Rendlesham Forest, RAF/USAF Woodbridge, Suffolk, England December 29, 1980.
The tranquil darkness of Rendlesham forest was shattered in
the early hours of a late December morning when a triangular
shaped UFO landed, or possibly crash landed, amid trees to
the rear of the joint United States and United Kingdom airbase
at Woodbridge in Suffolk.
According to a report by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt,
the deputy base commander at the time, two United States Air
Force security officers saw unusual lights in the forest to
the rear of the base. They requested permission to investigate
on the basis that an aircraft may have crashed into the trees.
It was to be the beginning of an extraordinary night.
Three patrolmen tramped through the forest towards the
glowing object and approached to within a few feet of it. It
was described as triangular in shape approximately 8 ft (244
cm) wide and 6 ft (183 cm) high and emitting a bright white
light. There were reports of a red light on top and a bank of
blue lights beneath which seemed to indicate that the object
was sitting on short legs. Possibly wishing to avoid direct
contact as the officers approached, the object manouvered
through the trees away from them towards a nearby farm, driving
cattle there into an agitated state before taking off at
extraordinary speed.
Investigation the following day showed three small
depressions in the ground where the object had been sighted.
These strangely formed indentations were believed to be landing
traces.
There were more extraordinary, and more dubious, claims of
silver suited aliens, of communication between the base
commander and the extraterrestrials, and of films and
photographs of the contact being taken which were then
confiscated. There is little corroborative evidence for these
lated claims.
Radar stations in the area, including RAF/USAF Bentwaters
(itself the subject of an earlier radar visual encounter in the
late 1950s) tracked an unidentified object on radar at the
time. According to the book Skycrash, by Jenny Randles, Brenda
Butler and Dot Street, the two security officers, one given the
pseudonym James Archer and the other airman John Burroughs,
gave reports which confirmed the report given by Lieutenant
Colonel Halt. They made no comment about alien occupants though
did state that they believed there were shapes inside the
object. `I don't know what, but the shapes did not look human.
Maybe they were like robots.'
The mystery deepened further when a tape recording alleged to
have been made by Lieutenant Colonel Halt and others was
released, apparently describing, as it happened, the search
through the woods and encounter with the object. I have heard
portions of the tape and had the impression that it was stage
managed but whether it is a total fabrication or whether the
tape is edited badly, falsely creating a wrong impression, is
difficult to say. If it was fabricated then the question
remains as to who fabricated it. Presumably it was either a
military or defence establishment intent on disinformation
(feeding ludicrous information to people with a view to
discrediting it) or by unprofessional ufologists who by chance
found themselves involved in a major case. If the tape is
faked then the precise identity of the person who did it may
never be known.
Perhaps the most telling part of the encounter came in 1985
when former Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral of the Fleet Lord
Hill-Norton, wrote to Michael Heseltine, the then Secretary of
State for Defence, requesting details of the case. On behalf
of Heseltine a reply was received from Lord Trefgarne stating
that `The events to which your refer were of no defence
significance.'
Lord Hill-Norton pointed out that this was an extraordinary
claim by any standards. If there had been an intrusion into
British airspace around a United States/British airbase from a
foreign or alien power the clearly there was a defence
significance. The alternative was that the report by deputy
base commander Lieutenant Colonel Halt was a hoax, a joke, or
a symptom of him being `out of his mind'. One could argue that
any one of these surely also has defence significance!