Lakenheath–Bentwaters incident

Lakenheath–Bentwaters incident

Type	Case (radar-visual)
Date	Night of 13–14 August 1956
Place	RAF Bentwaters (Suffolk) and RAF Lakenheath, eastern England; both then USAF-tenanted
Radars	Ground radars at Bentwaters, Lakenheath and RAF Neatishead; airborne radar in RAF Venom night fighters
Key witnesses	T/Sgt Forrest Perkins (Lakenheath); Flt Lt Freddie Wimbledon (Neatishead); No. 23 Squadron Venom crews
Condon Report verdict	"The probability that at least one genuine UFO was involved appears to be fairly high"
Proposed explanations	Anomalous radar propagation, Perseid meteors, a weather balloon, radar spoofing
Also known as	Lakenheath-Bentwaters, Lakenheath

The Lakenheath–Bentwaters incident was a series of radar and visual contacts with unidentified objects over airbases in eastern England on the night of 13–14 August 1956, involving personnel of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the U.S. Air Force (USAF). Radar operators tracked targets apparently moving at thousands of miles per hour and stopping dead, ground observers saw fast-moving white lights, and according to American radar controllers an RAF night fighter sent to intercept found the target circling behind it and following it for about ten minutes.^[1][2]

The University of Colorado's Condon Report, which otherwise concluded that UFOs were misidentified natural phenomena or aircraft, took the unusual position that "the probability that at least one genuine UFO was involved appears to be fairly high", making it one of the most discussed radar cases in UFO literature. Others have argued that it can be explained by false radar returns and meteors, and later interviews with the RAF aircrews contradicted the dramatic chase.^[1][3][4]

Bentwaters

The commonly cited sequence of events comes from the original USAF Project Blue Book file, later analysed by the Condon Committee and by the atmospheric physicist James E. McDonald. It began at RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk on the evening of 13 August 1956, a dry, mostly clear night on which observers noticed an unusually large number of shooting stars from the Perseid meteor shower.^[1]

At 21:30 radar operators at the base tracked a target resembling a normal aircraft return approaching from the sea at an apparent speed of several thousand miles per hour. They also tracked a group of slow-moving targets heading northeast that merged into a single, very large return — several times stronger than that of a B-36 bomber — before moving off the scope to the north, and another fast target moving east to west. A T-33 trainer of the 512th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, crewed by First Lieutenants Charles Metz and Andrew Rowe, was sent to investigate but saw nothing. The only visual sighting at Bentwaters in this period was of an amber, star-like object later identified as probably the planet Mars, low in the southeast.^[1]

At 22:55 a target was detected about 30 miles east of the station heading west at an estimated 2,000–4,000 mph. It disappeared from the scope two miles east of the base and reappeared three miles west of it — which might suggest anomalous propagation, although ground radars almost always have a blind spot overhead. As it passed over, tower personnel saw a bright light cross the field east to west at "terrific speed" at about 4,000 feet, and the pilot of a C-47 flying at about 4,000–5,000 feet over the base reported a bright light streaking beneath his aircraft. Bentwaters then alerted RAF Lakenheath, 40 miles (64 km) to the northwest, to watch for unusual targets.^[1][2]

Lakenheath

Ground observers at Lakenheath saw several round white luminous objects, including two that arrived, made a sharp change of course and appeared to merge before moving off together. One observer compared an object's size at first to a golf ball, dwindling to a "pin point" as it moved away — an observation that seemed to rule out a bolide or bright meteor. Observers said the objects could not have been shooting stars, which were unusually numerous that night, because they left no trails. Lakenheath's radar air traffic control centre tracked a target moving from six miles west to about 20 miles southwest, where it stopped for five minutes before heading northwest and stopping two miles from the station, with three or four other targets doing the same; another object was seen 17 miles east making a sharp rectangular course at 600–800 mph, stopping and starting "with amazing rapidity".^[1][2]

Forrest Perkins's account

The final phase was described in detail by Technical Sergeant Forrest Perkins, the watch supervisor at Lakenheath's radar air traffic control centre, who wrote to the Condon Committee in 1968. He recalled that Bentwaters had asked whether Lakenheath had any targets moving at 4,000 mph. Scanning their scopes, which used moving-target indication to suppress stationary returns, his controllers found a target 20–25 miles southwest that was nonetheless stationary. It then moved off at 400–600 mph with no acceleration at all, and over the next 30–45 minutes made a series of straight-line jumps of 8 to 20 miles, always at about 600 mph, pausing for several minutes between them, while Perkins relayed reports to a conference line of commanders.^[1][2]

