Within Lincolnshire UFOs
Did a UFO Hit the Conisholme Turbine?
The damaged Conisholme wind turbine became Lincolnshire's best-known UFO story, but the evidence remains contested and incomplete.
On this page
- What Happened at the Turbine
- Witness Claims and Media Coverage
- Mundane Explanations and Remaining Gaps
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Introduction
The Conisholme wind turbine mystery began as a real engineering failure, not just a rumour: in the early hours of 4 January 2009, one turbine at the Fen Farm wind farm near Conisholme, on the Lincolnshire coast, lost a blade and had another badly damaged. It became Lincolnshire’s best-known modern UFO story because the damage appeared dramatic, the explanation was not immediately obvious, and local witnesses had reported strange lights in the sky around the same period. Within days, a local mechanical incident had become national news.
The later evidence weakened the idea of a collision with an unknown craft. The manufacturer, Enercon, found signs consistent with fatigue failure in the bolts securing the blade to the hub, and Ecotricity’s own public position shifted away from the UFO explanation after collision damage was effectively ruled out. The case still matters within Lincolnshire’s UFO history because it shows how quickly a thinly evidenced sky story can grow when a physical object is visibly damaged, local witnesses are quoted, and early uncertainty is reported before the technical investigation is complete. [The Guardian+2modernpowersystems.com]theguardian.comOpen source on theguardian.com.
What Happened at the Turbine
Conisholme is a small Lincolnshire village near the coast, about three miles inland, with Fen Farm wind farm spread across Conisholme Fen to the south-west. Wikishire’s local summary describes the site as a twenty-turbine wind farm whose machines had an overall height of about 292 feet and were large enough to be prominent landmarks in the flat coastal landscape. [Wikishire]wikishire.co.ukWikishire ConisholmeWikishire Conisholme
The damage was discovered after the early hours of Sunday 4 January 2009. Contemporary reporting described one 66-foot, or roughly 20-metre, blade as lost and another blade as badly damaged. The turbine was one of twenty at the Conisholme site, and the broken blade was recovered for examination. That recovery point is important: this was not a case based only on a distant light or a memory. There was damaged hardware, a turbine operator, a manufacturer, and physical parts that could be inspected. [Digital Kaos]digital-kaos.co.ukDigital Kaos UFO claim over wind farm damageDigital Kaos UFO claim over wind farm damage
At first, however, the cause was genuinely uncertain. Ecotricity founder Dale Vince was quoted in early reporting as saying the company had no explanation and had sent material away for analysis. He also said the company was keeping an open mind because “to make one of these blades fall off, or to bend it, takes a lot”. That early openness was a major reason the story travelled so far: the owner had not simply dismissed the UFO claim on day one, even though later statements made clear that extraterrestrial explanations were not high on the probability list. [Digital Kaos]digital-kaos.co.ukDigital Kaos UFO claim over wind farm damageDigital Kaos UFO claim over wind farm damage
The setting also helped the story. Lincolnshire’s coastal fenland offers wide horizons, sparse night-time visual reference points and a sky already associated with military aviation, aircraft lights and unusual reports. A large damaged turbine in that landscape provided the kind of visible “anchor” many UFO stories lack. It made the question feel concrete: not merely “what was that light?”, but “what broke the turbine?”
Witness Claims and Media Coverage
The UFO element came from a cluster of local reports rather than from a single clear piece of evidence. Early accounts quoted local UFO researchers saying they had received many calls and emails about activity in the area. Russ Kellett of the Flying Saucer Bureau was reported as saying one witness had seen what they first thought was a low-flying aircraft on the Saturday evening, while another heard a loud banging in the early hours of Sunday. He also argued that to hit two blades an object would have had to be very large. [Digital Kaos]digital-kaos.co.ukDigital Kaos UFO claim over wind farm damageDigital Kaos UFO claim over wind farm damage
The most memorable witness language came from reports of strange lights. The Guardian later quoted farmer John Harrison of Saltfleetby describing a large light display that looked “just like an octopus”, while Dorothy Willows of Louth was reported as seeing strange lights and a low-flying object moving towards the turbines. These descriptions were vivid, but they were not precise measurements. They did not establish distance, height, speed, direction, or a verified link to the damaged turbine. [The Guardian]theguardian.comThe Guardian UFO puzzle: it was the Guardian wot done it | UK newsThe Guardian UFO puzzle: it was the Guardian wot done it | UK news
That gap between vivid witness language and usable evidence is central to the case. The lights may have been real observations, but the evidence does not show that they struck the turbine, came from a structured craft, or occurred at the exact moment the blade failed. In UFO cases, timing and direction matter. A witness seeing unusual lights “near” a wind farm is not the same as an observed impact, especially in a rural coastal sky where fireworks, aircraft, lanterns, meteors and distant lights can all be misjudged.
