What is the Rendlesham Forest incident?

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Summary: What is the Rendlesham Forest incident?
Early morning (around 3:00AM) of 26-Dec-1980 in Suffolk England, a two-man USAF security patrol near the East Gate of RAF Woodbridge observed strange coloured lights above the forest in the direction of Orford Ness. Assistance was requested and a security unit was sent out from Bentwaters. The lights were inside the pine wood and three men, Sargeant Jim Penniston, his driver, Airman Ed Cabansag, and one of the two original security officers, airman (later sargeant) John Burroughs, drove down a logging track that led into the forest, proceeding the rest of the way on foot, owing to the frozen terrain.
All three men closed in on an object that resembled an "aircraft on fire", or, as Burroughs described it, a "multiple series of lights." At closer proximity, the lights solidified. Penniston went close enough to see an actual object looming from within the glow (src: Penniston sketch and testimony).

Two nights later (night of 27 - early morning 28 Dec 1980) the bizarre lights were spotted again. A small group of 5 men, headed by the deputy base commander LtCol Charles Halt, left the base to investigate, this time armed with more equipment. Later on in the night they encountered a red pulsating object apparently navigating between the trees, which after disturbing nearby animals, silently "exploded" in a flash of bright light and separated into smaller brightly lit objects. The objects which had broken off the original object moved rapidly in sharp angular movements and one beamed pencil-thin "laser-like" beams of light down onto the ground. One beam landed right in front of Halt's team, causing them concern "Was it a warning? Was it trying to communicate?". Other beams landed near/at the bases' Weapons Storage Area. The entire event was recorded on audio-tape on Halt's mini-cassette tape recorder as it was unfolding (src: Col. Halt's declassified 13-Jan-1981 memo and tape recording)

Finally, according to airman Larry Warren (who by the way was the original whistleblower for the case, leaking it to the Press using the pseudonym Art Wallace), in a different location, in a field at the edge of the Rendlesham forest, another group of 40 men from the bases, watch a "cloaked" large 30ft across, 20ft high rounded pyramid craft on the ground. The main part was 'pearl-white' with a rainbow colour effect. Warren also says that UFO occupants were seen. (src: Warren's testimony) - Note: other witnesses distance themselves from Larry Warren's version of the events, saying he was "meddled" with drugs and hypnosis by AFOSI.
Note: original witness statements in the days right after the event, are misleading. These same military witnesses later testified that they signed prepared statements, minimizing the events (and in some cases threatened -"bullets are cheap"-).

"The first of these areas concerns the original witness statements made by Penniston, Burroughs, Cabansag and Chandler. James Easton makes much of the fact that these statements are fairly bland, and points out that some of the witnesses seem to have added to their stories over the years. However, based on my own official investigations of other cases I can tell people that this is entirely consistent with the way in which junior military personnel report UFOs. They do so tentatively if at all, as they are unsure on official policy and unclear as to what ramifications there may be for their careers. They will be more forthcoming in telephone conversations and face to face meetings, and much more inclined to speak out once they have left the service. Sadly, a number of sceptics do not seem to understand the way in which the military operate." src -- Nick Pope, former UK MoD UFO Desk (1991-94)

Since the official documents have surfaced in 2001, several important witnesses have come forward. My opinion: When I initially came across the Rendlesham case, I had never heard of a small triangular UFO before. So I searched around in greek-speaking (Greece and Cyprus) Internet forums, mailing-lists and old BBS archives, looking for anything similar. And indeed, found UFO sightings, of people encountering small triangular UFOs, dating back to 1992-1993, and two of the sighting reports were made by amateur astronomers. One case was over a village in Cyprus, at very close range of a few meters, hovering outside his front door, at about his house's terrace level - he ran upstairs and saw the UFO from above as well. He described it as a "3m per side triangular craft with a low-pyramid on top, initially the sides of the craft looked like hundreds of very-very small yellow lights, which turned to red before it started to gain altitude and then shot upwards at bullet-like speed". The description of the craft seen in Cyprus matches quite accurately the Jim Penniston (USAF) drawing of the Rendlesham UFO in his report written in Dec-1980 (but AFAIK de-classified and published AFTER the aforementioned sighting reports in Greece were posted in public, intrigued me to look deeper into J.Penniston's sighting). I'll provide the details in the upcoming page I'm preparing, about UFO sightings and CE3 in Greece and Cyprus.