IncidentRendlesham Forest Incident (26–28 December 1980)

USAF security police from RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge observed and approached a metallic object in Rendlesham Forest over three consecutive nights; the deputy base commander recorded the events in a memorandum two weeks later.

Supposed UFO landing site in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, photographed years after the December 1980 incident.Wikipedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Simon Leatherdale · 2006

The pine plantation of Rendlesham Forest, between RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge.Wikipedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Burgess Von Thunen · 2011

The 'Halt memo' — Lt. Col. Charles Halt's 13 January 1981 memorandum to the British MoD on the December 1980 Rendlesham Forest events.Wikipedia Commons · Public domain · Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt · 1981

Restored aircraft shelter at the former RAF Bentwaters — the joint Bentwaters / Woodbridge airbase complex where the Rendlesham incident occurred.Wikipedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Alan Wilson · 2014

What's documented

At approximately 03:00 on 26 December 1980, Staff Sgt. Jim Penniston and Airman 1st Class John Burroughs of the 81st Security Police Squadron at RAF Woodbridge were dispatched to investigate lights in the East Gate of Rendlesham Forest. Penniston approached an object he described as a triangular metallic craft about 3 meters across, took notes and sketches, and reported touching it. On the night of 27–28 December, Lt. Col. Charles Halt led a second investigation team into the forest with a portable Geiger counter and a microcassette recorder. The 18-minute ‘Halt tape’ is one of the few contemporaneous audio records of a UFO investigation in progress; the Halt memorandum was filed with the British Ministry of Defence on 13 January 1981.

Notable & intriguing

The Halt memorandum, signed by Lt. Col. Charles I. Halt, 81st Combat Support Group, RAF Bentwaters and dated 13 January 1981, was sent to the British Ministry of Defence and reports radiation readings 'in the three landing impressions… 0.1 milliroentgens' — about ten times the area background.

Halt Memorandum, 13 January 1981, declassified by the British MoD, 1983
The Halt tape — an 18-minute on-the-scene cassette recording made by Lt. Col. Halt and his team on the night of 27–28 December 1980 — captures contemporaneous statements including 'I see it too — what is it?' and 'it's coming this way… now it's stopped.'

Halt cassette recording, declassified 1984; transcript, Nick Pope (former MoD Sec(AS)2a), *Encounter in Rendlesham Forest*, 2014
The British Ministry of Defence's internal file on Rendlesham was released to The National Archives in 2010 (DEFE 24/1948); it includes a 1981 internal note stating the investigation was 'of no defence interest' — written before MoD personnel had interviewed any of the USAF witnesses.

UK National Archives, DEFE 24/1948
Sgt. Jim Penniston and A1C John Burroughs both submitted FOIA medical records requests in 2010; both files showed treatment for symptoms consistent with radiation exposure, with Burroughs being granted 100% disability by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in 2014 — the first disability award explicitly tied to a UFO encounter.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs award letter to John Burroughs, 2014; MIT Press, *UFOs and the National Security State* (Richard Dolan, vol. 2)