17th September 2023 - Kingswinford - Flashing White Orb Sighting

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report

Author: Ian Jones

Release Date: 06/11/2025

The Sighting: Occurred on Sunday, 17th September 2023

Reporter: Paul Michael Tongs-Richardson

Time of Day: Approximately 9pm

The Place: Greenfields Road, Kingswinford, Birmingham, DY6 8EW

Experience Details

“It was about 9.00pm on a Sunday evening. I had just let my two dogs out and while I was waiting for them I noticed a pulsing light in the sky. At first I thought it was a drone or helicopter. I realised after about a minute it wasn't moving. There was no noise that I could hear coming from it but it was quite a distance away.

As you look from my viewpoint in Kingswinford the light was in a north east direction. There is a lot of air traffic from Birmingham airport that go over our house and also light planes and helicopters from nearby Bobbington (Wolverhampton) airport.

After watching it for a couple of minutes I thought 'I need to film this', grabbed my phone and managed to film 3 x 30 second videos. The light didn't move or fly off in any direction it just seemed to vanish in a few seconds. I would say the whole event was about ten minutes but its hard to say.

I am sure that there is a reasonable explanation to the light. I do have an interest in UFO's and the paranormal, that's why its taken me a couple of years to come forward as I have always thought that people would think I am desperate for a sighting and would claim anything is a contact experience. I won't be upset if you have a rational explanation but it would be good to hear your view on the footage.”

I asked Paul for some more details about what he had seen and he responded:

Q1: When you saw it with your own eyes, did it look the same as in the video? Were there any differences at all in how it looked?

"No difference at all as I remember. It was very odd, no noise at all. It was a really quiet Sunday evening. Like I stated I am familiar with the Birmingham airport traffic and it definitely wasn't a plane. At first I thought a drone but it seemed to high."

Q2: If you extended your arm out in front of you was it as big as your thumbnail, for example, or a 5p coin, etc?

"A 5p coin."

Q3: What was it's approximate elevation in the sky - if vertically above you is 90 degrees, where was it?

"From my standing if vertically above is 90 degrees I estimate it to be 70 degrees."

The Video Footage

Below are the three videos which Paul managed to film:

Below is a cropped still of the orb:

The videos show a distant, pulsating white blob. It is not possible to make out a shape behind the light. It is impossible to work out how far away it is and therefore also how big it might be.

Location Information

Kingswinford is a town of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley on the edge of the West Midlands. It is 21 miles (34km) north-west of Birmingham and 5 miles (8 km) west-southwest of central Dudley. It’s also about 8 miles(13km) south-south-east of Wolverhampton.

Paul’s house is indicated by the large X-shape in the bottom left of the map below:

He reports that he saw the light in the north-east direction, which would be looking roughly towards where the WHITE SUN symbol is positioned. Further on in that direction there is a large green open area. It includes Kingswinford Community Centre, the 2488 Kingswinford Squadron ATC (Air Training Corps) and a football pitch, surrounded by trees. The community centre is about 400m (about a quarter of a mile) away. It closes at 17.00 each day, so it is unlikely there would have been any activity at around 21.00 on that Sunday.

I checked when the ATC has it’s meetings, which are only on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 19.30 to 21.30, which rules anything they might have been doing.

Beyond that area, in the same direction but on the other side of the High Street (A4101), is King George VI Park, about 800m (about half a mile) away, which is also a large green open area.

Himley Hall and Park is about 3miles (5km) away. In the far distance is Beacon Hill, which is 237m (780ft) high. There is a helicopter pad on Russell’s Hall Hospital roof, but that’s more to the east of where Paul reported seeing the light.

Observation conditions for Sunday 17th September 2023, from about 20.30 to 21.30. Sunset was at 19.11 that day and the moon had dipped below the horizon before 20.00. Therefore, it was dark at the time of Paul’s sighting. There were no other particular astronomical events that night.

