Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 12/05/2024
Last Updated: 13/05/2024
Debra first got in touch with me via the Birmingham UFO Group website. She informed me that she came across BUFOG by chance, and wanted to share with us numerous incidents which have occurred throughout her life since her early teens. I reached out to her via E-mail, and also met with her at one of our monthly meetings to discuss these events in more depth. This case report covers what has taken place up to this point in time, and contains numerous witness drawings.
Chariots Of The Gods
In 1972/73 when she was either 12/13 years old, Debra lived with her family in a house on Lowlands Avenue, Streetly, Sutton Coldfield.
One day she recalls coming across the book “Chariots Of The Gods?” by Erich Von Daniken, the infamous book which theorises that some of our ancient monuments and artefacts were the product of alien visitations thousands of years ago.
She picked up the book and stared at the cover of it. For an unknown reason she sensed that it belonged to her step-father. She also felt an unusual comforting feeling in holding it. Debra feels that her thoughts regarding it at the time were indicative of a psychic ability, one which up to this point she had no knowledge of.
It cannot be proven one way or the other whether this was the case. She never confirmed with her step-father whether the book did belong to him, perhaps she subconsciously knew that her mother would not have purchased or read such a book so made the assumption. And perhaps her feelings towards the book were nothing to do with its subject matter, but instead she felt drawn to its cover. That said, many experiencers of contact do appear to demonstrate psychic abilities, so perhaps this was the reason for her feelings towards it.
Visitor At The Door
In the same year that Debra found the book another unusual occurrence took place one early Sunday evening. At around 7-7.30pm the door bell rang. Her stepfather went to the front door to see who it was. Debra heard him first say “Hello”, and then “Can I help you?” She did not hear any responses from whoever was at the door. He then asked “Are you ok?” Soon after this she heard him shut the front door.
He walked back into the kitchen where Debra’s mother was. Her mother asked him who had been at the door. He informed her that it had been a young blonde-haired woman who stood there but did not say anything. He then went on to say that she had bare feet and no coat on (Although Debra recollects that it had been a warm and sunny day, so maybe she had been out enjoying the sunshine).
Although what took place sounds odd, there is nothing really to suggest that the girl at the door was not human, or in any way linked with Debra’s other experiences. There are many possible reasons for why she did not speak. She may have rang the door bell of the wrong house and was too confused to open her mouth. Maybe she was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Perhaps she was just extremely shy. She could even have been mute, although then you’d have to ask why she had rang the door bell in the first place if she wasn’t able to communicate.
Debra fully agrees that she could well have been human. However, as you will see, this is not the only time that her experiences have involved a blonde-haired woman, and a later encounter may suggest otherwise.
Disc Sighting
Debra did not experience anything else unusual until 1995. By now she was living in a house near to Warley Woods, Bearwood, with her three year old daughter.
She cannot recall which month the incident occurred on, but one evening between 9-9.30pm Debra was in the kitchen of the house, while her daughter was asleep in her bedroom. She was standing at the sink filling up the kettle, and while doing so was gazing up at the sky through the kitchen window. It was a dry and still evening, with the light fading in the sky and patchy cloud.
Suddenly out of nowhere appeared a disc-shaped object. It was at a high angle of elevation near the top of the view from the window, meaning that she was looking at its underside. It was partially covered by the low lying patchy cloud, and appeared to be around the height a helicopter might fly at, approximately 500 feet. Debra estimates that if it was at this height then its diameter would have been around the length of a single decker bus across, 24 feet. The main body of the object was dark, but around the outer edge of the base was a series of segmented cream-coloured lights.
Initially it appeared to be stationary, but after a number of seconds began moving in a slow circling pattern over the back garden of her house and her neighbour’s house. Debra was transfixed by the object, staring up at it as it slowly moved across the sky. She did not step outside as she could see it clearly through the window. Sadly she did not own a camera at the time, and this incident took place before the days of smartphones.
After approximately 4-5 minutes, the object suddenly appeared to enter the edge of a cloud and was lost from sight. She continued to watch the sky to see if it would reappear. Up to two minutes went by then suddenly the object re-emerged and once again began circling.
Debra watched the UFO for a further 2-3 minutes. Then once again it disappeared into a cloud. Again she waited, but this time the object did not reappear. It seemed to have left the vicinity. In the end she stopped looking out of the window and went back to making a cup of tea, pondering what she had just witnessed.
