HAVING recently returned to Darlington from our honeymoon on Holy Island, Northumberland, my wife, Becky, and I discovered that we had inadvertently caused a town-wide alien invasion “panic” after we set off some Chinese lanterns at our wedding reception on the night of Saturday, April 25.

I would like to apologise to those who feared that UFOs were landing in our fair town after the lantern lights were spotted against the night sky (Echo, April 28).

I would also like to thank the man who promptly assisted my wife with a towel and bottle of water after she threw up – still in her wedding dress – at the side of the road shortly after our wedding service at St Augustine’s Church, Larchfield Street.

We were just going for a quick spin around town in the camper van we’d hired – as the reception was just across the road from the church in St Augustine’s Parish Centre – and we thought we’d get our money’s worth.

It didn’t quite turn out like that. We only got to Swinburne Road before we had to pull up, and that’s where the kind gent helped us out. For Becky, severe nerves and a corsetted dress were to blame.

To be shown such kindness from a complete stranger is, regretfully, perhaps as equally a rare sight as an alien space craft – but they are out there.

Dan McKeown, Darlington.