April 1972 - Walsall, Birmingham - Disc UFO Sighting

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report

Author: Dave Hodrien

Release Date: 25/07/2014

Last Updated: 29/07/2019

In mid 2014 BUFOG member David Gooding got in touch with me via E-Mail. He informed me of a fascinating UFO he had witnessed back in 1972 when he was only 14 years old. This sighting forever changed his perspective on the UFO subject.

Sighting Details

Back in April 1972 David used to have a morning paper round. It was a bright, cloudless, clear morning at around 7.00am with an estimated optimum visibility of around 15 miles. Due to the time of morning there was nobody else around. In order to save himself time on his round he took a short cut across the local rugby pitch which lay between Walstead Road and Cypress Road. The pitch still exists today but is now a football pitch.

Aerial map of the pitch showing the approximate sighting location:

Modern photograph of the pitch:

David was around the mid-point of the pitch when he suddenly heard from above and behind him a loud noise akin to the sound of ripping paper. He was startled by this and looked up to determine the source. To his amazement, around 10 metres above his head was a stationary circular object, approximately 10 metres in diameter. It had a phosphorescent underside exhibiting multiple shades of electric blue which swirled around in a similar was to smoke caught in a laser beam. The object made absolutely no noise and was completely still. There were no other notable effects e.g. no sensation of ionisation.

As his view was entirely from underneath, David had no idea of the side profile of the object. He says it was hard to estimate exactly how long this situation persisted, but he thinks he looked at it for around 8 seconds. Then without warning the object massively accelerated until it was at the observable horizon (20Km away) two seconds later. This would make its average speed around 10Km/s (22,000 mph).

Shaken and gob smacked by the experience, David ran home and incoherently blurted out what had happened to his parents who, though consoling, were clearly very sceptical. Friends he later told were equally unconvinced.

However two day later the local morning newspaper published an article about the UFO, which it turned out had been seen by several other witnesses. One in particular was a very experienced mariner who had witnessed a whole range of meteorological/astronomical events at sea but who had “never seen anything like this”. His observation had occurred at the same time as David’s, from a vantage point at Great Barr, approximately 1.5 miles from the location of David’s sighting.

Aerial map showing the location of David’s sighting (A) and Great Barr (B):