Zeppelin/Hindenburg airship shaped craft sighting in Herts.

Date and time of sighting: 7 April 2026 21:14:00

Sighting Location: Seen from rear garden in Welwyn Garden City, Herts.

Witness written account: I went outside to have a smoke around 21.10hrs and while looking up at the stars I noticed something moving across the sky in a southerly direction my initial thoughts were it looked like an Zeppelin/Hindenburg airship shaped craft it was travelling at a high altitude. I ran back into the house to get my phone and went back outside to try to document the craft I managed to get a short video and a still photo of this sighting. I live on the flightpath of Heathrow/Luton and standstill airports and often see aircraft passing over the house this was not a plane although there was aircraft in the sky at the time. I also often see satellites in the sky this was considerably larger than a satellite - almost like a shadow with faint blueish lights along its length. At the time of the sighting there didn't seem to be any sound.

Number of objects seen: 1

BUFORA Evaluation: Thank you for contacting BUFORA with your sighting report; photograph and video, and thank you very much for your kind donation to our voluntary organisation. Your case has been passed to myself for assessment, and I'd like to offer you my thoughts & findings as to what it may have been that you observed and recorded on that occasion.

Firstly it's difficult to positively identify the object from the video or the stills photo due to there being no real outine shape or surface texture visible even when zoomed in upon, as we then encouter heavy pixelation. But I can see there are two objects in both the video and the stills photo, although due to the video being taken first and then the still photo being taken afterwards, I would expect the 'additional' object in each image not to be the same one?

From the video, I suspect that there is some zooming, panning and camera movement in order to keep the 'main object' that you are concerned with in the center of the shot, and the second 'object' which is 'blinking' and moves across from right to left near the end of the 42 second video is most likely to be a normal commercial airliner - of which you say you "often see aircraft passing over the house", so I expect this is why you do not mention the 'second' object?

With the stills photo, I would say that the object which you are most concerned with is the one top left? And although not really possible to identify from that image looks to potentially be higher and or further away? The object lower right could again be light(s) from a conventional aircraft but again difficult to say for sure from that photo. I would say that you may have concluded the lower one to be a conventional plane and that's why you did not mention it?

Screenshot from the video showing 2 very faint objects.

So what could the 'main object' be? The one described as... "looked like a Zeppelin/Hindenburg airship shaped craft it was travelling at a high altitude". Lets for a moment go with your observation and thoughts that "this was not a plane although there was aircraft in the sky at the time". I checked with an online sky-chart and found that the ISS would not have been visibly passing at that time & date, but there were other space related objects that could have been responsible?

As you can see from the chart below,a "Cosmos 923 Rocket" would have been passing your location at 21:14 on 7th April and is the only object that is reported on that list to be travelling in a NE - SE direction. Just in the interests of completeness I checked Starlink satellites and the best fit would be STARLINK 5074 which also would have been visible at 21:14 on 7^th April travelling NE - SE. They both would have been about the same brightness but the rocket would have been traversing the visible sky for longer (9 mins as opposed to the Starlink's 6 mins) plus I noticed you're familiar with Starlink saying "I also often see satellites in the sky this was considerably larger than a satellite", therefore I feel we can say the Starlink satellite was not the object you refer to.

In summary: After looking at all the available evidence here, although I cannot make a 100% definitive identification, my thoughts are that the Cosmos 923 rocket which would have been visible during the times you observed the object for, and was travelling in the same direction you report, could easily be what it was, and therfore is probably the most likely explanation for the anomalous unidentified object you observed on that occasion.

I do hope that this evaluation has been some help to you?

Kind regards

Mark Easen

BUFORA Investigations.