The sighting is witnessed by Thomas and Kate Marriott, Mathieu Vasseur and independently by Malcolm Rice on 4th January 1986 at around 6.15 pm. Devon’s own Area 51 cannot be likened to the secret military facility in US Nevada desert nor is it a tourist attraction for UFO followers. The 1947 Roswell air crash and U-2 spy plane development of the 1950s around Area 51 is when the United States Air Force coined the phrase Unidentified Flying Object and captured imagination.