Some Thoughts on the 1980 Rendlesham Forrest U.K. UFO Incident

(RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge, Suffolk, East Anglia)

Photo by Derpy CG: Pexels

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My purpose in writing about this incident is to provide commentary on some of the facts concerning the location and some of the misconceptions stated in the various stories done on this incident over the years. I do not have any insight on the phenomenon itself, or the people involved. I do not have any reason to doubt what has been said by the documented witnesses that were there, nor do I have any knowledge to add validity to their stories.

I was stationed in the United Kingdom, while serving in the U.S. Air Force, at what we called the “Twin Bases,” Royal Air Force Bentwaters and Woodbridge, starting in 1984, about four years after the UFO incident. At the time, it was not much of a topic of discussion at the base. Since it was an overseas assignment, by 1984, most of the people stationed there at the time of the incident had moved on unless they specifically requested an extension to that assignment, either an additional 18-monthor three- or four-year tour based on your marital status and rank.

I have always been interested in the whole UFO/UAP phenomenon, catching the new wave of books and shows that came out when I was growing up in the 1970s. I have worked most of my adult life in aviation, including 22 years of active-duty Air Force operations. I was stationed at several remote, “dark sky” locations, including Air Force weapons ranges in Avon Park Florida, and Gila Bend Arizona, and plenty of night operations, but I never saw anything that I thought remotely was a” UFO.”

First, a brief summary of the incident. The Rendlesham Forest incident was a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights near Rendlesham Forest, in Suffolk, England, in late December 1980, which became linked with purported UFO landings. The events occurred just outside RAF Woodbridge, which was used at the time by the United States Air Force (USAF). On the evening of Dec. 26, 1980, Airman First Class John Burroughs of the 81st Security Police Squadron was on patrol at Woodbridge when he observed unusual lights in the Rendlesham Forrest and initially suspected an aircraft crash. He radioed a report into the security control center and remained at the base’s East Gate location. Several other security policemen arrived, however, Burroughs and on-duty Flight Chief John Penniston found themselves encountering what they believe to be an alien craft that had landed on the forest floor. They reported lights, physical effects, and lost time phenomenon. Two nights later, the lights were reported again, and Deputy Base Commander, Lt. Col. Charles Halt, who was over the Security Police Squadron Commander, among other units, responded with several other non-security police senior personnel. Halt carried a personal small cassette recorder, and one other member of the team had a Geiger counter. They reported strange lights moving vertically above them and other effects. Halt filed a full report, which later became an affidavit. These USAF personnel, including deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt, claimed to see things they described as a UFO. Since Rendlesham Forrest was off of the U.S. Air Force base, a bureaucratic gap, along with a strong desire to avoid any further publicity from the event, resulted in neither the U.S. Air Force, the RAF, nor any other British government entities taking a lead in investigating the incident. Within the last decade, Halt, Penniston, and Burroughs, although not the only individuals present during various phases of the multi-night episode, have emerged as the primary public witnesses to the event.

The best resource I have seen on the incident is the 2014 book “Encounter in the Rendlesham Forrest” by Nick Pope, with John Burroughs and Jim Penniston. Pope is retired from the U.K. Ministry of Defense (MOD) and claims to have worked in a section of the MOD that had responsibility to investigate these types of incidents. Mr. Pope will be familiar to viewers of television programs on the UFO phenomenon, and like myself, his government career places some constraints on his observations on this incident. I have always found Mr. Pope’s commentary to be calm, reasonable, and rational, and although a “Team UFO” player and not a skeptic, he also claims never to have seen a UFO. Burroughs and Penniston are Air Force Security Forces veterans who were eyewitnesses to components of the multi-night Rendlesham Forest incident, and their stories are central to any discussion of what occurred those 1980 winter evenings in the Suffolk countryside.

I think “setting the setting” surrounding this incident is key to at least understand the circumstances of what might have occurred that evening and some points that have never been made, ignored, or obscured in the extensive and repetitive coverage of the incident.

At this point, I want to make a good description of the bases, the nature of the 1980 Cold War mission, and perceptions of where some of the prominent players in the incident stood in the matrix of the mission and hierarchy.

