"Britain's Roswell"
One of the most famous UFO events in the UK occurred near the Royal Air Force (RAF) Woodbridge station on December 26 and 28, 1980. It's most often compared to the Roswell Incident in New Mexico. RAF Woodbridge was being used by the United States Air Force, and multiple USAF staff, including the deputy base commander, reported seeing things they described as a UFO sighting.
December 26
Near the east gate of RAF Woodbridge, a routine security patrol reported seeing lights descending into Rendlesham Forest around 3:00 am. It was initially thought to be a downed aircraft but when servicemen investigated, they found a glowing, metallic object that had colored lights.
They tried moving closer to the object but it moved further away from them, past a nearby farm. As it passed the farm, the animals "went into a frenzy."
Just after 4:00 am the police were called —they found no evidence of lights except for the Orford Ness lighthouse, which was a few miles away by the coast.
The next morning...
Service members returned to the scene after daybreak. In a small clearing near the eastern edge of the forest, they found three small impressions in the ground in a triangular pattern. They also found burn marks and broken branches on nearby trees.
Around 10:30 am the police were called again to look at the impressions, but they dismissed them as made by animals. The USAF took photos, which were included in a book about the incident, You Can't Tell The People, written by Georgina Bruni and published in 2000.
December 28
In the early hours of the morning, deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt and a few servicemen went back to the site with an AN/PDR-27, a standard U.S. military radiation survey meter. The impressions recorded 0.07 milliroentgens per hour, whereas surrounding areas measured normally, around 0.03 to 0.04 milliroentgens per hour. A little over a half-mile away from the landing site, there was a "burst" of radiation similar to that of the impressions.
It was during this early-morning investigation that more lights were seen by Colonel Halt and his men. It was a flashing light across a field to the east, comparable to the lights seen a few nights ago. They were sure it wasn't the Orford Ness lighthouse; that light was visible in the same line of sight, but further to the east.
According to a memo written by Halt, there were three star-like lights were seen in the sky, two to the north and one to the south, about 10 degrees above the horizon. He said that the brightest of these hovered for two to three hours and seemed to beam down a stream of light from time to time.
