Episode 1
Lights in Rendlesham Forest
- Where
- Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk
- When
- December 1980
- Narrator
- Danvers
- Verdict
- Probably explained
- Weirdness
- 8/10
The agency, above Frank's Chippy
A wet Monday night in late DecemberA wet Monday night in late December. The rain had been at the windows since lunchtime, the chip shop downstairs was doing a roaring trade, and I'd just put the kettle on when Hargreaves came up the stairs without knocking.
(dripping on the doormat, slapping a damp folder onto the desk with his red pen) Rendlesham Forest, December 1980. American airmen chasing lights through the pines, and a deputy base commander who took a radiation meter and a tape recorder in after them. Forty-odd years on, people still walk a purple-marked trail looking for little green men. On my desk by Friday, and Foxley, if I see one more packet of crisps on the expenses, you're paying for it yourself.
(snatching the folder before the red pen can do any more damage) Trained American security men, two separate nights, and a deputy base commander who didn't just shrug it off. He walked into those pines with a radiation meter and a tape recorder, then wrote to the Ministry of Defence. You don't do all that for a lighthouse, Hargreaves, and nobody has ever properly explained the glowing thing those lads watched moving through the trees.
(unscrewing her flask) You're right that he took it seriously, but his meter read 0.07 milliroentgens per hour at the site against 0.03 to 0.04 elsewhere, which is close to normal background, and his memo to the Ministry got its own dates wrong by a day. As for the first night, a bright fireball crossed southern England at about 3am on the 26th, and the police who turned up shortly after four saw only the Orford Ness lighthouse. I'll give it a six for weirdness, and I'm not ruling out badgers.
(pulling on his muddy wellies) Fine, a day out on the dates, but 0.07 was still the highest reading anyone took, and a fireball streaks across the sky, Danvers, it doesn't wander between the pines while the police are still an hour away. Bring that flask: we're going to the East Gate at 3am to see for ourselves, and the badgers can give evidence too.
Rendlesham Forest, the old East Gate
Wednesday, 3am, frostWednesday, 3am. Frost on the pine needles, my torch the only light for miles, and Foxley humming to keep his courage up. The fence that marks the old East Gate looked smaller than it does in the photographs.
(crouching by the fence with his binoculars, a crisp packet crackling in his pocket) Kill the torch, Danvers, there's a light through the trees out east, and I've been counting: it isn't flashing every five seconds. And before you say "lighthouse", Orford Ness lighthouse was knocked down in 2020, so whatever that is, it's not your favourite alibi.
(switching off the torch) You're right, it was switched off in June 2013 and demolished in 2020, so whatever that is tonight, it isn't the lighthouse, and I'll admit a fireball doesn't wander between pines either. But that cuts both ways: in 1980 there was a 30-metre tower about five miles east of here flashing white every five seconds, and the timings on the deputy commander's tape match it exactly. Tonight's light tells us nothing about that night, except that people in this forest still see lights to the east.
(creeping three steps forward, then straightening up sheepishly) It's a bloke in a bobble hat with a head torch, walking the purple trail, and he's waving at me with his own binoculars, so fine, tonight's mystery is a fellow enthusiast. But that tape was recorded on the second night, Danvers, so your lighthouse explains a flashing light on the 28th, not a glowing object moving through these trees on the 26th.
(nodding to the man in the bobble hat) Fair point: the tape is from the 28th, and nobody has fully explained what those lads saw moving through the trees on the 26th. What I do know is that a fireball crossed the sky at about 3am that night, and when police got here shortly after four, the only light they saw was the Orford Ness lighthouse. So at dawn we're driving out to the coast to stand where that tower used to be on the Ness, and we'll see what a line of sight five miles long looks like.
The Suffolk coast, facing Orford Ness
Wednesday, dawnDawn on the Suffolk coast. Wind straight off the North Sea, gulls arguing, and across the water the long grey spit of Orford Ness, with nothing standing where a lighthouse used to be.
(pouring tea into the flask lid and squinting back inland at the treeline) A 30-metre tower stood on that shingle from 1792, flashing white every five seconds with a range of 25 nautical miles, and the edge of the forest is only about five miles that way. Count with me, Foxley: one, two, three, four, five, flash, which is the timing on the deputy commander's tape. It ran for 221 years before the sea got it, and that's the trouble with a witness that reliable: people stop noticing it's there.
