The Cleethorpes "Glass Globe" Tracked from RAF Manby

1956 had already been a restless year in British skies. In August, RAF and USAF radar and interceptors had chased unknown targets during the Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident. On the Lincolnshire coast, RAF Manby sat near Louth, south of Cleethorpes, with radar and a Meteorological Office presence. Eight days before the sighting, around 14 September, "a mystery explosion rocked homes in the district." The press later framed it as the time locals "thought they HEARD a flying saucer."

Saturday, 22 September 1956. A weekend afternoon on the seafront. "High over Cleethorpe promenade a mystery sphere glittered in the blue sky," the Empire News reported. Thousands of Lincolnshire folk saw it. One eyewitness put it simply. "It looked like a glass globe with something white inside."

The object was described as large, spherical and glass-like. 80 feet in diameter. A later local account placed it hovering at 54,000 ft over Cleethorpes. It did not drift away. It stayed. For over an hour.

At 15:00 the object was seen on radar at RAF Manby. A Meteorological Office spokesman there studied it through a telescope. The verdict was candid. "I don't know what it is. It is certainly not a balloon from here."

Then RAF aircraft went up to meet it. According to the Louth Standard, "RAF planes approached the object and it flew off." A later account says it flew off rapidly as the intercepting aircraft closed in.

The story ran in the Empire News under the headline "WHAT'S UP THERE?" and in the Louth Standard of 29 September 1956. No witness was named. No photograph of the object is known. No Air Ministry file, parliamentary question or National Archives record for the event has been found, and the radar log itself has never surfaced.

The obvious question is a balloon. The Met spokesman ruled out only one launched locally. Researcher Patrick Gross, transcribing the article, added a bracketed note: "A balloon from elsewhere or a meteor?" For the earlier explosion, Gross suggested a jet's sonic boom.

A large high altitude research balloon of the Skyhook type would glitter in daylight, and its payload could look much like "something white inside." But drifting balloons do not usually leave in a hurry. And no one knows whether "flew off" came from the pilots or from the crowd watching below.

The case lives on in local memory. The Grimsby Telegraph revisited it in its "Grimsby X-Files" nostalgia feature, alongside later sightings over northern Lincolnshire. The old pages of the Louth Standard and the Grimsby Evening Telegraph may yet hold names, aircraft and radar details. Until then, the glass globe over Cleethorpes remains unexplained.