Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Originally forwarded by Richard Hall
Release Date: 07/08/2011
Last Updated: 23/01/2025
Sighting Details
Around 1am early on the morning of 10th June 2011, Mikey was on his way back along Darlington Street, East Wigan, Manchester heading towards his home after an evening out. It was a nice clear night with the stars visible above.
As he walked he looked up at what he initially thought was the moon to the North West. He wondered why it was such a deep red colour. He also noticed that it seemed a little darker at the base almost like it was in shadow. It took about 3-5 minutes to reach his home, and it was in sight for the entire walk.
When he got home he put his pet dog on its head and within 5 minutes headed back outside to walk her. It was now that he noticed that what he had seen previously was no longer in the sky. He was extremely puzzled and it then dawned on him that what he had seen must have been an aerial object hovering completely still rather than the moon, which was nowhere to be seen in the sky. At this point the realisation and shock began to sink in.
Mikey was certain it was not hidden behind a cloud as it was a clear night. He started looking around the surrounding area, hoping to see the object again in the sky, but it was gone.
Sighting Analysis
This is an interesting sighting, and one which may have had an unusual explanation. However there are also several mundane possibilities for what was seen. The first of these is that the object actually was the moon. Sometimes when it is at a particular angle in the sky the moon can look red in colour due to both nearby light sources and the pollution in the atmosphere. It tends to usually have this appearance when it is low down in the sky near the horizon. Perhaps in the time it took Mikey to get the dog, it had dropped lower and disappeared out of view behind nearby buildings or vegetation. Or maybe there were some high level clouds in the sky that could not be easily seen, and it had gone behind one of these. This possibility cannot be put out of the question.
The below image from Stellarium smartphone app confirms that the moon was extremely low in the sky and roughly West at the date and time of the incident:
Mikey believed that the object was situated more to the North West, but he may have had his bearings a little off when making this estimation.
If it was not the moon, then perhaps it was a sky lantern hovering quite still in the air. These tend to be a fiery orange until they are almost out. Also Mikey claims it looked the same size as the moon, which seems much too big to have been a lantern. If it was this then it would have to have been pretty close, at which point it would have been quite obvious that it was a floating glowing object, even if he was unaware of what sky lanterns looked like at the time.
Perhaps it was something else, like a spherical shaped hot air balloon. This could have have been internally lit by the burner above the basket giving it a constant glow. However, like sky lanterns, this glow would generally be more amber in colour. Also due to the fact it was the middle of the night, the balloon pilots would have been legally required to hang a flashing warning beacon underneath the basket. This was not observed so I find it unlikely this was the explanation.
If the object was none of the above then I cannot think of anything else mundane which could adequately explain what it was. So perhaps it really was a spherical shaped advanced craft, possibly of ET origin. If so this may have left the area when Mikey went inside the house to get the dog, which is why it was nowhere to be seen when he headed back outside.
At present I feel that the most likely explanation is that the "object" Mikey saw was the moon, just as he initially suspected, and its colour was due to its position in the sky and local street lighting. That said, I will probably never be able to prove this with absolute certainty.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2025
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