Rendlesham Forest incident

Around 3 a.m. on December 26, 1980. Security patrols at the east gate of RAF Woodbridge, a base used by the U.S. Air Force, saw lights descending into Rendlesham Forest. They thought an aircraft had crashed. Sgt. Jim Penniston, Airman John Burroughs, and Airman Edward Cabansag went to investigate. Penniston and Burroughs described a small metallic object with coloured lights, moving through the trees. Penniston later said he touched it. He noted symbols on its surface. Later that morning, indentations were found in the ground where the object had reportedly rested.

The night of December 27-28. Lt. Col. Charles Halt, the deputy base commander, took a team into the forest with a Geiger counter and a tape recorder. The recording captures them measuring elevated radiation at the indentations. Then a red, pulsating light, moving through the trees. It appeared to break into pieces. Star-like objects followed, to the north and south. One of them sent a beam of light to the ground near the team and, according to Halt, toward the base.

Halt wrote a memorandum to the Ministry of Defence on January 13, 1981. He titled it 'Unexplained Lights'. It was released under FOIA in 1983 and published by the News of the World. The MoD concluded there was no defence significance. The tape recording later became public.

Then came the debate. Skeptics attribute the lights to the Orford Ness lighthouse, a bright fireball meteor seen on December 26, and stars. The radiation readings, they say, were within normal background. Witnesses dispute the lighthouse explanation. They knew that light well. Accounts have grown over the years, and Penniston's later claims of receiving 'binary code' are controversial even among proponents.