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|name=Alex Birch | |name=Alex Birch | ||
|born=c. 1948, Sheffield, England | |born=c. 1948, Sheffield, England | ||
Latest revision as of 12:24, 5 August 2026
Alex Birch (born c. 1948) is an English photographer and filmmaker, best known for taking a widely reproduced photograph in 1962, at the age of 14, appearing to show a formation of flying saucers over his family's garden in Mosborough, Sheffield — see Alex Birch UFO Sighting for the full account of the photograph and its decades-long history of claim and counter-claim.
Life after the photograph
The sudden fame the photograph brought took a lasting toll on Birch, who has said he was taunted at school and became permanently known in his community as "the lad who photographed flying saucers." In 1972, he publicly confessed the photograph had been a hoax, staged with two childhood friends using a pane of painted glass, before reversing that confession in 1998 and stating the sighting had, in fact, been genuine.
Despite the controversy surrounding the photograph, Birch maintained a lasting personal interest in photography, going on to become an accomplished practitioner and competition winner in the years that followed. He has continued to take legal steps to control reproduction of the original 1962 photograph, requiring specific written authorisation before it can be published.
The 2005 Spirit Searchers investigation
In 2005, Birch was visited at his home by Spirit Searchers, a UK paranormal investigations team co-founded by Gary JJ Spate, following his own reports of paranormal activity on the property. During the visit, Birch introduced himself to the team as the man behind the 1962 photograph, and separately described having been visited by figures he identified as the UK's equivalent of the Men in Black, said to have worn conventional black suits. The team's investigation of the property did not detect any paranormal activity.
Beyond Perception (2022)
In 2022, Birch released a self-produced film, Beyond Perception, recounting his experiences since 1962. The film includes considerably more extraordinary claims than his earlier accounts, including private meetings with Prince Philip and Lord Mountbatten as a 14-year-old, and a claimed transatlantic telephone conversation with President John F. Kennedy in 1962. These later claims have not been independently corroborated.