22/05/2026
PSI Team Leader Says Silent UFO Hovered Over Duckett’s Grove Before Chilling Tent Encounter:
A paranormal investigation at Duckett’s Grove in Ireland took a disturbing turn when the team leader says he witnessed a silent spinning UFO hovering above his group - before waking hours later to footsteps outside his tent inside the locked grounds.
The account comes from the team leader of Paranormal Searchers Ireland (PSI) that had travelled to Duckett’s Grove for one of its regular weekend investigations. Around eight team members were there, along with several supporters and members of Belfast Paranormal Investigators who had joined them for the trip. As they had done on previous visits, the group set up camp in a large shed between the ruined castle and its gardens, using it as a base for sleeping, storing equipment and gathering through the night.
On the first evening, the group split in two. The men went into the castle while the women went into the gardens, with plans to swap over later. Around 20 minutes into the investigation, while the men were inside one of the towers, a message came through on the walkie-talkie. The group in the gardens said they were seeing strange objects in the sky and asked the others to come down.
At first, there was scepticism. But the team left the tower and started making their way back toward the gardens. On the way, the team leader stopped briefly at the camp area to change the batteries in his torch, while the others continued ahead.
He then walked through the dark grounds alone.
As he came through the first garden and approached the second, he could see the rest of the team gathered ahead, all pointing off into the distance. Looking in the same direction, he says he could make out four or five objects far away in the clear night sky, perhaps 30 or 40 miles off, moving at speed and in a way that did not seem normal.
But while the others were focused on those distant objects, the team leader says something else caught his eye.
Looking above the group, he saw what he describes as a large circular craft hanging low in the sky, perhaps 200 to 300 feet above the ground. He says it was big, metallic and clearly structured, with the classic disc-like shape often associated with UFO reports. The underside carried a shade of orange, while the upper section appeared to have fully blacked-out square windows. It had a saucer-like form and seemed to be spinning as it moved.
What shocked him most was the silence.
There was no engine noise, no hum, no roar and no sound of movement at all.
He says the object had no visible lights on top, yet the whole craft was still clearly visible, as though it was illuminated in some other way. Stunned, the team leader shouted to the others, asking why they were all looking into the distance when there was something directly above them.
But by the time they looked up, it was gone.
According to the team leader, the object had vanished completely.
That left him in a deeply uncomfortable position. He was now the only person saying he had seen the close object above the group. His partner believed him, but he says the reaction from others left him uneasy and embarrassed. As the leader of an established paranormal team, and someone who had spent years investigating unexplained activity across Ireland, he felt he was being looked at as though he had imagined the whole thing.
The night continued, but the atmosphere changed.
The distant objects in the sky slowly faded away. The group stayed in the gardens for some time and later returned to continue the investigation in other parts of the castle. But for the team leader, the rest of the night felt wrong. He describes a heavy, dark unease settling over the camp. Other strange lights were reportedly seen around the property, and the group also experienced notable paranormal activity during the hours that followed.
Looking back, the team leader says he did not automatically assume he had seen something extraterrestrial. In fact, for years, he leaned toward a more grounded explanation. He believed the object looked metallic, physical and engineered. His instinct was that it may have been man-made, some kind of advanced craft rather than something involving "little green men."
But what happened later that night made the whole experience much harder to dismiss.
After the team finally settled into their tents, the team leader says he woke in the early morning light and immediately sensed something was wrong. His partner was already awake and staring at him with a look of dread. She raised two fingers in a walking motion to signal that she could hear someone outside.
Then he heard it too.
Footsteps on gravel.
The sound was moving around the right-hand side of the tent near the top of their heads. At first, he assumed one of the others had got up and was moving around outside. But when he whispered that to his partner, she told him she had already checked and that nobody else appeared to be awake.
That was when the situation became more disturbing.
The grounds were locked. The castle was secured. The team leader had the keys. No one should have been able to get in or out.
Then, according to his account, whatever was outside touched the tent.
He immediately jumped up and burst out - but there was nobody there.
For the team leader, that was the moment that changed everything. The UFO sighting had already been sitting at the front of his mind the moment he woke up. He says he felt guilty that nobody else had seen what he saw and uneasy that some people seemed to think he had lost the plot. But with footsteps around the tent and something physically touching it only a few hours later, he was left asking a question he still cannot answer.
If the object in the sky was connected to something beyond normal explanation, could whatever was outside the tent have been linked to it?
That question has stayed with him ever since.
He says that, without the tent incident, he would probably have settled on the idea that the craft was advanced human technology, perhaps American, moving through the Irish sky that night. But because of what happened in the early hours that followed, he says he can no longer say that with confidence.
Now, with UFOs and unexplained aerial phenomena back in the news, the team leader says the time feels right to finally tell the story.
Was it a secret craft? Was it something non-human? Was the thing outside the tent connected to the object in the sky, or was it something else entirely?
He still cannot say for certain.
But one thing has never changed. He went to Duckett’s Grove expecting a paranormal investigation inside a haunted ruin. Instead, he came away with a sighting and a night he has never been able to forget.