After 30 Years, Audio Tape Leaves UFO Encounter Unsolved

(Nov. 4) -- Question: Which classic science fiction movie do you think the following dialog comes from?

"It's coming this way, it's definitely coming this way!"

"Pieces are shooting off!"

"There's no doubt about it! This is weird! It's like the pupil of an eye looking at you, winking, and the flash is so bright to the starscope that it almost burns your eye."

"Hey, here he comes from the south -- he's coming in toward us now. Now we're observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground. This in unreal!"

What you just read might seam like it came straight out of a B-movie. But the truth is, that's a partial transcript of a tense December night 30 years ago when several military officers confronted what they thought might be a UFO from another planet.

An 18-minute recording of that encounter (click on the video player to the right to hear some of it) is making the Internet rounds faster than you can say "Beam me up."

The incident took place at the joint British/American airbases Bentwaters and Woodbridge in the U.K.'s Rendlesham Forest.

On the tape, retired U.S. Air Force Col. Charles Halt, the deputy base commander at Bentwaters, can be heard in what many believe to be the most riveting UFO case of modern times.

Courtesy Charles Halt

Former Air Force Col. Charles Halt was deputy base commander at a joint British/American airbase, RAF Bentwaters, in 1980. Halt says he saw a disc-shaped UFO directing a beam of light down to the ground near him.

In September, Halt described the UFO encounter to AOL News just days before he and several other retired Air Force officers came forward to describe a series of UFO reports at nuclear weapons sites.

The officers involved at Bentwaters in 1980 initially downplayed the incident because they were afraid the story was so extraordinary that nobody would believe them and their careers would be ruined.

The Air Force has never offered a definitive explanation for what happened out there in the woods and field near the base.

Instead, skeptics have filled magazine stories and talk shows with theories such as misidentified military aircraft and the glow from a nearby lighthouse. Could that have explained the following account from Halt?

"One of them approached us at very high speed," Halt said. "I'd say it was at 2,000 to 4,000 feet in altitude, and it came almost directly overhead and sent down the equivalent of a laser beam. It's the best I can describe it. It did not go like a light beam and fan out; it came straight down, maybe 8 or 10 inches in diameter, and fell just 8 or 10 feet from our feet."

If we're to believe the testimony of people like Halt, who had top-secret security "need to know" clearance, then to listen to his voice describe this amazing close encounter, it's hard not to take him at his word when he offers his own opinion of what happened.

"This was something of intelligent control beyond any technology we know. It's my firm belief that it was extraterrestrial or from a different dimension."

Part 2 of the Halt audio tape can be heard HERE.

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