The Tanjung Sepat "football-field UFO" and the small red-eyed beings

Tanjung Sepat is a fishing town on the Strait of Malacca, in the Kuala Langat District of Selangor, close to the Sepang border. Around September 1995, the residents of Kampung Tanjung Sepat Laut began reporting something in the night sky.

Witnesses described an object the same width and length as a football field, or sebesar padang bola in Malay newspaper reports. They called it a piring terbang, a flying saucer. Towers rose from it as high as a multi-storey building. Multi-coloured lights flashed around it in a circular motion. Reports gave the colours as either red, green and yellow, or red, orange and green.

It hovered roughly a hundred metres above the forest, half a mile from the village. Witnesses reported at least four sightings, each ending with the object vanishing. One local blog said residents saw three UFOs on four occasions in one month. An unnamed bus driver reported seeing one at 2:30 am. A later account said it landed in the nearby jungle and was never seen again.

Then came the claims that gave the case its strangest edge. Makhluk asing berwarna hijau. Green alien creatures. About 60 cm tall. Long ears. Small red eyes. No surviving account records what they wore, what they did, or who exactly saw them. No one reported injuries or missing time. No photographs of the craft or the beings were obtained.

Ricky Lai, 31, a photographer for The Star, went to see for himself. He went at night and waited a few hours. Then, in his words: "I saw a powerful bright light that could be seen from many kilo-meter away hovering and moving near the ground in the nearby jungle. It look like the lights was falling down to the ground…" He searched for the landing site and could not find any evidence. He took a few photographs of the lights. He camped there for a week. The lights did not reappear. "Saya tidak dapat melupakan peristiwa itu sepanjang hidup," he said. He could not forget that event for the rest of his life.

Datuk Law Hieng Ding, Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, said further investigation was important to check the residents' claims. He directed BAKSA, the Space Science Studies Division, to look into it. What followed is disputed. One account says BAKSA made a field visit, reportedly for one night only, and compared the case with a 1993 sighting in Melaka. Others say no formal investigation took place. Later retellings say the minister declined a formal inquiry, citing a lack of resources and the absence of damage or loss of life. The case was closed.

Dr Mazlan Othman, Director-General of BAKSA, offered a cautious view: "Sights of faraway planets or stars glowing in the dark could be misconstrued as UFOs." She also raised the possibility of mass hallucination. Major General Ahmad Saruji Che Rus, Deputy Chief of the Royal Malaysian Air Force, added: "We have seen nothing on our air defence screens to indicate a UFO had violated Malaysian airspace."

Meanwhile the site became a temporary tourist spot. Traders sold food and drinks to the crowds, and the press covered it daily. In December 1995, researcher Ahmad Jamaludin largely organised the first Malaysia UFO Conference at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur. A group called UFORIA, UFO Research in Asia, was formed, though it did not last. No hoax claim ever surfaced. The football-field UFO of Tanjung Sepat is still retold today, in lists of Malaysia's unsolved mysteries.