The nearest weather stations, with historic weather data records available for Kingswinford, are Wolverhampton and Birmingham. Timeanddate, for Wolverhampton, has the following data about when Paul saw this light:

• The temperature at about 21.00 was 16*C.

• There had been light rain before about 19.00, which had ceased.

• At around 21.00 there was passing cloud, but not at low levels.

• Wind speed was 10-11 kph (6-7mph) from the south-east

Weatherspark has more data for Birmingham about cloud conditions:

• Around 21.00 cloud cover up to 488m (1,600ft) was mostly clear, at 671m (2,200ft) it was partly cloudy and at 823m (2,700ft) it was mostly cloudy.

• Wind speed at 10m (32ft) was 4kph (2.5mph) and at 100m (330ft) was 6-7kph (4mph).

• Visibility was about 8-9km (over 5miles).

Together, these readings agree that there was hardly any cloud cover at lower levels in the area and it was a calm night, with no strong winds and good visibility.

Experience Analysis

Aircraft have red and green and white pulsing lights and do not stay stationary in the sky.

The closest large civilian airports are Birmingham Airport 18 miles (29km) to the east, East Midlands Airport is 42 miles (67km) to the north-east and Nottingham Airport 54 miles (86km) to the north-east. Each of these major airports is too far away to be linked to this sighting.

The much smaller and nearer civilian airport is Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green Airport, which is in Bobbington, near Stourbridge, West Midlands. This is about 5 miles (8km) to the north-west of where Paul’s house is in Kingswinford, which it is in the wrong direction from where his sighting was. There are 4 flying schools, a helicopter operator/school, a microlight school and resident aircraft located there.

In September, Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green Airport operates under summer hours: 0900 to 1800 GMT. Any flights outside these hours require Prior Permission (PPR) from Air Traffic Service (ATS), and that must be arranged during those normal hours. There is little activity outside the times when the airport is open – known as after-hours flying – and requires a special permit. So, these activities were not happening. The one possible exception is that the Police Helicopter may still operate at any time to the airfield.

The closest military airports are RAF Cosford 12 miles to the north-west, RAF Shawbury 40 miles to the north-west, RAF Brize Norton 57 miles to the south-east and RAF Syerston 80 miles to the north-east. Each of these airports is too far away, and/or in the wrong direction, to be linked to this sighting. There are no other air defence radar sights, etc, nearby.

Helicopters are noisy, even at a distance, especially in calm air conditions, so Paul would have expected to hear one. Also, they have green and red pulsing lights. Gliders don’t fly at night, have no lights and it wasn’t windy enough to keep one stationary for nearly 10 minutes. Balloons are not self-illuminating, with pulsing lights. It is difficult to see what type of event would include the sort of individual light described here. It didn’t look like a laser light.

Inevitably, the possibility that it was a drone needs to be considered, because these are used a lot, for all sorts of reasons, legally by commercial organisations and hobbyists and illegally by some hobbyists and “bad/foreign actors”.

Drones must not be flown within restricted airspace, such as near airports, military bases, prisons, royal palaces or nuclear facilities, without permission. For example, Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green Airport has a permanent Flight Restriction Zone (FRZ) around it as shown below:

This zone applies primarily to drones and other small, unmanned vehicles (SUVs), but it reflects broader airspace protections around the airport. The FRZ around Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green Airport is defined as follows: Circular Zone: A 2 nautical mile (3.7 km) radius centred on the airfield, extending up to 2000 feet above ground level (AGL). Runway Protection Zone: A 5 km (2.7 nautical miles) long by 1 km (0.5 nautical miles) wide corridor along the extended centreline of each runway, also extending up to 2000 feet AGL. The FRZ is always active, regardless of time or day.

Drone Operations within the FRZ, as noted by Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green Airport: You must obtain permission from the airport’s Air Traffic Control (ATC) or Flight Information Service Officer (FISO) to fly any drone within the FRZ. This includes all drones, regardless of weight, size, or purpose. Flying within the FRZ without permission is illegal under UK aviation law (CAP393) and may result in prosecution.

