Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 04/06/2014
For reasons of anonymity pseudonyms have been used
Sighting Details
It was between 9 and 10 pm on the evening of 7th May 2014. Richard was in his house in East Blackley, Manchester with his girlfriend Emma. They were watching TV in the living room. Suddenly something caught Richard’s eye through the window. He got the attention of Emma and they both stared outside. It was a warm clear evening and the sun was just setting, no moon or stars were yet visible in the sky. Travelling from Rochdale Road to Victoria Avenue in an Eastward direction he saw a fast moving white coloured light. It appeared to be within half a mile of his location, and only a couple of hundred feet high. It was also descending as it moved. It was extremely bright but did not have a trail behind it. Richard estimates it was at least 12 foot across but could have been larger.
Aerial map highlighting Rochdale Road (A) and Victoria Avenue (B):
Richard and Emma watched the light for about 25 seconds until it went out of sight in the direction of Charlestown, by which time it was quite low in the sky and looked like it was going to descend to the ground.
Sighting Analysis
White lights are often seen after dark and usually have a mundane explanation. They can often turn out to be distant aircraft, white coloured LED balloons, satellites or shooting stars. However this sighting does sound unusual. As the light was descending as it moved the most likely mundane explanation is that it was a meteorite. But it does sound like it was observed for too long to have been this, meteorites are usually only visible for a brief moment as they cross the sky. Also they usually have a burning trail behind them, yet Richard says this light did not. As the witness states, it appears to have been moving too rapidly to have been a plane or helicopter, and certainly too fast to have been an LED balloon. Richard says that he is well aware of what shooting stars and distant aircraft look like after dark and says that it was definitely something else.
Could the object have descended to the ground somewhere in the Charlestown area? It certainly appeared that it was going to. So far no other reports of this light have been found online so we have no way of knowing if anyone else observed it. If any more information on the mystery light becomes available this report will be updated with the details.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2014