Space craft flashed light beam over Dundee

At 23:40pm on Thursday 7th August, I was putting the bins out before going to bed when I noticed what initially looked like a jet stream of smoke going over the roof of my neighbours house in a perfect cylinder shape towards the River Tay.

When I traced the smoke towards the sky, I noticed it was coming from an object high up in the sky. I suddenly realised that it wasn't smoke that I was seeing, it was some fog being reflected by a beam of light.

I looked carefully at the object and noticed that it glittered similarly to some large stars but the lights were green, red and yellow and flashing off and on quickly at timed intervals to look like a wave ripple effect. This is what makes me believe it was an aircraft and not a star. It made no sound. A dark semi circular shadow surrounded the lights above and below and the craft looked stationary. It stayed for less than a minute before the lights went off and I lost sight of it.

It was dark so it was difficult to estimate how large the craft was and how high up it was but it was high enough for me to panic at how powerful the light beam was when it was flashed from such a long way off and was still in a perfect 3m diameter cylinder when looking over the roof of my neighbours house and across the street.

I spotted the craft just south east of the North Star when looking up at the sky from my back garden. As I say it would be difficult to predict how high the craft was, but it was at least the height of a typical carrier plane which I see regularly day and night overhead.

I tried to take a picture but my camera was no where near powerful enough to capture anything at that distance in the dark. I then walked to the edge of my garden to see where the beam was heading and it was heading past my street and downwards towards the River Tay about a half mile away.

I have to say that I am often out in the garden having a cigarette at night and enjoy watching the skies and stars. I often get clear skies and can clearly identify well known star patterns like The Plough and also get good views of Aurora (Northern Lights) and other phenomena but I have never seen anything like this before.

I don't believe that I am the only person who would have noticed this incredible sight and would like to hear from anyone else who spotted it. If anyone has any explanation as to any military aircraft matching this description I would be grateful to know and put this to bed as its freaking me out a bit.