Summer 1993 – Rugeley – Glowing White Sphere Sighting

Birmingham UFO Group Case Report

Author: Dave Hodrien

Release Year: 2016

Last Updated: 24/09/2025

Ian Gunner is both a UFO witness, researcher and podcaster. He has had a couple of fascinating sightings. This report covers the first of these sightings. His second sighting of a Flying Triangle has been written up as a separate report (link towards the end of this one)

Sighting Details

In 1993 Ian was 15 years old. Early in the evening of a day in late summer he and his friend Lee left his house in Brereton (near to Ravenshill Primary School, which has since closed). They planned to walk Northwards to Rugeley town centre to play snooker. The sun was beginning to get low in the sky, but visibility was clear.

As they came round the corner they had a view over the estate down over Rugeley town centre about a mile away. They now noticed a light in the sky. It was about the size of a 20 pence piece held at arms length. It was at a 30-40 degrees angle from the horizon line. What caught their eyes was the fact that it seemed to be dancing around, moving up and down and left to right in a linear pattern and occasionally doing loops. It appeared to be roughly over St Augustines church, several hundred feet up.

Aerial map indicating where Ravenshill School used to be (A) and St Augustines Church (B)

They both instantly asked one another “What’s that?” They continued to watch it for about 30 seconds as they walked towards it. The road they were on bended round and was tree lined. As they approached the bend they lost sight of it briefly. They both sped up to clear the corner and get a better look at the object.

When they got around the bend it was still visible and still moving strangely in the sky. By now they were becoming quite excited and intrigued by it. As they walked up a small hill the object came to a rest in the sky. It then seemed to wobble, before changing shape from a sphere to a more oval rugby ball shape. At this point the edges of the object also became more pearlescent in colour, with purple, blue and yellow colours now visible.

Photograph of St Augustines Church

Then without warning the object massively increased in acceleration and silently shot off to the West in the direction of Cannock! It covered a number miles in just a couple of seconds and was lost from sight. Ian still recalls the incident clearly, and says that Lee also does. He says it is what really got him hooked on the strange, and as a result he started to attend Rugeley UFO Group.

Sighting Analysis

This is a distant yet fascinating multiple witness sighting. The incident took place decades before drones were commercially available, and the darting and turning movements it was making sound too fast to be an distant aeroplane or helicopter. If the object had not changed shape or departed in the way that it did I would have suggested that it may have been a bird caught in the evening sunlight, an inflatable brightly reflecting the sun and being buffeted around in air currents, or perhaps a radio controlled aircraft performing manoeuvres.

However, the apparent shift in shape to a rugby-ball does not fit with these explanations. And the acceleration observed at the end of the sighting seems to have been something powered and under intelligent control. I am not surprised that this sighting impressed Ian enough to get into the subject in a big way.

As mentioned Ian has also had a later impressive encounter with a triangular-shaped craft. Click here to go to the report on this incident.

Copyright Dave Hodrien 2025