What happened
Around 3 a.m. on 26 December 1980, US Air Force security police at the east gate of RAF Woodbridge saw lights apparently coming down into Rendlesham Forest and went to look, fearing an aircraft crash. They reported a glowing object among the trees, which the deputy base commander later described as metallic and triangular, with a pulsing red light on top and blue lights beneath; it moved off through the trees as they approached, and a nearby farm's animals went into a frenzy. The next day three small depressions were found in a clearing. Two nights later Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt led a party into the forest with a radiation meter and a pocket tape recorder. They saw a red, sun-like light that pulsed, seemed to shed glowing particles and broke apart, then star-like objects that moved sharply, one beaming light down. In January 1981 Halt sent the Ministry of Defence a one-page memo headed 'Unexplained Lights'. Released under the US Freedom of Information Act in 1983, it turned the episode into Britain's most famous UFO case.
The original account
Early in the morning of 27 Dec 80 (approximately 0300L), two USAF security police patrolmen saw unusual lights outside the back gate at RAF Woodbridge. ... The individuals reported seeing a strange glowing object in the forest. The object was described as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two meters high. It illuminated the entire forest with a white light. The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank(s) of blue lights underneath. The object was hovering or on legs. As the patrolmen approached the object, it maneuvered through the trees and disappeared.
Lt Col Charles I. Halt, USAF, Deputy Base Commander, memorandum 'Unexplained Lights' to the UK Ministry of Defence, January 1981 (US government document, released under the US FOIA in June 1983)
The official explanation
The MoD said the sightings posed no threat and did not investigate further. Astronomer Ian Ridpath and others argue that the first night's descending light matched a bright fireball seen over southern England, that the pulsing light seen from the forest lay in line with the Orford Ness lighthouse (Halt's tape timings match its five-second flash), and that the star-like objects were bright stars, the southern one matching Sirius. Local police who attended said the only lights they could see were from the lighthouse, and officers and foresters thought the depressions were rabbit diggings. Airmen John Burroughs and Ed Cabansag said in statements that the light they followed turned out to be a distant beacon.
The anomalous case
The key document is an official memo by a serving US deputy base commander, sent through channels to the British government, describing a metallic triangular object and saying he personally witnessed the later lights. Halt's party measured radiation with a standard military AN/PDR-27 survey meter and recorded peak readings in the depressions and near the centre of the triangle they formed. Halt's real-time tape captures the men's reactions as events unfold. Jim Penniston later said he approached a craft of unknown origin closely enough to touch it, though that detail was not in the earliest statements. The Ministry of Defence never investigated beyond noting there was no threat, so the radiation readings, tape and ground marks were never independently assessed at the time.
The strongest argument that this was something genuinely unknown or classified, with each claim attributed to the person who made it.
Documents
- Halt memo, 'Unexplained Lights', 13 January 1981 (FOIA release) official, theblackvault.com
- UK MoD UFO file DEFE 24/2076/1 (scan) official, documents.theblackvault.com
Sources
- Rendlesham Forest incident Wikipedia
- UFO reports The National Archives (UK)
- The Halt Memo: The Rendlesham Forest Incident The Black Vault (FOIA document archive)
- Halt memorandum transcription Patrick Gross, UFOs at Close Sight
Witness reports elsewhere
These archives can't be republished here, so we link to them instead.