It happened in the '80s of the last century. A mysterious alien sighting by three US officers at RAF Bentwaters looked like a "triangular shaped craft" stopped by in the nearby woods. It was in the early hours of December 26, 1980 that the Rendlesham mystery occurred. It has been called Britain's 'Roswell.'
This case was probed by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), which came to the conclusion that no evidence of alien visits or national security risk is available. It is possible that the 'sightings' were merely due to beams of light from a coastal lighthouse nearby, they said.
"Keep quiet about the entire incident," Steve Longero had been told by his superiors. But for the first time, after 36 years, he has broken his silence.
As the UFO Roswell sightings have been reported by HNGN reveal, there is not as much disbelief in the case today as there would have been then.
One of the three ex-US Airforce military police officers was Steve Longero. He was at the airbase then but never disclosed what he saw at the Rendlesham Forest.
Only now, after 36 years, he explained to Outer Limits Magazine what he saw: He said: "I think it was something not from this world." He said he was a guard at the weapons storage area when there was a sudden alarm burst.
"While on duty that night we had a very sophisticated alarm system and everything just went off. And then I could see these lights over the treetops, and I was thinking, what's going on? Then they started sending people out there and at first it was hard to believe, all these bright lights. It was hard to take in."
The lights were blinking above twin NATO airbases. They were on high alert as the Cold War was at its peak.
Longero entered a nearby forest, and saw that it was crowded with a number of military personnel.
He said there were a number of UFOs, which were "fluorescent coloured lights, like red and green, glowing lights and that's what they looked like. I could seem them hovering over the treetops like an eye that almost following everybody."
Later, he said at a debriefing that the witnesses were sworn to secrecy "as the base had nuclear weapons on site."
Other former military personnel who have talked about the sighting then included retired Colonel Charles Halt, 76. He had been base deputy commander then. He said the officers who first spotted the lights, then a UFO "on the floor", said that they felt "static." They watched the object's "flashing lights and hieroglyphic-like markings."
On December 27, 1980 they had shouted: "It's back, the UFO's back".
Halt said they watched a mysterious object in a field that showed "a red light moving."
He added: "It came towards us into the forest, moving, bobbing up and down in the trees. It was oval, about 100 to 150 yards away, with a dark centre and red around it." It emitted sparks and then it exploded and disappeared. A number of objects, about 3,000 to 4,000ft up in sky were spotted.
So were they all beams from a lighthouse?
Longero quickly dismissed the theory: "I don't think so. Not unless the lighthouse could move. Unless they could float that thing in the air."
