Belgian UFO Wave (Eupen / Wallonia)
50°38′N, 6°02′E — Eupen and Wallonia, eastern Belgium — initial sightings in the German-speaking community near the Dutch and German borders
What's documented
Between 29 November 1989 and April 1990, an estimated 13,500 witnesses across Belgium reported a recurring triangular aerial phenomenon, typically with three white lights at the points and a red light at the center, moving silently and slowly. Reports began over Eupen in eastern Wallonia. The Belgian Air Force — uniquely among NATO air forces — cooperated openly with civilian researcher group SOBEPS in investigating the wave. Major-General Wilfried De Brouwer, then chief of operations of the Belgian Air Staff, publicly confirmed that radar tracking had occurred and that the phenomenon's origin was unknown.
Notable & intriguing
-
On the night of 30-31 March 1990, two F-16s of the Belgian Air Force at Beauvechain Air Base were scrambled in response to a radar contact correlated with ground-witness reports. The pilots achieved three radar locks over a 75-minute pursuit; each time, the contact accelerated from 280 to over 1,800 km/h within seconds, breaking the lock. Maximum recorded vertical descent rate was 4 g.
Belgian Air Force official report on the 30-31 March 1990 incident; press conference by Col. De Brouwer, 11 July 1990
-
Major-General Wilfried De Brouwer, then chief of operations of the Belgian Air Staff, told a press conference on 11 July 1990: 'The Belgian Air Force has been unable to identify either the origin or the nature of the phenomenon.' De Brouwer reaffirmed this assessment in a 2007 contribution to Leslie Kean's book on the subject.
Press conference, 11 July 1990; Kean, 'UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record' (2010)
-
The 'Petit-Rechain photograph' — a polaroid taken by 18-year-old Patrick Maréchal on 4 April 1990 in Petit-Rechain, Belgium — became the iconic image of the wave. In July 2011, Maréchal told the Belgian magazine Paris Match he had fabricated the image with a styrofoam model. The Belgian Air Force's official radar/F-16 incident is not affected by this admission.
Paris Match (Belgian edition), 26 July 2011
Public-record imagery
