Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 24/02/2025
In January 2025 I was contacted by a lady named Donah McConnachie. She was interested in purchasing a copy of the card game I have developed, UFO Wave. After arranging the sale, Donah informed me that she wanted to share details of two fascinating UFO sightings, one witnessed by her mother, and the other by herself.
This report covers the later sighting which was witnessed directly. A link to the previous sighting which her mother experienced can be found near the end of this report.
Sighting Details
Unfortunately Donah cannot remember the exact month the incident took place, but knows it happened some point between November 1981 and March 1982 when she was 12 years old. At the time because her father was in the RAF she was at a boarding school in East Brent, Highbridge, Somerset. It was named Rossholm School. Although the building still exists it is no longer used as a school, and is now known as The Victorian House Boutique Bed & Breakfast:
Back in the 1980s, to the South West West of the school there was an outdoor hockey pitch separated from the building by a 100 metre wide gravel-covered courtyard. Beyond this was a hedge and line of trees followed by a gradual upward slope known as Brent Knoll. These still exist today.
At the time the students at the boarding school were not allowed to walk across the main hallway, they would need to exit the building, walk around it and then back in on the other side. At around 6pm on the evening of the incident Donah and one of her class mates needed to do exactly this. Due to the time of year it was dark outside.
As they walked around to the West side of the building a light to the South West West caught Donah’s eye. She looked towards the knoll. In the distance beyond the line of trees (which were bare of leaves at the time) she could see a very bright white orb of light.
She thought to herself “People aren’t going to be climbing up the knoll in the dark. That can’t be someone with a torch, it looks too large and bright for that.” She pointed the light out to her friend, and they both stood there and stared at it. After a short while her class mate lost interest saying she was cold, and so headed inside the building. Donah remained outside puzzled by the light.
Suddenly without warning the white orb began to ascend vertically into the air. It silently moved straight upwards at quite a fast pace. It got quite high up then suddenly changed course and began moving on a straight course across the sky.
Donah then realised there were six other white orbs present in the sky at high altitude in an uneven V-shaped formation. The orb joined the end of this formation, now making it symmetrical. As it reached the correct position, it came to a halt. Then a moment later they all shot away extremely rapidly and were quickly lost from sight!
She was amazed at what she had just witnessed. She headed back into the school. However when she told her class mates what she had witnessed they just brushed it off as a distant formation of military jets. This annoyed her a bit, as she knew the objects had not been normal aircraft due to the manoeuvres they had performed. She was also aware that the other girls fully believed that the school was haunted, but would not entertain the notion that she had witnessed a formation of UFOs.
Sighting Analysis
This is a stunning sighting of a formation of anomalous glowing objects. As Donah stated they could not have been jets due to the fact that the initial object was at very low altitude, possible landed, on the side of the ridge, ascended vertically, and then joined up with the remainder of the objects, which hovered motionlessly in the sky.
While a helicopter would have been able to perform the manoeuvres of the initial object, there are a number of reasons why this was not possible. Due to the fact that the initial object was down low at the start of the sighting the possibility that it was an extremely distant object can be ruled out, as it was clearly in front of the slope of the knoll.
At this distance, if the object was a helicopter it is likely that the witnesses would likely have been able to hear the rotor blades, and would also have seen normal navigation lights. Lastly, the speed at which the formation of objects left the vicinity puts this explanation out of the question.
Drones did not exist back in the 1980s so this cannot explain what was witnessed either.
The intelligent manoeuvres and speed of the objects also rules out the idea that they were lit inflatables of some kind. It seems probable to me that what Donah witnessed was a formation of either lit or glowing advanced craft, possibly non-human in origin. Sadly she did not keep in touch with the second witness, although she only saw the initial object before it began moving.
All these years on Donah still thinks about this incident on a regular basis. It has left a lasting impression and she has gained an interest in the subject as a result. I would like to thank her for sharing the details of what took place and the sketches she provided.
As mentioned at the start of the report, Donah's mother had a previous sighting, again of multiple objects. Click here to go to the separate report on this encounter.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2025
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