Case · C-055

Belgian wave 1989–90: the night of the F-16s and the radar contacts (March 30–31, 1990)

Belgium: Eupen (November 1989); Brabant, between Wavre and Beauvechain (night of March 30–31, 1990) · Belgium · Nov 29, 1989 – Apr 1990

In flight Mixed witness types Radar

What happened

Starting on November 29, 1989, when two gendarmes in Eupen reported a large triangular object with lights at the corners, thousands of reports were collected in Belgium until April 1990. On the night of March 30–31, 1990, after reports from the gendarmerie and contacts by military radars, the Air Force scrambled two F-16s from Beauvechain base: the onboard radars locked on for a few seconds to fast-moving targets, but the pilots saw nothing. According to De Brouwer, the Air Force concluded that the evidence was not enough to demonstrate the presence of real aircraft; a four-page account by him, kept in the files of the British Ministry of Defence now at the National Archives, describes the phenomena detected by NATO radar and F-16s as unexplained.

Proposed explanation

For skeptics (including Brian Dunning of Skeptoid and the researcher Renaud Leclet), many sightings were helicopters, planes or stars amplified by media coverage, and the F-16s' radar contacts were spurious echoes of atmospheric origin or mutual locks between the two fighters; General Wilfried De Brouwer, then head of operations of the Air Staff, has ruled out mass hysteria.

Official investigation

Belgian Air Force; gendarmerie; in 1993 the British Ministry of Defence received an official statement from the Belgian Air Force (files at the National Archives)

Words of the document

F-16 pilots obtained “lock-ons” with their radars but were unable to explain the phenomena

Official documents

1. UFO files – Highlights Guide (rilascio dell'agosto 2009) · The National Archives (United Kingdom) · Aug 2009

Sources

1. The Week, “30 years later, we still don't know what really happened during the Belgian UFO wave” (2020) (press)
2. Skeptoid #538 (Brian Dunning), “The Belgian UFO Wave” (analysis, skeptical)
3. RTBF, “OVNIS: En 1989, la Belgique voit des OVNIS partout” (press)
4. Wikipedia (en) – Belgian UFO wave (other)

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