Posted On: October 23, 2021

The year is 1980, the place, Rendlesham Forest, near Ipswich, Suffolk, England. A UFO was witnessed by military personnel in the forest. The object had landed or crashed in the woods. It was described as a strange glowing object, metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across and two meters tall. As the patrolmen approached the object, it maneuvered through the trees and disappeared.

On December 27^th, 1980, at about 03:00 hours, the witness, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, US Air Force Deputy Base Commander at Woodbridge at the time stated:

“1. 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. Thinking an aircraft might have crashed or been forced down, they called for permission to go outside the gate to investigate. The on duty flight chief responded and allowed three patrolmen to proceed onfoot. 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. At this time the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy. The object was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near the back gate.

2. The next day, three depressions 1 ½” deep and 7" in diameter were found where the object had been sighted on the ground. The following night (29 Dec 80) the area was checked for radiation. Beta/Gamma readings of 0.1 milliroentgens were recorded with peak readings in the three depressions and near the center of the triangle formed by the depressions. A nearby tree had moderate (.05-. 07) readings on the side of the tree toward the depressions.

3. Later in the night a red sun like light was seen through the trees. It moved about and pulsed. At one point it appeared to throw off glowing particles and then broke into five separate white objects and then disappeared. Immediately thereafter, three star like objects were noticed in the sky, two objects to the north and one to the south, all of which were about 10° off the horizon. The objects moved rapidly in sharp angular movements and displayed red, green and blue lights. The objects to the north appeared to be elliptical through an 8-12 power lens. They then turned to full circles. The objects to the north remained in the sky for an hour or more. The object to the south was visible for two or three hours and beamed down a stream of light from time to time. Numerous individuals, including the undersigned, witnessed the activities in paragraphs 2”

News of the Woodbridge incident first leaked out in January 1981 when Brenda Butler was approached by a US Air Force security officer who had proven to be a reliable source of information in the past. Given the pseudonym of “Steve Roberts” by the authors of Sky Crash, he confided that a UFO had crash-landed in Rendlesham Forest on the night of 27 December, and that he had himself witnessed its three small silver suited occupants carrying out repairs while suspended in a shaft of light. The craft had remained on the ground for several hours, he claimed, during which time General Gordon Williams, overall Base Commander at the time, had communicated with the “aliens!” Many military personnel were present, and films and photos were taken which were immediately confiscated by senior officers when the craft had taken off.

Another witness going by the name, James Archer advised that he was a security officer that night and advised that at about 2:00 a.m. guards at the Woodbridge gate had seen lights apparently descending out of sight into Rendlesham Forest. The guards radioed for permission to investigate but were told to wait until relief guards could be sent to replace them. Thus Archer and another security officer, Airman John Burroughs (real name), were ordered to drive out to the area in a jeep, leaving their guns behind. Since the lane from the gate was full of ruts and potholes, the two men were obliged to proceed on foot. After a short while their radios suddenly went dead. Then they came across the object. Archer described it as triangular in shape, with three landing legs. It was about ten to twelve feet in diameter and eight feet high, with a blue light on top, red lights and a white light in the middle, and a brighter white light emanating from the underside. Archer was emphatic that no alien occupants were involved, although he was sure that something was inside the object. “I don’t know what, but the shapes did not look human. Maybe they were like robots.” The two men followed the object as it maneuvered soundlessly around the forest, and at one stage got to within a few feet of it. They followed the craft as it moved into a small field, where it caused panic among the cows. Finally, the object emitted an intense burst of white light, rose to about 200 feet, and then shot off at high speed.

