04/07/2012 – Rockingham – Flying Triangle Landing

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report

Author: Dave Hodrien

Release Date: 14/08/2012

Throughout his life, David has been lucky enough to have numerous fascinating UFO sightings, these have included a multiple witness sighting of a large disc-shaped craft by him and a number of child-hood friends, and a sighting of some UFOs at the infamous Rendlesham Forest in 1987. Due to the detail involved, these sightings have been written up in separate reports (See later for links). However this report covers a more recent sighting which was witnessed by David alongside Tim, a long term friend of his.

For reasons of anonymity pseudonyms have been used for some witnesses

Sighting Details

It was around 9.35pm on the evening of 4th July 2012. David had been across Tim’s house for the evening. David had ridden across there on his bike but because he felt tired Tim decided to drive him home with the bike in the back of the car. They were on Cottingham Road. There was low dark cloud covering the sky but it was not raining or windy. Due to the time of year there was still some light in the sky.

The men were talking when out of the blue Tim said “I always thought this would be a good area to see UFOs!” David asked him if he had seen anything lately to which he replied “No, not seen anything for a good few years now.” A moment later he shouted out “What is that?!” David couldn’t initially see what he was looking at so leaned over and peered past him through the driver side window. Off to the right of the car towards the North West he saw a bright white light with a dark elongated shape behind it. Due to the light it was hard to see the shape of the object. It was underneath the low cloud so clearly only a few hundred feet in the air, and appeared to be moving slowly in their direction. David estimates it was moving around 20-30 mph and about 300-400m from their location. At first he assumed it must be a helicopter, but the light on it looked too big and too bright. David believes it was between 80-120 feet in length and 12-15 feet in depth, though this was hard to judge.

Witness drawing of how the UFO initially appeared:

They reached the junction with the Uppingham Road that leads to Rockingham. Usually they would have turned here but David said that if they did that they would lose sight of the object. So instead Tim drove straight over the crossroads onto Corby Road and parked in a lay-by a few hundred feet further on so they could continue to watch it. They both got out of the car.

Aerial map of the sighting location indicating the position where the witnesses parked:

Photograph of the sighting location in the direction the UFO was seen in:

The object was now turning towards Meadbourne, still at very low altitude. It was completely silent. They could now see that it was wedge-shaped. David felt that it was possibly triangular but could not be absolutely certain of this due to the viewing angle. At the front was a bright white light (or cluster of lights). Along the edges were what appeared to be very small coloured lights moving in an anti-clockwise direction at quite a fast speed.

Witness drawing of how the UFO looked after it had turned:

David asked Tim “Do you realise how long that object is? We will see in a minute because if I’m right you will see that distant hill behind the object.” As expected, as it passed in front of the hill the witnesses could see the land behind it, giving them a better estimate of the large size of the object.

The UFO then descended over about a minute until its front point was just obscured by some trees and the lights slowly faded out of sight. From where the men were it appeared to have touched down on the ground. They could just about make out its dark shape at ground level. The back end was still visible sticking out from behind the trees, but it was getting harder and harder to see due to the failing light.

The witnesses decided it was time to go, and left the area making their way back to Kettering. They did not attempt to get nearer to the object as it appeared to have landed in an area of fields without easy access.

Soon afterwards they discussed the sighting together. They both agreed that it was not a mundane object, and also found it extremely odd that it had appeared while they had been discussing UFOs. David discussed the sighting with his work mate and father, both of whom believed him.

Sighting Analysis

This is a very interesting sighting of what could have been a Flying Triangle craft. The colour, estimated shape, apparent size, lack of sound and slow movement of the object would all fit with this possibility. The object was clearly not a conventional aircraft of any kind. Although planes and helicopters can sometimes have a bright white light at the front, the small rotating coloured lights do not fit in with any known navigation lights. The object was moving too slowly to have been an aeroplane, nor would an aeroplane have come in the way that it was seen to do. The shape was incorrect for a helicopter, and due to the low altitude and proximity David says it would have been easily possible to hear the rotor blades, yet it was completely silent.

The possibility that the object was some kind of large electronically lit inflatable cannot be entirely ruled out, but seems quite unlikely. Firstly the object seemed too large for this explanation given the estimated distances. Also the object seemed quite controlled in its movements, it did not change angle or rotate in the sky in the way a drifting inflatable would tend to do.

Flying Triangles have been reported to display a variety of lighting configurations, some more commonly seen than others. I have investigated other cases where Flying Triangles with small coloured lights along their edges have been seen, and others where there has been a bright white light at the front but no lights on the other corners. The witnesses could well have seen one of these craft actually landing on the ground, something which they have rarely been seen to do. There have been other reported incidents where landed FTs have been seen, such as during the well-known incident which occurred in Fyfe, Scotland.

David has had a number of other sightings - a disc-shaped UFO over Kettering on 7th October 1978 and a number of UFO sightings down in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, in August 1988. There are seperate case reports available which cover these incidents.