15/08/2016 - Smethwick - Silver Shell-Shaped UFO

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report

Author: Ian Jones

Release Date: 02/04/2026

Reported By: Mr Mark Pestridge

The Place: Telford Close, Warley Woods, Smethwick

The Sighting: Occurred on 15th August 2016

Time of Day: From 5.25pm to sunset

Mark contacted BUFOG and reported a sighting he and his family had in August 2016 in the back garden of his home in Smethwick, Warley.

Mark’s Report

The 15th August 2016 was a Monday and they were having a barbecue in their back garden about 5.15pm. It was a bright, sunny day. While the charcoal was heating up, Mark sat in a chair to have a beer and sat facing the house and observing the sky. This is looking towards the south/south-west. By now it was about 5.25pm.

He noticed a sparkling star at high altitude – he initially estimated this as around 30,000ft – the sort of height aircraft fly at.

It seemed to be randomly increasing and decreasing it’s level of brightness. It was also stationary. Their tv aerial is on top of the roof and he estimated that, from the position he was sitting in, the object looked about 2 inches away from it, at a 45-degree angle. See the following photograph, with the object’s position indicated as an orange circle:

Mark called for his wife to come and look at it, and she wondered whether it might be a silver balloon. It wasn’t thought to be a helicopter, because of it’s height.

Mark got out his I-Pad, because he has the Star Walk app on it. This can identify over 200,000 celestial objects in the sky above the horizon – stars, planets, constellations, satellites, meteor showers, comets, asteroids, iridium flares – in real time in a particular location. This object did not show up on the Star Walk database.

Now more curious than ever, Mark went to get his Celestron 76LCM reflector telescope and fitted the 25mm eye-piece. He was able to line it up with the object and with this extra magnification saw 2 sparkling lights side-by-side.

He asked his children if they wanted to look at it through the telescope and they were keen to do that, but this produced a surprise. The object looked different, as a result of the higher magnification it gave. His first child said they saw 3 lights sparkling, the second said they saw 4 lights horizontally, side-by-side. His wife then looked and saw 2 lights vertically. Mark then looked again and saw 3 lights vertically.

Mark then put a second, 9mm eye-piece onto the telescope. With this the object appeared to be rotating, surrounded by what he describes as a heat-distortion effect, like how the air shimmers from a car’s metal surface on a hot summer’s day and thinks perhaps this was an anti-gravity effect.

He estimates it was the size of a conventional aircraft’s cockpit and it resembled the Trimaxion Drone Ship seen in the film Flight of the Navigator (1986). He describes that around it’s underside it had raised, curved edges, similar to an oyster-type ice-cream wafer shell.

He took a picture of it with his wife’s 2013 Nokia phone camera, but couldn’t see anything clearly.

They then had the barbecue, following which Mark had to go out. That was at 6:45pm and the object was still in the same place. The tv aerial is on top of the roof and he estimated that, from where he was sat down, it looked about 2 inches away from the aerial at an angle of 45 degrees. See the photo below, where Mark has put different coloured circles to show the 3 different positions of the object.

Mark was back home by 8pm, went into the garden, and sat in the same chair. He looked up to see whether the object was still there. It was, but it had moved. It was now above a house about 4 doors down – indicated by the red circle. This was approximately 24-26 inches away from it’s first position, relative to the aerial on their house.

He saw it brighten up and dim down, then it disappeared from this second position. Suddenly, within about 2 seconds, he saw it re-appear in a third position – indicated by the green circle. This was a point roughly half-way back toward it’s first-observed position (approximately 12-14 inches). That was the only time Mark saw it move.

It was still brightening and dimming. Then it was disappearing and reappearing, without moving and remained there until the sun set, which was at 8.53pm. Then it was not visible. Mark’s wife also observed this.

Altogether the object was visible for at least 3.5 hours.