Yet another witness, Sergeant Larry Warren who was stationed at Bentwaters at the time advised that the date of the actual landing was the 30th, not the 27th December. He says that the jeep in which he and other security officers were riding in en route to the landing site kept failing. On arrival at a clearing in the forest he encountered other groups of military personnel, including RAF officers, and he could hear helicopters overhead. A movie camera was pointing toward something which looked like a “transparent aspirin tablet” hovering just above the ground, about fifty feet in diameter, surrounded by security officers. A bright red light approached from behind the trees, descended silently over the “aspirin” and then exploded in a multiple colored burst of light. Both the “aspirin” and light vanished, leaving in their place a large domed disk with intricate patterns on its surface. Warren and a couple of colleagues approached it, but the next thing he recalls is being back in bed at the Bentwaters base.

Together with other witnesses he was ordered to see the Base Commander, who told them all that they must not discuss what had happened as it had a “high security level.” Warren also claims that his clothes were checked for radioactivity. He learned from other witnesses that those who had been on the far side of the object (i.e. opposite his position) had seen small alien beings. He was also told that false trails had been laid in the forest and that stories of alien contact were invented in order to discredit the entire story. Warren, nineteen years old at the time, later told his family about the incident, as a result of which, he claims, he was given an honorable discharge from the Air Force.

A further witness came forward, Sergeant Adrian Bustinza, the Security Police Acting Commander at Woodbridge advised:

“We were in the alert area, and I was on my way over to RAF Woodbridge base at around midnight. While we were over there one of my patrols sighted an object of some sort, it was like a fire in the forest area. I notified my acting commander, which was Lieutenant Englund, and he went ahead and called the commander that night, which was Colonel Halt, and he told Lieutenant Englund to check out the situation. We proceeded to check out the situation; myself and Lt. Englund and Sergeant Ball. What I remember clearly was that when we got there, Col. Halt pointed to the individuals he wanted to go with him. So we went back to Bentwaters base, grabbed two light-alls and had a patrol refuel them, and once we refueled them we took them out there to see if we could light up the area to see if there was anything out there. In the process of trying to check the light-alls, everything was malfunctioning. When we got to Point A the sighting of the object, we had trouble turning the light-alls on. Our truck wouldn’t run, either. It was kind of like all the energy had been drained out of both light-all units.  We started to search - One individual had said he had spotted the object, like sitting on the ground. We proceeded to look and in the process found kind of like triangular tripods, burned into the ground at three different standpoints. They were like it was a heavy object. They took radiation readings of the holes, and they got a radiation reading as I recall. Then I recall we were walking through the woods and we came upon the lights again. And that’s when I first saw the object.  We got, I think it was the flight chief Sergeant Ball, and I believe another individual officer. We kept searching the area, kind of like trying to follow the object. And it was moving through the trees. And in the process we came upon a yellow mist, about two or three feet off the ground. It was like dew but it was yellow, like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  We kind of, like, ignored it. We were worried about the object, to see if we could locate it again, or catch up to it again.  We did see the object again. It was hovering low, like moving up and down anywhere from 10 to 20 feet, back up, back down, back up. There was a red light on top and there were several blue lights on the bottom, but there was also like. a prism, rainbow lights on top and several other colors of light. It was a tremendous size. It even surprised me that it was able to fit into the clearing, a tremendous size, and I use the word tremendous carefully. It was a round, circular shape; I hate to say like a plate, but it was thicker at the center than it was at the edge.”

Bustinza and the other witnesses were ordered to form a perimeter around the object at about fifteen foot intervals. After observing the object for about thirty minutes, Bustinza says it took off suddenly.

“It was gone in a flash, almost like it just disappeared. When it left, we were hit by a cold blast of wind which blew toward us for 5 or 10 seconds. It was a really scary feeling. I was just frozen in place at first; my life actually passed in front of my eyes.”

A tape recording of the incident was eventually released. Known as the Halt Tape.

“Voice: . . . 1:48. We’re hearing very strange sounds out of the farmer’s barnyard animals. They’re very, very active, making an awful lot of noise,  You just saw a light? [garbled] Slow down. Where?”

“Voice: Right on this position. Here, straight ahead in between the trees, there it is again. Watch, straight ahead off my flashlight, sir. There it is. “

“Halt: I see it too. What is it?”