The media cycle then amplified the mystery. Tabloid-style framing turned a damaged turbine into a possible “UFO hit”, while more cautious outlets treated the story as a collision between engineering uncertainty and local folklore. The Guardian’s follow-up even reported that at least some strange lights were probably fireworks from a party connected to one of its own staff, though it also noted that this did not explain the turbine damage itself. [The Guardian]theguardian.comThe Guardian UFO puzzle: it was the Guardian wot done it | UK newsThe Guardian UFO puzzle: it was the Guardian wot done it | UK news
That distinction is often lost in retellings. There were two questions, not one: what caused the reported lights, and what caused the turbine failure? The later evidence points to these being separate issues. Some light reports may have had ordinary explanations, while the turbine damage appears to have been a mechanical failure rather than a collision.
How the Investigation Changed the Case
The strongest evidence in the case came after the headlines. Enercon, the turbine manufacturer, examined the damaged machine and published preliminary findings pointing towards a broken bolt and fatigue failure. The Guardian reported that the bolts securing the blade to the turbine’s hub showed “classic signs of fatigue failure”, with associated components apparently inducing stress beyond the bolts’ design limits. Ecotricity’s Dale Vince then said collision had been eliminated. [The Guardian]theguardian.comOpen source on theguardian.com.
Modern Power Systems reported the same broad outcome: Enercon’s preliminary investigation identified a broken bolt, while stressing that the bolt itself was not simply a one-part explanation. The issue appeared to involve surrounding components that caused the turbine blade connection to fail. [modernpowersystems.com]modernpowersystems.comet blameless says wind turbine operatoret blameless says wind turbine operator
This matters because it changes the evidential status of the mystery. Before the manufacturer’s inspection, several explanations were open: collision, lightning, material failure, design fault, maintenance issue, or another mechanical cause. After the inspection, the case no longer rested on “no one can explain it”. A plausible ordinary mechanism had been identified, even if the precise initiating chain still required further technical work.
There is also nothing inherently implausible about blade-root or bolt-related failures in wind turbines. A TNO literature review of wind turbine blade damage notes that reports of structural blade damage in the field often involve manufacturing or design defects and damage to blade root connections, including bolts. That does not prove the exact Conisholme sequence by itself, but it shows that bolt and root-connection failures belong to the known world of turbine engineering rather than to an exotic category. [World Class Maintenance]worldclassmaintenance.comWorld Class Maintenance
The physical evidence also cuts against a dramatic impact. If a large object had struck a turbine with enough force to tear off one blade and damage another, investigators might reasonably expect collision traces, debris, scorching, melting, paint transfer, or other impact evidence. Vince was quoted after the investigation as saying there was no scorching, nothing burned or melted, and that the lights, whatever they were, were not associated with the turbine failure. [The Guardian]theguardian.comOpen source on theguardian.com.
Mundane Explanations and Remaining Gaps
The most likely explanation is mechanical failure in the blade-root or hub connection, with bolt fatigue as the key identified clue. This explanation has three advantages over the UFO claim: it is supported by the manufacturer’s inspection, it fits known failure modes in turbine engineering, and it does not require an unobserved object to have struck the turbine without leaving persuasive collision evidence. [The Guardian+2modernpowersystems.com]theguardian.comOpen source on theguardian.com.
