Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 09/03/2022
In February 2022 I spoke with a gentleman from Huddersfield named Richard Paul Muir. He had mentioned on Facebook a UFO sighting which he and his wife had experienced while on holiday in Benidorm in 2018. When I discussed this incident with him he also mentioned that he had also been present during a multiple witness sighting in his home town back in the early 1980’s. This report covers this previous incident. Towards the end of the report is a link to the separate case report on the Benidorm sighting.
Sighting Details
Richard cannot remember the exact year when the incident occurred but thinks it was either 1981 or 1982 when he was 15 or 16 years old. It was around 6pm on a pleasant and warm evening in June. Due to the time of year the sun had not started to set in the sky. He was out at “The Rec”, a small area of open grass between Blackmoorfoot Road and Moorside Avenue on the South East side of the town. He was there with at least 10 other teenagers from the neighbourhood playing cricket.
While playing the game, everyone suddenly noticed some blue-white star-like points of light in the sky to the North West. They looked like they were within the atmosphere and hovering over the northern part of Pole Moor. There were at least 7 lights and they were stationary. They were not clustered in any particular noticeable pattern. The witnesses stopped the match for a number of minutes to stare at them.
After a while, with the lights still present in the sky, they continued to play cricket. There were other people also present at The Rec who were there to watch the match, including a close friend of Richard’s. He later claimed that he had seen the lights move away to the South West, although Richard did not see this directly.
When he arrived back home Richard told his parents about the lights. He claims that the following day in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner newspaper there was an article about them. It seems that other people around the town had also witnessed them. Unfortunately Richard did not retain this article. He has in recent years attempted to track it down but has so far been un-successful.
Sighting Analysis
The most obvious possible mundane explanation for the lights worth considering is that they were a constellation of stars which for whatever reason were visible in the sky from an early time. However Richard says that this is extremely unlikely. Due to the time of year there was still about 4 hours before the sun would set. Particular stars/planets such as Venus are of course sometimes visible in daylight hours, but it would be extremely unusual to clearly see a group of stars without also seeing them at other points in the sky. If the lights did indeed move away after a while as some witnesses reported then this again would point away from this explanation. Also the lights were clearly impressive enough for witnesses to have reported them to the newspaper.
Could the lights have been a formation of aircraft? As they were stationary for an extended period of time this suggests they were not aeroplanes. A drone formation is out of the question as these were not commercially available back in the 1980s. But a formation of helicopters could be a possibility, perhaps performing an exercise over the moor. As the incident took place so long ago, and we do not have a precise date it is impossible to confirm this either way. 360 radar confirms that the sighting location is right on the edge of an airway, however the majority of Pole Moor does not fall within this:
Another possibility is a launch of white coloured balloons which were catching the evening sunlight. However Richard and the other witnesses watched the objects for a number of minutes, and some drift would be expected in this time frame, even in still weather conditions.
There is a historical archive of Huddersfield Daily Examiner available to read online at https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk. Richard says that he attempted to track down the newspaper article but was not successful. I attempted the same but cannot find any reference to the incident, although I have no reason to doubt that an article was released at the time.
If you have any information relating to this multiple witness case please get in touch.
Click here to go to the other case report on Richard’s more recent UFO sighting in Benidorm.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2022
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