“Voice: We don’t know, sir. “

“Halt: It’s a strange, small red light. Looks to be maybe a quarter to a half mile, maybe further out. I’m gonna switch off. The light is gone now. It was approximately 120 degrees from our site. Is it back again? “

“Voice: Yes sir. “

“Voice: Well douse flashlights then. Let’s go back to the edge of the clearing so we can get a better look at it. See if you can get the starscope on it. The light’s still there and all the barnyard animals have gone quiet now. We’re heading about 110, 120 degrees from the site out through to the clearing now, still getting a reading on the meter.  We’re about 150 or 200 yards from the site. Everywhere else is just deathly calm. There is no doubt about it, there’s some type of strange flashing red light ahead. “

“Voice: Sir, it’s yellow. “

“Halt: I saw a yellow tinge in it too. Weird. It appears to be maybe moving a little bit this way? It’s brighter than it has been. It’s coming this way. It is definitely coming this way! Pieces of it are shooting off. There is no doubt about it! This is weird!.“

“Voice: Two lights! One to the right and one light to the left! “

“Halt: Keep your flashlights off. There’s something very, very strange. Keep the headset on; see if it gets any, Pieces are falling off it again!“

“Voice: It just moved to the right. “

“voice: Yeah! Strange! Let’s approach to the edge of the woods up there.  OK, we’re looking at the thing. We’re probably about two to three hundred yards away. It looks like an eye winking at you. Still moving from side to side. And when you put the starscope on it, it’s like this thing has a hollow center, a dark center, like the pupil of an eye looking at you, winking. And it flashes so bright in the starscope that it almost bums your eye.  We’ve passed the farmer’s house and across into the next field and now we have multiple sightings of up to five lights with a similar shape and all but they seem to be steady now rather than a pulsating or glow with a red flash. We’ve just crossed a creek and we’re getting what kind of readings now? We’re getting three good clicks on the meter and we’re seeing strange lights in the sky. “

“Halt: 2:44. We’re at the far side of the second farmer’s field and made sighting again about 110 degrees. This looks like it’s clear off to the coast. It’s right on the horizon. Moves about a bit and flashes from time to time. Still steady or red in color. Also after negative readings in the center of the field we’re picking up slight readings, four or five clicks now, on the meter. “

“Halt: 3:05. We see strange strobe-like flashes to the er, well, they’re sporadic, but there’s definitely some kind of phenomenon. 3:05. At about ten degrees, horizon, directly north, we’ve got two strange objects, er, half-moon shape, dancing about with colored lights on ’em. That, er, guess to be about five to ten miles out, maybe less. The half-moons are now turning to full circles, as though there was an eclipse or something there, for a minute or two,  03:15. Now we’ve got an object about ten degrees directly south, ten degrees off the horizon. And the ones to the north are moving. One’s moving away from us. “

“Voice: It’s moving out fast! “

“Voice: This one on the right’s heading away too! “

“Voice: They’re both heading north. OK, here he comes from the south; he’s coming toward us now. Now we’re observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground. This is unreal! “

“Halt: 03:30. And the objects are still in the sky although the one to the south looks like it’s losing a little bit of altitude. We’re going around and heading back toward the house. The object to the south is still beaming down lights to the ground. “

“Halt: 0400 hours. One object still hovering over Woodbridge base at about five to ten degrees off the horizon. Still moving erratic, and similar lights and beaming down as earlier,”

It is clear that something very unusual occurred in December 1980 at Rendlesham Forest. Even though witness statements have some conflicts. What was it? An experimental military craft of some sort? Was it a craft from outer another planet? The official response is that nothing of defense significance occurred on that night. Whatever it was, several military personnel witnessed something that cannot be dismissed out of hand.

More Info Here.

Resources: Summary from Above Top Secret, Timothy Good, 1988, Chapter Four.

