When this memo was declassified via the Freedom of Information Act, in 1983, it sparked widespread media interest and public excitement about the Bentwaters sightings. UFO debunkers, most notably James McGaha, dismissed the mysterious light in the woods as the periodic flashing of a nearby lighthouse. Colonel Halt strenuously objected to this explanation, saying in one interview, "The lighthouse was in our sight the whole time. It was 35 to 40-degrees off where all of this was happening." REF: UFOs vs. The U.S. Government, the History Channel.

In other words, both the lighthouse and the unidentified light in the woods were observed simultaneously and were clearly distinguishable as two, widely separated sources of light.

James McGaha, apparently not willing to be confused by the facts, continues to insist, even now, that the lighthouse beam caused the all the furor. Unfortunately, a great many people, scientists and laypersons alike, who are unfamiliar with Colonel Halt's extensive testimony about the incident have unwittingly accepted McGaha's untenable "explanation" as the solution to the mystery.

Significantly, it will be noted that Halt said nothing about the UFO incident at the Bentwaters WSA in his first official statement on the matter. Whatever he may have discussed with his superiors at the time remains unclear. As far as I am aware, Halt's first public statement about the incident at the WSA did not occur until 1991.

Col. Charles I. Halt in Rendlesham Forest

Understandably, the WSA was the most sensitive and heavily-guarded section of the base. It consisted of a series of closely-spaced, reinforced concrete bunkers-informally known as "hot row"-in which lower-yield tactical nuclear bombs were believed to be stored. Although that fact has never been officially confirmed by the Pentagon, three of my ex-Air Force sources-one a retired colonel-say it was so.

During that era, Soviet troops based in Eastern Europe greatly outnumbered the combined allied armed forces stationed on the continent. Consequently, in the event of a Soviet invasion of West Germany, U.S. war plans called for the extensive use of tactical nuclear weapons to thwart the attack. If war had indeed erupted in Europe in the early 1980s, the weapons at the Bentwaters WSA would have undoubtedly been loaded onto nuclear-capable USAF F-16 fighter-bombers and flown to the front.

During the UFO sighting at the WSA, still-unidentified security personnel reported observing a luminous object briefly hovering above the site. Although published reports vary, the UFO apparently sent laser-like beams of light down near-or directly onto-the tightly-spaced weapons bunkers! Shortly thereafter, it reportedly left the vicinity at high velocity.

When Colonel Halt briefly alluded to this startling incident during a 1991 Unsolved Mysteries television program, he stated, "We could very clearly see [the UFO]...I noticed other beams of light coming down from the same object, falling on different places on the base. My boss was standing in his front yard in Woodbridge and he could see the beams of light falling down, and the people in the [Bentwaters] Weapons Storage Area and other places on the base also reported the lights."

Some six years later, during a May 13, 1997 interview with journalist A.J.S. Rayl, Halt again spoke of the events at Bentwaters/Woodbridge, including the incident at the WSA. At the time of his own sighting, Halt had been trudging through Rendlesham Forest, leading a team of Air Force Security Police who were investigating reports of strange lights in the woods. He described the remarkable anomalous activity witnessed by the team in his now-famous January 13, 1981 memorandum, but only briefly.

RAF Bentwaters - 1964

During the much longer interview with Rayl, Halt said:

[After leaving the woods, our search team] crossed the farmer's field past his house and across the road, stumbled through a small stream, and went out into a large plowed field. Somebody noticed several objects in the sky to the north-three objects clearly visible with multiple-colored lights on them. The objects appeared elliptical and then they turned full round, which I thought was quite interesting. All three doing that. They were stationary for a while and then they started to move at high speed in sharp angular patterns as though they were doing a grid search. About that same time, somebody noticed a similar object [in the southern sky]. It was round-did not change shape-and at one point it appeared to come toward us at a very high speed. It stopped overhead and sent down a small pencil-like beam, sort of like a laser beam. It was an interesting beam in that it stayed-it was the same size all the way down the beam. It illuminated the ground about ten feet from us and we just stood there in awe wondering whether it was a signal, a warning, or what it was. We really didn't know. It clicked-off as though someone threw a switch, and the object receded, back up into the sky.

Then it moved back toward Bentwaters, and continued to send down beams of light, at one point near the weapons storage facility. We knew that because we could hear the chatter on the [two-way] radio.