Kingswinford is well-outside of the FRZ for it’s local airport. Given all the above information, it is not likely that a drone was associated with the nearest airport to Paul’s viewing point. However, outside of the FRZ could someone have been operating a drone?

The weather conditions were good for someone flying drones that night. The basic Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regulations for flying drones include:

• Night drone flights are permitted in the UK with no specific time-based prohibitions

• Visual line of sight must be maintained and no flying above 400ft.

• Drones must be equipped with lights visible from at least 3 miles (5km). It is mandatory to have a steady GREEN light.

• Avoid flying over people, or congested areas

• Commercial operators need explicit CAA authorization for night operations

• All standard drone restrictions and no-fly zones still apply during drone night flights

In addition to these regulations, some drones use red or white flashing lights to help pilots distinguish front from back, particularly at night and during complex manoeuvres. White flashing lights are also commonly used to increase visibility to other airspace users, especially in low-light or congested environments, and both of those factors apply here. Visual Line of Sight is actually somewhere between 500m and 2km at night.

Many night-time drone flights are suspected covert surveillance near sensitive sites like RAF bases and US airbases. That does not seem to apply here, because there are none locally. Some drones may be used by foreign actors for espionage or intelligence gathering over military and critical civil infrastructure. Not sure how likely that might be in this area – what critical civil infrastructure is there? Probably a lot! Civilian hobbyists and legal operators also contribute to night-time drone activity, sometimes causing misidentification and public alarm. This cannot be ruled out completely in this case. Drones can be fitted with cameras and it is a popular reason for flying them.

I have not found any other local reports on that day, or for a few days before/after it. If it had been a larger object, seen by Paul from a long way off, it might have been seen by more people. If it was a smaller object, seen close up to Paul, there is less likelihood of anyone else seeing it, because it would be less noticeable.

Other Sightings

There was only one other UFO sighting I have discovered that was reported on the same date and around the same time - 17 September 2023 at around 8.45pm – a long way away in Birtley, Tyne and Wear. The report doesn’t include that it was a flashing white light, or how big it was.

Conditions: Overcast night

Description: A bright light was observed moving very fast beneath the cloud layer. The object was visible for about 20 seconds. It made no sound, and the witness stated it could not have been a fast jet. The light was lost behind tree cover, appearing slightly lower than 3-meter-high trees from the observer’s perspective. The witness noted this was the second time they had seen a similar object, with the first sighting occurring about a month earlier.

Summary

1. It was a small, flashing, white light at an indeterminate distance, but probably less than 2km (1.25miles) These are the most difficult to analyse, because there is no way to extract more details from the images on the videos.

2. One point against it being a drone is that it should have had a steady, green light visible. The white, pulsing, light could have been located on the front of the drone, so that the pilot could see the front of the drone and control it’s direction of flight better. If that was the case and the drone was pointing towards Paul, perhaps the flashing white light was obscuring the green one?

3. It hovered for around 10 minutes. Many drones have cameras fitted and are used to take pictures, or videos, of the ground below. This could need some slow manoeuvres, including hovering, to be carried out. Also, from Paul’s perspective the light could have been moving, slowly, in a straight line towards, or away from him, and it would have been hard to see that. There are plenty of open spaces in the direction Paul saw this light for someone to be flying a drone.

4. It disappeared suddenly. Battery life in drones varies, but could be a factor here, especially as it was using a bright strobe light. It may have drained power and had to descend suddenly, or it was obscured by going behind a tree, or building, etc.

Conclusion

If it wasn’t a drone, then I don’t see how any other, rational explanation, could apply. So, it was most likely a drone, but it’s impossible to rule it out as an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon (UAP). That’s the conclusion I have come to, based on the information available.

If anyone has information about this sighting, please do contact BUFOG, because I’d be happy to revisit the case and update it.

Copyright Ian Jones 2025