28th February 2025 - Lichfield - White Cigar Sighting

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report

Author: Ian Jones

Release Date: 18/06/2025

Introduction

Steve Partington contacted BUFOG and reported he’d seen an unusual object in the sky on Friday 28th February 2025 from his house on Field Road, Nether Stowe, Lichfield. He reports that they see many aircraft flying over them on the way to/from Birmingham Airport, as well as military jets on their way to/from Wales for training flights. He is also a keen astronomer and often observes the night sky and is familiar with most stars and has never seen anything this unusual before.

Steve’s house is indicated on the below image. North is towards the top of the picture, so the rear of the house faces almost due West. It is at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, with no sounds from nearby roads audible:

Sighting Details

Steve was looking out of the bedroom window at 16.40. He reports the sky was clear, except for a single, small cloud, which was not moving.

This side of the house faces west and at about 35 degrees above the horizon he saw a white object in the distance.

Photograph indicating the initial position of the object

It was about a hand-width above the cloud, sharply defined. He estimated that it’s size was equivalent to the width of his thumb with his arm at full stretch. It wasn’t possible to estimate how far away it was.

At first the object was stationary.  He could tell this was the case, because the bare branches of the trees at the far end of the garden were also stationary and it was visible above them.

The object was described as a thin/faint white sharply defined line, at a slight angle with the left end being lower than the right. There was no trail left behind the object as it moved slowly and smoothly in a downwards direction. There was no sound at all. The object did not dissipate, or begin to break up, but remained as a white line, not increasing or decreasing in length.

The object appeared to slowly drift downwards and he couldn’t tell if it moved in front of the cloud, or behind it, because the two were the same colour.

After about 30 seconds, it returned to its original position. When he tried to take a picture of it with his camera, it failed to focus on the object. He went downstairs and outside and then it just faded out of sight.

About 25-30 seconds later, the object reappeared, now about 45 degrees above the horizon, still tilted at the same angle, slightly further to the north of where he had seen it originally.

Photograph indicating the position the object was now visible at

Then, almost instantaneously – Steve emphasised it was "in much less than 1 second" - the object performed a zig-zag manoeuvre and faded out of sight. Steve said the object  looked like “a tear or split in the sky”, the movement is shown in the diagram below.

Movement path of the object

After that he said it faded out, and he did not see it again. Steve has no idea what it was, because it is something the like of which he hasn’t seen before. He has looked in the local press to see if anyone else had reported this, but apparently not. He would like to know if anyone else did see it.

Sighting Analysis

Using the online timeanddate resource for historical weather information for Lichfield, showed that for the period between 12.00 and 18.00 on that day, it was fairly settled. In mid-afternoon the temperature was between 6-8 degrees Centigrade, with passing clouds from the Southeast and a wind speed of 4 mph. Sunset was at 17.44, so that was a good hour after Steve’s sighting.

It was too early in the day to be anything astronomical such as mis-identified stars, planets, etc. There were no meteor showers, or comets noted around the end of February / beginning of March period. Equally, the movements of the object rule out anything in orbit, such as satellites, which move in straight lines. At that time of day they would not have been visible.

From Steve’s description of the object’s unusual movements and it’s single, white colour which did not blink, is interesting.

It’s “wake” does not suggest it was a typical condensation trail, because these usually continue to stretch out for some distance directly behind the aircraft and start to dissipate and become wider and less well-defined as time passes, before completely dispersing and fading from view as the aircraft continues to fly onwards. Sometimes that process takes place quickly, at others it is much slower, depending on the atmospheric conditions.

In this case the thin white line left behind the object was always at a fixed length and did not change in appearance.

Helicopters, drones, balloons, gliders, etc do not perform in the ways described here. Nor was it a laser-display light, because it did not shine from the ground upwards and the other reported movements were incompatible with one.

Key Points

1.    It was stationary for some time initially.

2.    It was a non-flashing white light, which jets / aircraft do not show up as.

3.    The trail left behind the object was not typical of that from jets / aircraft.

4.    The zig-zag movement is an unusual aspect, which is most puzzling.

5.    The speed at which the object carried out the zig-zag manoeuvre is also puzzling.

6.    Mr Partington does not know what this object was and is curious whether anyone else saw it.

7.    I have not been able to track down any other reports of this, but some may come to light in future.

Conclusion

The most logical explanation is that this object was a jet aircraft. However, it did not move in the way a jet / aircraft usually moves, as discussed above, so has to remain a puzzle. Therefore, this has to be logged as a UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon). If anyone else thinks they may have seen this object, please contact BUFOG.

Copyright Ian Jones 2025