Case · C-046

Rendlesham 1980: lights in the forest beside the USAF bases in Suffolk

Rendlesham Forest, near RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters, Suffolk, England · United Kingdom · Dec 26, 1980 – Dec 28, 1980

On land Military witnesses Instruments Physical traces

What happened

At about 3 a.m. on December 26, 1980, a patrol from RAF Woodbridge base, then used by the U.S. Air Force, saw lights that seemed to descend into the forest; some military personnel reported a luminous object among the trees and three impressions were later found in the ground, while the police who responded saw only the light of the Orford Ness lighthouse. On the night of December 28 the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, measured radioactivity at the site and observed a flashing light and some star-like lights; his memorandum of January 13, 1981 to the British Ministry of Defence places the events on December 27 and 29. The ministry stated that the episode did not constitute a threat to national defense and did not investigate it as a security matter.

Proposed explanation

The astronomer Ian Ridpath and other skeptics attribute the first sighting to a fireball seen at about 3 a.m. on December 26, the flashing light to the Orford Ness lighthouse (which flashed every five seconds, like the light recorded by Halt) and the star-like lights to bright stars such as Sirius; Halt and other military personnel involved reject this explanation.

Official investigation

US Air Force (memorandum by the base deputy commander); British Ministry of Defence; Suffolk Constabulary

Words of the document

Unexplained Lights

Official documents

1. Memorandum «Unexplained Lights» del tenente colonnello Charles I. Halt (copia ottenuta via FOIA, The Black Vault) · U.S. Air Force, deputy base commander at RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge · Jan 13, 1981
2. UFO files – Highlights Guide (rilascio dell'agosto 2009) · The National Archives (United Kingdom) · Aug 2009

Sources

1. BBC News, “Rendlesham Forest UFO: Are we any closer to the truth 40 years on?” (2020) (press)
2. Ian Ridpath, “Rendlesham UFO explained – the 3 a.m. fireball” (analysis, skeptical)
3. David Clarke, “Rendlesham Forest UFOs” (with the account of the base commander, Col. Ted Conrad) (analysis)

Open in the interactive archive The whole section: Map of UAP and USO cases

UAPgrade's entries are compiled with artificial intelligence (three verifiers with opposing roles) and checked against the sources listed above: how we work. Have a document that changes this entry? Bring it to the Investigations Unit.