Halt further discussed the incident at the WSA during a Sci Fi Channel television program, UFO Invasion at Rendlesham, which first aired in December 2003. After some prodding by the show's host, Bryant Gumble, a reluctant Halt stated, "The object to the south [of my position in the forest] was actually sending some beams down near, or into, the Weapons Storage Area. That caused me a great deal of concern. You know, what was it doing there? Was it searching for something, was it trying to-who knows what it was trying to do?" For a split second, it seemed as if Halt would say something like, "Was it trying to zap the nukes?" but caught himself before the words left his lips.

Given these public statements, I decided to approach Halt, in the hope that he would elaborate on the nuclear weapons aspect of the sightings at Bentwaters. Eventually, with the assistance of a friend who is a retired USAF officer, I was able to contact him. After sending me a couple of cautious, non-committal e-mails, Halt finally wrote, "I am agreeable to an interview provided anything used be cleared with me first. There are some subjects that I am not able to discuss, especially issues that relate to [nuclear] weapons."

I quickly responded to Halt, and agreed to his condition of editorial control. However, I also pointed out, regarding the incident at the WSA, I would simply be asking him to elaborate on statements he had already made to others. I further promised that I would understand and accept a string of "no comment" responses, if that were the outcome, as long as I could at least ask my questions.

The telephone interview took place on February 7, 2006. I began by asking Halt why he continued to grant interviews to researchers and journalists, some 25 years after the incidents at Bentwaters. He replied, "Well, I guess the best way to put it is to get the truth out there. Initially, I wasn't too excited about talking to anybody about it. If my memo had not been made public, I would have remained silent. There was never any attempt to influence what I said [but] at that time, I had no intention of talking to anybody I didn't have to. It wasn't exactly a career-enhancing, uh, opportunity when I stumbled into it. If I had it to do over again, I would have sent somebody else into the woods."

He emphasized, "I have never been warned not to talk about my experience. In fact, no one has officially said anything to me about it, which I find quite interesting. When I left the Air Force I was debriefed because of my security clearances, but that particular issue was never brought up. I don't even think that the people who did the debriefing even knew about it."

I then asked Halt to discuss the incident at the Bentwaters WSA. He replied, "[While we were in the forest] we heard radio conversations on the Law Enforcement frequency, the Security Police frequency, and the Command Network. Now, we were having a lot of problems with the radio. They were really acting up. We were getting a lot of interference and static, but we could hear talk about one of the objects [being] in the vicinity of the Bentwaters WSA. I heard that some of the beams, or whatever they were, came down into the WSA. As I recall, the guard in the [watch] tower at the WSA made that report."

RAF Woodbridge - 1964

Following the telephone interview, Halt expanded upon these remarks via email. He wrote, "I never told [Left at East Gate author] Peter Robbins any structure was penetrated by beams. I was several miles away. From my view, a beam or more came down near the WSA. I don't know for a fact that the beams landed there. I know they were in the area. I was too far away but relied on the radio chatter, which indicated the beams landed there. The objects in the sky came from the east and moved west, skirting Woodbridge and approaching Bentwaters. When beams came down, the objects were closer to the Bentwaters WSA-just to the north of the facility. Only one object came overhead and briefly sent down a beam at our feet. The other three objects stayed just west of us and one or more of them sent down the beams to the WSA. They were far enough away that we couldn't tell which one or how many sent down beams. We could see several beams and members in the WSA went on the radio to report them. Several airmen present later told me they saw the beams. I don't remember any names at this point."

During the telephone interview, I asked Halt, "Were you ever concerned that the UFO was attempting to disable or otherwise compromise the integrity of the nuclear weapons?" He replied, "I can't comment on that, the way you worded it." He then paused a moment and said, "I did have great concern about the purpose of the beams." I then said, "So you wouldn't rule out the possibility that the object was trying to disable some of the weapons?" After another pause, Halt replied softly, "I can't comment about the weapons." Pressing on, I asked a follow-up question, "Did you ever hear any rumors about some of the weapons being removed from the WSA and being shipped back to the United States for inspection?" Halt replied, "I have no comment on that."

Sensing that Halt would not comment further regarding the UFO above the WSA, I changed the subject somewhat and asked if he had ever heard reports of nuclear weapons-related UFO incidents at other bases. Halt replied that he had been approached over the years by several former and retired USAF personnel, who alleged that such incidents had indeed occurred.

