August 2009 UFO files highlights guide

3. Hover or click on bookmark icons to see detail
Below is information on the key stories and reports of UFO activity contained in these
files. It includes a list of the bookmarks contained in each file, with a short summary of
each bookmark. Please note that not all files contain bookmarks.
Key stories and events featured in the files (red text):
Rendlesham Forest incident, December 1980
The file DEFE 24/1948 covers the Rendlesham incident, Britain‟s best-known UFO
incident. It involves several sightings of lights in the forest, outside the perimeter fence
of RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk, by United States Air Force personnel in December 1980.
They claimed a UFO had landed in the forest, leaving traces including markings on the
ground and radiation. The events were detailed in a famous memo to the MoD by Lt Col
Charles Halt (USAF deputy base commander), who was present during one of the
sightings. Halt‟s memo opens this file (p6), which consists largely of correspondence
between the MoD and members of the public from 1983-1995.
Note: This file has previously been released to individuals requesting it under the
Freedom of Information Act. Details of this are given on p4 of the file.
Further material can be found in DEFE 24/1970 (UFOs: Parliamentary correspondence
1985-1995). This file includes background material covering a range of Parliamentary
Questions and private inquiries to the Ministry of Defence from MPs, often forwarding
letters from constituents, on UFO matters.
The file contains the Ministry of Defence‟s final position statement on the Rendlesham
incident in a briefing for the House of Lords Defence Debate (p10-11), along with a
letter from the late Lord Hill-Norton, a former Chief of Defence Staff, to the Rt Hon
Michael Heseltine, then Secretary of State for Defence, where he described the incident
as, “a potential „banana-skin‟ looming for the MoD” (p366-367).