After the Sighting

Mark spent some time observing aircraft flying over their house, to see how long they took to cover the same distance as the object had when it moved from it’s first observed position to it’s last one (2 seconds). He then worked out approximately how fast they were travelling, on average. Mark has averaged their time as taking 22-25 seconds to cover this distance. Obviously, such calculations can only be indicative and have no claim to be precise, but clearly the object moved much faster than any aircraft.

Mark estimated that it’s speed was in the region of 6,000 mph.

Discussion

Mark lives about a mile from the centre of Smethwick and 4 miles west of Birmingham.

There had been no rain that day, it was calm, sunny, with temperatures around 24 degrees at 18.00 and 15 degrees at midnight. Cloud cover was 2% at 18.00 and 1% at 9pm. Steady wind conditions were around 13-15 kph all afternoon. So, no lightening- or plasma-related event, was what was seen.

The nearest civilian airports are some distance away from where Mark lives:

• Birmingham International Airport is about 11 miles away, to the East

• Halfpenny Green (Bobbington) airport is about 16 miles to the West

• Coventry airport is about 23 miles away, to the South-East

• East Midlands airport is about 37 miles away, to the North-East

It is not likely that an aircraft going to/from an airport would explain the sighting. Military airports are even further away:

• RAF Cosford is about 20 miles away to the North-West

• RAF Shawbury is about 45 miles to the North-West

• RAF Brize-Norton is about 65 miles to the South

None of these is a likely source of the object, with visibility being about 10 miles all afternoon.

Helicopters do not have the characteristics observed by Mark and his family. They do not hover at such heights for so long, their navigation lights are different colours and blink in a regular pattern.

Some form of balloon or dirigible does not fit the appearance of the object and would not be able to stay stationary for so long, given that there was a constant wind speed of around 13-15 kph all evening, blowing from the South-East.

It does not seem to have been anything astronomical. At 6pm the sun was about 20 degrees above the horizon. Sunset was about 8:31pm. The Moon was nearly full and rose at 6:31pm in the South-East, but it’s highest point was only 20 degrees above the horizon, which it reached at 11pm, so the timing is all wrong and the Moon would have been hidden behind their house during this sighting period.

Given that the sighting happened in the early evening, the sky would not have become very dark until after 9pm when the object disappeared, so stars and other celestial objects would not be easy to see yet. There were no bright planets visible in this section of the sky.

There was the Perseids meteor shower during this part of August, but it was best viewed from 1am through to dawn. Also, meteors move fast in a straight line and leave trails. They are only visible for seconds.

Satellites also move in straight lines and they do not remain stationary, or make horizontal reverse manoeuvres, so rule out, for example, Starlink. The Space Station can appear similar to an airplane or a very bright star moving across the night sky, except it does not have flashing lights or change direction. It probably wouldn’t have been dark enough to see such artificial objects until after 9pm anyway.

Some sort of laser display seems unlikely, because there were few clouds to reflect the light and no laser beam was seen coming up from the ground. Also, as far as I have been able to research, there doesn’t seem to have been any public events in Smethwick, or the wider area, that would have involved a laser display in August 2016.

In the local area, there is some higher land and parks, including Dudley Castle and Wren’s Nest about 5 miles away, but these are all to the North-West of where Mark lives, which is in the opposite direction to where he saw this object.

To the South-East there is Warley Woods Country Park and Golf Course and Lightwoods Park, beyond those is the Hagley Road West (A456). Then there’s Harborne and the University of Birmingham. Harborne Hospital does have a helicopter landing pad, but it wasn’t a helicopter operating to/from there, because it was not seen ascending, or descending and was stationary for too long.

Drones were being used in 2016, but were not as common as they are now. Drones do not reach the sort of height that Mark describes, nor do they remain stationary for so long – several hours in this case. This also rules out police-controlled drones which could have been conducting ground-based searches.

Given that the object was observed behind their house, at a high altitude, nothing related to this landscape would be an explanation of what was seen.

Details of the Observations Made

The object was observed for some time with the naked eye by 4 people.

