August 2012 - Daresbury, Warrington – Glowing Orange Spheres Sighting

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report

Author: Dave Hodrien

Release Year: 2017

Last Updated: 14/10/2025

In December 2017 a man named Stephen got in touch with me via Facebook Messenger. He informed me that he had watched my recent interview with Richard Hall and that he had experienced a UFO sighting himself which he wanted to go over with me. I got back in touch to discuss what took place.

Sighting Details

In August 2012 Stephen worked at the Brittannia Hotel in Daresbury. One evening he began to get the feeling that he would soon have a UFO sighting. He has no idea where this feeling came from.

At 11pm his work colleague David’s shift ended. Stephen was planning to give him a lift back home, then return to the hotel until 3am. It was a calm, dry and clear night.

At around midnight Stephen was driving North West West along Daresbury Express Way (A558) with David in the back seat. As they were heading past the dis-used STFC Laboratory, David suddenly exclaimed “Fuck’s sake, look at that there!”  Stephen looked to the West in the direction he was pointing.

Photograph of the STFC Laboratory from Daresbury Express Way

There were two orange glowing spherical objects in the sky. They appeared to be only about 100 feet in the air. They had no corona of light around them, and sharply defined edges. Stephen estimated them to be over the Rudheath Lane housing estate in Windmill Hill, roughly 1 mile away, and about 30 feet in diameter.

Aerial map indicating the STFC Laboratory (A) and Rudheath Lane housing estate (B)

Photograph from the position on Daresbury Express Way in the direction the spheres were seen

David asked him to pull over to get a better view, but there was nowhere immediate to do this. Stephen continued driving along Daresbury Express Way until he found a slip road directly North from the housing estate. At this point they briefly lost sight of the orbs behind a tree line. After about 200 yards there was a clearing in the trees but they now found that the orbs had disappeared.

Photograph of the gap in the trees from where the witnesses were able to pull up on the slip road

 David informed him that one of the orbs had been stationary, and the other had been moving towards it before they were lost from view.

Sighting Analysis

It is clear that the objects were not distant aeroplanes or helicopters. They were the wrong colour for these and as the Stephen drove closer to them normal white, red and/or green navigation lights would have become apparent.

Although the objects looked quite large to the witnesses, it is possible they were closer than they appeared to be and therefore smaller. It’s sometimes hard to judge distances of objects in the sky as there’s no point of reference.

I suspected that the objects may have been two sky lanterns, as these glow orange, and the objects did not perform any manoeuvres which would designate intelligence. Stephen said that he did not believe this was the case. He said he has seen sky lanterns before, and these two objects were a lighter shade of orange, and were also not flickering in brightness.

Despite his views on what was seen, I feel that lanterns cannot be entirely ruled out as an explanation in this instance. Perhaps one was caught in an air current while the other was in a patch of still air, causing the one to move towards the other as observed. The apparent disappearance of both of the objects over a short period of time is interesting, but its possible that if they were lanterns they both burnt out within seconds of one another, making it appear that they’d vanished.

It’s unlikely we will find out for certain either way, but it’s still good to get this case down on record.

Copyright Dave Hodrien 2025