It is unknown as to whether her neighbour also witnessed the object. If they did they never spoke about it with Debra. She decided to keep the incident to herself for fear of ridicule. Prior to this investigation she has never mentioned any of her experiences to anyone.
This is a very interesting sighting, and one which was clearly not of a normal aircraft or helicopter of any kind. The appearance of the object was completely different, and both planes and helicopters have white, red and green navigation lights on them, both static and strobing, not a ring of cream coloured lights.
Initially I did wonder whether the lights could have been search lights projected into the sky from a nearby event venue. However there are a number of issues with this hypothesis. Firstly Debra says that there was just patchy clouds in the sky. For a ring of search lights to have appeared in the manner and length of time described there would need to be full cloud cover for the lights to continuously bounce off.
Search lights tend to produce round soft-edged glowing points when they hit the cloud layer, Debra describes seeing straight edged rectangular-shaped lights which sound far too structured to have been search lights. She also confirmed that she could see the main body of the object as well as just the outer lights. Lastly, surely she would have seen these lights on other occasions if they were from a venue, it is extremely unlikely they would have just been utilised only once.
The object sounds far too large to have been a radio controlled model, and drones were not commercially available until much more recently. It was moving in too much of a controlled manner for it to have been a large lit inflatable of some kind.
Therefore it stands to reason that Debra may well have been staring at the underside of a genuine disc-shaped craft. I have investigated numerous cases involving craft of this kind, some even with extremely similar lighting to what has been reported here. This description is also extremely similar in appearance to the craft witnessed by Travis Walton, the abductee from Snowflake, Arizona who got taken in 1975. Debra was not aware of this case, and was genuinely surprised when I showed her the below drawing.
Medical Issues
In 1997 Debra began to suffer from a number of medical issues. These included episodes of blurred vision in her right eye, fatigue, as well as numbness and tingling in her legs.
The following year she began to see a specialist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. After numerous tests he diagnosed her with a rare condition known as Neuromyelitis Optica or Devic's Disease.
Several years later she began to suffer from acute migraines roughly every couple of weeks, which continue to this day. They last from between a number of hours to three days. I feel it is likely that the migraines Debra experiences are related in some way to her other medical issues, rather than being related to contact.
Cloaked Greys
It was not until 1998 that Debra recalled an extremely vivid dream which may well have been an abduction experience. She cannot recall the month it happened but she had gone off to sleep as normal around 11pm. When she awoke in the morning at approximately 6.30am she immediately recollected being in another place.
She recalled finding herself standing in a very wide dome-shaped room which was about 9 feet tall at its highest central point. The walls and curved ceiling looked like silver metal. She did not remember what the floor looked like. It was quite bright in the room but there was no visible sources for where this light was coming from. She was wearing the pyjamas she had gone to sleep in. She found she could move freely and turned her head to survey her surroundings.
In front of her was a curved rail. Beyond this rail the floor dropped down a little lower than the section she was standing on. On the right side of this lower area she could see what looked like a long curved control panel covered in lights and buttons. Directly above this appeared to be a row of small rectangular windows, but nothing could be seen through these, only darkness.
She was not alone in the room. There were four or five identical looking beings also present. They were approximately seven feet tall and wearing silver-grey coloured hooded cloaks with the hoods up. They had heart-shaped heads with smooth grey coloured skin. Their eyes were quite large, black and almond-shaped. They had two small nostrils, and a thin slit for a mouth. These beings were clearly Greys, although Debra had not looked into the UFO subject at this point in her life so did not know this.
One of the Greys was standing two feet to her right. The others were dotted around the lower section of the room. None of them moved, and there was no signs of any communication coming from them. For an unknown reason she was not frightened of them. Debra says that she felt welcomed, even though they did not say anything to her or gesture in any way.
She remained there for what seemed like a number of minutes, staring at the beings. Then suddenly the scene changed. She found herself alone in the room and lying face down on a metal table of some kind, with her head turned to the left. The table seemed to be about three feet off the floor. She was now unclothed and her arms were dangling off the sides of it.
She attempted to move and found that she could only move her eyes. This was more confusing than frightening to her. Again this seemed to go on for a number of minutes. She just lay there wondering what was going to happen. This is where her recollection of events ended.
