It was 44 years ago when a remote forest in Suffolk became the scene of one of the most famous purported UFO sightings in history.
The Rendlesham Forest incident refers to three days in December 1980 where numerous unidentified, triangle-shaped objects were spotted hurtling through the sky. They were seen close to the twin airbases, RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge which were then being used by the US Airforce.
Two airmen carrying out patrols of the nuclear base were sent into the forest to investigate a strange object seen to land there. What they saw that night became one of the most compelling UAP military sightings mysteries of all time, anywhere in the world.
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American commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt added credibility to the sightings, when he recorded a memo claiming he saw another unidentified object in the forest two nights later.
(Image: PA)
The memo found its way into the British military archives and was eventually declassified and released by the US government. It described an encounter with an apparent UFO in the forest.
The sighting even made a News of the World front page story proclaiming ” UFO LANDS IN SUFFOLK, And that’s OFFICIAL”
But the Ministry of Defence said the event posed no risk to national security and was never investigated as a security matter. Government agents were later accused of a cover up.
7NEWS Australia journalist, Ross Coulthart interviewed Lt Col Halt in 2009 and reposted his chat on YouTube earlier this week, attracting almost 200,000 views at the time of writing.
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In it, Lt Col Halt recalls witnessing a glowing object that was metallic in appearance, “bright-orangeish-red like fire” with coloured lights.
As he attempted to approach it, it appeared to move through the trees sending animals on a nearby farm “into a frenzy.”
He said: “The first thing I saw out of the ordinary was when we were standing at the site, measuring and taking radiation readings and trying to ascertain what this thing was.
“I looked up through the forest and towards the coast. I can best describe it as something looking like an eye with a black centre. The object at first was very stable, still. But it was the equivalent of dripping molten metal. Something was shedding off it and drifting onto the ground.”
(Image: Marti Bug Catcher/Shutterstock)
From 200m away, he added: “When the object started moving towards us, it moved forward from the field into the forest…it’s moving thorough the trees going up and down…it was under some kind of intelligent control. It had to be to avoid the trees.
“Then it came towards us at one point and then it receded. It went away. It went back into the field and stayed there for a few seconds and then silently it exploded into white objects and they just disappeared.”
Lt Col Halt added: “We went out into the field after the object disappeared and we’re searching around with our flashlights looking for some evidence because obviously something was dripping off this object, or appeared to be. And I thought there has be be some slag, some residue, something on the ground or some burn marks or something. And the only thing we found is evidence of being cattle there.
“We didn’t find anything at all. And while we were out there searching around, we saw objects in the sky to the north. They were bright objects, they changed shape from half moon to elliptical to full circles.”
Lt Col Halt said he requested air traffic experts check radar systems which drew a blank. He descrbed the beams as moving at “very high speed,” adding: “They were sort of synchronised. They would move in sharp angular movements as though they were doing a grid search or something…It didn’t make any sense to me and I’m puzzled at this point.
“Then we turned and looked, somebody saw one to the south, and then another one to the south…it was closest to us (and) came almost directly overhead at very high speed and stopped. It was stationary.
“We were standing there in awe then all of a sudden, a beam came down (from more than 1,000ft above), right to the side of us. It was an interesting beam, it was concentrated, it did not radiate. It came down like a laser.
“It illuminated a spot on the ground around 10 or 12ft away…I’m thinking is this a warning? Is this communication? What is this? What do we do now? And just as abruptly as it came on, click, it went off.”
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Police were called to the scene but reported that the only lights they could see were from the nearby Orford Ness lighthouse.
The next morning, servicemen returned to a small clearing and found three small impressions on the ground in a triangular pattern as well as burn marks and broken branches on nearby trees, but police concluded the indents had been made by an animal.
Lt Col Halt, who held one of the highest positions in the US military, made a 20-minute tape recording of his sighting and wrote a memo just days later which he sent to the Ministry of Defence.
But he claims there was a cover-up by a clandestine agency.
(Image: GETTY/JONAUSTIN)
In his new introduction to the interview, journalist Ross Coulthart states: “…what he (Halt) told me stunned me. He was a man, one rank below a general, revealing what he believed was a conspiracy by the US military and the British military to conceal what was clearly some kind of intelligently controlled, highly technologically advanced object moving through a forest, immediately adjacent to a base crammed full of dangerous nuclear weapons.
“Why on earth would the Americans and the British want to supress such an incident?
“There’s a great story told by an author called Georgia Bruny and she tells of how she met the British prime minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, and she asked her about the Rendlesham Forest incident….Margaret Thatcher leaned across to her at a dinner party and said: ‘You can’t tell the people.'”
Nearly half a century on, mystery still surrounds the incident dubbed “Britain’s Roswell” – named after the alleged UFO crash in the New Mexico desert in July 1947.
(Image: JONAUSTIN)
Sceptics have disregarded the sightings as nocturnal lights, the Orford Ness Lighthouse, bright stars or a possible hoax.
Since then, the sightings have been the source of much debate and speculation among UFO enthusiasts and the subject of numerous books, articles and TV programmes.
The forest even has its own official UFO trail, complete with a life-size replica of a flying saucer.
After the fascinating story resurfaced on YouTube, hundreds of viewers flocked to share their thoughts.
(Image: Geography Photos/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)
One said: “The Rendlesham Forest incident has always struck me as the most credible encounter, with the first-rate witnesses.”
Another added: “The best summation of the Rendlesham incident I’ve ever seen and observed by a high-ranking colonel with no doubts that the objects seen were under intelligent control!”
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