Birmingham UFO Group Case Report Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 30/06/2020
In February 2017 I was contacted by a man from Yardley Wood named Nigel who testified to two UFO-related incidents. The first was a sighting of a cylindrical-shaped UFO with glowing square lights/windows which had been seen the previous month. The second was a photograph taken at Earlswood Lakes possibly of a domed-disc shaped UFO.
I began investigating the case and received additional information regarding the cigar-shaped UFO. I also performed some analysis of the UFO photograph initially sent through. Unfortunately I was not sent the original image taken, it was embedded in the E-Mail from Nigel. In addition to this I had many questions to understand the circumstances under which the photo was taken in enough depth. Unfortunately Nigel failed to respond to any further E-Mails. As I did not have the full details of the second incident I decided to proceed with the release of a case report solely focusing on the cigar-shaped UFO sighting, which can be found here:
In June 2020 I decided it would be a good idea to see if I could get back in touch with the witness to enable me to create a report at last. Nigel responded and I was able to gain some further information regarding the incident. Unfortunately he was not able to locate the original photograph.
Sighting Details
Nigel informed me that back on a very sunny and pleasant day in 2014 he and his wife visited Earlswood Lakes in Earlswood, Birmingham. The lakes are three large man-made reservoirs. They are the popular location for a number of activities including sailing, fishing and walking.
Aerial map of Earlswood Lakes:
The couple were stood at the waters edge of one of the lakes. Nigel was taking a photograph of some sailing boats. He took the photo and then checked it on the camera screen. When he did so he noticed a dark object seemingly positioned over the woodland behind the lake. He looked up but there was nothing present in the sky of any kind - no planes, no birds.
Photographic Analysis
The photograph which Nigel sent through to me on E-Mail is shown below:
As you can see there does at first glance appear to be a domed-disc shaped blurred object over the trees. Below is a zoomed view of the UFO, followed by saturated and edge find versions:
Unfortunately Nigel did not provide me with the RAW camera file or the umcompressed JPEG image file, he instead embedded it in an E-Mail message. This unfortunately has caused all the metadata behind the image to disappear, data which I would usually use to determine if the picture has been manipulated or not.
Below is the metadata which the embedded photograph contains:
Unfortunately this does not tell us much, the only tags which remain are those related to the file itself rather than image details. However given the nature of the photo and the circumstances under which it was taken there it is very unlikely to be a modified image.
The object is so out of focus it is hard to tell what it may or may not be. It is either a large object over the trees in the distance as it appeared to be to Nigel, a smaller object/animal at medium range, or a tiny object/animal up close. If it was the former of these it could not have been a normal aircraft or helicopter as Nigel says it vanished extremely rapidly. A large inflatable object such as blimp or novelty balloon can also be discounted for the same reason.
It is possible that Nigel has caught a bird in flight over the lake. Due to the location it is likely there would have been at least some waterfowl around, even if none are seen on the surface of the lake in the image. It is very possible that one flew past as Nigel took the photograph, and had disappeared from view by the time he looked back up.
A third possibility is that this was a very small object such as an insect or debris moving past the lens of the camera at the time the photograph was taken. The object is quite blurred which could suggest that this was the case.
Although any of these scenarios are a possibility I feel that the second is most probable in this instance. The fact the photograph was shot over a body of water means that this object could easily be a bird coming in to land or taking off from the lake and photographed with its wings along its sides. Birds can often look like domed-disc shaped objects at a distance, and the fact that Nigel did not see anything at the time with his own eyes tends to support this theory.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2020