(turning his collar up against the wind and scribbling in his notebook) All right, I'll give you the 28th: your tower outlived kings and empires and still got the credit for one flashing red light. But nobody ever counted to five on the 26th, and those lads chased something glowing through the pines that nobody has explained, so somebody saw something, Danvers. Headline for Hargreaves: "LIGHTHOUSE CRACKS NIGHT TWO, BUT NIGHT ONE IS STILL OUT THERE."
(lowering her tea) You're right, and I nearly let that slide: the lighthouse flashed white, but they recorded a flashing red light. The timing matches the tower and the colour doesn't, and that same line of sight also ran past a farmhouse, so something red sat on that bearing and the lighthouse doesn't explain it. My own idea for the 26th is that the police at the scene saw the lighthouse from those woods, so lads running through the pines would have had a white light blinking every five seconds between the trunks, vanishing and reappearing as they moved, and a light like that seems to wander. I can't prove it's what they chased, mind, so night one goes up to a seven out of ten.
A café in Orford
Wednesday, later that morningOrford, later that morning. Steamed-up windows, bacon rolls, and a phone full of lighthouse history I'd been reading since we got back in the car.
(sliding her phone across the table between the bacon rolls) The main light flashed white, Foxley, but the tower also had coloured sector lights: a red sector was added in 1868, red and green sectors in 1888, and from 1914 they shone from windows in the tower, from a separate light with fixed lenses below the lantern. What I can't tell you is whether any red sector was still shining in December 1980, because nothing I've found says so. It's a lead, not an answer, and if that red light was steady rather than flashing, it may not fit the flashing red light on the 28th anyway.
(nearly dropping his bacon roll) A red light shining from windows in the tower, from fixed lenses sitting just below a white beam that flashed every five seconds: so here's my idea, Danvers, what if those lads saw a steady red glow that seemed to blink because the white flash kept going off right on top of it? I can't prove a red sector was still lit in 1980 and neither can you, which means for now the official story is pinning night two on a lighthouse that was the wrong colour.
(putting her tea down) That's annoyingly good, Foxley: a steady red glow just below a white flash every five seconds could look like a red light flashing, and it fits the timing on the tape better than my objection gave it credit for. But it only works if a red sector was still lit in 1980, nobody's records say whether it was, and the tower's gone so we can't go and look. So night two is the lighthouse with an unexplained colour, night one is still out there, and we're taking all of it to Hargreaves, crisps and all.
The Sunday Lantern
FridayFriday. The Sunday Lantern's office: ink, cold coffee, forty years of deadlines, and Hargreaves reading our copy like a man looking for a reason to say no.
(the red pen stops dead; he shoves his glasses down, reads it twice, then grabs the phone) Red. The light on the tape was red, the lighthouse flashed white, and you've found red sector lights in that tower going back to 1868. Hold the front page, Foxley, and the crisps can go through just this once, but nobody prints a word of it until one of you tells me whether that red sector was actually lit in 1980.
(putting the crisps down for once) Honest answer, Hargreaves: nobody can tell you, because nothing we found says whether that red sector was still lit in 1980, and the tower's gone. So either you print it as the question nobody's asked in forty-odd years, or you hold the page while Danvers and I go and find out, and I'll be the first to tell you if the answer kills my theory.
(unscrewing her flask) He's right, Hargreaves, so print it as a question: the timing on that tape matches the lighthouse, the colour doesn't, and nobody has yet checked whether the tower's red sector was still lit in 1980. That's honest, it's new, and I'll give it an eight out of ten for weirdness, which is high for a case that's mostly a lighthouse, a fireball and rabbits.
(capping the red pen, almost smiling, then catching himself) Probably explained: the lighthouse and the stars cover night two, a fireball and Danvers' trick of a light blinking between the trunks are the best answer for night one, and the red light goes on page one as the question nobody's asked in forty-odd years, not as an answer. A point each: Danvers for the timing, the background readings, the rabbits and for spotting the colour was wrong, and Foxley for not letting go of night one and for a red-glow theory that's annoyingly good, as long as the paper calls it a theory. The crisps go through this once, the flask of tea does not, and next week get me something I can print without three question marks in it.
The Lantern ran it with a question mark. The crisps went through. My flask, apparently, did not. And somewhere in an archive there's a record of whether a red light was burning in that tower in December 1980. We're still looking.
RENDLESHAM'S RED LIGHT: WAS THE LIGHTHOUSE SHOWING RED IN 1980?
The tape's timing matches Orford Ness lighthouse, but its flash was white and the light was red. The tower had red sector lights; no record says if one shone in 1980. One theory: a steady red glow beneath the flash.
By Foxley & Danvers, our investigators