Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 17/04/2014
For reasons of anonymity pseudonyms have been used
Introduction
Jack now lives down in London, but grew up living at various properties at Rio De Janeiro in Brazil. Since his childhood he has had a number of interesting sightings of unidentified objects in the sky. This report covers each of his sightings before drawing final conclusions.
Fiery Black Sphere
One evening in 1975 when Jack was 6 years old he was in the back of his mother’s car. It was about 7pm and they were driving in the centre of Rio De Janeiro. Jack was looking out of the rear right window. It was a clear evening with very little cloud in the sky. They were in front of Rio Sul shop when he suddenly saw a black spherical object covered in fire, with a fiery trail behind it. He estimates it was about 1500m high, definitely within the atmosphere. It was at a far distance and flew across the sky horizontally at a very fast speed in the direction of the ocean. Due to the speed he only observed it for a fraction of a second.
He immediately told his mother, saying “Look mum, I just saw a meteor or a UFO.” His mother responded “Jack I’m driving. Besides those things do not exist!”
Looking back at the incident Jack believes the object may well have been an optical illusion in the car window, but he has informed me of it anyway for interest. I would agree that the UFO could have been down to a reflection, but find it more likely that it was a meteorite crossing the sky. This may have looked more impressive to Jack than it actually was due to his young age.
Three Distant UFOs
The following year Jack was lying on his bed round his grandparent’s house in Botafogo, in front of Baia Do Flamengo. It was night time and he was still awake, looking out of the window. It was between 1-2am, and a warm, clear night with the stars visible. Jack noticed several distant objects in the sky. They were on the far side of Guanabara Bay. The objects were moving then stopping for periods of time. They would move independently and were going up and down as well as left and right in the sky. Sometimes they would vanish from view off the edge of the window, and then come back into view after a short while. They continued to perform these manoeuvres for half an hour.
Aerial map of Botafogo (A) and Guanabara Bay (B):
At first Jack thought they may be helicopters. However they seemed too high altitude for this, and there did not seem to be any purpose for them to perform these flight patterns for such a long period of time. They also seemed to move faster than helicopters would fly at. Jack says that the Brazilian military did not have many helicopters back then, and he does not believe they would have spared this many for so long to perform a nocturnal exercise. While I would agree that the manoeuvres seemed unusual I do not feel that helicopters can be completely ruled out.
Due to his age he did not have a camera at the time, and did not want to wake his grandparents in case they were angry with him. After watching for about half an hour he thinks he must have fallen off to sleep. The following morning he told his family but they did not listen so he soon forgot about the incident.
Glowing Orb
A year later in 1977 Jack had another UFO sighting. At the time he was living in a house in Barra Da Tijuca, close to a hill known as Pedra Da Gavea.
Aerial map showing Barra Da Tijuca (A) and Pedra Da Gavea (B):
Photograph of Pedra Da Gavea from ground level:
During one night he woke up for no apparent reason at around 3am. He doesn’t know why but he pulled back the curtains, opened his bedroom window and looked outside. Up in the sky in the direction of Itanhanga to the North East alongside the hill was a glowing white orb. It was much brighter than the stars in the background and was moving slightly in the air, floating back and forth gradually. It was quite high up, Jack estimates about 800 metres, and was at an angle of about 39 degrees from his location.
Jack observed the object for about half an hour. He feels that it was much too bright to be a distant helicopter. He did not call his parents as they would have just dismissed it as a balloon or something similar. He did wonder if it could have been some kind of atmospheric phenomenon. However earth lights do not last for long periods of time and do not usually appear over urban areas, so I feel this can be discounted.
The “Ghost Aeroplane”
By 1993 Jack was living in a house on the top of a mountain near Cruzerio, Sau Paulo, which he informs me is known as a UFO hot spot. This location afforded him a fantastic view of the sky and surrounding land.
Around 9pm one evening he was standing outside admiring the view. It was a clear evening with only high level cloud. He suddenly noticed an object moving in his direction. It had a red light and a flashing white light characteristic with an aircraft, but it seemed to be much too low down in the sky, only 75 metres above the top of the mountain. It was also completely silent as far as he could tell. Jack was surprised to see it, as it was not a normal flight path for aircraft to take.
The object was moving in his direction. It got to about 500 metres from his location when suddenly without warning it turned 180 degrees in a very tight arc and began moving away from him. The whole scenario was quite eerie to Jack so he did not keep watch too much longer. He just told himself it was a plane and went back indoors. But looking back at the incident he feels there was a lot that was wrong with it.
Return Of The White Orb
The following year after the incident with the “ghost aeroplane”, Jack had another sighting of an unidentified glowing white orb. He thinks it took place in March but cannot be certain. It was about 9.30pm when he happened to look to the North. Roughly 2km away in the direction of Varginha he saw a brightly glowing white light hanging in the sky, much too bright to be a star. It looked very similar to the one he had seen back in 1977.
Jack watched the object for about 30 minutes. It appeared to be hovering motionless. After this time he actively chose to stop looking at it. He did not have a camera on him at the time so did not take any photographs. As noted by Jack, the village of Varginha over which the object seemed to be hovering is where a very impressive incident involving a UFO crash and retrieval of live ETs is said to have taken place in 1996.
While it may be very easy to dismiss Jack’s sighting as simply a star, he lived at that location for a number of years, so surely he would be used to how the stars looked at that altitude and would be aware of the locations in the sky of the brightest stars. Yet he is certain that this was something else within the atmosphere.
Moving Light
Just as with his initial 3 sightings, Jack had 3 further sightings on consecutive years in the early 90s. This is likely just down to coincidence. In April 1995 he had arguably his most impressive sighting yet. He was on his way back home one evening and walking up the road that led to his house. He looked to the North and noticed what he first assumed was a star in the sky. It was a little brighter than how stars would normally appear. He estimates it was about 6km away and around 1500 metres high. However he then noticed that the star appeared to be slightly oscillating in the sky. A voice inside his mind told him “Look, this is important.”
Suddenly without warning the light shot right across the sky, abruptly stopped for 1 second, then returned to the position it had been at! It moved extremely fast, much faster than a plane would be able to fly at. Jack estimates it had travelled about 50km. He was immediately convinced that this was something highly unusual. The object then seemed to produce a fog of some kind around itself before vanishing, either disappearing from the location it was at, or flying away extremely fast, it was hard to tell which. In total the sighting had lasted for about 20 seconds.
Looking back at the incident Jack feels certain that the object was showing itself to him on purpose, perhaps indicating that he was being observed. At the time he attributed the voice in his head to himself, but now thinks that some kind of telepathic communication took place.
Conclusion
Jack has had some interesting sightings over the years. Although some of them could certainly be down to misidentification of mundane objects, others such as his 1995 sighting have more impressive aspects to them which suggest a more unusual explanation. Due to the number of sightings he has had, Jack suspected he may be a contactee. I put him in touch with a regressive hypnotherapist in London who regressed him on two occasions to try and find out further details about his experiences. Although he did come back with some interesting memories and feelings, there was nothing definite enough to suggest he had been abducted or contacted by ETs. If Jack has any further sightings and decides to stay in touch they may be added to this report.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2014