As the memories came flooding back, they felt extremely vivid, much more so than a normal dream would. It felt like she had actually been at this other location during the night. Her pyjamas were back on her, but she was clearly missing some memories of what took place, so it was possible that she had either re-dressed herself or the beings had re-dressed her.
She did not feel different in any way, and so got up and began her day like usual. She did not tell anyone about what had happened, but was convinced that she had been taken.
This incident bears all the hallmarks of an abduction experience. The appearance of the location (potentially aboard a craft), the appearance of the beings, the fact that some of the memories were blocked out with clear gaps, the metal table she found herself on in a state of paralysis, and the way in which the recollected memories were extremely vivid all seem to fit this possibility, and I have investigated many other cases involving these aspects.
Of course the incident did happen at night while Debra was in bed, she did previously have knowledge of the subject, and there were seemingly no after effects, so a vivid dream cannot be entirely ruled out. However this is often how contactees recollect memories of abduction experiences. It is even a possibility that this was a vivid flashback to an abduction which had occurred on a previous occasion which had been blocked from her mind until this point. If this were the case, then this would account for the lack of any after effects.
The Vanishing Lady
One day around 2001-2002 Debra popped into Birmingham centre to pick up a book for her daughter from Waterstones on High Street. While there she decided to go have a browse in the section of books on spiritual subject matters. She was reading the back cover of a book she'd picked up when she noticed a tall blonde-haired lady. She looked to be in her late forties, and was standing about 10 feet away and staring at her.
She looked back down at the book, and a moment later the lady seemed to be standing right next to her. Looking back at the incident Debra is puzzled by this, it was like the lady had shifted position almost immediately rather than walked over to her. The lady spoke, asking whether she liked the author of the book she was holding. Debra responded saying that she was not familiar with her work. In response to this the lady said "You should write a book."
Debra just smiled at her. The lady then began walking away from her. Debra briefly glanced at something. When she looked back to where the lady had been walking she had completely disappeared. This was bizarre as she could see right around the whole section of the shop, yet she was nowhere to be seen.
This is an unusual incident which took place in a very public location. The way in which the lady both seemed to jump position almost immediately, and then vanished when Debra briefly took her eyes off her is an enduring mystery. You may well think that this was just down to her perception of the situation, but there is of course a possibility, however slim, that this lady was not actually human. And if this were the case, could this have been the same lady who arrived at the front door of her house many years before?
Debra has pondered this possibility, in addition to what the lady said to her. She finds it ironic that all these years on I have now written up her experiences based on what she has shared, in a way in-directly becoming an author as a result.
Electrical Disturbances
Debra has lived in her current house in Wednesbury from July 2020 onwards. Since the day she moved into she began noticing issues with electrical devices of various kinds, both in and out of the house.
For an unknown reason she has regular issues with her Moto E30 smartphone (on EE network). Often when she makes or receives a call it will intermittently cut out, or sometimes disconnect entirely. According to Debra, she has taken it to a phone repair shop, but they have been unable to find any issues with it. She has also checked with her neighbours, including one on the same network as her, and they have confirmed that they get no problems of this nature. However she did inform me that when she is at other locations away from her own neighbourhood the phone issues seem to cease, suggesting that the problem is geographical in nature. The call issues happen so often that her family and friends now communicate with her via text messages only.
Since late 2023 she has also become aware of repeating issues when using self-service checkouts at supermarkets. Obviously these are notorious for not working correctly, however Debra claims that it ceases to work far too regularly, even though it has worked fine for others in the queue before her. As soon as she starts scanning items or attempting to make a payment with her card the machine often brings up error messages and needs to be reset. Debra has attempted to capture this on her smartphone camera at my request, but shop security have noticed and asked her not to do this.
While neither of these repeated incidents can be categorically confirmed as being related to Debra’s experiences, it is important to note that many contactees regularly report issues with electrical devices.
The Black Chair
In 2021 Debra had another very similar experience to what had happened several years before, possibly indicating a second abduction. Just like before she dropped off to sleep like usual, and when she awoke in the morning the vivid memories immediately came flooding back.
She did not find herself in the same place as before. This time she was lying down on a reclining black-coloured chair, similar in size and angle to a dentist’s chair. It felt like it was made out of PVC to the touch. She was able to move freely, but did not feel any need to get up off the chair.
