1956.08.13
The Royal Air Force bases at Bentwaters and Lakenheath in eastern England were both leased to the USAF. Any unknown aircraft coming from the east over the North Sea was reckoned to be potentially hostile. On the night of 13 – 14 August several UFOs flying at fantastic speeds were picked up by several military radars simultaneously, from 9.30 on. The final intrusion was the most dramatic.
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
The UFOs were described as round, white, rapidly-moving objects that could make abrupt changes in speed and direction.
(UFOs and the Limits of Science, Story)
Even today [1996] 4,000 mph is, at above mach 5, an as yet unattainable speed for aircraft and, in 1956, when jet fighters were in their infancy, it was unthinkable.
(UFO Visitation, Watts)
21.30
The first radar contact occurred at Bentwaters USAF-RAF station (thirteen miles eastnortheast of Ipswich, near the coast) at 9.30 pm (GMT). The object was moving at between 4,000 and 9,000 miles per hour and it covered a distance of 40 to 45 miles in a straight line from where it was first picked up at about 25 to 30 miles eastsoutheast of Bentwaters, to a point fifteen to twenty miles westnorthwest, where it vanished from the screen. The return was reported to have the characteristics of a normal aircraft target, except for its abnormally high speed.
(UFOs and the Limits of Science, Story)
21.35c
A group of twelve to fifteen UREs was picked up on the PPI about eight miles southwest of Bentwaters. These echoes “appeared as normal targets,” and “normal checks made to determine possible malfunctions of the GCA radar failed to indicate anything was technically wrong.” These URE’s appeared to move as a group toward the northeast at varying speeds reported as 80 – 125 mph. The group covered a “six- to seven-mile area” on the scope. These echoes “faded considerably” at a point fourteen miles northeast of Bentwaters, but were tracked to a point about 40 miles northeast of Bentwaters when they merged into a single strong echo “several times larger than a B-36 return under comparable conditions…” The average apparent speed of the URE group for the time it was in motion can be readily calculated as between 290 and 700 mph (58 miles in five to twelve minutes – again differing from the operator’s estimate).
(UFO Encounter II: The Lakenheath, England, Radar-Visual UFO Case, Thayer)
22.55
At 10.55 pm ground radar at Bentwaters picked up a target coming in from the sea…
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
[The target] was tracked over a distance of 55 miles in sixteen seconds, which is equivalent to 12,000 mph – too slow for a meteor and too fast for any conventional aircraft. Again, the target was described as being comparable to a normal aircraft return and, according to University of Arizona atmospheric physicist James E McDonald, who later studied the case, could in no way be ascribed to anomalous propagation effectsat the
(UFOs and the Limits of Science, Story)
This object was also seen by control tower personnel and described by them as a [“blurred” (Story)] bright light passing over the airfield at terrific speed.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
The pilot of a C-47 aircraft flying over the station at 4000-ft altitude reported a “bright light streaked under his aircraft traveling east to west at terrific speed.”
(UFO Encounter II: The Lakenheath, England, Radar-Visual UFO Case, Thayer)
The [C-47] crew… estimated [the light’s] altitude as about 6,500 feet.
(UFO Visitation, Watts)
The UFO… disappeared from the screen 30 miles (50 km) to the west.
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
At the same time, Lakenheath airbase… was informed by a ground-control station that they had the object on radar and it was moving at over 4,000 mph. Other radar units confirmed the position and speed of the object.
(UFO Visitation, Watts)
By this time, Bentwaters had alerted another USAF-RAF station at Lakenheath, where both radar and visual sightings were likewise taking place. One luminous object came in on a southwesterly heading, stopped abruptly, and then streaked out of sight to the east. This was confirmed by two radars, as well as by visual observations from the ground, at Lakenheath. As stated in the original Project Blue Book report:
“Thus, two radar sets (ie Lakenheath GCA and RATCC radars) and three ground observers report substantially the same”. Still another sighting was reported as follows: “Lakenheath Radar Traffic Control Center observed an object seventeen miles east of the station making sharp rectangular course in flight. This maneuver was not conducted by circular path but on right angles at speeds of 600 – 800 mph. Object would stop and start with amazing rapidity.”
(UFOs and the Limits of Science, Story)
23.40c
While the sightings were taking place at Lakenheath, a call was placed [from Lakenheath] to the chief fighter controller on duty at the RAF station at Neatished.
(UFOs and the Limits of Science, Story)
Squadron leader Freddy Wimbledon – in charge of battle alert station that night – has subsequently told how he scrambled two RAF Venom fighters into the area in response to the USAF sightings.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
Within a few minutes, a de Havilland Venom night fighter interceptor was scrambled from nearby Waterbeach and vectored toward, first, a target that was chased and lost, and then, to a second target (over Bedford, west of Cambridge) that was confirmed by the navigator of the Venom as the “clearest target that I have ever seen on radar” (referring to his own airborne radar). At this point the UFO was being tracked simultaneously from the air, both visually and by radar, and from the ground by radars at Neatished and Lakenheath.
(UFOs and the Limits of Science, Story)
The Venom pilot… reported his guns were locked on to the target.
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
Suddenly, within one sweep (about fifteen seconds) of the radar scopes, the blip showed up behind the fighter (whereas before it had been in front), and the pilot requested additional tracking assistance from the ground. In spite of evasive maneuvers, however, the pilot of the Venom could not shake off the UFO, which continued to follow the plane at a distance of about one-quarter mile. The object then (after about ten minutes) became stationary…
(UFOs and the Limits of Science, Story)
We have… tracked down and talked to civilians in Cambridgeshire who apparently saw the Venom streak overhead with the UFO in hot pursuit near Ely and Lakenheath!