Other early suggestions were weaker. Lightning was considered, but later reporting did not establish typical lightning damage as the cause. Falling ice, meteorite impact and aircraft-related explanations were discussed in the first wave of speculation, but they did not gain the same support as the fatigue-failure finding. The “cow-sized piece of ice” idea was memorable, but memorable is not the same as evidenced. [The Guardian]theguardian.comThe Guardian Speculation grows over mysterious wind turbine damageThe Guardian Speculation grows over mysterious wind turbine damage
The remaining gaps are more modest than the legend suggests. It is fair to say that the complete engineering chain was not laid out for the public in the way a full accident report might be. The preliminary result explained the likely type of failure, while leaving room for questions about exactly which component induced the stress, whether maintenance or design factors contributed, and whether the same risk existed on similar turbines. Those are engineering gaps, not evidence of an unknown craft.
The witness evidence also remains incomplete. Reports of lights and noises were real parts of the story, but they were not tied to a verified impact. The Guardian’s fireworks explanation probably accounts for at least part of the light display reported in the wider area, while Ecotricity’s later comments separated the lights from the turbine failure. [The Guardian]theguardian.comOpen source on theguardian.com.
For Lincolnshire UFO history, this makes Conisholme a cautionary case rather than a strong unresolved case. It has physical damage, but the physical evidence points away from a UFO impact. It has witnesses, but their reports do not prove contact with the turbine. It has official interest in the broad sense that the Ministry of Defence commented on why it was not investigating, but it was not treated as a defence incident.
The MoD position at the time was consistent with its broader UFO policy. Contemporary reporting quoted the MoD as saying it examined reports only to establish whether UK airspace might have been compromised by hostile or unauthorised military activity, and that without evidence of a potential threat it did not try to identify every sighting. The National Archives’ broader UFO material confirms that MoD UFO records mainly concerned reports, policy and defence relevance rather than open-ended paranormal investigation. [Digital Kaos+2The National Archives]digital-kaos.co.ukDigital Kaos UFO claim over wind farm damageDigital Kaos UFO claim over wind farm damage
Why Conisholme Still Matters in Lincolnshire UFO History
Conisholme remains important because it became the county’s most famous UFO-branded incident of the internet-news era. Earlier Lincolnshire reports in Ministry of Defence logs often involved brief descriptions of lights, orange objects, fireballs, or shapes over towns such as Grimsby, Coningsby, Skegness and Bourne. The 2009 MoD UFO report list includes multiple Lincolnshire entries that year, including a Grimsby report of lights “falling or dripping” from a light in the sky, a Coningsby entry, a Skegness orange light and a Bourne report of four red-glowing objects. [GOV.UK Assets]assets.publishing.service.gov.ukufo report 2009ufo report 2009
Conisholme was different because it added a damaged object on the ground. That made it unusually media-friendly and unusually easy to mythologise. A flat coastal landscape, a large modern turbine, dramatic photographs, local witnesses, UFO investigators, and an initially cautious operator combined into a story that felt stronger than the evidence ultimately was.
The case also shows a recurring pattern in county-level UFO history: the first version of a story often carries more cultural weight than the later correction. The early claim was simple and memorable: a UFO might have hit a wind turbine. The later explanation was more technical: bolt fatigue and stress in the blade-hub assembly. The first version is easier to retell; the second is better supported.
A balanced classification would be: notable, partly explained, and weakened by later evidence. It is not a hoax in the simple sense, because there really was turbine damage and there really were witness reports. It is not a strong UFO case either, because the best physical evidence points to mechanical failure and the reported lights were not shown to be causally connected to the damage.
What the Evidence Supports
The Conisholme turbine was damaged; that much is well established. The UFO impact claim is not. The available evidence supports a much more cautious conclusion: an eye-catching mechanical failure occurred at a Lincolnshire wind farm, local reports of strange lights were gathered around the same time, and early uncertainty allowed a UFO interpretation to dominate headlines before the technical findings emerged.
The later investigation did not answer every minor engineering question in public, but it did remove the central claim that made the story famous. Once collision was ruled out and fatigue failure was identified in the blade-hub bolts, the case shifted from “mysterious object damages turbine” to “ordinary but dramatic turbine failure becomes UFO folklore”. That is why Conisholme belongs in Lincolnshire’s UFO history: not because it proves an extraordinary event, but because it shows how evidence, uncertainty, local testimony and media momentum can turn a damaged machine into a county legend.
