Late Autumn-Early Winter 2023 & 18/07/2024 – Spennells, Kidderminster – White Orb Sightings
Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Year: 2024
Last Updated: 13/10/2026
On Saturday 20th July 2024 a man got in touch via our website’s sighting report form to inform BUFOG that his wife Jo had experienced a UFO following along after the International Space Station on the Thursday night, and also had another sighting the previous year. I got in touch with her via telephone to discuss both incidents in depth.
Late Autumn/Early Winter 2023 – Duplicating White Orb
At around 11pm one evening in late Autumn or early Winter 2023 Jo went into the back garden of her house on Chaffinch Drive to watch the ISS pass overhead. She did not have her smartphone on her as she watches the ISS regularly and had no interest in filming it. It was a very clear but cool night. Her husband had already gone to bed as he had to wake up early for work.
The ISS always comes from the West, but she briefly looked round to the stars in the East of the sky. When she did she noticed what appeared to be a satellite travelling from the South on a Northern course. It was just a white orb of light moving on a straight course. She watched it for about 6 seconds by which point it was almost over the house.
Suddenly the orb appeared to briefly stop. It then seemed to split into two! One of the orbs continued on the same path to the North. The other began heading back to the South on the exact route that it had previously travelled!
Jo thought this was a bizarre sighting. She had never seen two satellites at the same time in close proximity and it appeared that one had emerged from the other. She told her husband about what she’d seen the following day.
While it is tempting to assume that the object was not a satellite but instead something else, the apparent split of the object is what makes this sighting intriguing. Satellites are not always visible when they cross the sky, but can suddenly appear to appear or disappear. This happens when they rotate into a position where they either start or stop brightly reflecting the sun’s rays.
However unlikely it may sound, it is possible that the object was indeed a satellite, and that there was a second satellite travelling the opposite direction which happened to cross paths with it. This could have been at a non-reflective angle but rotated just as it went past the initially observed one, making it look like it had emerged out of it. Perhaps this situation also resulted in an optical illusion that the initial object had halted briefly. I feel that this is most likely what was observed, but obviously this is just a theory.
18/07/2024 – White Orb Following ISS
On Thursday 18th July 2024 at 11:39pm she was once again out in the back garden to spot the station. It was a relatively clear and pleasant night with only light cloud and plenty of stars visible. The moon was bright and almost full in the sky.
After checking out the moon for a couple of minutes she turned her attention to the stars and waited for the ISS to show itself. Exactly on schedule it appeared to the West, travelling Eastward. However a few seconds later Jo realised that there was a second orb of white light following along after it. This second orb was about the same size but a little dimmer in brightness. It appeared to be out of orbit and trailing the ISS.
She watched it for about 10 seconds as it matched the speed and direction of the station. Then suddenly without warning it reversed in direction and shot away like a bullet, disappearing in just a second! Jo could barely believe what she had just seen. She headed back inside and said to her husband “I’ve just seen something weird!”
This is a stunning sighting due to the manoeuvre the orb was seen to perform. It is unknown whether it truly was out in orbit following along after the ISS or whether it was actually in the atmosphere but happened to be initially travelling the same speed and direction.
The below response from Google AI confirms that the ISS was indeed over the UK at 11:39pm on 18th July:
If the orb had not suddenly changed direction and shot away at incredible speed I would have possibly suggested that it may have been a distant aircraft or white coloured LED balloon. However neither of these are capable of performing the instant change in direction and massive increase in velocity observed.
The only explanation which cannot be entirely ruled out is that of a drone with white lights, distant enough to be silent and for all the lights to bleed into one. However, the speed of acceleration which Jo reports sounds too quick even for that, with the object disappearing into the distance in just a second. Therefore, this remains a truly mysterious sighting of a possible advanced craft of some kind.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2026
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