MUFON 31642

Unconventional Design Large Aircraft We are retired British nationals resident in Malta (Mediterraneamy) My wife and I were in the company of Maltese friends on our home flat roof top, which overlooks coastal Mellieha Bay. I hasten to add we were not and had not been drinking alcohol, as open minded skeptics we do not follow UFO spotting as a hobby or interest. We had simply gone up to the roof garden to observe the coastline and townscape lights of Mellieha Bay... Date was August 31st, 2011 and the time was approx 0200am. The weather conditions a warm 25 degrees (+/-) celcius & humidity 40% (+/-), there was a welcoming slight sea breeze and it was a clear cloudless star filled night sky. We each saw what at first seemed to be a conventional jet airliner on approach from a North West direction moving over Mellieha Bay and watched as it headed over our house to, we assumed, land at Malta International Airport. The 'aircraft' was moving noticably slower than a conventional jet airliner but we put this down to the fact it could be 'stacking'. Very noticeably was it size, it was massive and easily four times the wing width of a conventional passenger airliner. We thought at first it was the new double deck A380 Air Bus coming in to land and we watched with added interest, but as it approached closer and above us was much bigger and had a non shiny opaque silvery look about it. there were no carrier company emblems to be seen. White/Amber lights were set in pairs at the wing tips (one above the other) and these were quite bright. There was also a single white/amber light at the nose tip and smaller blue/greenish lights at each wing mid section. On the undercarriage a bright light pulsated between bright red and dull orange. The 'aircraft' as it passed above us banked from horizontal wing positon to nearly vertical and turned towards a south east direction, heading towards Saint Paul's Bay area where it 'seemed' to stop for a short time before moving back out to sea (Mediterranean) and disappearing from sight. The sighting from initial observation was approximately fifteen to twenty minutes. Hard to be precise but wing tip to wing tip it was about 200 feet wide and 25 to 30 feet width at widest point. Heighth (+/-) 1000 to 1500 feet up, maybe higher depending on the aircrafts size/dimensions... I'm not saying we saw a 'UFO' or anything unworldly, but it was definitely a weird aircraft, especially with its massive size, no recognisable jet engine noise and strangely arranged navigation lights.... However, on a lighter note...there is the possibly this strange 'aircraft' may have been an oversized illuminated Chinese Lantern or even a new type of Weather Balloon fuelled by Marsh Gas and piloted by a singing dancing monkey from NATO on a reccy of Mediterranean weather anomolies.. Well, thats the sort of hog-wash explanation the so-called 'sensible' PHD boffins would like us to believe !!???