.
None of that history explains what the Skinningrove witness filmed. But it does suggest this particular coastline has a way of producing questions that don’t close cleanly.
The Footage
The video, shared by Coast to Coast AM and circulating in UAP research communities, shows a distinct orange glow against an overcast dusk sky over the water. The image attached to the NUFORC report shows the coastal terrain clearly — green clifftop fields, a dramatic headland to the right, the North Sea below — with the orange anomaly visible in the sky to the south.
Whether it was a vessel, a drone, a military exercise, or something that fits none of those categories, the witness was composed enough to film it and specific enough to file a formal report the same evening.
Three miles offshore at dusk, blinking on and off for three minutes. For now, NUFORC’s file stays open.
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