"I've had people come forward and tell me about different cases," he said, "you know, this happened at Malmstrom, this happened here, this happened there. They told me [warhead] targeting was changed, weapons were rendered neutral, on and on." Halt said that while he could not personally verify these accounts, he found them very interesting.

At this point, I left the subject of nukes altogether, and asked Halt why he had been somewhat wary of my first contact with him. He said that, after he had spoken publicly about his experiences, he had been contacted by some "unusual" individuals.

"I've gotten correspondence, occasionally telephone calls-now it's e-mails-from persons accusing me of everything from participating in the Second Coming of Christ, to being involved with the Devil. As you well know, there are a lot of fringe people out there with vivid imaginations and bizarre thoughts."

Finally, I asked Halt to briefly summarize his experience. He replied:

"We saw objects that were under intelligent control."

He paused, so I asked, "What was the source of the intelligence?"

He replied, "I don't know. It had to be something beyond [human technology] because of they way the objects moved-the speeds, the angles they turned, and the things they did. Could the objects have been remotely-controlled? Certainly."

I asked Halt, "So you're saying that it was a technology beyond anything any country on Earth would have?"

Halt replied, "I never saw any little green men, but it's possible it was alien technology. I sure would like to have the answers but don't think I'll ever get them."

In 1994, well before my interview with Halt, another retired U.S. Air Force officer told me that following the UFO incident at the Bentwaters WSA, two of the weapons had been removed from one of the bunkers for inspection. That individual once worked for NATO's nuclear weapons security program. I had been introduced to him by a mutual friend who knew of my longstanding interest in nukes-related UFO incidents.

I was aware of the retired officer's background, so I hesitantly asked him if he had ever heard about the Bentwaters/Woodbridge UFO incidents. After warily staring at me for a few seconds, he acknowledged that he was familiar with them.

Figuring that I had nothing to lose, I plunged ahead and asked him if he had heard the rumors about the UFO sighting at the Bentwaters Weapons Storage Area. Much to my surprise, he confirmed the presence of a UFO near the WSA, confirmed that it had directed a beam or beams of light downward into the bunker complex, and-without any prompting from me-said that he had once read a report stating that two tactical nuclear bombs had been removed from one of the bunkers shortly after the incident and shipped by the Air Force to the U.S. for inspection.

I must admit that I was somewhat taken aback by this individual's candor. He concluded his remarks by saying that he was unaware of the findings of this inspection because it had taken place several years before his tenure with NATO. Regardless, in light of these comments, it appears that the U.S. Air Force was sufficiently concerned about the condition of the two bombs after the UFO incident to remove them from their bunker for inspection.

Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to reveal the retired officer's identity. However, his credentials relating to his previous involvement with the U.S. military's nuclear weapons security program are a matter of record, and I consider his statements to be highly credible.

Shortly after I spoke with Colonel Halt, he forwarded two emails he had received from a former radio communications specialist at Bentwaters, Carl Thompson Jr., who told Halt he had indirect knowledge of the UFO incidents at the base's Weapons Storage Area. Yes, incidents, plural. That there had been more than one sighting at the WSA was news to me so I quickly called Thompson. He told me:

At the time, I was a Senior Airman with the 2164th Communications Squadron. I was a Radio Relay Repairman. On the first night, Christmas night if I'm not mistaken, I was at the Weapons Storage Area working on a piece of equipment in the [security] tower, trouble-shooting it. I think it was a motion-detection component, used for the security of the weapons. At midnight, the guy who was going to relieve me, ---- -------, called and said that he would come out to the area. So, I went back to the wide-band radio shop and finished up some paperwork.

Now, I don't remember how much later it was, but he called me at the shop and said, 'We just saw a UFO!' He meant himself and the security guards. He was in the security tower cab at the time he called. You could plainly tell he was excited and maybe kind of anxious. He sounded matter-of-fact but also kind of half-scared. I asked, 'What did it look like?' He said, 'It was so bright that you couldn't look directly at it.' So I didn't get any details about its shape, how large it was, any of that. It was just a really bright light. He said it was hovering there for just a few seconds, then it went toward Woodbridge so, maybe, that would be in a southwesterly direction.

