In releasing 8,000 previously classified documents on UFO sightings, the British government has admitted that files on the Rendlesham Forest Incident have disappeared.

 

In late December 1980, dozens of members of the U.S. Air Force stationed at a United Kingdom air base (RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk) reported seeing strange lights in the nearby trees. A patrol found marks on the ground and damage to vegetation, which led UFO researchers to label the event a classic example of a “close encounter” with extraterrestrials. Others have speculated that an unauthorized aircraft entered UK airspace and quickly left, while others fall back on the skeptics’ view: active imaginations.

 

British officials say the Rendlesham files may have gone missing as far back as 2000, when a request from the Ministry of Defense to see the information revealed a “huge” gap in the UFO records.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

UFO Files Reveal 'Rendlesham Incident' Papers Missing (by Neil Henderson, BBC News)

The Rendlesham Forest UFO (by Brian Dunning, Skeptoid)

Rendlesham Forest/Bentwaters (UFO Evidence)