Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 05/03/2021
Note: For reasons of anonymity, pseudonyms have been used for most witnesses
I have known Chris Loughlin for a number of years after meeting him at a music festival. In early March 2021 he revealed details of a UFO sighting he had experienced back in 1999 on our Facebook community page BUFOG Truthseekers. After speaking with him directly it transpired that he has in fact been witness to three separate incidents. This report documents these incidents in depth.
Triangular Light
Chris believes his earliest sighting occurred around 1999 when he lived on Hollyhook Close in Crowthorne, Berkshire. It was summer time and he had just finished secondary school. He would often relax and chat with his friends sitting on top of some bushes which lay alongside the public footpath which runs between Hollyhook Close and Eagle Close.
Late on one of the summer’s evenings Chris met two of his friends Gavin and Tim there. It was between 10.30-11pm and the sun had fully set. It was a really clear and still night, with the stars and moon fully visible. They were only wearing T-shirts, but it was still quite warm even after dark.
Gavin suddenly remarked “What’s that?” staring at something above them. Looking up, Chris was puzzled to see three red glowing lines in a triangular shape. In between and around the lines he could make out a dark gun metal coloured surface. It was clear that this was a triangular shaped light in the base of a larger object obscured from view by the darkness overhead
The light was completely stationary. It was hard to estimate it's height accurately but it was at least several hundred feet up. There was no sound coming from it whatsoever. After about a second the light instantly changed to a bright yellow colour. A second later it changed to green. A second after this it went back to red. It continued this cycle repeatedly with no variation in timing.
Chris could barely believe what he was looking at. He kept asking himself “Am I seeing what I appear to be seeing?” He was excited by the prospect of this being something highly unusual. Back in 1999 nobody had smartphones, and neither he or his friends had a camera on them. They just all stared up at the colour changing light.
After approximately 20 seconds it suddenly vanished. There was nowhere it could have disappeared to as there were no clouds in the sky at the time. It was just gone. Chris discussed the sighting with his friends. All three of them were amazed by what they had seen. They remained there a while longer before heading back to their respective homes.
In the weeks and months following the sighting Chris says his friends gradually became more and more dismissive of what had taken place. After a while they denied it had happened at all and brushed it off, perhaps concerned that they would be ridiculed. Chris has not kept in touch with them so I cannot speak with them about the incident. However Chris says that even if he had they would be unlikely to want to discuss it.
This is a very peculiar and interesting sighting. I have not dealt with many cases where triangular shaped lights have been reported, there are far many more cases where the entire object is triangular shaped. The shape of the entire object is unknown, but Chris is convinced that what he was looking at was a light embedded in the base of something larger, due to the fact that the light was illuminating the surface around it a short distance.
If this sighting had happened more recently I would have possibly suggested a drone with an unusual light attached to it. However this took place back in 1999 before drones were available for public purchase. Also drones tend to make a buzzing/humming sound even at a distance, and this travels even better after dark when background noise is generally at a minimum. Below is an example video of a drone being flown after dark as an example:
It could not have been a laser display projected from the ground somewhere close by because there were no clouds, so the laser would have nothing to bounce off.
There is a possibility it was a radio controlled model with a bright flashing light attached, and that the operator had the means to switch the light on/off at will. Another similar explanation could have been that it was a drifting inflatable with a light attached which happened to run out of batteries and turn off just as it was being observed. These explanations cannot be entirely ruled out.
However we are still left with the possibility that this was in fact an advanced craft of some kind with an unusual light in the base of it. There are many cases of UFOs on record which have suddenly vanished from view in a clear sky, suggesting either stealth technology of some kind or even the possibility of dimensional travel. It is certainly an intriguing sighting!
Green Light Patterns
By 2012 Chris had moved to Chorley in Lancashire. Occasionally he would go camping with his friends on Healey Nab, a local area of wooded moorland. The summit of Healey Nab is known as Grey Heights, and is marked by a cairn of stones.
In the summer of either 2012 or 2013, Chris and 8 others headed to Healey Nab to camp overnight. They set up their tents near to the disused quarry known as Devils Rock and then went to explore the area.
