The Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident, Commonly Referred To As ‘Britain’s Roswell’
Wikimedia CommonsThe location in Rendlesham Forest where the alleged UFO encounter occurred.
Around 3 a.m. on Dec. 26, 1980, soldiers stationed at an Air Force base near Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, England, reportedly witnessed a bizarre UFO.
Two security patrolmen near the eastern gate of Royal Air Force Woodbridge saw lights in the forest. The patrolmen requested permission to investigate what they believed to be a downed aircraft, and a third man joined them to search for the plane. That was when they encountered “a strange glowing object” in the forest.
When they approached, they found a metallic, triangular UFO that was about 10 feet across and six feet high. In a report known as the Halt Memo, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt recounted the experience:
“It illuminated the entire forest with a white light. The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank(s) of blue lights underneath. The object was hovering or on legs. As the patrolmen approached the object, it maneuvered through the trees and disappeared. At this time the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy.”
An hour later, witnesses spotted the craft near the back gate of the base — and then it disappeared, never to be seen again.
The next day, officials returned to the supposed landing site and noticed three clear depressions in the ground where the object had sat. The military called local police to corroborate the findings, and the officers likewise made note of the indentations.
Halt, meanwhile, kept a detailed log of everything on a cassette recorder. A copy of the “Halt Tape” was released in 1984 by Colonel Sam Morgan. In it, Halt described “a red sun-like light” through the forest trees, which “moved about and pulsed” as it emitted glowing particles and broke off into five pieces before disappearing.
The whole account was so shocking that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher allegedly said, “Don’t tell the people.”
The Rendlesham Forest UFO incident now carries the same weight and infamy in England as Roswell does in America.
The Shag Harbour UFO Encounter, Also Known As ‘Canada’s Roswell’
Wikimedia CommonsThe site of the Shag Harbour UFO encounter.
On Oct. 4, 1967, at roughly 11:20 p.m., witnesses reported seeing something crash into the waters of Shag Harbour in Nova Scotia, Canada. About a dozen people saw orange lights hovering above the harbor and heard something whistling “like a bomb” followed by a loud bang.
According to the Municipality of Barrington, witnesses initially believed they had just observed the tragic outcome of an airplane crash. Immediately, they reported the impact to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. RCMP Constable Ron Pound had also happened to see the strange lights as he was driving along Highway 3 toward Shag Harbour.
Like the other witnesses, Pound described seeing four lights attached to a singular flying craft, which he estimated to be around 60 feet long. Constable Pound arrived at the crash site to investigate alongside Police Corporal Victor Werbieki, Constable Ron O’Brien, and several local residents.
In the water where the craft had crashed, Constable Pound and the other witnesses watched as a yellow light moved slowly across the surface, leaving a trail of foam in its wake. The light dipped in and out of the water but was still too far from the shore to clearly make out.
By the time the Coast Guard arrived, the light was gone. The strange, yellowish foam was still present, though, indicating that something may have disappeared into the waters below.
Several theories emerged about the object’s origins, with some claiming it may have been a Russian spacecraft. There were also rumors that the U.S. government conducted a follow-up investigation, but officials never confirmed or denied this.
Divers later explored the waters of Shag Harbour to retrieve the object. They discovered that the UFO had indeed submerged itself and traveled underwater for roughly 25 miles to Government Point, which was located near a submarine detection base.
Witnesses at the base saw the object on sonar, and soon, the Canadian Navy began planning a salvage operation. Then, something strange happened. A second UFO appeared on sonar near the first — and both of them resurfaced and vanished into the sky.
To this day, neither object has ever been identified.
