DEFE 24/1925 — MoD UFO Reports 1980 (Rendlesham era public correspondence)

Brief

The file assembles public correspondence, press coverage, and sighting reports handled by the MoD UFO desk with 1980 as its nominal start date, but it ranges from a 1955 Whitehall letter referencing an Air Ministry flying-saucer intelligence summary to 1986 crop-circle analysis. The Rendlesham Forest landing of December 27, 1980 is covered through News of the World clippings that quote senior USAF officers maintaining silence and reference an internal report. Anomalously, pages 59–61 contain what appears to be an anonymous USAF security-policeman's first-person account of a non-human entity being shot at McGuire AFB in January 1978, accompanied by an official USAF incident/complaint form that records a 'body of unknown origin' released to a Wright-Patterson AFB special recovery team. A 1955 Whitehall letter addressed to Anthony Montague Browne — Churchill's private secretary — acknowledges an Air Ministry Secret Intelligence Summary on flying saucers, placing that intelligence at the highest levels of the British government.

Metadata

Agency

UK Ministry of Defence / Secretariat Air Staff

Release

2008-10-08

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

346 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED

Tags

Rendlesham Forest 1980, RAF Woodbridge / Bentwaters, McGuire AFB entity recovery 1978, Ft. Dix 1978, Wright-Patterson recovery team, non-human entity / body, crop circles Hampshire 1985-1986, RAF Chivenor sighting 1985, Valensole encounter (France), Air Ministry flying saucer intelligence 1955, physical trace evidence, naked eye / binoculars

Key points

• The News of the World reported that a UFO landed at 3 a.m. on December 27, 1980, in Tangham Wood half a mile from RAF Woodbridge, claiming the fact was 'officially confirmed' — the MoD filed this clipping as part of its 1980 correspondence.p.10
• A press clipping records a USAF wing brigadier general (OCR renders the name as 'Gordon') stating that he does not know what happened, while the USAF public affairs captain at Woodbridge told a solicitor he could not comment; a separate source confirmed to the paper that 'something happened and it is all in that document.'p.9
• A Whitehall letter dated 22 March 1955, addressed to Anthony Montague Browne (Churchill's personal private secretary), acknowledges an article from the 'Air Ministry Secret Intelligence Summary' about flying saucers — establishing that ministerial-level saucer intelligence circulated to Prime Ministerial staff 25 years before Rendlesham.p.35
• An anonymous USAF security policeman's letter claims that in January 1978 at McGuire AFB, N.J., between 0300 and 0500 hrs, a non-human entity described as greyish-brown with a fat head, long arms, and a slender body appeared in front of a Ft. Dix MP's car after a disc-shaped glowing object hovered over him; the MP fired five rounds and the entity fled, dying near the McGuire fence line.p.59
• An official USAF incident/complaint report form dated 18 January 1978 records UFO sightings over McGuire AFB and Ft. Dix, confirms the McGuire control tower independently reported the same, states that 'an unidentified being had been shot' by Ft. Dix MPs and entered the base, and records in its disposition section that the body of unknown origin was released to the OSI District Commander and a special recovery team from Wright-Patterson AFB.p.60
• A follow-up USAF form confirms that 'some kind of body' was found on the installation, the area was cordoned off, an ECF was established, USAF clinic personnel were dispatched, and a recovery team was responding — with additional 1569 reports referenced for further information and investigation listed as pending.p.61
• A dimensioned hand-drawn cross-section schematic — with labeled views of main deck, engine room, balcony, and catwalks, and a scale bar reading 0–20 feet / 0–6 metres — appears to be a witness-prepared structural rendering of an observed craft filed within the correspondence.p.27
• A February 1986 article correlates six years of Hampshire and Wiltshire crop circles with concurrent UFO reports, including Jack and Pat Collins observing a large spoke-and-rim circular object over Stockbridge Down; police searched the area but found nothing, and the article argues the circle geometry is inconsistent with the string-and-centre hoaxing method.p.48
• Two formal RAF Chivenor sighting report forms from 28 May 1985 record separate Bideford-area observations: one witness (naked eye) saw a two-section object with white, red, and green lights moving SW; a second (binoculars) saw three tiers of white-only lights from the NW — both silent, both on a clear night, with corroborating reports from Exeter Police and South Brent.p.85

Verbatim

• A UFO has landed in Britain -and that staggering fact has been officially c o n f i r m e d .

  p.10

• Despite a massive cover.up, News of the World investigators have proof that the mysterious craft came to earth in a red ban of light at 3 a.m. on December 27,. 1980.

  p.10

• In selecting these examples, I have deliberately chosen relatively simple and unsensational cases, occurring to ordinary people in the casual course of their daily lives.

  p.25

• In short, these things seem to have taken place as described, for all anyone can show to the contrary.

  p.25

• It looked like. a big funfair wheel hovering in the sky

  p.48

• Similar reports to Exeter Police of object travelling at 1000' between Taunton and Exeter at 2300. Clusters of lights seen over South Brent, Devon.

  p.85

Most interesting

• The file nominally covers 1980 MoD correspondence but contains materials dated 1955, 1978, 1985, and 1986 — indicating the file was held open for years and used as a general accumulation point for UAP-related material well beyond its described scope.
• A 1955 Whitehall letter to Churchill's private secretary Anthony Montague Browne acknowledges an 'Air Ministry Secret Intelligence Summary' on flying saucers — confirming that classified flying-saucer intelligence existed at Air Ministry level and was shared with Prime Ministerial staff during Churchill's last government.
• The McGuire AFB pages (59–61) are the most anomalous material in the file: an unsigned first-person letter and what appears to be an official USAF incident/complaint report form both describe the same non-human entity event in January 1978, with the official form recording the body's release to a Wright-Patterson AFB special recovery team — American military documents filed in a UK MoD correspondence archive.
• The anonymous USAF writer states that 'a team from Wright-Patterson AFB came in' the day of the incident and transported the crated body by aircraft, then adds: 'That was it. Nothing more said, no report made and we were all told not to have anything to say about it or we would be court martialed.'
• The News of the World headline 'Colonel's secret report tells the facts' refers to an internal USAF document about the Rendlesham landing; a source told the paper 'Yes, something happened and it is all in that document' — contemporaneous press confirmation of a suppressed internal account.
• The witness sketch on page 27 includes labeled architectural detail — main deck, engine room, balcony, catwalks — with a scale bar, indicating the witness attempted a systematic, dimensioned rendering of the observed craft rather than a casual impression.
• The 1986 crop circle article on pages 48–49 argues that the circle geometry, including the absence of entry-trail damage to surrounding crops, rules out the string-and-centre hoaxing method and is geometrically consistent with a rotating, spoke-equipped underside landing; the article correlates circle appearance dates at Patching, Bratton, Hampshire, and Andover with proximate UFO reports at each site.
• The two RAF Chivenor reports from May 1985 describe different light configurations in the same area on the same night — multi-colored two-section versus white-only three-tier — suggesting either multiple craft or that two observers at different distances and angles were tracking the same object.