Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 25/03/2025
In January 2025 I was contacted by Donah McConnaghie via Facebook Messenger. She wanted to purchase a copy of my UFO-themed card game UFO Wave. After arranging the sale, she then asked if I’d be interested in hearing about two historical UFO incidents. This report covers the earlier of these two events, which was actually witnessed by her mother Ann rather than herself.
Donah reached out to Ann (now 80 years old) to obtain an up-to-date detailed overview of what she recollects taking place, and created some drawings and maps based on this testimony. She then passed this information on to me.
The incident happened back in June of either 1971 or 1972. Donah was only 2-3 years old at the time.
Sighting Details
Back in the early 1970s both of Donah’s parents Ann and Robert worked for the RAF and lived in a house on Tedder Road in the vicinity of RAF Halton near Wendover, Buckinghamshire. At the time RAF Holton was a training base with no aircraft stationed there.
On the day of the incident Ann had gone to a meeting on the base, while Robert remained at home with the children. At about 8.30pm Ann was walking back home, taking a shortcut through some local woodland and onto a path between two of the houses on Tedder Road which exited on the estate.
As Ann exited the alley, she noticed numerous people stood outside their houses looking up into the sky, including one of her neighbours named Eileen. She looked up and immediately became aware of four cigar shaped objects in the sky, following along one after the other in a line. They were moving very very slowly. Ann and the other witnesses present were mesmerised by them.
The objects were elongated, with the forward-facing end slightly curved, and the rear end straight. They were silver chrome in colour and reflecting the evening sunlight, almost giving the appearance of lights on them. They appeared to be completely silent, and left no trail behind them as they moved.
One of the witnesses, a teenage boy, ran inside his house, emerged with a camera and started taking photographs of the objects.
Suddenly the object at the front of the line stopped, turned 90 degrees, and then shot off extremely fast. It was gone in just a brief moment due to the speed. One by one the other three then made the same movements!
Everyone was astounded by what they had witnessed and discussed the objects a while before returning to their homes.
Soon afterwards there was apparently an article with a photograph taken by another witness elsewhere which confirmed that the UFOs had been seen over numerous towns. Ann thinks this newspaper was probably the Aylesbury Times, sold on a Wednesday/Thursday. Sadly she did not keep the article.
Robert retired in 2004/05. One evening when Ann came home from work Robert informed her that there had been a UFO programme on TV which discussed the incident and showed the newspaper headlines from the time. Unfortunately he did not remember the name of this programme.
Sighting Analysis
Due to the manoeuvres performed by the objects there is a high likelihood they were anomalous. From the description, they were clearly not normal aircraft of any kind, and with Ann’s background in the RAF she was familiar with how aircraft look at various distances. The incident happened decades before drones were commercially available.
If the objects had continued to move slowly there could have been the possibility they were novelty balloons or blimps of some kind drifting on an air current or following along after one another. However the sudden right angle turns and extreme increases in speed puts this explanation out of the question, and also indicates that the objects were under intelligent control.
Given the facts, I find it very likely that this was a sighting of a formation of advanced craft, possibly of non-human intelligence. Could these objects have been performing some kind of reconnaissance on the nearby RAF base? This possibility cannot be ruled out.
It sounds like quite a well-known and compelling incident, considering that it was observed by multiple groups of witnesses at different locations, the objects were photographed numerous times, articles appeared in at least one newspaper and it was apparently referenced many years later in a UFO documentary.
Sadly searching online for any information about it has so far not yielded any results. It is possible that the article still exists on microfiche at Aylesbury Library, the next time I am in that part of the country I may make a visit to try and track it down. It is likely that there are people out there who are familiar with this case, if you have any information about what took place please get in touch.
As mentioned, Donah has also had a sighting herself. This has been written up as a separate report which can be viewed here
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2025
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