Although officially known as Royal Air Force (RAF) bases, with the exception of a titular RAF Commander, usually a major, and a few MOD staff, the bases were practically a 95% all-American show, with no British aircraft or operations occurring there. The one exception is the civilian British Public Services Administration (PSA) maintenance staff, which augmented the purposely understaffed U.S. Air Force Civil Engineering squadron assigned to the base. The two bases came under the command of the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, at the time the largest U.S. fighter wing, and probably the largest of any of the world’s air forces. There were four squadrons of A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft at Bentwaters and two at Woodbridge. There was also a large “tenant” unit at “Woody,” the 67th ARRS operated Lockheed HC-130H/N/P Hercules fixed-wing aircraft and heavy-duty HH-53 Jolly Green Giant helicopters. It is important to note the 67th was on alert 24/7/365 to perform rescue operations through the North Atlantic and Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

The bases were approximately five miles apart, with the Rendlesham Forrest separating the two. RAF Bentwaters could be called the “main” base, with the “domestic” side serving as the location for the headquarters, hospital, shops & stores, administrative offices, etc. The Bentwaters industrial side had most of the heavy aircraft maintenance shops, including a large weapons storage area (the “bomb dump.”) There were small satellite locations of necessary functions on Woody, and there were barracks and family housing on both bases. Both bases had air traffic control towers, with weather observation and forecasting and airfield operations personnel also located in each base’s tower building. Those functions closed overnight at Woodbridge, and Bentwaters air traffic, weather, and airfield ops were 24/7/365. Operationally, the shortest distance between the bases was traveling a back road from the industrial side of Bentwaters, through Rendlesham Forest, to the back, or “East Gate” to Woodbridge. The East Gate was one of the focal points of the 1980 incident.

The 81st had four detachments in Germany, and a few of the wing’s planes and personnel operated out of the “Dets” in anticipation of hordes of Communist tanks, manned by the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact minions, thundering into the Fulda Gap to destroy NATO to initiate Armageddon, the Cold War nightmare. Activity at the bases was high, with constant exercises to practice everyone deploying to the Dets to fight World War III.

One often sees mention of Lt. Col. Charles Halt, one of the primary witnesses to the 1980 incident. His official duty title was Deputy Base Commander. Not intending any disrespect to Col. Halt, but the title leads civilians to have an elevated perception of his position at the base. At a typical fighter wing at the time, the highest individual is the wing commander, usually a full colonel or one-star general. A fighter wing is a self-contained unit that can deploy to a bare base and begin combat operations. The wing includes all the personnel needed to do this: pilots, maintenance, ordinance, security, chaplains, finance- butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. etc. The wing commander has several subordinate commanders, usually three, working for him, including the Deputy Commander for Operations and Deputy Commander for Maintenance. Full colonels staff these positions as well. Although the title has changed over the years, Lt. Col. Halt’s boss was the Mission Support Commander. Going back in history when the Air Force was more expeditionary, it was common for the aviation components of a wing to relocate to another base, whose aviation components had redeployed themselves, leaving behind its mission support staff. During WW II, the mission support commander, who was in charge of the security, civil engineering, food service, vehicle maintenance, and medical functions, was referred to as the “base commander.” Lt. Col. Halt would have been in the “third tier” in the chain of command, approximately number six in the overall chain of command in the wing structure, but obviously number four to those serving in his mission support group. Again, I absolutely do not intend any disrespect for Col. Halt, who was also a Vietnam veteran and was promoted to full colonel by the end of his career, and I am certain he would not want his position to be exaggerated in the public eye.

The general area around the bases I classify as “spook city.” My reasons for stating that is a mix of facts and lore that combine to make the base environs fell very “gothic.”

First, in 1980, the base was fairly remote and isolated, located in a large area of mostly farmland that hugs a sparse stretch of the eastern British coastline, roughly eighty miles northeast of London, and about fifteen miles north of the city of Ipswich. This area has been used for secret military research, including the development of radar just prior to World War Two, and seemly classified MOD research for several years post-war. During my three years there, the weather was mostly cloudy, with frequent light rain, damp & gloomy. One summer, it might have been 1986, we really only had one very short stretch of warm, sunny weather, coincidently over July 4th.

Historically, both bases were in operation during World War II, with RAF Bentwaters hosting RAF P-51 Mustang fighter operations, and jet-powered Meteors later in the war. RAF Woodbridge was constructed in 1943 to serve a very grim but necessary purpose.

Given its location near the British east coast and on the route for both RAF and U.S. large bomber formations flying across northern Europe to attack Germany, Woodbridge served as what can be described as a “crash base.” If a crippled bomber could make it back as far as Woodbridge, the base’s extremely wide runways, with dedicated fire and medical crews on standby, was the last best hope for a crew. Woodbridge existed out of both a humanitarian necessity, but to also keep known damaged aircraft from attempting to land, probably crash, and thus clog the recovery of airworthy aircraft, low on fuel, at their home bases. There were also engineers ready to tow or bulldoze damaged aircraft off of the runway to make way for the next unfortunate crew. Needless to say, Woodbridge was witness to legions of dead and dying British and American airmen making their last landing.

The twin bases actually continued to serve the same purpose, though thankfully less sanguine, when I was there from 1984-87. During that time, it was routine and expected for U.S. aircraft, coming west off of continental Europe, and experiencing trouble, to drop into one of the two airfields. The same went for British-based U.S. and RAF fighter aircraft coming home from the continent and needing to make an emergency landing.

