Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 17/06/2021
In April 2021 I got in touch with a man named Simon Kirby after seeing him mention a UFO sighting he had experienced on Facebook. We got in touch via messenger and had a long discussion about the incident, with later follow up conversations to obtain additional details. It not only involves his direct sighting, but also a possible further sighting by another independent witness.
Sighting Details
In early December of 1992 or 1993, when Simon was 20-21 years old he lived in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. On the evening of the incident he, had gone out to pick up his older brother Mark and a friend from work named Rob from a night club named Jimmy’s. The club was on Parliament Street and no longer exists.
The men left the club quite early, between 11.30pm-midnight, as Simon had work the following day. They lived close enough to be able to walk back home. It was a pleasant, clear and cloudless evening. They began walking North North West along Parliament Street and walked across the Crescent Road / King’s Road crossroads. The area was quite well lit with plenty of street lighting.
Further along the road on their right lay Harrogate Royal Hall, a venue for large gatherings. An event had just concluded, and hundreds of people wearing suits and ball gowns were gathered outside getting into taxis on the far side of the road from them.
As they continued to walk along chatting with one another, Simon happened to glance to the North West in the direction of the St George Hotel. It was now that he spotted a very strange object travelling across the sky visible over the roof of the hotel.
The object looked like two glowing diamonds (or possibly triangles) linked together with lines of small glowing circles/spheres at each corner. There were a number of distinct colours to it. The diamonds/triangles were an unusual rusty red colour. The lines of dots were a bright blue-white. Everything seemed encased in an outer sheath which was glowing a pale yellow. The object appeared to be higher up than a helicopter, perhaps about 10000 feet, and at about 45 degrees in the sky. If it was indeed at this altitude it would have been huge in size, although without a point of reference this was hard to accurately gauge. It was however extremely clear and vivid.
It was moving on a straight and level path to the South West. Simon estimates it was travelling at a minimum of 100 mph. As it moved the diamond shapes oscillated around one another, like a dumb-bell tumbling across the sky.
Upon spotting the object Simon exclaimed “What the fuck is that?!” This immediately attracted the attention of Mark and Rob who also began watching the object. Mark responded “I don’t fucking know! I have no idea what that is!” As the UFO moved across the sky, occasionally the oscillating movement would stop and then start going in the opposite direction, without any apparent slowdown of the object.
Simon glanced over at the crowd of people outside the Royal Hall, expecting them to be looking at it too. None of them appeared to have noticed the presence of the bizarre object, they were too distracted. Simon, his brother and friend continued to stare up at it. None of them had a camera on them, and it was before the age of smartphones.
After watching the object for about 10-15 seconds something incredible took place. Without any warning, the object immediately accelerated and ascended vertically into the sky at a stunning speed. As it ascended the oscillating motion of the diamonds continued at the same pace as before. Within 4 seconds it had disappeared from sight! This sudden manoeuvre shocked the witnesses further still, and they wondered what exactly they had just observed.
After it had disappeared Simon says they just stood there on the pavement amazed. He pointed to the gathering of people further along the road and asked Mark and Rob “Why didn’t they see it?” The object seemed so obvious and out of place, he was surprised nobody else had seemingly noticed it. The witnesses did not go and question anyone, they just continued their walk home, discussing what they’d just seen.
I asked whether I would be able to speak to Mark and Rob about the incident. Simon informed me that he and Mark have not remained in contact with Rob. In addition to this Mark is unwilling at present to provide a statement because, unlike Simon, he was quite drunk at the time of the incident and therefore feels his statement would not be valid as a result. However Simon showed him the drawing he had done of the object and he agreed that this was generally what it looked like.
Possible Further Sighting
The following day when Simon came home from work at 2pm, he and Mark told their mother about what they’d seen. She was quite opened minded and believed them. She had a radio on and was listening to a station called Stray FM, which was quite new at the time.
In between music tracks, the radio host suddenly stated that he’d just received a phone call from Starbeck, a district to the North East of Harrogate. According to the host the lady had been on her way to pick up her children from school when she had seen an object that looked like linked triangles moving together and flying over High Street. She had rang in wondering if anyone else had seen it. The host invited people to get in touch. However he then went on to start laughing and ridiculed the lady about her sighting.
Simon says that the way the host described what she’d seen left him and Mark in very little doubt that it was the same object they’d seen the night before. However they did not ring in to the radio show because of the way that the host was treating the situation.
Sighting Analysis
This is a truly bizarre sighting of a very unusual object. It was clearly not an aircraft or helicopter as the lights did not match normal navigation lights at all. Simon informed me that he has always been fascinated by planes and worked as a civil contractor on airfields, and he was convinced this was not a civilian or military aircraft of any kind.
It can be seen on 360-Radar that even though there is an airway to the West, the area of sky in which the object was observed does not fall within one. On the below image St George's Hotel is marked:
This further supports the idea that it was not a mis-identified aircraft. The various colours means it could not have been a Chinese lantern, as these tend to be solely amber orange in colour and appear as a glowing point of light at a distance, or a cylindrical shape up close. A drone can also be discounted because of the year the incident took place.
Simon says that the object appeared to be really large. However due to the lack of a point of reference, it may have been smaller and closer than it appeared to be, something which he cannot fully rule out. Taking this into account, as well as the time of year, could it have been some kind of lit inflatable, perhaps with Christmas lights attached?
While this would seem plausible if the object had merely moved across the sky, it did not. The sudden change of direction and rapid vertical ascent certainly suggests that the object was under some form of direct control. Also the way in which the rotation seemed to change direction numerous times does not really fit, if a balloon was tumbling a certain direction in an air current it would very likely continue this same rotation while travelling on the same course.
Simon now works on RAF Lakenheath and so is very familiar with how aircraft appear at various distances, times and weather conditions. When I asked him for his thoughts on both the object’s appearance and its manoeuvres he said the following:
“When it left it went from a sedate pace to an unbelievable speed. I can’t find the words to describe how quickly this thing vanished! There was no air resistance. In my job I see fighter jets on a daily basis. Whatever it was that we saw there was nothing at that time or now that even comes close to what we saw. The whole shape of it, the colours, the detail, it was incredible!”
I have not come across any other sightings where the same thing has been reported. This remains a very mysterious sighting of an unidentified object.
If the object the lady saw was the same as what Simon, Mark and Rob saw, as it appeared to be, this suggests that it was in the area for an extended period of time. There may well have been other sightings by witnesses who are yet to come forward. If you have any further information about this incident or thoughts as to what it may have been please get in touch.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2021
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