Rendlesham UFO explained – the 3 a.m. fireball

British Astronomical Association Meteor Section Newsletter no. 4 dated 1981 February contains a brief report on this fireball that apparently sparked the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident. The BAA report notes that the fireball was seen at 02.50 UT (± 5 minutes) on Boxing Day 1980 by four witnesses, locations not given but seemingly in southern England, all of whom estimated its brightness as comparable to the gibbous (i.e. three-quarter) Moon and of 3 to 4 seconds duration. In that bare information lies the genesis of one of the most celebrated UFO cases of all time.

Did anyone else at Bentwaters or Woodbridge see this object other than the patrol at East Gate? It seems that at least two others may have done. One was an unidentified security policeman at Bentwaters, who apparently recognized it for what it was – a “falling star” or meteor. The second was none other than Larry Warren, whose involvement with events during Col Halt’s expedition to the forest two nights later remains controversial. Unlike much of Warren’s later claims, though, here we have a near-contemporary written statement of what he knew and saw at the time.

On 1981 January 6, a week before Col Halt typed up his now-famous memo, Warren wrote a letter home to his mother, which is reproduced in full in his book with Peter Robbins, Turn Left at East Gate. Warren’s letter starts by apparently referring to the sighting of the Cosmos 749 re-entry the previous evening, confirming that the airmen had heard about this through media reports: “Over Europe and England a bunch of lights were seen – Over London one of the lights broke into about twenty smaller lights – and flew in all directions.”

He then goes on to report a sighting at 3 a.m. by a security policeman at Bentwaters, and a simultaneous sighting of his own made off-base, both of which seem to coincide with the report by the patrol at Woodbridge’s East Gate of an object apparently descending into the forest.

Below, I have underlined the passages from his letter that are relevant to the 3 a.m. fireball sighting. In addition, it is worth noting that Warren’s hearsay evidence on the activities of Burroughs, Penniston and Cabansag given in the intervening paragraphs is consistent with the statements that these witnesses filed at the time, and provides no support for more recent suggestions that significant details of a close encounter were left out.

“At about three in the morning, a guy I know in D-Flight of Security Police [at Bentwaters, the same flight to which Warren was assigned] told me he responded to a falling star outside the Weapons Storage Area...

“Anyway he reported it and then everyone started feeling strange – then a guy on the Backgate at Woodbridge reported a bright light moving through the pine forest. An officer and two sergeants responded but they could not take weapons because they were off base.

“Over the radio they reported seeing a pie-shaped object – about 7 by 8 ft in size. But they said every time they would get near it, it would seem further away all of a sudden. They also said that all the animals in the forest were going nuts.

“Then all of a sudden the light went out – and over the radio they said they didn't like the situation and wanted to go back to base – but they were told to keep on investigating.

“Then they said the thing appeared behind them – it seemed like it was playing games. After 3 and a half miles of following the thing through the countryside and woods – the thing just disappeared in a field. It was only about 10 ft off the ground. This is what a friend of mine said he heard on the radio.

“At that same time, me and five other guys were walking up a dark path about 2 miles from base... cause we couldn't get a ride and we felt like we were being watched and it was strange cause there were no street lights – Then we saw a bright light go right over us about 50 feet up and just fly over a field. It was silent. We first thought it was an A-10 jet. But they scream. So we ran away, because witchcraft and black magic is a big thing in this part of Suffolk and we thought that witches were in the woods. That light just seemed to jump over the trees – Then the next day it turned out that we were in the same place as the U.F.O. so I think we saw it too.” [Ian’s note: As far as I am aware, Larry Warren’s companions at the time of that sighting have not come forward, nor has the security policeman who saw the “falling star”. In 2008 May Larry told me that at the time of the sighting he and his companions were heading back to base from Bromeswell, a village to the west of Bentwaters, and had seen the light in the direction of Woodbridge Base, which was to the south of them.]

Content last updated: 2008 May.