The Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident: No Easy Answers

Compiled by Bill Knell

The east gate at RAF Woodbridge, where the incident began in December 1980

In late December 1980, there were a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights near Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England, which have become linked with claims of UFO landings.

Around 3:00 a.m. on December 26, 1980 a security patrol near the east gate of RAF Woodbridge saw lights apparently descending into nearby Rendlesham Forest.

Servicemen initially thought it was a downed aircraft. On entering the forest to investigate, they saw what they described as a glowing object, metallic, with colored lights. As they attempted to approach the object, it appeared to move through the trees, and "the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy".

One of the servicemen, Sergeant Jim Penniston, later claimed to have encountered a "craft of unknown origin" while in the forest.

After daybreak on the morning of December 28, servicemen returned to a small clearing near the eastern edge of the forest and found three small impressions on the ground in a triangular pattern, as well as burn marks and broken branches on nearby trees. At 10:30 a.m. the local police were called out to see the impressions.

The deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, visited the site with several servicemen in the early hours of December 28, 1980. They took radiation readings in the triangle of depressions and in the surrounding area using an AN/PDR-27, a standard U.S. military radiation survey meter.

Although they recorded 0.07 milliroentgens per hour, in other regions they detected 0.03 to 0.04 milliroentgens per hour, around the background level. Furthermore, they detected a similar small 'burst' over half a mile away from the landing site. Halt recorded the events on a micro-cassette recorder.

It was during this investigation that a flashing light was seen across the field to the east, almost in line with a farmhouse, as the witnesses had seen on the first night.

Later, according to Halt's memo, three starlike lights were seen in the sky, two to the north and one to the south, about 10 degrees above the horizon. Halt said that the brightest of these hovered for two to three hours and seemed to beam down a stream of light from time to time.

The incident occurred in the vicinity of two former military bases: RAF Bentwaters, which is just to the north of the forest, and RAF Woodbridge which extends into the forest from the west and is bounded by the forest on its northern and eastern edges. At the time, both were being used by the United States Air Force and were under the command of wing commander Colonel Gordon E. Williams. The base commander was Colonel Ted Conrad, and his deputy was Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt.

The main events of the incident, including the landing or landings, took place in the forest, which starts at the east end of the base runway or about 0.3 miles (0.5 km) to the east of the East Gate of RAF Woodbridge, from where security guards first noticed mysterious lights appearing to descend into the forest. The forest extends east about one mile (1.6 km) beyond East Gate, ending at a farmer's field at Capel Green, where additional events allegedly took place.

The first piece of primary evidence to be made available to the public was a memorandum written by the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt, to the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Known as the "Halt memo", this was made publicly available in the United States under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act in 1983.The memorandum, was dated "Jan 13 1981" under the title "Unexplained Lights". Halt has since gone on record as saying he believes that he witnessed an extraterrestrial event that was then covered up.

In 1984, a copy of what became known as the "Halt Tape" was released to UFO researchers by Colonel Sam Morgan, who had by then succeeded Ted Conrad as Halt's superior. This tape chronicles Halt's investigation in the forest in real time, including taking radiation readings, the sighting of the flashing light between trees, and the starlike objects that hovered.

A 1983 Omni article says "Colonel Ted Conrad the base commander... recalls five Air Force policemen spotted lights from what they thought was a small plane descending into the forest. Two of the men tracked the object on foot and came upon a large tripod-mounted craft. It had no windows but was studded with brilliant red and blue lights. Each time the men came within 50 yards of the ship, Conrad relates, it levitated six feet in the air and backed away. They followed it for almost an hour through the woods and across a field until it took off at 'phenomenal speed.'

Acting on the reports made by his men, Colonel Conrad began a brief investigation of the incident in the morning. He went into the forest and located a triangular pattern ostensibly made by the tripod legs. ...he did interview two of the eyewitnesses and concludes, 'Those lads saw something, but I don't know what it was'."

Summary of Events from The Sun, UK…

The Rendlesham Forest incident took place in December 1980 over a series of at least two nights.

On December 26, 1980, military personnel at the twin bases of RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk saw a strange light in Rendlesham Forest, which lies between the two bases.

