Birmingham UFO Group Case Report
Author: Dave Hodrien
Release Date: 06/08/2024
In June 2024 I came across a Facebook post regarding a Flying Triangle sighting a man named Anthony Spears had experienced. I reached out to him on Messenger expressing an interest in the incident. We arranged a video call to go over it in depth. During this call Anthony also revealed he had experienced two previous sightings, the first of which had made a massive impact on the lives of both him and his parents.
This report covers this initial childhood sighting in depth. Links to the reports on his two other sightings can be found towards the end of it.
Sighting Details
In 1989 when Anthony was 7 years old he lived with his parents in a house on Coronation Road, Portland, Dorset.
Portland is famous for its annual fair which has taken place near to Chesil Beach for the last 200 years in late October to early November. One day in late October Anthony had visited the fair with his parents Peter and Sylvia.
It was dusk, around 6pm due to the time of year, and they were on their way back home. They were at the Southern end of Verne Common Road and had just started ascending the gradual hill towards Harbour View Road. There were no other pedestrians around at the time, it was quite quiet. The only nearby illumination was from the street light they had just walked past.
Anthony can’t recall who saw them first, but one of his parents suddenly stated “Look at that up there!” Everyone looked up into the sky and were amazed at what they saw. A short distance to the West of them at a very high elevation were what appeared to be five glowing orange orbs or spheres. The objects had clearly defined edges with no halo around them.
They were arranged into a symmetrical V-shaped formation, and were moving very slowly along heading in a Easterly direction. However rather than flying with the central object at the front of the formation it was instead at the top, with the other objects spaced equally outwards below it, like an upside down V.
They appeared to be completely silent. As they moved on a straight course to the East, passing right over their heads, the objects did not drift from one another at all, and remained constantly bright. Anthony estimates they were moving around 5 mph.
During the sighting Anthony and his parents did not talk much, they were transfixed by what they were looking at. Sadly they did not have a camera on them at the time so were unable to take any photographs or video footage.
The family watched them for a number of minutes as they slowly moved away on a level and straight course. After this time they entered a small cloud. They expected them to emerge from the other side of this cloud as they were moving on a constant speed, but they did not. They had seemingly vanished without trace.
They continued their walk up the hill. It was only when they arrived home that the sighting began to really sink in. Sylvia immediately drew a colour picture of what they had witnessed while it was still fresh in her memory. Anthony had kept this drawing and was able to provide a scan of it for me.
The sighting made a lasting impact on both Anthony and his parents, which later on would lead to a fascination with the UFO subject.
Sylvia’s Testimony
Sadly Anthony’s father Peter has now passed away. However I was able to speak with Sylvia on a later video call to hear what she recollected. Below is her testimonial statement on the incident.
“I remember it like it happened yesterday. We was coming back from the beach 'cause they had the fair on 31st October for Halloween. We were walking back up to the top of the hill. It had just turned dark, sun was just setting. Could still see the clouds.
That's when we saw five orangey-peach lights, big lights, over our heads moving really slowly across the sky. We watched for ages until they disappeared behind a little puffy cloud. We waited until they came out of the other side but they didn't they just vanished. They were something we had never seen before. They looked like glowing balls of light. They were moving across the sky in a formation. There were five lights in a diagonal pattern. no change in brightness, kept in exactly the same pattern. Absolutely amazing.
We didn't have a camera, couldn't take a picture. We looked at them for at least five minutes. They went directly over our heads. No sound as well. I always wanted to believe in UFOs but after that it proved it for me."
I asked Sylvia if she knows what sky lanterns are. In response to this she said "They definitely weren't those. They were too large. The colour was different, like a pinkish-orange colour. They remained in formation and did not drift in position from one another."
Sighting Analysis
Anthony has always thought of the orange orbs as round lights on a singular large object. Because of the way the orbs were all moving together at a constant speed and direction I can see how he could have ended up with this impression. However in going over the details with him, viewing his mother’s drawing and obtaining testimonies from them both, I feel it is more probable that this was five objects travelling in formation rather than a singular object. It was not fully dark, so if there had been a main body around the orbs this would have been visible, yet no such main body was drawn by Sylvia or Anthony.
The orbs could not have been aeroplanes or helicopters flying in formation. They were too clearly defined and were the wrong colour for aircraft. Navigation lights of both planes and helicopters are white, red and green, and even at high altitude it is possible to see these. It was not fully dark the shapes of these aircraft would have been visible. The objects were also seemingly moving much too slowly to be aircraft. Lastly it would be logical and most common for a V-formation of aircraft to fly with the central plane/helicopter at the front and the others spanning out behind them (Although it is of course possible for aircraft to fly in any formation they choose).
The incident took place decades before drones and LED balloons were available. Five remote controlled models being flown together is extremely unlikely, and the objects seemed too large for this to be the explanation. Hot air balloons are never flown in formation like this. The vast majority of hot air balloons are light bulb shaped, and as it was not yet dark this shape would have been immediately recognisable.
There are numerous reasons why I do not believe that this was a launch of five sky lanterns. Both witnesses remarked on the size of the orbs. They were clearly up in the low cloud layer as they were finally lost from view behind one. Low lying cloud tends to usually appear around 5000 feet up, so they were clearly at quite a high altitude, meaning that they would have had to have been quite large.
Sky lanterns were not widely available back in the late 1980s. They only became popular in the noughties, and of course have since been largely removed from shops due to the fire hazard (although they are still currently legal in the UK). When caught on an air current lanterns do often follow the same path across the sky, however there would usually be a small amount of drift detected, especially if observing them for several minutes. No such drift was observed with the objects, the retained positioning from one another throughout the sighting. Also lanterns tend to flicker in brightness due to the flame, yet the witnesses reported that these objects were constantly bright. The objects were in a symmetrical pattern which may indicate possible intelligence, although this could of course have been purely coincidental.
The way in which the orbs vanished all at the same time while out of sight behind a cloud is another aspect which needs to be addressed. When lanterns burn out they can seem to suddenly vanish, however it is extremely unlikely that all five of them would burn out at the same moment, even if they had been launched around the same time. So surely at least some of them would have emerged from the cloud and still been visible?
I feel there is enough testimonial evidence which points away from this sighting being a launch of sky lanterns. With this and other mundane explanations dismissed, I feel there is the possibility that this was a genuine sighting of a formation of glowing craft. I have investigated formation sightings numerous times before, although they are quite rare.
Anthony has experienced two other UFO sightings in his life. A couple of years later while still living in Portland he witnessed a silver coloured sphere. Click here to go to the case report. Many years later in Bournemouth he witnessed a Flying Triangle potentially being intercepted by a military jet. For the case report on this incident click here.
I would like to thank Anthony and Sylvia for coming forward with the details of these sightings. It is good to get them finally down on record.
Copyright Dave Hodrien 2024
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