Charles Halt
Charles Halt is a retired US Air Force colonel who, as a lieutenant colonel at the time of the events near Rendlesham Forest in December 1980, was deputy commander of the RAF Woodbridge–Bentwaters air base. The incident is regarded as one of the best-known British UFO cases.
Charles Halt is a retired colonel of the United States Air Force. In December 1980, as a lieutenant colonel, he was deputy commander of the twin air bases RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk, England. The bases, despite their British names, were being used by the US Air Force at the time. His name became known through the Rendlesham Forest incident, which is often referred to as "Britain's Roswell."
His role in the case
According to the accounts, in the early hours of December 26, 1980, security guards at the base saw unusual lights in the nearby forest, and several of them claimed to have seen an unknown object on the ground. On the night of December 27 to 28, Halt himself went out into the forest with a team and recorded the observations on a handheld voice recorder. The recording later became known as the "Halt tape." On January 13, 1981, Halt wrote an official memo titled "Unexplained Lights" and sent it to the British Ministry of Defence. The document was made public in 1983.
What he claims
Over the years, in several interviews, Halt has argued that what was seen cannot be explained by ordinary phenomena, and that the official bodies did not investigate the case thoroughly enough. In a sworn statement in 2010, he declared that in his view the phenomenon was extraterrestrial in origin and that both the US and British authorities covered it up. According to his claim, beams were directed from the lights toward the base's weapons storage area.
Official and skeptical position
According to the British Ministry of Defence's assessment, the incident posed no defense threat, and therefore it was not investigated in more detail. The best-known skeptical explanation is associated with Ian Ridpath, a British astronomy writer. According to it, most of the observations can be explained by the light of the nearby Orford Ness lighthouse, bright stars, and a bright meteor seen over southern England in the early hours of December 26. Discrepancies between the witness statements also make the assessment more difficult. The case is still debated today.