The Officer Who Filed the Memo

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt was the Deputy Base Commander at RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge — a joint U.S./UK facility — during the Rendlesham Forest incident of December 1980. On the night of December 27–28, Halt led a team into the forest to investigate reports of a landed craft. He personally witnessed unexplained lights, and his team's Geiger counter showed elevated radiation readings at the landing site. He recorded the entire encounter on an audio cassette.

Halt subsequently filed an official memorandum to the UK Ministry of Defence — the "Halt Memo" — documenting the incident. The memo was declassified under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act in 1983 and remains one of the most significant official government documents in UFO history.

A Lifetime of Advocacy

Halt spent years believing the incident would be officially explained. When it was not, he became an increasingly vocal advocate for transparency, providing sworn affidavits and testifying that what his team witnessed was not of human origin. He has stated that both U.S. and UK governments covered up the incident.