Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 11/08/2011
This report covers three UFO sightings over Bartley Green all experienced by the same witness, a lady named Sinead. She got in touch with me after coming across my contact details on the UK UFO Sightings website.
2010 - Black Disc UFO Sighting
It was a clear and sunny day back in 2010. Sinead was sitting at the bedroom window of her house in Bartley Green and having a cigarette. There is a nice view of the surrounding area from the window so she was just looking out at the clear blue sky. There were no planes or helicopters visible, just a few birds flying between the gardens.
Her cat came into the bedroom and approached her ankles. Sinead bent down and stroked her for about 5 seconds. When she looked back up she noticed there was now an object hovering in the sky. She blinked and squinted to make sure she wasn’t seeing things but the object remained visible. At first it looked like a thick black line, about four metres in length. It didn’t look like it was very far away, but the exact distance was hard to accurately judge. It was completely stationary, which made it look very un-natural.
She continued to watch the object. After about 40 seconds it began to tilt forward. At this point it became clear that it was not cigar shaped but was a flattened disc. It continued to tilt on its axis for a number of seconds then suddenly halted again. It remained in that position for about 30 seconds. Then it began to slowly move away, heading off into the distance. This continued until it was just a spec and vanished from sight.
Sinead was amazed at what she had just witnessed. She sat at the window ledge for about half an hour trying to come to terms with it. She found it very creepy, the way in which it had just suddenly appeared there and then sat there completely still and silent.
She looked around on the internet to try and find something which looked similar to what she had seen. The best match she found was in the video where the two jets chase down a UFO over the M5 motorway. This video is widely regarded to be a hoax, but the object shown in it looked the same as what she had seen.
This is an intriguing sighting. I find it very interesting that the object suddenly appeared within the space of 5 seconds. This supports the idea that it was something very unusual, as it was a clear day so surely Sinead would have seen the object move up to that position. If it had retained the appearance of a thick black line and had not tilted I would have suggested that it was a solar airship. These are long black cylindrical inflatables that lift up into the air when the air inside them heats up in the sun. It was a bright and clear day so this would be ideal weather conditions to launch one of these. However according to the witness the object was disc shaped and only appeared as a line initially when viewed directly from the side.
There is the possibility that it was some kind of inflatable or blimp which had become un-tethered. However if it was, more random drifting movements would have been expected rather than the structured manoeuvres that the object seemed to perform. As Sinead did not see the object appear out of nowhere, suddenly vanish or move at a very fast speed this cannot be put out of the question, but it seems a little unlikely.
Some of the aspects of this sighting are very interesting and suggest that the object may have been something out of the ordinary, perhaps this was a daylight sighting of a genuine disc-shaped craft.
2010 - Orange Orbs Sighting
Later in 2010 Sinead had a sighting of a number of glowing orange orbs. Once again she was at her house. It was evening time when she spotted the orbs out of the window. First of all she spotted five of them that were in a perfect pentagon shape. Each orb was glowing a fiery orange and was constantly bright. They appeared to be in quite close proximity to one another. The orbs travelled across the sky on a straight path. Further behind the initial 5, Sinead spotted a further 2 orbs. These seemed to be travelling faster than the initial ones, and slowly but surely caught them up and overtook them.
Sinead openly admits that Chinese lanterns could have been the explanation for the orbs. However she says that they appeared strange to her and unlike lanterns she had seen on other occasions. They seemed to be floating very closely to one another, formed a perfect shape in the sky, did not flicker at all and did not appear to rise in altitude throughout the sighting. I would agree that some of these observations appear a little strange, however I still feel that lanterns is the most likely explanation. They often seem to form shapes in the sky or move in a structured manner, but this can be due to them being caught in the same air current so they all travel in the same direction at the same speed. The two orbs that caught up the others could have been in a different air current alongside the main group, or could have been burning hotter providing them with more propulsion.
21/06/2011 – Silver Sphere Sighting
On 21st June 2011 Sinead and her friend were once again smoking at the bedroom window and looking out over Bartley Green. It was a clear and sunny day. They noticed three very large planes flying extremely low. They reminded Sinead of B2 bombers from the war. However she is not interested in aircraft so has no idea of the exact model. It is possible that they were on their way to an airshow.
As one of the planes flew past the clock tower in Selly Oak at low altitude, they suddenly noticed a small spherical object emerge from a nearby cloud. It looked white in colour at first, which could have been down to light reflection, but then stopped moving and turned a metallic silver colour. The sun was reflecting very brightly off one side of the object.
The sphere remained stationary for about 30 seconds. Then suddenly it disappeared. This was followed by two flashes of light, one where the sphere had been and the second a little further across the sky. The girls discussed what they had just witnessed. About 3 minutes later, a thin cylindrical contrail appeared in the sky. The starting point for this contrail was where the sphere had initially been situated.
Silver spheres are one of the more commonly reported UFO types. They are generally small in size and are probably un-manned monitoring devices. This could well have been one of these objects. Obviously sometimes silver coloured balloons can be the explanation. However there are some unusual aspects to this sighting. The object appeared to be under control; it moved out of the cloud and then abruptly came to a halt. It then remained in this position until suddenly vanishing. Surely if it was a balloon it would have not only drifted but would have remained visible. Then again perhaps it was still there but was reflecting the light in such a way that it was no longer visible from the girl’s location. Perhaps the flashes of white light were the object briefly catching the sunlight and brightly reflecting, this is a possibility worth considering.
The fact that there was a contrail several minutes later is interesting but I feel probably not to do with the object in any way. ET craft are very rarely reported as leaving contrails in the sky, the very presence of one means that fuel has been used up, which tends to support a human-made explanation.
Conclusion
Sinead has had some interesting sightings over the two years. While all of them have the possibility of being something mundane, the black coloured disc and silver sphere sightings both have a number of aspects which are hard to put down to an everyday explanation. I hope that she continues to stay in touch and keep me informed of any further sightings she has, and if so this report may be updated going forward.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2011