WITNESSES who spotted strange objects in the skies above Ammanford on the night of Saturday, September 19, have dismissed suggestions they were Chinese lanterns sent aloft by a wedding party.

Last week’s paper reported how residents of Parc Penrhiw, Betws, watched in amazement as two bright objects, each resembling a trio of orange tennis balls, passed overhead.

The mystery appeared to have been solved this week when Saron newly-weds Godfrey and Louise Thomas came forward to claim the UFOs were, in fact, brightly-lit Chinese lanterns released from Betws rugby club to mark their nuptials earlier that day.

“When I saw the Guardian front page I just had to laugh,” said Mr Thomas. “One of my mates rang up to say it was my five minutes of fame.”

Their claims were backed up by Guardian reader Marie Jones.

“I saw the lanterns, with a lot of my friends, as I was celebrating my 30th birthday that night too,” she said.

“They floated away into the sky and did actually look like two orange balls.”

However, fellow reader Barbara George, of Llandeilo, suggested eye-witnesses had actually seen lanterns her family had released on the eve of what would have been her late husband Brian’s birthday.

“We lit them in the back garden and they drifted off in the direction of Ammanford,” she added.

But those who are convinced they saw something out of the ordinary remain unmoved.

“What I saw on that Saturday night was quite spooky,” Suzanne Daly, of New Road, told the Guardian.

“They were travelling at quite a speed and in a straight line. I’ve seen Chinese lanterns and this was definitely something else.”

Patrick Gee, of Parc Penrhiw, Betws, said: “Those orange balls were about the size of the Millennium Dome. The Ministry of Defence need to provide some answers.”

But a man from Llandybie believes he has the definitive answer. The objects, he believes, were a pair of weather satellites.

“Derek Brockway told BBC Wales viewers that night that the satellites would be coming across at 800mph at an altitude of 200 miles,” said the man, who declined to be named.

“They’d be moving at twice the speed of a plane. This went out on the BBC Wales news but people in Betws would never have seen it because their power was off.”