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What do you think happened at Rendlesham forest back in 1980 - a UFO sighting?

"I think the briefest way to put it and I must stress this is a personal opinion and not an official one, is that something fell off something. We don't know what. It is debatable whether we will ever know certainly in our lifetime, but I suspect there was some form of security alert directed in the line of military hardware of some kind or another, that had to be covered up," said Richard Davies.

Over the years there have been all sorts of stories and rumours - all sorts of different things have been said to have gone on here in the forest from aliens landing to crash landing, to bits falling off satellites. It's prompted interest from around the world and still to this day.

"Yes it's not that long ago that we had a film crew from Japan over here recording this as one of the big 10 internationally and of course nowadays this is acknowledged as one of the big two, with Roswell being the other one," explained Richard.

Once a year you get guides out and have a troop through the forest - an opportunity for people to see where this thing is suppose to have happened. Also throughout the year enthusiasts come and have a look as well and just sit and watch to see if even today anything is going to happen.

"Yes there is quite a number of folk who come particularly at night time to see if there are revisitations and we've had plenty of stories from them about alien interaction during the night hours," said forester Richard Davies.

Rendlesham forester, Richard Davies

This means that people are convinced that there are still things happening to this day. What is your view?

"I've always held the point of view that I believe there is actually extra-terrestrial life. I don't think this was a case of a visitation. It's even possible to accept the fact within what I've just said that there maybe other visitations here, but I don't think it has any direct relation to what happened on that night," said Richard.

We are just approaching the sight where the crash landing is supposed to have happened and it’s just inside the trees here inside this little clearing, so we'll just walk through and see what we can find. Could it have been somebody messing about for instance with torches or flares or something?

"I think the consistency of what people have seen over here through the years does actually rule that out.

"The other thing you have to bear in mind is that the crop we're walking through at the moment is a young crop that was replanted after the proceeding crop had been felled, and that was starting with trees getting on 70 or 80 foot tall - whereas at the moment we're in a dense young plantation of stuff about 10 or 15 foot tall, so it would have been a very different atmosphere down here at the time.

"It would have been probably less peaceful than it is now because of the ability of the wind to blow through and the noise that would have been going on in the crowns of the trees - would have destroyed that peace to a fair extent," continued Richard.
What about the people who use to serve here at the air base. Do you ever see those people coming back to revisit the scene of this incident?

"I think I've now twice known ex-USAF people come on these walks and they've always got something interesting to say," noted Richard.

And what sort of people come on the walks - enthusiasts, people who just have a passing interest or real believers?

"Well strangely enough everything, you've more or less covered the range. Because we do have those people, especially the early walks we did, who were very much on the investigative side of looking into the UFO incidence. I think it’s more those people who think well that’s a nice thing to hang a walk onto.

"But I don't think I've done a single walk and we actually do them twice a year and I've been doing it for six or seven years now - I don't think I've done a single walk where there hasn't been at least one person who passionately believes in this as being a genuine UFO sighting and at the same time one person who thoroughly and is heartily sceptical about it, which puts me in a difficult situation," explained Richard.

What about you and your colleagues. You work the forest day in, day out - it's a big place. Have you seen anything out of the ordinary?

"Given the fact that personally, I am rarely out at night here, certainly during the daytime and in the evenings and in the early nights going home from work - I've never seen anything and I can also say that my wildlife ranger who does work in far more nighttime situations than I do, has never been back and reported anything but I wouldn't necessarily say that that excludes everything because you just don't know do you."

Close to the site where the UFO incident is meant to have happened is a tree which has markings that look like an alien face.