So, then I asked him, 'Did everybody see it?' He said that everyone had. Then he asked me, 'How am I going to report this?' I said, 'Is anyone else going to report it?' He said, 'No, they're not going to report it.' So, I said, 'How are you going to look, if the others who were right there in the area aren't going to report it? You're going to be on your own. If it were me, I would let it go.' I was the ranking person on that night, so I told him, 'I would advise against it, but it's up to you.'

When I saw ---- later that night-he had to order a part for the tower, so we crossed paths-he told me that he'd decided not to report the incident. At the time, we didn't know that the other base was involved. We had no idea that there had been some security police hunting it down, or whatever, in the woods.

I guess it was two nights later, the part for the equipment in the tower came in. We got notified about that just as ---- was coming on shift, at midnight, so he said he would go out and install it. I stayed at the radio shop. A little while later, it had to past 12:30 [a.m.] since he had to pick up the part first, he called, really excited, and told me that he had just seen another UFO. It had followed the runway, which runs more or less east and west, then it turned, uh, then it turned again and flew directly over the Weapons Storage Area. He said it came right at the tower and was so low that he and the guard hit the deck! He said it had hovered [nearby] for a few seconds, he couldn't say how long, then it slowly moved off, over the trees. He said it was just above them, but then it dropped down into the trees. He didn't see it come back up, so that's when he called me on the landline. He said he heard a bunch of chatter on the radio in the tower-the guard there was talking to someone-and said [the Security Police] were going to have to report it this time because it went down into the woods.

The next time I saw ----, he told me that he had to file a report along with the Security Police, at their headquarters. It was only, maybe, 300 yards from the Weapons Storage Area. Later on, it seems like it was a week or so later, he had been called by our squadron commander, Major Cossa, and told to report for a briefing. He was gone most of an afternoon but when he came back he was really agitated. I asked him, 'What's up?' He said, 'We're not to speak about the UFO.' Then he said, really angry, 'I know what I saw!'

He said that during the briefing, someone-he assumed it was the Office of Special Investigations-told everyone there that night they hadn't seen anything. I think that upset ---- more than anything. They called all the police liars, and all that. He said, 'They told us that we did not see it, and were never to speak of it.' He was really upset. He said [the OSI agents] had talked to them as a group and then talked to them individually. You know, went over their statements with them. He said they told him he was a liar, that he would never have a career, and all that. You know, threatening him. But he told me that he couldn't get into the details. We never talked about it again.

A while later, I tried to ask some of the Security Police about the incident, when I saw them at the Weapons Storage Area, but they were fairly tight-lipped about it. They just told me that when they went into the forest [on the night of December 27/28] they took Light-Alls with them. They said all of a sudden, the lights quit working, the vehicle engines quit, and the radios had a lot of static on them. Then, after a few minutes, everything just started up again. I didn't know much more than that until I saw all of the reports from Colonel Halt and the others on TV. That's about all I can think to tell you.

I asked Thompson, "How do you know the first incident happened on Christmas night?" He replied, "Well, I'm not positive it did, but it was definitely during the holidays, the 25th, the 26th, because ---- and I were working a longer shift on both of those nights. We were single and [our sergeant] asked us to volunteer for that, so the married guys could be with their families during Christmas. In return, we got some days off in January."

I then asked Thompson if ------- had described seeing one or more beams of light coming from the UFO, down into the WSA, on either night. He replied, "No, he didn't say anything about that."

Given this testimony, it appears that a UFO was sighted at the Bentwaters Weapons Storage Area on at least two different nights in December 1980, instead of one as previously believed. I have attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate -------. If he happens to read this, I would greatly appreciate an email from him, sent to the address listed in Appendix A.

As mentioned earlier, Colonel Halt told me that he had eventually spoken with some of the security personnel who had been at the Weapons Storage Area the night the UFO directed beams of light into it. "Several airmen present later told me they saw the beams," he said, "I don't remember any names at this point." Given this statement, I attempted to locate some of those individuals, with interesting if not necessarily confirmatory results.

Using an online roster of former members of the 81st Security Police Squadron, which included their dates of service with the unit, I sent out several emails to persons who would have been at Bentwaters or Woodbridge in December 1980. In each one, I explained who I was and the purpose of my inquiry. I wrote that while I was interested in any information relating to the multiple UFO incidents during that time-frame, I was especially interested in the reported events at the Weapons Storage Area.

