Perhaps the fame of Scottish New Year celebrations has spread to other planets!

Wick (Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Ùige) is a town in Caithness (Gallaibh), in the far north of Scotland. In common with other parts of the country, many in the town stayed awake to welcome in the New Year.  One being Charlie Williamson, who had gone out of the door of his house after the bells sounded at midnight. It was then that he saw a strange light overhead. He is convinced he spotted a UFO and apparently he wasn’t the only one to witness the phenomenon.   “It was like a very large circle with lights. It also had windows in it, kind of like square portholes,” he said.  He estimates the UFO was about 500ft above his head, larger than a car and made no sound. He took photos and video on his smartphone, although says that the quality is not as good as he would have liked, but that he and his family had a clear sight of the object. Afterwards he posted a video of his sighting online. His video can be seen at https://youtu.be/34xdHBiq8tk . Suggestions that the object might have been a drone have been dismissed, given the windy conditions that night  precluding a drone from flying.  It has been reported that 46mph (gale force eight) gusts were blowing during the period the UFO was witnessed. The UFO remained hovering for nearly three hours.

Wick and Caithness is not new to alien interventions, although perhaps not from other worlds! It was home to the Celtic Pictish peoples, although had some Celtic Goidelic influence from the Celtic Church. Then the Vikings arrived, probably in the 10th century, followed by further Norse settlement. There was a mixing and integration between Celtic and Norse peoples, as witnessed in some other parts of Scotland. Many of the names of places in Caithness are Norse in origin. Indeed the Caith part of the name Caithness comes from the name of a Celtic Pictish tribe known as the Cat, Catt people or Catti. The -ness element comes from Old Norse and means "headland".