NARRATOR: Rendlesham Forest,
Suffolk County, England.
200 miles east of Rudloe
Manor lies six square miles
of woodlands that
has become notorious
as the site of Great Britain's
most incredible UFO encounter.
On December 26, 1980, near an
air base leased to the United
States Air Force by
the RAF, strange lights
are reported on the horizon
in what appears to be
a possible downed aircraft.
Two US servicemen are
dispatched to the site.
According to accounts, radios
failed as they approached
the targeted area, and the
air itself felt electrically
charged as they closed in.
Once at the
so-called crash site,
the men observed a
strange triangular
craft on the ground
approximately three meters wide
at its base.
NICK POPE: It appeared to be
either hovering or on legs,
and it had clearly come down
into this small clearing
and smashed some of the
branches off the tree.
So there was physical evidence,
which was looked at afterwards.
And so the men looked
at this strange object.
JAMES PENNISTON: I noticed
that there was an inscription
on the side of the aircraft.
I was expecting to find--
I don't know-- USAF,
something like that.
And what I find is
glyphs, pictorial glyphs,
making no sense at all.
And then I was running my hand
over the side of the craft.
It was very warm to the touch.
At this time, we were getting
the feeling of electricity
that was just bouncing.
It was much, much stronger.
There was this feeling
of being drawn into it
or being pulled into
it, like someone
was holding a picture
up of zeroes and ones
in my mind's eye.
NARRATOR: The strange
vision Sergeant Penniston
had upon touching the craft
has made this one of Britain's
most famous UFO encounters.
But ancient astronaut
theorists suggest
that even more compelling
is what happened after.
The following evening,
further strange sightings
occurred, and also the night
after, reported by US Air Force
Colonel Charles
Halt. Colonel Halt
led his own search party to
put an end to the confusion.
But instead of finding
a logical explanation,
they discovered high
levels of radioactivity
where Burroughs
and Penniston had
previously seen the strange
craft and three impact holes
in the ground.
They then spotted a
light in a nearby field
that suddenly came towards
them through the trees
at high speed.
One of the people with me
said, look there to the north.
There were four or five
objects in the sky.
They were elliptical and round.
They changed shape.
They moved at very
high speed, made
sharp angular turns, as
though they were doing
some type of a grid search.
One came at high speed, stopped
directly overhead 3,000, 4,000,
maybe 5,000 feet, and sent
down a concentrated beam
about 8 or 10 feet from us.
It was about a foot in diameter.
I would describe it today as
probably like a laser beam.
We noticed the other
object in the sky
sending down similar
beams on Woodbridge Base.
Apparently, these beams
were falling down into or
near the weapons storage area.
I was really concerned then.
[music playing]
I suspect it was some
kind of scam to see what was
inside, the ordnance inside.
What we do know is Lieutenant
Colonel Halt saw Colonel
Williams just a few hours later
and told him that beams had
been shown down into the
storage bunkers, and he said,
I think the ordnance
needs to be checked out.
NARRATOR: If Colonel
Halt's report is true,
why were these craft
emitting beams of light
down into the Woodbridge Base?
According to some ancient
astronaut theorists,
they may have been
conducting a search,
not for nuclear weapons, but
for one of their own craft.
NICK POPE: They were
moving around erratically,
he said, as if it was conducting
some sort of grid search.
And the reason he said that
was that beams of light
were firing down from this
UFO into one of the most
sensitive parts of the base--
the weapons storage area.
Maybe the aliens would be
looking for crashed UFOs, maybe
their own alien
technology, to prevent
us from trying to
back engineer it
and build our own spacecraft.
