Sighting record / 1966
Wednesday night, January 1966. Jerome McCarthy was walking home to Eyeries from a night class in Castletownbere. Then he saw it. A dazzling object in the sky, shaped like a half moon, about a half-mile from his home. It was groaning. Other residents heard the sound too. The object travelled west. Over Cahirkeem, In Urhan, about four miles away, it broke in two and disappeared. The week before, two Urhan men had watched something else move along the horizon by the Knockura TV Station. It had circular moving lights underneath. It made a strong grating noise that died out suddenly at times. Then it was gone.
The Beara peninsula is the far western reach of County Cork. Eyeries is a village there. Just west lies Urhan, and beside it the townland of Caherkeen, overlooking Coulagh Bay. To the south rises Knockoura, a 490 metre mountain carrying communications masts, including a television mast. On Saturday 29 January 1966, the Cork Examiner ran a short item under the headline "STRANGE OBJECT IN SKY OVER WEST CORK." It described two separate sightings around Eyeries and Urhan.