Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 28/07/2022
On 16th May a man named Simon Barnes from Reddich got in touch via the sighting report form on the BUFOG website to confirm that he had just witnessed something unusual. I rang him back soon afterwards to go over what took place.
Sighting Details
It was around 9pm, and due to the time of year just starting to get dark. It was a clear and still evening, but the stars were not yet visible in the sky. Simon was sitting on the step of the back door to his house on Rushock Close smoking a cigarette. He shares the house with others, who were inside at the time.
The back garden of the property faces to the South East. Between the end of the garden and Woodrow Drive there are a number of tall trees blocking most of the view. However there is a gap of around 10 metres between two of the trees through which an area of sky can be seen.
Suddenly without warning Simon saw a glowing cigar shaped object appear at the right of this gap. It was glowing bright white with a greenish tinge. It appeared to be low down, about the height of a helicopter and certainly within the atmosphere. The object shot across the gap to the left extremely fast on a straight course to the North East, and was very quickly lost from sight.
Simon was intrigued by what he had just witnessed. However he thought that given the speed the object had been moving there would be no point in walking down the garden or elsewhere to see if he could catch sight of it again.
Sighting Analysis
This is a brief yet intriguing sighting. The object was moving much too rapidly for it to have been an aircraft or helicopter. Flight Radar 24 confirms there were no tracked aircraft in the area at the time:
360 Radar confirms that the area lies within controlled airspace but does not lie within any airways, which reduce the possibility of the object being an untracked aircraft:
Due to the speed other explanations such as an LED balloon or other inflatable, distant satellite or the ISS can also be discounted. The horizontal path of the object does not really fit with it being a firework of some kind, as they would generally launch vertically into the sky.
However there are other possibilities which could be more plausible. The object may have been a meteorite crossing the sky. Meteorites generally fall on a descending arc, however the gap in the trees was not particularly large, so it could be conceivable for one to appear to be travelling on a level horizontal course. Another possibility is that the object was a drone with white/green lights on which was briefly glimpsed flying across the gap. Perhaps due to the speed the shape and individual lights of the drone blurred into one, making it appear like a glowing cigar shape.
We are unlikely to ever know for certain what the object was, so it technically remains an unexplained flying object. However as there are a number of mundane explanations which could fit what was observed, it is likely that one of these which was witnessed rather than something more unusual.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2022