Britain's UFO encounters
The deputy commander of a US Air Force base in England was baffled by what he'd seen - bright, pulsing lights in the night sky.
Britain's defence ministry couldn't explain it either, but concluded that the unidentified flying object posed no threat.
The National Archives on Monday released the British government's complete file on the "Rendlesham Forest Incident" of December 1980, one of Britain's most famous UFO sightings.
It was among more than 4000 pages posted online documenting 800 alleged encounters during the 1980s and 1990s.
Over the past three years the Ministry of Defence has been gradually releasing previously secret UFO papers after facing Freedom of Information demands.
The Rendlesham file contains US Air Force Lt Col Charles Halt's first-hand account of the event, which has been public knowledge for many years. The file includes the conclusions of a British government investigation and a letter from a former defence chief urging officials to take UFOs more seriously.
Halt reported that two servicemen had noticed "unusual lights" at about 3am in the woods outside the gates of RAF Woodbridge, a US base in eastern England. He wrote that patrolmen sent to investigate saw "a strange glowing object" in the forest.
The metallic, triangular object "illuminated the entire forest with a white light," he wrote.
The next day, investigators found depressions in the ground and unusual radiation readings. That night many personnel - including Halt himself - saw a pulsing "red sun-like light" in the trees that broke into five white objects and disappeared.
The Ministry of Defence could offer no definitive explanation for what the Air Force officers had reported seeing, but also found no evidence of "any threat to the defence of the United Kingdom."
Nothing had registered on radar, and "there was no evidence of anything having intruded into UK airspace and landed near RAF Woodbridge."
A 1983 letter in the file proposes a possible explanation involving a combination of the nearby Orford Ness lighthouse, a fireball and bright stars.
PUZZLING EPISODE
Case closed, as far as the ministry was concerned. But not everyone was convinced.
A 1985 letter from Lord Hill-Norton, former head of Britain's armed forces, to then-Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, complained that the "puzzling and disquieting" episode had never been explained properly.
Hill-Norton said if the sighting was genuine, "British airspace and territory are vulnerable to unwarranted intrusion to a disturbing degree." The alternative explanation was that "a sizable number of USAF personnel at an important base in British territory are capable of serious misperception, the consequences of which might be grave in military terms."
Britain's defence ministry has charted UFO sightings since the 1950s, when a Flying Saucer Working Party was established. More files are due to be released by the archives through 2010.
Some of the newly-released events came with easy explanations.
In 1993 and 1994, the ministry received numerous reports of a "brightly illuminated oval object" over London. It turned out to be an airship advertising a new car.
More mysterious was a UFO "attack" on a cemetery in Widnes, northwest England, in July 1996. A police report said a young man - "a sensible sort of lad and genuine" - reported seeing a UFO firing beams of light into the ground.
A police officer sent to the scene found a smoldering railway sleeper. "It does look rather odd," reported the officer, whose name was blacked out in the document.
The files include a little grist for conspiracy theorists.
The head of the ministry's UFO desk wrote briefing notes in 1993 reporting a spate of sightings in southwest England and speculating whether they might be connected to Aurora, a secret US spy plane whose existence has never been officially admitted.
Atop one of his letters, someone scrawled: "Thank you. I suggest you now drop this subject."
X FILES
The files reveal a 1996 spike in UFO sightings - 609 that year, up from 117 the year before.
David Clarke, a UFO historian and consultant to the National Archives, said it was probably no coincidence that the supernatural TV show The X Files was popular in Britain at the time, and that alien-invasion movie Independence Day came out the same year.
"It's evident there is some connection between newspaper stories, TV programmes and films about alien visitors, and the numbers of UFO sightings," Clarke said.
"Aside from 1996, one of the busiest years for UFO sightings reported to the MoD (Ministry of DefenCe) over the past half century was 1978 - the year Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released."
- AP
Sponsored links
Newest First
Oldest First
As soon as we accept that contact has been made we can accept that the technology exists, event it and then venture off into the stars!
If you want to find out about UFO's just go to you-tube and type in 'Secret UFO' or 'Secret German UFO' in the search box, you will find our information that no government will ever tell you.
The truth is out there...
On Sunday, I saw a very bright star-like object very similar to numerous other sighting posted on YouTube, There seems to be an abundance of such sightings, and it seems that yes they do want to be seen, and maybe these sightings and others will be so common place that governments around the world will stop denying their existence.
I personally believe they are benevolent and are here to help us, for example by cleaning or mopping up some of our pollution and radioactive radiation, that otherwise would be making us sick indeed.
Agreed #13 with that the Rendlesham Forest incident, whatever it was, has been public knowledge for some time.
I'm inclined to think there is more governmental knowledge about this subject than is in the public domain, but why oh why do people continue with the assumption that a UFO MUST be an alien spacecraft?
Covert or secret human technologies are far more likely and plausible, and have been admitted to using UFO ridicule for cover in the past.
The "U" stands for unidentified.
As someone with a genuine interest in the topic I find the automatic UFO=aliens assumption incredibly frustrating, since it gets in the way of proper investigation of the around 5% (from memory)of UFO sightings that are genuinely unexplainable, rather than mis-identifications of normal objects.
I saw a UFO when I was 14. I am not saying it was of alien origin but it was like nothing I had ever seen before or since. I was living overseas at the time. I was cycling with 2 other children in a rural area when a boy noticed what looked like a large black shadow moving from behind a hill. As it got closer we moved under some trees. It was silent except for a strange vibrating noise/sensation that you could feel in your head. It was about the size of a football field or larger, I am pretty sure of this and it also cast a shadow on the paddock so I don't think we overestimated the size. It slowly tilted to the left then hovered in that position for a short time then shot vertically into the air. Within about 2-3 seconds it was just a speck in the sky before completely disappearing. For the next week we all had mild headaches and I had a strange taste with some tinnitus in my ears. The other two kids had the headaches but nothing else. I have no idea what it was. I caught up with one of the other kids about 12 years ago, we are now in our late 30's. His recollection of the event was exactly the same as mine. We never told our parents or anyone else. I found out some time later other people had reported seeing something.
I saw a UFO but nobody believes me, i was 16 miles from home with nobody insight..
This is all old news... That UFO sighting was made public years ago..
If all these sightings of strange lights are actually alien spacecraft, then it only proves that they want to be seen.
It's akin to driving around with your headlights on if you're trying to hide from other cars :)
It is a little recognised fact that alien craft have indeed visited the UK in the past and, in fact, disgorged their passengers and crew. They now roam the nation disguised as MPs who signally fail to govern the country in a manner familiar to the human race. Silent prayers are frequently offered up by the people that soon the mother ship will return and beam up these cretins and return them to whichever dodgy planet is responsible for their existence.
Learn to swim, say instructors
Dragon rock for delighted fans
Karters ready for Aussie challenge
Woodville upgrade 'not good timing'
Gorge gets habitat green tinge
Free concert welcomes students back
Ups and downs for early flyers
DHB data paint shocking picture
Runner takes on 67km relay with no training
The only reason no one wants to admit that the technology exists is bc power companies would loose out on the huge profits they make from us.
Plus there is a big difference between a UFO and a ET, UFO can come from earth and more than likely does actually I would say 99,99% probability where as ET are of another origin other than earth and more than likely will never come here in the fear of us nuking them to mars and back. So no a UFO does not really mean that ET’s are visiting.