The responses I received ran the entire gamut: A few former Security Policemen (SPs) told me that they only had second or third-hand information to offer but wished me well in my research nonetheless. Others recommended that I contact certain individuals who had purportedly been on duty at the WSA and elsewhere on the nights in question, so I emailed all of them. Interestingly, most of those persons never responded so, a week later, I sent a second message to each one, asking whether he had received my earlier inquiry. This flurry of follow-up emails also failed to generate any type of acknowledgment, with two exceptions. One individual finally responded, "I was assigned to the 81st SPS at RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge. I was a Law Enforcement Specialist. I will not give anyone information about my details or activities from this assignment unless demanded by an authorized legal authority. Any further inquiry will be considered 'harassment' Please stop emailing me."

Had this wary individual told me that the first time around, I never would have mailed him a second time. Still, I had to wonder what was so important about his "activities" that would cause him to respond so forcefully. I had merely asked whether he had any knowledge of the now widely-publicized UFO activity at the twin bases, which had already been confirmed by many other security personnel, including the deputy base commander. Oh well, to each his own. While I would have preferred some relevant input from this person, I still respect his decision not to talk to me.

In any case, the second individual who answered my follow-up email, Tim Egercic, had been a Security Policemen on D Flight at Bentwaters. He told me, "The night Colonel Halt said he saw a UFO beam lights down into the Weapons Storage Area, I was on duty at the alarm monitor's building, which was located between the double fence that surrounded the WSA. I never saw or heard about a UFO at the WSA, or beams of light, or anything like that."

I responded by telling Egercic that Col. Halt had already acknowledged, during several different interviews he had given over the years, that he had seen more than one UFO moving over the base, and at least one of them had directed beams of light down to the ground. At the same time, he had heard chatter on his radio to indicate that one or more of those beams had fallen within the WSA.

At this, Egercic responded, "Well, I had control of the net. All security transmissions were going though me. Primary Central Security Control (CSC) had passed responsibility over to me, which they would usually do for several hours early in the 2300hrs - 0700hrs shift. I had the radio right next to me, and I never heard that a UFO was at the WSA. I do remember hearing [someone at the alternate CSC in Building 679] talking with other SPs and dealing with the strange lights on a different channel. So they were over the forest, yes, but not at the Weapons Storage Area. Believe me, I would have known about that, if it had happened. My responsibility as alarm monitor and [temporary] primary CSC would have been to up-channel a 'Helping Hand'-a possible security violation of a priority resource-to the Wing Command Post had our WSA been breached. Any beams of lights from an unidentified craft onto our Hot Row might have constituted a 'Covered Wagon-a definite breach of a priority resource."

To make his point, Egercic later sent me an email in which he said that the SP positioned in the WSA's watchtower that night was named Rick Bobo, who had once referred to the phenomenon he witnessed as "The big light show." Egercic then mentioned that Bobo had also told the late Georgina Bruni, who wrote, You Can't Tell the People, what he had seen from his vantage point fifty feet above the ground. Upon reviewing the pertinent pages from the book, I found Bruni's interview:

R. Bobo: "I think I was the first to report the sighting that night. I was on the tower at Bentwaters; you get a good view from up there. There were several lights and there was this huge ship over the forest."

G. Bruni: "Can you describe the object?"

R. Bobo: 'I'd say it looked circular but, remember, I was over at Bentwaters and this was happening over at Woodbridge. I was instructed to watch it and can tell you that it was up there for about five hours, just hovering. I would say it was quite low in the sky."

G. Bruni: "Were you alone in the tower?"

R. Bobo: "Someone came to the tower and watched it through a scope. I don't know who he was, he was from a different department. I wasn't told anything and I didn't get to look through the scope."

G. Bruni: "Could you hear the radio transmissions from your location in the Bentwaters tower?"

R. Bobo: "I heard some of the radio transmissions, not all of them, you understand, because there were different frequencies. I heard over the radio that London had spotted something on their radar. I heard some of the radio transmissions from some of the men who were out there. They were reporting a light going through the woods, it had bumped into a tree and they were getting radioactive readings from the area. They were discussing three impressions and stuff moving through the woods toward Woodbridge. They kept switching to different frequencies so I couldn't hear everything. I know there was a colonel with them."

REF: Bruni, Georgina. 'You Can't Tell the People.' Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 2000, pp. 243-44.