According to Perkins, two RAF de Havilland Venom interceptors were then scrambled. As the first pilot was told he was half a mile from the stationary target, he reported, "I've got my guns locked on him," then asked where it had gone. The controllers saw the target circle swiftly behind the fighter, and for about ten minutes, despite climbs, dives and turns, it stayed "glued" close behind it as two distinct blips. Perkins said the pilot sounded "worried, excited and also pretty scared", and finally returned to base low on fuel; the target followed briefly, then stopped. He recalled the pilot telling the second Venom crew, "I saw something, but I'll be damned if I know what it was," and that he had held a radar lock on it for a few seconds. The second Venom returned home with engine trouble, and the target made a few more short moves before leaving radar coverage to the north at about 600 mph.^[1][2]

Condon Committee investigation

The Condon Committee took up the case largely because of Perkins's letter. Besides the Blue Book file, it obtained a classified teletype message sent three days after the incident by the 3910th Air Base Group to Air Defense Command at Ent Air Force Base, whose description, including the chase, largely agreed with Perkins's. It said the Venom pilot first reported a bright white light and a radar target, lost both, was then vectored to another target ten miles east which began a "tail chase" as he passed it, and could not "shake" it; he called it the "clearest target I have ever seen on radar". The message recorded that three ground radar sets had picked up the targets simultaneously, that targets remained on the scopes even with moving-target indication on, and that all disappeared at about 03:30 GMT on 14 August. Its author concluded that the sightings were "real and not figments of the imagination" and not of meteorological or astronomical origin.^[1][2]

The committee's radar analyst, Gordon Thayer, judged that anomalous propagation was possible but unlikely, given the lack of other targets on the scopes, and that the Perseids were an unlikely cause, since observers could evidently tell the two apart and the reported manoeuvres ruled meteors out. He noted that the message's statement that radar contacts came later than the visual ones contradicted other passages. Focusing on the Lakenheath phase, he concluded that "this is the most puzzling and unusual case in the radar-visual files", that "the apparently rational, intelligent behavior of the UFO suggests a mechanical device of unknown origin as the most probable explanation", and that "although conventional or natural explanations certainly cannot be ruled out, the probability of such seems low in this case".^[1][2][3]

The aviation journalist and UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass concluded instead that the incident could be explained by a combination of false radar returns and misperceived Perseid meteors.^[1]

Freddie Wimbledon and other witnesses

Little more emerged until the late 1970s, when an article in the Daily Express and a piece by the astronomer Ian Ridpath in The Sunday Times brought out new witnesses. On 19 March 1978 Flight Lieutenant Freddie Wimbledon wrote to The Sunday Times to dispute Ridpath's statement that Klass had effectively explained the case. Wimbledon had been the radar controller on duty at RAF Neatishead that night. His account agreed with Perkins's in some details, including the chase, but he said his own team had directed the two Venoms, with the Americans at Lakenheath merely listening on the frequency he had given them, and he remembered a solid radar return tracked by three ground sets and one in the intercepting aircraft. The same publicity drew a letter to the Daily Express from John Killock, who said that in August 1956 he had seen a single fast-moving white light at Ely, along with a Venom, and later an odd group of amber lights.^[1]

Later research

A study by four British researchers — David Clarke, Andy Roberts, Martin Shough and Jenny Randles — found that the events were much more complex than the Condon Report had suggested. They traced and interviewed the aircrews of No. 23 Squadron from RAF Waterbeach who had flown the interceptions: Flying Officers David Chambers and John Brady in the first Venom, and Ian Fraser-Ker and Ivan Logan in the second. The crews had been scrambled at 02:00 and 02:40 on 14 August, about two hours later than Wimbledon and Perkins said. Contrary to the teletype message and both controllers' accounts, they said the radar contacts were unimpressive, that there was no tail-chase or other action by the target, and that they made no visual contact. Chambers said, "my feeling is that there was nothing there, it was some sort of mistake," and Logan that "all we saw was a blip which rather indicated a stationary target". At the time, the squadron concluded that if anything the contact had been a weather balloon.^[1][4]

The researchers also traced another Venom crew, Flying Officers Leslie Arthur and Grahame Scofield, scrambled much earlier in the evening without being told what their target was; they had to return when their wingtip fuel tanks malfunctioned. Scofield recalled later overhearing radio exchanges between the intercepting crews at Waterbeach, and his account agreed, puzzlingly, with Wimbledon's and Perkins's, though he identified the crews as Chambers and Brady, and Fraser-Ker and Logan. The timing and route of Scofield's flight could also explain the Venom that Killock saw at Ely. The study further found that 23 Squadron's commanding officer, Wing Commander (later Air Commodore) A. N. Davis, had been diverted to investigate the radar returns while flying a Venom from RAF Coltishall at the time of the interception Wimbledon and Perkins described, raising the possibility that Davis and another pilot were the two they remembered.^[1]

Because none of the officers or pilots made visual contact with the objects, it has been suggested that radar spoofing — deception techniques used by militaries to create false targets — was being tested. The case remains debated.^[1][4]

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.