They decided to relax a while near to the cairn on Grey Heights, with a view to the West in the direction of Blackpool. It was about 11.30pm and fully dark. The lights of Preston and Blackpool were visible in the distance to the North West. There was light cloud cover but some stars were still visible and it was quite a pleasant evening.
All of a sudden several miles away everyone noticed some strange green coloured lights in the sky. The lights were stationary and there were many individual points. Chris says the green colour was similar to the colour of the Meridian Laser in Greenwich, London:
As they watched the lights changed into different recognisable patterns including a star, hexagon and circle. They watched them for a couple of minutes, discussing what they were looking at. It is possible some of the witnesses had cameras on them but nobody attempted to film what they were looking at. As it was distant and after dark it is unlikely much would have came out. Suddenly the lights vanished without trace and did not reappear.
While this incident sounds fascinating to watch, I feel the most likely explanation is that it was a projected laser light display coming from somewhere nearby hitting the base of the cloud layer. Chris says that there was nothing known about in the nearby vicinity which could account for this, such as a sizeable nightclub. However as the precise date is unknown, it cannot be confirmed whether there were any special events going on at that particular time. Also there is the possibility that it was taken out to somewhere more rural to briefly test, and this is what was observed.
Chris is planning to get in touch with some of the other witnesses to see if they would like to give a statement to add to this report.
Silver Cone
In 2017 Chris used to work as a barman at the Dressers Arms, a pub in Wheelton, Chorley. One morning in March he was on his way home after a morning shift. He left the pub at 11am and several minutes later reached the nearby bus stop on Victoria Street.
It was a very pleasant, sunny and still morning. There were a few vehicles on the road but the area is generally quite quiet. After waiting at the stop for a short while, Chris suddenly noticed an object up in the sky to the North. It was at an angle of 45 degrees and appeared to be situated above the horse training grounds on the far side of the road. Chris estimates it was about 300 feet up. The object was brightly reflecting the sunlight.
At first he thought it must be a bird caught in the sun’s rays. However he soon realised it was completely motionless. It appeared to be highly reflective silver in colour and cone shaped, like a sphere with a sharp point sticking out of the right side. It appeared to be about 10 feet in diameter. There were no markings visible on it.
He was listening to music at the time via his smartphone and took his headphones off to see if the object was making any noise. It appeared to be completely silent. Puzzled by what he was looking at he continued to stare at the object. He was so transfixed by what he was seeing he did not think to try and photograph or video it.
Chris thinks he must have observed the UFO for at least 30 seconds, but it felt like much longer at the time. He is not suggesting time slowed down in any way, just that it seemed to. Suddenly the object completely vanished in a clear sky. There was nothing it could have been obscured by, it had just blinked out!
About five minutes later a lady emerged from the stables on the opposite side of the road with two horses. She led them over to the gate to the field just along from the bus stop. Chris asked her “Did you see that?” However she had not seen the object as she had been too busy to look around.
In terms of the shape and colour of the object, it reminded Chris of the craft out of the well-loved 1980’s alien movie Flight Of The Navigator after it changed shape to take off at speed:
This is quite a mysterious sighting. It seems unlikely the object was a silver-coloured inflatable as firstly it was completely motionless for the period of time it was observed, and secondly it suddenly vanished from sight. A balloon would logically have drifted away slowly, not simply disappeared. If it had been much further away then possibly it could have seemed to vanish if the sunlight stopped reflecting off it suddenly, however it appeared to be quite close.
It was clearly not a helicopter and was the wrong shape for a drone. A hovering bird can be discounted, just as Chris did while witnessing the object. Although uncommon, I have investigated other sightings of cone-shaped UFOs before. While it was not particularly large, I feel that mundane explanations can be discounted.
Conclusion
Chris has had several fascinating and varied experiences, and it is great that he has decided to share the details of these with me in order to create this report. While the green lights seen near Healey Nab were most likely caused by a laser display, his other two sightings are far more anomalous and both have very interesting aspects to them. Chris will no doubt keep me informed of any further incidents which occur.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2021