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
23.50c
The fighter had to land because it was short of fuel.
(UFO Visitation, Watts)
A second Venom was vectored by Lakenheath RATCC toward the position of the URE; but before he got close enough to pick up anything, he radioed that he was experiencing engine malfunction and was returning to his base. The following conversation was monitored by the Lakenheath watch supervisor between the two Venom pilots:
Number 2: “Did you see anything?”
Number 1: “I saw something, but I’ll be damned if I know what it was.”
Number 2: “What happened?”
Number 1: “He – or it – got behind me and I did everything I could to get behind him and I couldn’t. It’s the damnedest thing l’ve ever seen.”
The pilot of Venom Number 1 also stated that he had radar gun lock for several seconds so “there was something there that was solid.”
(UFO Encounter II: The Lakenheath, England, Radar-Visual UFO Case, Thayer)
Two Lockheed T-33s returning to Bentwaters joined the hunt for 45 minutes, but also found nothing. The UFO was last seen on radar heading north at a steady 600 mph (1,000 km/h).
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
Other radar stations in the area were alerted; the 7th Air Division command post and the 3rd Air Force command post were contacted and RAF coastal air defence also became involved.
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
The UFO soon left the range of both ground radars, moving off the scopes in a northerly direction, at an approximate speed of 600 mph; though at Lakenheath, unknown echoes continued to be tracked until about 3.30 am on the morning of the 14th.
(UFOs and the Limits of Science, Story)
During all this time, the object was visible from the ground as a brightly shining disc. Thus we had an object in the sky which was seen by the crew of an aircraft, then by several radar stations, and then by an interceptor’s radar, as well as by direct observation.
(UFO Visitation, Watts)
It is believed that gun camera film was taken. Indeed the former head of the Ministry of Defence department which studies UFOs, Ralph Noyes (now an active UFO investigator), stated that at the time he watched the film but admitted that “the film clips were very brief, rather fuzzy and not particularly spectacular.”
(UFOs: The Definitive Casebook, Spencer)
The MOD says… that its gun camera film remains secret 40 years later.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
1957.05.02
Oddly, despite the fact that this classic case must have generated rainforests of paperwork, the public record office files contain only one brief reference which appears to relate to it. This comes in an Air Ministry briefing paper offering assistance to a minister facing questions in the House of Commons. Some of these came from the then MP, NATO Defence Committee officer and future president of BUFORA (British UFO Research Association), Major Sir Patrick Wall. The paper is dated 2 May 1957 and describes radar contacts with UFOs during the past year.
It refers to three radar contacts during 1956. One was picked up on the airborne radar of a Vulcan bomber, but the crew saw nothing visually. A second involved a radar lock by an aircraft sent to intercept an object tracked by Weathersfield radar. The third was “an unusual object on Lakenheath radar, which at first moved at a speed of between 2,000 and 4,000 knots and then remained stationary at a high altitude”. These latter two (whilst undated) may both refer to the night of 13 – 14 August 1956, as some details do match.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
1967
Furore in Whitehall
By far the most important UK sighting of the decade was never made public – at least, not until the University of Colorado study of UFOs in 1967 found it by accident. The USAF officer who told them assumed that the scientists would already know all about it, because – according to public statements by the White House – the team had complete access to all the US Government’s UFO data. The USAF officer knew the matter had been investigated eleven years earlier. What he did not know was that this vital case had never become part of the Blue Book or MOD public records…
It is hardly surprising that this case created a furore in Whitehall. Ralph Noyes says that the whole place was buzzing with it, and when in 1969 he came to take on the task of heading an MOD department which received UFO data he was fully briefed and shown the gun camera film taken by the Venom. Whilst this apparently only depicts a fuzzy light visible for a few seconds, it is further proof of the value of this most extraordinary encounter – especially as the MOD continue to choose not to release the film…
The MOD says of this affair that it has “lost” all record on its files, that it was never among the 15,000 cases on the Project Blue Book archives declassified in 1976… Indeed, but for a fluke we would not know that this incident had ever occurred.
(The Complete Book of UFOs, Hough and Randles)
The Condon Committee called this “the most puzzling and unusual case in the radar-visual files”, and concluded: “The apparently rational, intelligent behavior of the UFO suggests a mechanical device of unknown origin as the most probable explanation”.
(UFO: The Government Files, Brookesmith)
Gordon David Thayer, principal analyst of the case for the Condon Committee, added the following comment in his entry on the case for The Encyclopaedia of UFOs (Story and Greenwell):
“In sheer redundancy of contacts this episode is unparalleled by any other radar-visual UFO case. Three ground radars at two locations plus an airborne radar – four radars in all, each operating at a different frequency, pulse-repetition rate etc – combined, apparently, with the Venom pilot’s vision all detected something unknown in the same place at the same time. There is simply no way that any known sort of anomalous propagation effect could account for this. In fact, any explanation even remotely conceivable seems to demand the presence of some physical object in the air over Lakenheath on that August night in 1956. This is why the Condon Report states: ‘The probability that at least one genuine UFO was involved appears to be fairly high’ – and that was written before it was revealed in 1978 that the Neatished RAF radar also tracked the same apparent target.”
(UFOs and the Limits of Science, Story)