Then, two of them saw it with the telescope once, with the first lens in.

Mark and his wife saw it through the telescope twice, with the different lenses in.

Note that the 9mm lens is a higher magnification than the 25mm lens.

9mm lens: It gives better details of the image, but the image appears darker, dimmer and more subject to atmospheric turbulence.

25mm lens: Easier to locate objects, because of it’s wider field. Gives a steadier, larger, brighter image, especially on poor seeing nights.

It was a good night for seeing things, so both lenses were good to use.

Mark saw it first as a sparkling star, or silver dot randomly varying in brightness.

With the first eye-piece (25mm) he saw 2 sparkling lights side-by-side.

With the second eye-piece (9mm) he saw a rotating/shimmering, silver-coloured object.

Mark says “Every time my kids saw the three lights and four lights I checked as well and saw the same.”

1st Child -Three sparkling lights side-by-side.

2nd Child - Four sparkling lights side-by-side.

Wife - Saw two vertical sparkling lights on each viewing.

Analysis

The fact that the object was visible for so long in the same part of the sky rules out all conventional, man-made objects and many astronomical objects, such as shooting stars.

It was seen by 4 people independently, with naked eyes so was clearly visible, and then each person also saw it through a telescope. Mark and his wife saw it through telescope lenses of different magnification. Mark also saw it through a mobile phone camera lens.

So, it was likely a solid object, described as having raised curved edges, which was rotating. This caused it to vary in appearance as the sunlight reflected unevenly off the curved edges.

It’s sudden high-speed horizontal movement and reverse manoeuvre, as illustrated in the diagram with 3 circles, is most unusual and defies explanation.

This must be an example of an unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP), unless more information becomes available and helps to decide otherwise.

Historical Sightings In The Area?

Mark did research other reports of sightings in the area. There were several in 2016.

On 8th August 2016 one witness saw a large silent triangular UFO with flashing lights move at a fast speed across the sky. This was reported on the UK UFO website (no longer available)

On 11th / 18th June 2016 at around 10:10pm less than 2 km from Mark's house a large stationary orb which glowed a variety of colours was observed and photographed. This case was previously investigated by Birmingham UFO Group. The case report can be read here.

On 7th September 2015 on Laundry Road several objects were reported making a vertical ascent. The observer stated: “I thought was a Jumbo jet at first, but strangely this object flew straight upwards like a rocket, and with no sound. There were actually 3 of these objects altogether, one after the other, also a aeroplane followed closely afterwards in the other direction.”

In Spring / Summer 1978 a couple sighted a grey disc-shaped craft with a line of multicoloured lights around it. This was again investigated by BUFOG, click here to go to the report.

In June 1964 a formation of grey circular UFOs were observed one afternoon. Click here for the report on this historic incident and other sightings around Smethwick.

A West Midlands Police FOI request, published in October 2024, gave the following information about reports they had received since February 2015. They are brief notes based on phone-calls people have made to the police. No other details, such as contact numbers are included.

December 2016: CALLER REPORTING THAT FOR THE LAST HOUR THERE HAS BEEN A BRIGHT LIGHT HOVERING IN THE SKY AROUND BELOW ROAD AND ABOVE THE TRAIN TRACKS. EVERY SO OFTEN IT WOULD MOVE BACK AND FORTH . NO SOUNDS LIKE ROTORS ETC. Location: Birmingham West

One in Wolverhampton, similar to Mark’s, about a year later:

2017 August THERE IS A BRIGHT WHITE LIGHT AND ITS NOT MOVING HAD THOUGHT IT WAS A PLANE BUT ITS NOT MOVING BEEN THERE FOR AN HOUR- SHE HAS FILMED AND TAKEN PHOTOS OF IT. IS HIGH IN THE SKY. NOT THE MOON. HAD THOUGHT IT WAS A SATELLITE. Location: Wolverhampton

Copyright Ian Jones 2026