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Endnotes
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Source: modernpowersystems.com
Title: et blameless says wind turbine operator
Link: https://www.modernpowersystems.com/news/et-blameless-says-wind-turbine-operator/ -
Source: worldclassmaintenance.com
Title: World Class Maintenance
Link: https://www.worldclassmaintenance.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/TNO-report-Literature-review-of-wind-turbine-blade-structural-and-non-structural-damages..pdf -
Source: nationalarchives.gov.uk
Title: ufo reports
Link: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/explore-by-time-period/postwar/ufo-reports/ -
Source: nationalarchives.gov.uk
Link: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/ufos/ -
Source: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
Title: ufo report 2009
Link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7582c440f0b6397f35efcb/ufo_report_2009.pdf -
Source: nationalarchives.gov.uk
Link: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search/results/?_q=ufo -
Source: cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Link: https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/final-tranche-of-UFO-files-released.pdf -
Source: cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Title: ufo files reveal behind the scenes of the ufo desk
Link: https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/ufo-files-reveal-behind-the-scenes-of-the-ufo-desk.pdf -
Source: cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Link: https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/the-ufo-files-extract.pdf -
Source: nationalarchives.gov.uk
Link: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/intelligence-and-security-services/ -
Source: GOV.UK
Title: ufo reports in the uk
Link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ufo-reports-in-the-uk -
Source: archives.gov
Link: https://www.archives.gov/research/topics/uaps -
Source: news.sky.com
Title: ufo desk why mod shut real life x files 10442364
Link: https://news.sky.com/story/ufo-desk-why-mod-shut-real-life-x-files-10442364 -
Source: theguardian.com
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/feb/11/wind-turbine-mystery -
Source: wikishire.co.uk
Title: Wikishire Conisholme
Link: https://wikishire.co.uk/wiki/Conisholme -
Source: digital-kaos.co.uk
Title: Digital Kaos UFO claim over wind farm damage
Link: https://www.digital-kaos.co.uk/forums/general-discussion/ufo-s-paranormal-conspiracies/13049-ufo-claim-over-wind-farm-damage -
Source: theguardian.com
Title: The Guardian UFO puzzle: it was the Guardian wot done it | UK news
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/jan/09/wind-turbine-ufo -
Source: theguardian.com
Title: The Guardian Speculation grows over mysterious wind turbine damage
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/08/wind-turbine-ufo-lincolnshire-the-sun -
Source: theguardian.com
Title: documents reveal how mod played down ufo thesis in x files study
Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/06/documents-reveal-how-mod-played-down-ufo-thesis-in-x-files-study -
Source: Wikipedia
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conisholme
Additional References
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Source: ecotricity.co.uk
Link: https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-news/2009/close-encounters-of-the-turbine -
Source: reddit.com
Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/7oazt/ufo_hits_wind_turbine_causes_massive_damage/ -
Source: orbit.dtu.dk
Link: https://orbit.dtu.dk/files/274558274/Wind_Energy_2021_Boopathi_Failure_mechanisms_of_wind_turbine_blades_in_India_Climatic_regional_and_seasonal.pdf -
Source: youtube.com
Title: SPACE BOGGARTS
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEB-yVzLhRMSource snippet
The "Windfarm UFO" - analyzed, 3D-recreated and debunked...
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Source: nsenergybusiness.com
Link: https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/newsecotricitys_290_feet_wind_turbine_damaged_with_a_ufo_hit_in_lincolnshire_090108/ -
Source: youtube.com
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4pvi_waLAg -
Source: youtube.com
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbUA3QrW1GI -
Source: youtube.com
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTDn_GtdEzg -
Source: youtube.com
Title: UFO blamed for windfarm damage
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G852v0CnLKcSource snippet
SPACE BOGGARTS - Conisholme Turbine incident...
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Source: reuters.com
Title: britain releases ufo sighting and policy files idUSLNE722051
Link: https://www.reuters.com/article/business/britain-releases-ufo-sighting-and-policy-files-idUSLNE722051/
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