The Rendlesham Forest incident happened in December 1980 near Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, England. People reported seeing strange lights in the area, and these events were later connected to claims about unidentified flying objects (UFOs) landing. The sightings occurred close to RAF Woodbridge, a military base used by the United States Air Force (USAF) at that time. USAF members, including Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt, the deputy base commander, said they saw objects they described as a UFO.

This event is one of the most well-known UFO-related stories in the United Kingdom and is also famous worldwide. It is often compared to the Roswell UFO incident in the United States and is sometimes called "Britain's Roswell."

The UK Ministry of Defence has said the event did not pose a risk to national security and was not studied as a security issue. Some people who doubt the UFO claims believe the lights seen were caused by natural or man-made sources, such as a fireball, the Orfordness Lighthouse, or bright stars.

Main events

On the morning of December 26, 1980 (reported as December 27 by Halt in a memo to the UK Ministry of Defence), a security patrol near the east gate of RAF Woodbridge saw lights appearing to fall into nearby Rendlesham Forest. Astronomers later said these lights were caused by a piece of natural debris burning up as a fireball (a meteor) over southern England around that time. The soldiers first thought the lights might be from a crashed airplane. According to Halt’s memo, when they entered the forest to investigate, they saw a glowing object that looked metal and had colored lights. As they tried to get closer, the object seemed to move through the trees, and animals on a nearby farm became very agitated. One soldier, Sergeant Jim Penniston, later said he saw a "craft of unknown origin" in the forest, but no other witnesses confirmed this at the time. Penniston also said he touched the object and found it very warm.

Shortly after 4:00 AM, local police arrived but saw only the lights from the Orford Ness lighthouse, which is several miles away on the coast.

After sunrise on December 26, soldiers returned to a small clearing near the edge of the forest and found three small marks on the ground, along with burn marks and broken branches on nearby trees. At 10:30 AM, police visited again and saw the marks, thinking they might have been made by an animal. Georgina Bruni, in her book You Can't Tell the People, published a photo of the area taken the morning after the first sighting.

On the early morning of December 28, 1980 (reported as December 29 by Halt), Halt and several soldiers visited the site again. They used an AN/PDR-27, a standard U.S. military radiation meter, to take readings in the area of the three marks and nearby locations. They recorded 0.07 milliroentgens per hour in the triangle of depressions, while other areas showed readings of 0.03 to 0.04 milliroentgens per hour, close to normal background levels. They also detected a similar small "burst" of radiation about half a mile from the site. Halt recorded the events on a micro-cassette recorder (see § The Halt Tape).

During this visit, a flashing red light was seen across the field to the east, near a farmhouse, similar to what was seen earlier. The Orford Ness lighthouse is visible further east in the same direction.

Later, Halt’s memo described seeing three star-like lights in the sky: two to the north and one to the south, about 10 degrees above the horizon. The brightest of these lights stayed visible for two to three hours and sometimes seemed to send a beam of light downward. Astronomers say these lights were actually bright stars.

Location

Rendlesham Forest is owned by the Forestry Commission and covers about 5.8 square miles (15 km²) of land. This land includes areas with conifer trees, mixed with areas of broad-leafed trees, heathland, and wetlands. The forest is located in Suffolk, about 8 miles (13 km) east of the town of Ipswich. The events described happened near two former military bases: RAF Bentwaters, which is just north of the forest, and RAF Woodbridge, which is partly inside the forest. RAF Woodbridge is surrounded by the forest on its northern and eastern sides. At the time, both bases were operated by the United States Air Force and were managed by Colonel Gordon E. Williams, the wing commander. Colonel Ted Conrad was the base commander, and Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt was his assistant.

The main events, including the reported sightings of lights, occurred in the forest. These events began near the eastern end of the runway at RAF Woodbridge, about 0.3 miles (0.5 km) east of the East Gate. Security guards first saw strange lights moving into the forest from this area. The forest stretches east for about one mile (1.6 km) beyond the East Gate and ends at a field near Capel Green, where other events are said to have happened.

Orfordness Lighthouse, which skeptics believe was the flashing light seen by the airmen, is located along the same line of sight about 5 miles (8 km) east of the forest’s edge. At that time, it was one of the brightest lighthouses in the United Kingdom.

Sceptical analysis

One idea is that the event was a trick. The BBC reported that Kevin Conde, a former U.S. security officer, said he made strange lights in the forest by driving a police car with changed lights. However, there is no proof this happened on the nights in question.

Another idea was that a Soviet spy satellite fell, but no proof has been found to support this.

The most common explanation is that the sightings were caused by three main things. On 26 December at 03:00, airmen saw something falling into the forest at the same time a bright fireball appeared over southern England. Fireballs are often linked to UFO reports. The marks thought to be from a landing were actually identified as holes made by rabbits. No proof shows anything landed in the forest.

Witnesses on 26 December said the flashing light they saw was in the same direction as the Orfordness Lighthouse. When they tried to get closer, they realized the light was farther away than they thought. One witness, Ed Cabansag, called it “a beacon light far away,” while another, John Burroughs, said it looked like “a lighthouse.”

On 28 December, a recording by Halt showed a light flashing every five seconds in the same direction as the light seen earlier. This matched the flash rate of the Orfordness Lighthouse.

The star-like objects Halt saw hovering low to the north and south may have been bright stars that looked different because of the sky’s conditions. One of these stars matched the position of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.

In a 2009 podcast, Brian Dunning, a scientific skeptic, reviewed witness reports, audio recordings, and media coverage. He said that while Colonel Halt did a good job, everything he reported had simple, normal explanations. He noted that the men involved have never been debriefed or warned about the event, as claimed. Dunning concluded that combining separate pieces of weak evidence can create the false impression of a bigger mystery, but each piece alone does not prove anything unusual.

UFO Trail

In 2005, the Forestry Commission used money from the Lottery to build a trail in Rendlesham Forest because many people were interested in the area. This trail was given the nickname "UFO Trail." In 2014, the Forestry Service asked an artist to create a piece of artwork. This artwork was placed at the end of the trail and is based on sketches that people say show some UFOs that were reported to be seen in Rendlesham Forest.

Change of heart

In 2010, Jenny Randles, who first reported the case in the London Evening Standard in 1981 and co-wrote the first book about the case in 1984 titled Sky Crash: A Cosmic Conspiracy with local researchers, stated her earlier doubts that the incident was caused by extraterrestrial visitors. While she suggested that a UFO might have contributed to some parts of the case, she noted: "Although some questions remain, we can likely say that no spaceships from other worlds were seen in Rendlesham Forest. We can also confidently argue that the main events were misinterpretations of ordinary things that happened in unusual situations."