The Rendlesham Forest UFO Case – Deconstructing a Myth [Ian Ridpath]

**The Rendlesham Forest UFO Case – Deconstructing a myth** Ian Ridpath, *Writer* The Rendlesham Forest UFO incident of Christmas 1980 ranks as one of the top ten UFO cases in the world as voted by UFO believers and is often described as the ‘British Roswell’. Evidence for a series of sightings spread over two nights includes eye-witness statements from security guards at the US Air Force base near Woodbridge in Suffolk, a memo from a high-ranking USAF officer to the UK’s Ministry of Defence, and a real-time tape recording of events as they unfolded. This talk looks at the main points of the case and explains how the witnesses were fooled by a series of natural and man-made objects. The Rendlesham case is an instructive demonstration that UFO sightings can never be taken at facevalue no matter how reliable the witnesses may seem. Ian Ridpath is an internationally renowned writer on astronomy and space and a well-known UFO skeptic. He was the first skeptic to investigate and explain the Rendlesham Forest UFO case after it hit the headlines in 1983. His investigations have grown into a major website which can be accessed here http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham.html This talk will summarize his investigations of the case.