RAF Bentwaters Security Team Ground Traces 1980

The Rendlesham Forest incident occurred over three consecutive nights in late December 1980 and involved USAF personnel from both RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk, England. The most significant documentation came from Deputy Base Commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, who led a security team into Rendlesham Forest on the night of December 28 and made a contemporaneous cassette tape recording of the investigation. Halt's tape documents the team observing an unidentified craft that moved through the forest and performed maneuvers over the weapons storage area, flashing beams of light. Halt's team used a Geiger counter and recorded elevated radiation readings at three triangular ground indentations consistent with landing gear impressions. Halt subsequently filed a formal memorandum to the Ministry of Defence describing the encounter. This document was obtained under the UK Freedom of Information Act and is now part of the public record. Sergeant Jim Penniston, who approached the craft on the first night, recorded symbols he copied into his notebook, later claimed to include binary code. The Halt memo and tape recording make Rendlesham the most officially documented USAF UAP encounter in Europe.