The Rendlesham Forest Lights
December 26, 1980
Britain's best-known UFO case happened just after Christmas 1980, on the edge of a pine forest in Suffolk. American servicemen from the twin air bases of RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters went into Rendlesham Forest to investigate lights, and their deputy base commander ended up narrating a night-time search into a tape recorder.
What people reported
The National Archives says that in December 1980 Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, the US Air Force deputy commander at RAF Woodbridge, reported seeing lights near the base's rear gate, and that servicemen investigated an area of the forest on two separate nights. The BBC dates the first sightings to the nights of 26 and 27 December and says Halt gave a running commentary into a dictaphone while chasing a series of lights.
Accounts later grew. Wikipedia notes that airmen took radiation readings at a set of depressions in the ground, and that one serviceman, Jim Penniston, later claimed he had encountered a craft of unknown origin, a claim it says was not publicised at the time and is not corroborated by other witnesses.
What investigators found
The UK government was unmoved. The National Archives says a response to a parliamentary question confirmed there was nothing of defence interest, and the Ministry of Defence maintained there was no threat to UK airspace. The single-sheet report is the only record of the event itself in the Archives.
Sceptics have offered ordinary explanations. Wikipedia says that local police called to the scene in the early hours reported that the only lights they could see came from the Orford Ness lighthouse, and that timings on Halt's tape show the light he saw flashing every five seconds, the lighthouse's rate. The BBC reported a former USAF security policeman, Kevin Conde, saying he had pranked the airmen with his patrol car's lights, though that claim covers only some of the sightings.
Legacy
Rendlesham is sometimes called 'Britain's Roswell'. The National Archives says the press and public still request information about it. The forest now has a UFO trail.