A veteran US serviceman named Michael Smith who was stationed in the United Kingdom in the 1980s has stepped forward to reveal new details regarding the suspected UFO sightings near Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk nearly 40 years ago, the Sun reports.
The incident in question took place in December 1980 in the vicinity of RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters, which was used by the US Air Force at the time, and is regarded as probably the most famous alleged UFO encounter in the United Kingdom, nicknamed “Britain’s Roswell” due to comparisons to the Roswell UFO Incident of 1947.
According to the newspaper, Smith was a member of the 81st Airborne Police Squadron at RAF Bentwaters at the time of the incident, and seems to have personally witnesses some of the strange phenomena reported by the personnel stationed in the area.
"A month before the base was put on alert and I was called out and I got onto a bunker by one of the gates. I was having a pee outside when I saw an orange glowing light in the woods — it was a reddish ball," he said. "It stopped right in front of me — it just stayed there and hovered two feet off the ground and I called for reinforcements I was scared to death."
The newspaper says that in 2016, Steve Longero, who was a USAF police officer working at RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge, also spoke of witnessing strange lights while on duty.