August 2021 to June 2024 – Birmingham – Glowing Light and Orb Photographs & Videos
Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Year: 2024
Last Updated: 10/10/2026
Note: For reasons of anonymity pseudonyms have been used
In June 2024 I was contacted via E-Mail by a lady from Birmingham who I shall name “Claire”. She informed me that back in 2021 she saw orbs of light over her home which she claimed frequently returned. She said that she has hours of video footage of these orbs and other unusual activity, and sent a few example videos and photographs for me to analyse. She stated that the videos she has sent were short to keep the file size down, but that she had more extended footage she would be willing to share.
She also confirmed that on another occasion she witnessed a pink haze of electro-magnetic energy above the trees at the side of her garden, then a disc-shaped UFO suddenly flew silently and very closely across the roof of her home.
In a later E-Mail she stated that she unfortunately did not manage to grab her smartphone in time so has no footage of this incident. She also confirmed that she was not happy to reveal the district of Birmingham the incidents occurred at as it may lead to unwanted attention.
Unfortunately, despite me responding with lots of additional questions about the received photos and videos Claire only responded with some basic information regarding what she has managed to capture. I have decided to release the videos and photographs received via this report for interest, with my analysis based on the limited information available.
18th August 2021 – Glow In The Sky
The first photograph Jo sent appears to be an after dark shot taken from her home. The file name reveals it was taken on 18th August 2021:
This first image doesn’t appear to contain any solid objects, but there is a white glow in the sky which I assume is what Claire is intrigued by and considering out of the ordinary.
Below is the extracted metadata from the photograph, with important values highlighted:
The Camera Info, Creator Software, Make and Software values confirm that the photo was taken on a BlackBerry Classic smartphone and that it has not been tampered with using image editing software (these values change if it is altered from its original). The CreateDate, DateCreated and DateTimeOriginal confirm that it was indeed taken on 18th August at 9:26pm.
The most likely explanation for the glow seen in the photo would be the reflection off some bright ground lights hitting the low cloud layer, for example from a stadium or other large scale event. Unfortunately, as Claire did not provide location details, I cannot check for the presence of a nearby stadium/entertainment venue. However, if it was taken from her house, as it appears to be, then if it was something permanent you’d expect her to be used to seeing this glow in the sky. This suggests that temporary event lighting is more probable.
Another possibility is what is known as noctilucent clouds. These are rare cloud formations which appear to glow white.
However, these cloud formations are usually wispier in shape as the above photograph shows, so light reflection from the ground seems far more probable.
22nd August 2021 – White Orb
Four evenings later Claire took another photograph of a white coloured orb:
This was again taken on her BlackBerry at 10:41pm, confirmed by the metadata:
She also sent a zoomed picture of this orb:
As the object appears to be distant and the image is not particularly clear (probably due to the low light conditions) it is impossible to tell what this could be. There is no way to determine its size, how high up or far away it is, and we also have no information regarding its movements or whether there was any sound heard.
It may not even be within the atmosphere. The ISS Tracker confirms that at this date and time the International Space Station was over the West coast of South America, so it cannot have been this:
However, a bright star or satellite cannot be ruled out. If it is in the atmosphere there are lots of things which it could be, including a distant aircraft, drone, hot air balloon safety light or a white coloured LED balloon. This is a great example of why lots of additional information is necessary when trying to accurately analyse a UFO photograph.
21st November 2021 – Orange Orb
At 5:04pm on the evening of 21st November 2021 Claire captured a short video of a light orange orb:
She took a second short video of the same object a minute later:
Claire also sent me a zoomed still of the orb displayed on the screen of her BlackBerry:
The metadata confirms that this zoomed still was taken several days after the sighting using an iPhone 4 smartphone:
From the videos it is clear that the object is quite distant, viewed in the sky over the rooves of nearby housing. It appears to be in the atmosphere and either stationary or drifting very slowly (undetectable due to the short length of the footage).
The orange colour rules out some explanations such as a star, satellite, ISS or aircraft. The most probable mundane explanation would be a sky lantern. Although these are rarer now due to the fact that they are no longer sold by retailers as they are a fire hazard, they are not illegal and are still occasionally launched. Other explanations could include a drone with orange lights (though they tend to usually have white, green or red lights) or an orange coloured LED balloon.
2024 – Glowing Orb
Claire also sent some later footage which appears to show a recording of some footage from her house’s night security camera being played on a monitor/screen:
The recording was shot at 6:33pm on 28th June 2024. As it would have been daylight hours at this time it clearly was not recorded on the same date as the incident. It is possible that the incident occurred the previous night but this cannot be confirmed without further correspondence from Claire.
It appears to show a glowing orb moving across the sky on a straight and level course at a slow continuous speed until it vanishes out of the side of the frame. It does not As the footage is infra-red it is in black and white, so the actual colour of the orb is unknown. There are no other flashing lights seen so a distant aircraft seems unlikely. A sky lantern or LED balloon drifting on an air current seems more probable.
Conclusions
Analysing the photos and videos on their own without additional information from the witness to understand how the objects moved or whether other advanced aspects were observed, all of the incidents can be explained as a number of mundane possibilities. While anomalous explanations cannot be ruled out entirely there is no evidence which currently points towards this.
The sighting of the disc-shaped object which Claire says flew over the roof of her house sounds more intriguing, but sadly she was unable to capture this on camera.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2026
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