In addition to the gruesome wartime mission at Woodbridge, immediately adjacent to the Bentwaters airfield/industrial side, there was an old, abandoned church, its grounds right up against the base security fence. One of the stories about the abandoned church was that during the medieval period, a particularly zealous bishop in Colchester used to gather suspected witches and heretics from across the Suffolk countryside, hold an inquisition and burn them alive in the churchyard. How true this is, I cannot say, except it sure looked to be a “suitable” location.

In 1987, a group of Boy Scouts, I believe an American troop from the bases, was camping in the Rendlesham Forest. Some of the young Scouts found small bits of aluminum hardware and rotted pieces of canvas on the forest floor. Suspecting they were World War Two vintage and possibly from a parachute, the adults stopped the boys from searching further and notified the appropriate authorities. Some human remains were subsequently found that were tied to an RAF fighter pilot that had parachuted from his crippled plane during the war but was never found. While the Rendlesham Forest is not very large, it was very dense at the time and capable of concealing a lot. Growing up as a kid in the 1960s, I felt at the time the place had a “Dark Shadows” feel about it.

I would like to dispel several issues that often come up in the various telling and retelling of the “Rendlesham Forrest – Britian’s Roswell” tale. The first is the Orford Ness Lighthouse.

Many debunkers attempt to explain away the “strange lights” seen during the incident as simply coming from the lighthouse located about twelve miles east of Woodbridge Base. First of all, any lighthouse serves to cast its beam to a specific focal point out at sea. It is not a POW camp or prison yard searchlight. I have seen the light while driving along the coast. Aiming out to sea, it is an extremely bright, powerful beam, however, any lighthouse will have its beam “baffled” or shielded from the land side. An unbaffled Orford Ness light would have been a hazard to aircraft using the base, to air traffic controllers, and to anyone driving on the area’s roads. Pilots would not only have their night vision severely affected, but they would lose the visual cues from the airfield approach lights as they were “washed” out every few seconds by the lighthouse beam sweeping across the airfield. Also, air traffic controllers at Bentwaters, and especially Woodbridge, would have been howling in complaint and shut down night flying operations if they were subject to the glare of an unbaffled Orford Ness light. It is that simple.

RAF Woodbridge airfield looking south. The Orford Ness lighthouse was located just a few miles to the left (east) of Woodbridge Tower. Rendlesham Forrest is to the right (west), starting less than two miles way. “If” the lighthouse was the cause of the strange lights witnessed in Rendlesham Forrest during the incident, then a much stronger than usual amount of light coming from the lighthouse would have to have been experienced by personnel in both Woodbridge Tower and the guard tower in the background just to the right of the air traffic control tower.

In addition, both bases had Airfield Rotating Beacons, a visual navigation light required at any airport. At both Bentwaters and Woodbridge, the lights were mounted on top of the base water towers, higher than both of the control tower buildings. There are specific regulations on how these lights are configured, aimed 15 degrees above the plane of the control tower cab floor height, specifically not to interfere with the vision of controllers and pilots. These are designed as marker beacons and not Stalag Luft searchlights. Several other tall structures, such as antennas and including the water tower on the Bentwaters industrial side, were marked by obstruction lights. There was considerable, consistent every night “light” activity around the base that was easily identifiable by anyone who had been there any length of time.

Mentioned less are the airfield “missiles” seen in photos from a distance off base, cited as a possible UFO attractant. In fact, these were decoys made out of old 55-gallon drums welded together, with scrap sheet metal fins, and a “nose cone” salvaged from an unserviceable wing fuel drop tank. The “missiles” were mounted on the shell of a salvaged truck body. Part of my duties as an airfield manager was to put in work orders to have the “missiles” and vehicle body repainted occasionally and move the decoys around the airfield every so often since they were supposed to be “mobile.”

Whatever actually happened in the Rendlesham Forrest in December 1980 is fading into the mist of time. I will say that when I was at the base, it was a serious time, with the ever-present threat that we would have a ringside seat if the Cold War went hot. Everyone was very serious about their job, and I don’t think there is any way that some type of melodramatic hoax occurred. Charles Halt continued to serve in the Air Force until his retirement in 1991, at the rank of full colonel, which means he was promoted after Bentwaters in what is a very competitive process. Both John Burroughs and Jim Penniston retired at the rank of Technical Sergeant, which I think was at least average for their career field. Unlike the incident at Roswell, New Mexico, where the official determination was “modified weather balloon experiment,” there is not an official explanation or determination as to what occurred.

So, there you have it, no earth-shattering revelations, but next time you hear about “Britain’s Roswell,” don’t let them tell you it was just the lighthouse…