Posted On: October 23, 2021

The year is 1980, the place, Rendlesham Forest, near Ipswich, Suffolk, England. A UFO was witnessed by military personnel in the forest. The object had landed or crashed in the woods. It was described as a strange glowing object, metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across and two meters tall. As the patrolmen approached the object, it maneuvered through the trees and disappeared.

On December 27^th, 1980, at about 03:00 hours, the witness, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, US Air Force Deputy Base Commander at Woodbridge at the time stated:

“1. 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. Thinking an aircraft might have crashed or been forced down, they called for permission to go outside the gate to investigate. The on duty flight chief responded and allowed three patrolmen to proceed onfoot. 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. At this time the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy. The object was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near the back gate.

2. The next day, three depressions 1 ½” deep and 7" in diameter were found where the object had been sighted on the ground. The following night (29 Dec 80) the area was checked for radiation. Beta/Gamma readings of 0.1 milliroentgens were recorded with peak readings in the three depressions and near the center of the triangle formed by the depressions. A nearby tree had moderate (.05-. 07) readings on the side of the tree toward the depressions.

3. Later in the night a red sun like light was seen through the trees. It moved about and pulsed. At one point it appeared to throw off glowing particles and then broke into five separate white objects and then disappeared. Immediately thereafter, three star like objects were noticed in the sky, two objects to the north and one to the south, all of which were about 10° off the horizon. The objects moved rapidly in sharp angular movements and displayed red, green and blue lights. The objects to the north appeared to be elliptical through an 8-12 power lens. They then turned to full circles. The objects to the north remained in the sky for an hour or more. The object to the south was visible for two or three hours and beamed down a stream of light from time to time. Numerous individuals, including the undersigned, witnessed the activities in paragraphs 2”

News of the Woodbridge incident first leaked out in January 1981 when Brenda Butler was approached by a US Air Force security officer who had proven to be a reliable source of information in the past. Given the pseudonym of “Steve Roberts” by the authors of Sky Crash, he confided that a UFO had crash-landed in Rendlesham Forest on the night of 27 December, and that he had himself witnessed its three small silver suited occupants carrying out repairs while suspended in a shaft of light. The craft had remained on the ground for several hours, he claimed, during which time General Gordon Williams, overall Base Commander at the time, had communicated with the “aliens!” Many military personnel were present, and films and photos were taken which were immediately confiscated by senior officers when the craft had taken off.

Another witness going by the name, James Archer advised that he was a security officer that night and advised that at about 2:00 a.m. guards at the Woodbridge gate had seen lights apparently descending out of sight into Rendlesham Forest. The guards radioed for permission to investigate but were told to wait until relief guards could be sent to replace them. Thus Archer and another security officer, Airman John Burroughs (real name), were ordered to drive out to the area in a jeep, leaving their guns behind. Since the lane from the gate was full of ruts and potholes, the two men were obliged to proceed on foot. After a short while their radios suddenly went dead. Then they came across the object. Archer described it as triangular in shape, with three landing legs. It was about ten to twelve feet in diameter and eight feet high, with a blue light on top, red lights and a white light in the middle, and a brighter white light emanating from the underside. Archer was emphatic that no alien occupants were involved, although he was sure that something was inside the object. “I don’t know what, but the shapes did not look human. Maybe they were like robots.” The two men followed the object as it maneuvered soundlessly around the forest, and at one stage got to within a few feet of it. They followed the craft as it moved into a small field, where it caused panic among the cows. Finally, the object emitted an intense burst of white light, rose to about 200 feet, and then shot off at high speed.

