The Rendlesham Incident: the Christmas alien invasion of Suffolk
Have you ever noticed that alien sightings just don’t seem to happen in the UK?
I’m sure they do, really. All it takes is one drunk person seeing a satellite and getting over-excited for there to suddenly be aliens living among us. Doctor Who has also shown us exactly what it looks like when creatures from beyond the stars stroll (or, in the Daleks’ case, roll) down Westminster Bridge, so what gives? As a nation, we’re more than ready to deal with alien invaders, yet they only ever seem to show up in America, or over international waters, or on TV.
At least, that’s what one would assume. The truth is, we have a few strange occurrences with alleged intergalactic visitors in our history, and the vast majority of them, as the US has, are connected with a top-secret air force base. In the States, it’s the immortal Area 51. In the UK, it’s Rendlesham Forest and the RAF base, Woodbridge.
Now, one would think in both cases that if you see a bunch of lights in the sky near a known Air Force base and the government won’t say anything about it, the reason is “classified military shit” and not “imminent alien invasion”.
Given what you know about people, though, would you expect them not to jump to the most absurd conclusion and run with it? In fairness to them, the incident in Rendlesham Forest does have some pretty entertaining nonsense to go along with it, which some eyewitnesses swear blind happened right in front of their very eyes on Boxing Day 1980. It began the way that many of these stories do, with unexplained lights descending from the sky.
In this case, however, since it was happening near an RAF base, a number of people went to investigate. Reasonably suspecting that the lights descending were a downed aircraft. Which, if you believe the testament of the unfortunately named Sergeant Jim Penniston, they weren’t wrong about.
So, were these lights alien in origin?
According to Penniston, his patrol investigated the crash and, at a clearing deep in the forest, encountered something that no one expected.
A triangular, glowing craft covered in strange hieroglyphics. One that, according to Penniston’s testimony, was lifted from the ground shortly after his patrol found it, then manoeuvred its way through the trees before disappearing at an impossible speed. Pretty weird stuff, but when it comes to aliens, eyewitness testimony is rarely legit.
Fortunately, this event has something a little more substantial to it. On December 28th, another squad led by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt went and investigated the site of the supposed landing, taking Geiger counter readings of the area, which showed a higher level of radiation than normal. Then the lights in the sky began to start up again. A red light over to the east and three particularly bright, star-like lights, one to the south and two to the north, that occasionally projected light onto the ground.
Exciting stuff, made doubly exciting by the fact that Halt made a tape of all this, and narrated his findings as they were happening. The Halt Tape, as it’s known today, has since become one of the most compelling pieces of evidence in the world of UFOs. It’s a compelling bit of audio drama, but it’s a sad state of affairs that one of the “most compelling pieces of evidence in the world of UFOs” is nothing more than a bunch of bored squaddies, still digesting their Christmas dinners, being fooled by a nearby lighthouse.
Britain’s finest, I guess.