The room she was in was much smaller and narrow, with straight walls which were dark grey in colour. The flattened ceiling was smooth and again a dark grey colour. Like her previous experience she did not pay any attention to the floor so cannot recall what colour or texture it was. The room was lit as if in normal daylight. Looking around behind her head she could see a window in the wall through which light was visible, but she was not able to make anything out.
She was clothed, but unlike last time instead of her pyjamas she was wearing some of her normal day wear – a T-shirt, half zipped up fleece, leggings and trainers. Unfortunately she cannot recall whether it was the specific clothing she had been wearing before getting into bed, or whether it was other clothes she owned from her wardrobe.
One thing that was consistent with last time was the entities present. Like before there were Greys wearing hooded cloaks, although this time there were only two. One of them was stood behind her head, the other was off to her left.
Just like the previous occasion she did not feel frightened by what was taking place. Debra says that it “felt similar to going for a routine dental check-up”. The beings did not appear to interact with her, they just stood there, again similar to last time.
After a number of minutes had gone by, Debra suddenly felt a trickle of liquid run down the back of her head. She felt that this was blood, but felt no pain or discomfort. For an unknown reason she remained calm, and did not touch the back of her head to confirm whether it was blood or not.
About thirty seconds later there was a sudden pain in both of her legs. This was quite sharp and she attempted to let the beings present know this, audibly saying to them “It’s painful.” A moment later there was a white flash of light and a loud bang noise. This was the last thing she could remember taking place.
She was aware that there was no pain in her legs upon waking. She also felt the back of her head but there was no blood or sweat. Like before, aside from the extremely vivid recollection, she felt completely normal. She was certain that what she recalled had taken place, although due to the fact she was wearing daytime clothing, the only way that it could have occurred during the night is if she had got dressed again (or been dressed by the beings) prior to being taken, and had the memories of this removed.
This again was seemingly a second abduction experience, but unlike the incident in 1998, which could well have happened on the night in question, this one is much less likely to have. It is more probable that this was a vivid flashback to a previous experience that for whatever reason she was now recollecting.
Body Marking
One evening later in 2021 (Debra cannot remember exactly when) she felt hot when she went to bed so left her pyjama bottoms off. She slept soundly with no indication of anything taking place during the night.
In the morning when she threw back the duvet to get up she noticed an unusual marking on her right leg just above the knee. There were three small red dots in a perfect equilateral triangle. She felt certain that they had not been there the previous day.
The dots were several millimetres across and were spaced about an inch from one another. They did not appear raised or inflamed at all, and they did not itch at all as insect bites usually do.
Debra thought they were strange but did not photograph them. She just got up and went about her day. She did not check for them again until the following morning, by which point they had completely vanished.
Experiencers sometimes find markings such as these following contact, and can on some occasions even link the markings to particular instruments used on them. However Debra has no recollection of anything taking place. Although something may have happened, and then been completely blocked from her mind, it is possible that the dots had a natural explanation.
Debra says that they did not itch, and that she is not prone to getting skin rashes of any kind, but neither of these potential explanations can be fully ruled out. People often get temporary skin blemishes or minor injuries which clear up quickly, and it may have been just coincidental that the dots were spaced evenly apart from one another forming an equilateral triangle.
Emerging Interests
Around the same time as her memories of the black chair, Debra began to develop an interest in the UFO subject, especially ancient alien theories. She felt drawn to look into this particular aspect of the phenomenon for an as yet unknown reason.
In 2023 another completely different interest emerged. Debra gained a new fascination with quantum physics, especially the theory of quantum entanglement. This theory proposes that particles can be brought together and become fundamentally linked, even when separated by vast distances from one another.
Like her interest in ancient aliens, Debra does not know what has drawn her to suddenly start looking into this, she just feels a need to take in the information.
It is unknown whether either of these interests has come about as a side-effect of her prior contact experiences. Many people seem to develop new interests or skills after experiencing contact, so this could well be the case.
Paranormal Activity
Ever since the disc sighting, Debra informs me that she has experienced paranormal activity of various kinds including clairvoyance, clairaudience and glowing orbs in her proximity.