Yet another witness, Sergeant Larry Warren who was stationed at Bentwaters at the time advised that the date of the actual landing was the 30th, not the 27th December. He says that the jeep in which he and other security officers were riding in en route to the landing site kept failing. On arrival at a clearing in the forest he encountered other groups of military personnel, including RAF officers, and he could hear helicopters overhead. A movie camera was pointing toward something which looked like a “transparent aspirin tablet” hovering just above the ground, about fifty feet in diameter, surrounded by security officers. A bright red light approached from behind the trees, descended silently over the “aspirin” and then exploded in a multiple colored burst of light. Both the “aspirin” and light vanished, leaving in their place a large domed disk with intricate patterns on its surface. Warren and a couple of colleagues approached it, but the next thing he recalls is being back in bed at the Bentwaters base.

Together with other witnesses he was ordered to see the Base Commander, who told them all that they must not discuss what had happened as it had a “high security level.” Warren also claims that his clothes were checked for radioactivity. He learned from other witnesses that those who had been on the far side of the object (i.e. opposite his position) had seen small alien beings. He was also told that false trails had been laid in the forest and that stories of alien contact were invented in order to discredit the entire story. Warren, nineteen years old at the time, later told his family about the incident, as a result of which, he claims, he was given an honorable discharge from the Air Force.

A further witness came forward, Sergeant Adrian Bustinza, the Security Police Acting Commander at Woodbridge advised:

“We were in the alert area, and I was on my way over to RAF Woodbridge base at around midnight. While we were over there one of my patrols sighted an object of some sort, it was like a fire in the forest area. I notified my acting commander, which was Lieutenant Englund, and he went ahead and called the commander that night, which was Colonel Halt, and he told Lieutenant Englund to check out the situation. We proceeded to check out the situation; myself and Lt. Englund and Sergeant Ball. What I remember clearly was that when we got there, Col. Halt pointed to the individuals he wanted to go with him. So we went back to Bentwaters base, grabbed two light-alls and had a patrol refuel them, and once we refueled them we took them out there to see if we could light up the area to see if there was anything out there. In the process of trying to check the light-alls, everything was malfunctioning. When we got to Point A the sighting of the object, we had trouble turning the light-alls on. Our truck wouldn’t run, either. It was kind of like all the energy had been drained out of both light-all units.  We started to search - One individual had said he had spotted the object, like sitting on the ground. We proceeded to look and in the process found kind of like triangular tripods, burned into the ground at three different standpoints. They were like it was a heavy object. They took radiation readings of the holes, and they got a radiation reading as I recall. Then I recall we were walking through the woods and we came upon the lights again. And that’s when I first saw the object.  We got, I think it was the flight chief Sergeant Ball, and I believe another individual officer. We kept searching the area, kind of like trying to follow the object. And it was moving through the trees. And in the process we came upon a yellow mist, about two or three feet off the ground. It was like dew but it was yellow, like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  We kind of, like, ignored it. We were worried about the object, to see if we could locate it again, or catch up to it again.  We did see the object again. It was hovering low, like moving up and down anywhere from 10 to 20 feet, back up, back down, back up. There was a red light on top and there were several blue lights on the bottom, but there was also like. a prism, rainbow lights on top and several other colors of light. It was a tremendous size. It even surprised me that it was able to fit into the clearing, a tremendous size, and I use the word tremendous carefully. It was a round, circular shape; I hate to say like a plate, but it was thicker at the center than it was at the edge.”

Bustinza and the other witnesses were ordered to form a perimeter around the object at about fifteen foot intervals. After observing the object for about thirty minutes, Bustinza says it took off suddenly.

“It was gone in a flash, almost like it just disappeared. When it left, we were hit by a cold blast of wind which blew toward us for 5 or 10 seconds. It was a really scary feeling. I was just frozen in place at first; my life actually passed in front of my eyes.”

A tape recording of the incident was eventually released. Known as the Halt Tape.

“Voice: . . . 1:48. We’re hearing very strange sounds out of the farmer’s barnyard animals. They’re very, very active, making an awful lot of noise,  You just saw a light? [garbled] Slow down. Where?”

“Voice: Right on this position. Here, straight ahead in between the trees, there it is again. Watch, straight ahead off my flashlight, sir. There it is. “

“Halt: I see it too. What is it?”

