2001 - Hayle – Orange Orbs Sighting

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report

Author: Dave Hodrien

Release Year: 2024

Last Updated: 13/10/2026

In September 2024 I reached out to a lady named Donna Marie Welham, who is the administrator of the Facebook community page “Post Apocalyptic, UFO, Cyborg, Bigfoot, Conspiracies, Angels, Cryptids etc”. She had mentioned a UFO sighting she had experienced, and I felt it would be good to get it down on official record.

The following month we spoke via video call about the sighting. Donna also mentioned a childhood sighting of a canine-like being, which I have created a separate report for here.

Sighting Details

One early evening in 2001 Donna’s ex-partner had driven over her house to pick up their son. He was on the front drive when he suddenly shouted “Come and look at this!” Donna headed outside to see what he was making a fuss about. It was a clear, dry and mild evening.

Further along the lane around 10 feet above the tree tops she could see two large orange coloured glowing orbs. They were stationary and positioned almost level with one another. She thought to herself “Oh my god, what are these?” 

After staring at them for almost a minute Donna ran inside and got her father to come and see. He made his way outside. By the time he got out there one of the orbs had apparently disappeared. Donna believes he may have seen the second orb also vanish. He returned inside and suggested that they may have been flares.

Donna says that the orbs looked much too large to be flares. She is also familiar with how sky lanterns look and said they appeared different to these too. The incident occurred many years before drones were commercially available, so this can be ruled out as a explanation.

Sighting Analysis

Sometimes when aeroplanes are flying directly towards/away they can appear to be motionless. However, the objects were observed long enough for this not to have been the case, some movement would likely have been detected.

While helicopters can of course hover, they have white, red and green navigation lights, not orange, so again can be ruled out:

The incident happened over a decade before drones were commercially available so this too was clearly not what was seen. However, the orbs Donna, her father and ex-partner saw did not perform any advanced manoeuvres, so sky lanterns, other lit inflatables or flares cannot be ruled out, despite Donna stating that they appeared too large for this. Sometimes brightly glowing objects can appear larger than they in fact are, especially after dark with no point of reference. It is of course impossible to prove this, so the chance that they were something more unusual does remain.

Copyright Dave Hodrien 2026