One night in 2009 she was settling down in bed. Her daughter (aged 17 at the time) was in her own bedroom reading. Suddenly there were very loud and audible knocking sounds near the top of the wall that separated the two rooms. She called out to her daughter and asked her whether she heard the noises, to which she confirmed that she did. The house was semi-detached, but echoes from next door was unlikely to be responsible, as the adjoining house was vacant at the time. If the knocks had been down to water pipes in the wall surely Debra or her daughter would have heard the same sounds at other times too?
On a number of occasions at both her previous house in Bearwood and her current house in Wednesbury she has heard muffled hushed voices while lying in bed. She is never able to make out what the voices are saying but it sounds like a conversation taking place. Debra confirmed her current house is semi-detached, and that her next door neighbour lives on his own and rarely has visitors, so once again the voices do not appear to be echoes coming from the adjoining house.
In December 2021 Debra sadly had to have her pet greyhound put to sleep due to a serious health condition. Fifteen days later she was sitting down reading the newspaper in the late afternoon. Suddenly in the peripheral vision of her right eye she saw him sitting on the small sofa opposite her (the sofa he used to always sleep on at night). He looked completely solid like he was actually there. She turned her head to look at the apparition and for several seconds could still see him, before he faded away. Debra believes that he still comes to visit her from time to time. Ever since that incident she has occasionally seen an unusual ripple effect in the sitting room, about the height that he used to be. She describes this as being “similar to the effect of a slight ripple on water with sunlight dancing on it”.
On two occasions in 2022/23 Debra believes that she was contacted by the ghostly spirit of a man haunting the property. One late evening she was alone in the bathroom cleaning her teeth. Suddenly she felt a tingling sensation run down her spine and the temperature in the local vicinity get cold. This was followed by a clear voice inside her mind which simply asked “You still here?” The voice sounded like a elderly man in his early to mid-seventies, and had a gruff edge to it. The cold temperate then seemed to recede almost like it was moving away from her.
A couple of weeks later she was settling down in bed when she again heard the same voice in her head. This time it said to her “I am outside the door.” Obviously Debra was un-nerved by this, and did not go to check outside her bedroom door for fear of something being present there.
After this particularly unsettling incident she decided to purchase a “witch ball” and hang it in the back porch of the house. According to folklore, these large decorated glass baubles are capable of warding off evil spirits. Debra says that since hanging up the ball she has not sensed this presence or heard the voice again, though whether you believe this is down to coincidence or something more is up to you.
Debra claims to have also observed glowing orbs of light in the living room of her current house while watching television, even since hanging up the witch ball. The orbs she has seen have been a variety of colours – white, light gold, lilac and blue. They have ranged in size from between a penny to several inches across. She sees them moving in her peripheral vision, but whenever she turns her head to look directly at them they vanish.
The fact that they are only seen in the one location while she is watching TV suggests that they are possibly caused by light reflection off the screen on her retina. Another possibility is that they are related to the blurred vision in her right eye, or the migraines she sometimes suffers from, although she has not noticed any particular link between these ailments and the appearances of the orbs. In addition to this, many experiencers have reported similar incidents to me over the years, so it is possible they are related to contact.
Conclusions
Debra has experienced a wide variety of unusual incidents throughout her life. Her repeated memories of being aboard craft surrounded by Grey beings certainly suggest that she is a contactee. As they happened during the night while alone the idea that they are merely vivid dreams brought on by her interest in the subject cannot be entirely ruled out, however the many similarities between them, and their similarities to other cases on record, indicate that they may well have taken place.
If so this may explain some of her other fascinating experiences. Experiencers of contact regularly report incidents of paranormal activity in their proximity, electrical anomalies and psychic phenomena. It is unknown whether the disc-shaped craft which she observed was there directly for her, but it is intriguing that this incident seemed to potentially be the trigger for repeated paranormal activity.
It seems unlikely that any of her medical ailments are related to contact. While her sightings of orbs and possibly the strange sounds she has heard could be down to her condition, it seems extremely unlikely to be entirely responsible for everything which has taken place.
Debra comes across as a very down-to-earth and believable witness, and there is no sign that she has fabricated or exaggerated any of the information she has shared with me. I look forward to continuing to speak with her about any further incidents which may take place, and as always, if she does keep in touch this case report will be updated with any additional findings.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2024
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