“Voice: We don’t know, sir. “

“Halt: It’s a strange, small red light. Looks to be maybe a quarter to a half mile, maybe further out. I’m gonna switch off. The light is gone now. It was approximately 120 degrees from our site. Is it back again? “

“Voice: Yes sir. “

“Voice: Well douse flashlights then. Let’s go back to the edge of the clearing so we can get a better look at it. See if you can get the starscope on it. The light’s still there and all the barnyard animals have gone quiet now. We’re heading about 110, 120 degrees from the site out through to the clearing now, still getting a reading on the meter.  We’re about 150 or 200 yards from the site. Everywhere else is just deathly calm. There is no doubt about it, there’s some type of strange flashing red light ahead. “

“Voice: Sir, it’s yellow. “

“Halt: I saw a yellow tinge in it too. Weird. It appears to be maybe moving a little bit this way? It’s brighter than it has been. It’s coming this way. It is definitely coming this way! Pieces of it are shooting off. There is no doubt about it! This is weird!.“

“Voice: Two lights! One to the right and one light to the left! “

“Halt: Keep your flashlights off. There’s something very, very strange. Keep the headset on; see if it gets any, Pieces are falling off it again!“

“Voice: It just moved to the right. “

“voice: Yeah! Strange! Let’s approach to the edge of the woods up there.  OK, we’re looking at the thing. We’re probably about two to three hundred yards away. It looks like an eye winking at you. Still moving from side to side. And when you put the starscope on it, it’s like this thing has a hollow center, a dark center, like the pupil of an eye looking at you, winking. And it flashes so bright in the starscope that it almost bums your eye.  We’ve passed the farmer’s house and across into the next field and now we have multiple sightings of up to five lights with a similar shape and all but they seem to be steady now rather than a pulsating or glow with a red flash. We’ve just crossed a creek and we’re getting what kind of readings now? We’re getting three good clicks on the meter and we’re seeing strange lights in the sky. “

“Halt: 2:44. We’re at the far side of the second farmer’s field and made sighting again about 110 degrees. This looks like it’s clear off to the coast. It’s right on the horizon. Moves about a bit and flashes from time to time. Still steady or red in color. Also after negative readings in the center of the field we’re picking up slight readings, four or five clicks now, on the meter. “

“Halt: 3:05. We see strange strobe-like flashes to the er, well, they’re sporadic, but there’s definitely some kind of phenomenon. 3:05. At about ten degrees, horizon, directly north, we’ve got two strange objects, er, half-moon shape, dancing about with colored lights on ’em. That, er, guess to be about five to ten miles out, maybe less. The half-moons are now turning to full circles, as though there was an eclipse or something there, for a minute or two,  03:15. Now we’ve got an object about ten degrees directly south, ten degrees off the horizon. And the ones to the north are moving. One’s moving away from us. “

“Voice: It’s moving out fast! “

“Voice: This one on the right’s heading away too! “

“Voice: They’re both heading north. OK, here he comes from the south; he’s coming toward us now. Now we’re observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground. This is unreal! “

“Halt: 03:30. And the objects are still in the sky although the one to the south looks like it’s losing a little bit of altitude. We’re going around and heading back toward the house. The object to the south is still beaming down lights to the ground. “

“Halt: 0400 hours. One object still hovering over Woodbridge base at about five to ten degrees off the horizon. Still moving erratic, and similar lights and beaming down as earlier,”

It is clear that something very unusual occurred in December 1980 at Rendlesham Forest. Even though witness statements have some conflicts. What was it? An experimental military craft of some sort? Was it a craft from outer another planet? The official response is that nothing of defense significance occurred on that night. Whatever it was, several military personnel witnessed something that cannot be dismissed out of hand.

More Info Here.

Resources: Summary from Above Top Secret, Timothy Good, 1988, Chapter Four.