Rendlesham Forest UFO – the other lights

As well as the flashing light near ground level that was seen to the east, Col. Halt’s memo on the Rendlesham Forest sightings reported three starlike objects in the sky at about 10 degrees altitude, one in the south and two others in the north. The one in the south, which was the most prominent, was visible for two or three hours and was reported to beam down a stream of light from time to time.

Some UFO researchers have failed to distinguish the fact that these starlike objects were quite different from the original flashing light to the east and have referred disparagingly to the “flying lighthouse” as though all the lights were caused by the same highly mobile object. Even Col. Halt has fallen into this trap, indicating that his own memory of events has become distorted with time.

“I called the command post, asked them to call Eastern Radar. Twice they reported that they didn't see anything.”

Col. Halt

In my original investigation, I tentatively identified these three starlike objects as real stars: first-magnitude Deneb and Vega in the north, and Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, in the south. I reached my conclusion before Col. Halt’s tape recording of events was released. That tape contains additional information about the positions of these objects which allows us to make a more secure identification.

On the tape, Halt describes the starlike object to the south as “hovering over Woodbridge base at about five to ten degrees off the horizon” at 4 am. By Woodbridge base he cannot have meant the runway, which was west of them, so presumably he meant the buildings. We do not know exactly where Col. Halt was when he taped that note, but from his patrol’s likely position either in the forest or on their way back to East Gate the base buildings would not in fact have been due south of them but southwest. A simple planetarium computer program shows that this is indeed where Sirius was slowly setting, being at an altitude of about 7 degrees when Halt taped his note at 4 am. If Halt’s definition of north was similarly skewed, this supports the identification of Deneb and Vega, which were actually east of north.

Some researchers have been unconvinced by these prosaic identifications, citing Halt’s taped description of the objects as "dancing about with coloured lights on them" (in his memo he had said they “moved rapidly in sharp, angular movements and displayed red, green and blue lights”). But of course stars twinkle many colours as their light is refracted by the atmosphere, and the effect is most noticeable when they are near the horizon, as they were in this instance. In another common effect, stars appear to move from side to side due to movements in the observer’s eye (the so-called autokinetic effect). When they are seen between scudding cloud they can appear to be moving when it’s actually the cloud that’s moving.

“After an hour or so, I finally made the call to go in.
We left those things out there.”

Col. Halt

Another of Halt’s descriptions, contained on tape and in his memo, is that the objects appeared as ‘half-moons turning to full circles’ seen through an 8–12 power lens (presumably zoom binoculars or a monocular), but this was evidently an optical effect as he attempted to focus the binoculars.

More puzzling, perhaps, is this quotation from Halt’s tape: “Here he comes from the south. He’s coming toward us now. Now we’re observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground”.

Of course, the brilliance of objects such as Sirius causes dazzle in the eye which can give the impression of beams (as with the ‘fiery cross’ effect of Venus). But what could cause stars apparently to move towards or away from the observer? The answer is obscuration by thin, moving cloud. The resulting changes in the brightness of a star can give the false impression of approach (brightening) or recession (dimming). The length of time for which the starlike objects were viewed (several hours) reinforces the belief that they were in fact stars.

To me, the descriptions attributed to the “starlike objects” sound like the standard misperceptions of celestial objects which feature in so many other UFO reports.

Finally, what did Halt do about these unidentified lights supposedly gallivanting in his airspace? As he told journalist Salley Rayl in an interview published in the 1994 April issue of Omni: “I called the command post, asked them to call Eastern Radar [i.e. RAF Watton], responsible for air defense of that sector. Twice they reported that they didn't see anything.”

After that there was not much more to do. Near the end of his tape, he says: “03:30 and the objects are still in the sky, although the one to the south looks like it’s losing a little bit of altitude. We’re turning around and heading back toward the base.”

Halt confirmed this in his interview with Salley Rayl: “After an hour or so, I finally made the call to go in. We left those things out there.”

What a curiously unsatisfactory way to end a supposed close encounter – “We left those things out there.”