12/11/2018 – St Austell – Glowing UFO Photographs

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report

Author: Dave Hodrien

Release Date: 14/10/2021

Elaine got in touch with me in late September 2021 to discuss a sighting she had recently had while on holiday in Corfu. When we discussed this incident she also mentioned she had also had a previous sighting back in 2018 at her home town St Austell, Cornwall, during which she had managed to photograph the object in question. This report covers this experience in depth and includes analysis of the photographs.

Sighting Details

Elaine is a nurse and wakes up early most days for early morning shifts. On the morning of 12th November 2018 she was walking to her car which was parked on Chough Crescent. It was just before 7am and a pleasant still morning with only light cloud. Due to the time of morning there was nobody else around.

As she walked along Mitchell Road, she looked up into the sky to the South East saw what appeared to be an highly reflective object, which was reflecting the early morning sunlight. She grabbed her smartphone and took a photograph of it, before continuing to walk along the road, keeping her eye on it as she did. The object seemed to be slowly moving to the East.

She turned the corner into Chough Crescent, walked a short distance along it and crossed the road to the lay-by where her car was parked. Here she took a second photograph of the object.

She continued to watch it for a short moment but then had to get into her car and head off to work.

Photographic Analysis

Below is the first photograph Elaine took at 6.54am, with the object ringed:

Zoomed view of the object:

Zoomed view with edge find:

I managed to locate the position the photograph was taken at using Google street view:

Using the positioning of the house roofs it possible to confirm that Elaine was looking slightly Eastward of South East when she took the photograph:

A minute later Elaine had walked around the corner onto Chough Crescent and arrived at the lay-by. Here is the second photograph that she took:

Again using Google Street View I was able to confirm the rough position she was at and direction she was facing:

It can be seen from the clouds in both photographs that the object is in the same area of sky. The clouds have moved a bit, but this could be because of natural drift in the time between the photos, in addition to the different positions she was at.

Although the object appeared to be silver colured and highly reflective to the witness, on the two photographs it appears to be a bright point of white light. In checking the online planetarium on the In The Sky website it is possible to see the positioning of the stars and planets at the precise location and time when the photographs were taken. As you can see from the below, Venus was in the same direction as the photographs were taken, slightly East of South East, and it’s elevation also seems to correspond with the object:

This was further confirmed using the Stellarium mobile phone app:

Venus is the brightest planet in the sky, and is often still visible in early morning hours, after most of the other stars have vanished. I feel it is extremely likely that the two photographs Elaine has taken are of Venus. Elaine says that the object appeared to be moving, however this movement may have been an illusion due to the fact that she was walking along as she looked at it. She only stopped briefly to take the photographs, and perhaps did not realise that it was in fact stationary.

It seems far too coincidental that the point of light is at the same position in the sky as Venus was at that particular time. I am quite convinced that this explanation adequately explains the sighting and photographs taken. When I spoke with the witness she agreed with this explanation.

As mentioned at the start of the report, Elaine has had another interesting sighting of a red orb of light while on holiday in Corfu in September 2021. Click here to go to the report on this incident.

Copyright Dave Hodrien 2021