Three men were sent out to investigate where two of them encountered a small, triangularshaped craft. One man, Jim Penniston, got close enough to touch the side of the object.

Full size model based on reports

He and another of the airmen present, John Burroughs, made sketches of the craft for witness statements. Two nights later Deputy Base Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt and his team then encountered the UFO.

He said later: "Here I am, a senior official who routinely denies this sort of thing and diligently works to debunk them, and I'm involved in the middle of something I can't explain."

Despite an MOD investigation the Rendlesham Forest incident remains unexplained.

'IT WAS NOT FROM THIS WORLD'

A NEW witness has broken his 36 year silence about about Britain’s most famous UFO incident. Steve Longero was told to keep quiet by his superiors following the infamous Rendlesham Forest incident in Suffolk. But now the retired U.S. Airforce police officer has gone on the record for the first time and said: “I think it was something not from this world.”

The incident – dubbed the British Roswell – took place over three nights between 26 and 28 December, in 1980. Military personnel from nearby RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge, including the deputy base commander, witnessed strange lights in the forest and hovering above the twin NATO airbases which were on high alert as the Cold War was at its peak. Steve, who served as a police sergeant in the USAF, was guarding the weapons storage area when the alarms started going off. He said: “While on duty that night, we had a very sophisticated alarm system and everything just went off.

“And then I could see these lights over the treetops, and I was thinking, what’s going on? Then they started sending people out there and at first it was hard to believe, all these bright lights. It was hard to take in. "Well from what I remember the lights, fluorescent lights, kind of a glow, like a reddish glow. I remember going out there.”

Steve went out into the forest where he remembers seeing a large group of other military personnel had already gathered including Staff Sgt Jim Burroughs, Airman First Class Edward Cabansag and Airman First Class Larry Warren.

Describing the UFOs, he said: “They looked like fluorescent coloured lights, like red and green, glowing lights and that’s what they looked like. I could see them hovering over the treetops like an eye that was almost following everybody.”

He added: “It was real kind of quiet and this thing hovering over the trees, and you were like kind of tracking it and like ‘what is this?’. And it was like following, it was like watching us, that’s what it looked like to us. It seemed like something watching us.

“From what I remember it was like aglow, it was really glowing like a reddish, greenish light. It was really glowing, like something was really hot and it was just glowing.”

He also recalled seeing Colonel Charles Halt there, who made a tape recording describing how beams of light were being shone down by the UFO.

Mr Longero said: “Col Halt came afterwards, after all that was called in. I remember him turning up, that’s when they kind of gathered everyone around and said this is what we are going to do, and everybody kind of dispersed and did what they were told to do.

"I remember we had a little briefing right there and everybody was just like, we just could not believe what we were seeing. Your adrenalin was flowing and I remember people saying like ‘what is that?’.

“And then, as people were getting close to this thing it kind of came nearer to us and then it would go forward and then go back and all of a sudden it just disappeared, like something out of Star Trek, it was like warp speed and we were all ‘what was that?’ it was gone and then that’s when they started doing all their investigations. After we secured the area they said okay, you’re gone, get out of here.”

Steve said he was debriefed a few days later and was told not to talk about what he saw as the base had nuclear weapons on site.

UFO investigator Philip Mantle, who interviewed Steve for Outer Limits Magazine, said: “Steve does not claim to be anything special but he wanted to emphasise that there were a lot of others involved who were witness to the events in question, many of whom have yet to add their voice to these events.

“Steve has confirmed the open secret that nuclear weapons were stored at RAF Bentwaters at the time although he did not personally witness any lights being shone onto the WSA.

“He has confirmed much of what Colonel Halt has already said on the record and he is in no doubt that Larry Warren was there.

Larry Warren was a member of the Air Force security police stationed at RAF Bentwaters, a NATO base in Great Britain. On the night of the 28th he was on guard duty when he was taken by truck to join other Air Force personnel to investigate a disturbance in a Rendlesham Forest about five miles away, which turned out to be a landed UFO. This was the third night of UFO activity in the area and by far the most profound. When the men were debriefed the next day, they were warned to tell no one about what they had seen-as "bullets are cheap”.

“What is clear is that despite the best efforts of some this case will continue to be hotly debated for many years."

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