Forty-five years after a series of unexplained events in an English forest, Bloomington native John Burroughs said he's still searching for answers.
Burroughs was one of several U.S. Air Force personnel involved in the Rendlesham Forest incident, a series of encounters near the Royal Air Force [RAF] bases at Woodbridge and Bentwaters in eastern England during December 1980.
The event has since become known as the “British Roswell,” spawning documentaries, books and decades of debate over what exactly happened in the woods.
Burroughs' encounters are directly tied to a heart condition. But before he could receive any benefits, he needed to access his medical records.
He’d soon discover they were classified, prompting a years-long battle to get the government to acknowledge his military service.
Now, Burroughs is bringing that conversation to his home town through the Edge of Unknown conference June 20 at the Chateau Hotel and Conference Center, where he and several researchers will discuss unexplained phenomena, government secrecy and the lasting impact of encounters that continue to divide public opinion.
The lights over Rendlesham Forest
Burroughs’ story begins with a routine overnight shift on Christmas night in 1980.
Burroughs had been stationed at RAF Woodbridge for about a year and a half when he reported for duty on Dec. 26, 1980. Around 3 a.m., while patrolling the eastern perimeter of the base with his supervisor, they noticed unusual lights descending into the nearby forest.
“He had just arrived about a month before, so he just basically got my attention and asked me if I'd seen anything like that down by the east gate," Burroughs said in an interview for WGLT's Sound Ideas.
The two briefly investigated and saw unusual lights deeper in the forest. After returning to notify command, Burroughs said military officials contacted multiple radar facilities, including local military installations and civilian air traffic controllers.
According to Burroughs, all three operators confirmed something had appeared over the area before disappearing from radar near the forest.
With that confirmation, the three security personnel returned into Rendlesham Forest to investigate.
Burroughs said what happened next remains difficult to explain.
“We got close to something,” he recalled. “It was a bright white light with like an orangish hue in it. There were other lights within it.”
Burroughs said he remembers approaching the object before dropping to the ground as it rose through the trees and disappeared toward the coastline. Another witness later claimed he approached and touched the object. A third reported losing consciousness.
“All three of us remembered differently what we saw and what happened next,” Burroughs said.
The group continued searching the surrounding fields and coastline throughout the night but found little else. When they returned to base, Burroughs said something unusual had happened.
“We came back, two of our watches — myself and the security supervisor were both wearing watches — and we were 45 minutes slow,” he said.
Three nights that became the British Roswell
The initial encounter was only the beginning.
Two additional nights of unexplainable encounters would unfold, drawing additional military personnel into the investigation.
Burroughs said the same night he encountered a UAP, or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, members of another security shift reported their own encounter. According to Burroughs, the experience left one commander so shaken she was relieved of duty and eventually transferred back to the United States.
The third night would become the most famous chapter in the incident.
On Dec. 28, then-Deputy Base Commander Lt. Col. Charles Halt led a team into the forest, this time, carrying an audio recorder. His recorded observations and later a memorandum documenting unusual lights in the woods would eventually become public.
The memo's discovery helped transform what had been an internal military matter into an international mystery.
“It blew the whole case wide open,” Burroughs said.
Burroughs said he later reunited with members of Halt's investigation team during the third night's search and experienced another unusual encounter in the woods.
“One of the individuals with this team and I went forward and we got close to something,” he said.
According to Burroughs, another serviceman later reported seeing him disappear momentarily before reappearing.
The extraordinary nature of these reports have fueled decades of speculation while also attracting skepticism from critics who argue more conventional explanations may account for the sightings.
Burroughs acknowledges that even those directly involved disagree about what happened.
“There were three of us,” he said. “All three of us remembered differently.”
Ordered to move on
Despite the attention the incident would later receive, Burroughs said military personnel involved in the encounters were largely expected to continue with their duties.
“In the 1980s, I was a young airman,” he said. “I got told to shut up and move on. And I did.”
For years, he attempted exactly that.
Military investigators examined the events. Additional agencies conducted reviews. Burroughs said he and others involved received little information about what those investigations uncovered.
“We couldn't explain it,” he said.
Unlike many later interpretations of the event, Burroughs said he and his fellow airmen were not immediately thinking about extraterrestrials. Instead, they simply lacked an explanation for what they had witnessed.
“At that point in time, the technology that we were observing we couldn't explain,” he said.
As years passed and details of the incident leaked to the public, curiosity gradually replaced indifference.
Television specials, documentaries and books continued revisiting the case.
“It's been on just about every kind of History [Channel program],” Burroughs said.
Yet the mystery remained unresolved.
For Burroughs, the greatest challenge would eventually become something far more personal than determining what appeared in the forest.
When the health problems began
Not long after the incident, Burroughs said both he and another security supervisor involved in the original encounter began experiencing unexplainable health issues.
Initially, he said, doctors found little connection between his symptoms and any known cause.
Years later, after returning to the United States and continuing his military career, those concerns became more serious.
“They discovered I had heart issues,” he said.
Medical personnel conducted extensive evaluations, though Burroughs said physicians struggled to fully explain the symptoms he was experiencing.
His condition worsened decades later, following a return trip to England for the incident's 30th anniversary.
“When I came back, I really started not feeling well,” Burroughs said. “They couldn't completely diagnose why I was having issues without wanting to see all the testing that they did immediately after the event — and that's when all the fun started,” Burroughs said.
Fighting for answers
What followed became, in Burroughs’ telling, a yearslong battle involving missing records, disability claims and congressional offices.
As civilian doctors tried determining the source of his worsening heart problems, Burroughs said they requested military medical records tied to evaluations conducted after the Rendlesham Incident. According to Burroughs, those records were either inaccessible or unavailable.
“They denied access to my medical records to the doctors,” he said. “At first they denied the fact that I was even in. They came back and said I wasn’t in from ’79 to ’82.”
Burroughs said the issue eventually reached the office of late Arizona Sen. John McCain, who he said became personally involved. Agencies eventually acknowledged portions of his military service history and agreed to reevaluate his condition after officials were accused of withholding files connected to his disability appeal and Freedom of Information Act requests.
The process ultimately resulted in a settlement tied to what Burroughs described as a UAP-related event.
“My medical records are still classified,” he said. “I tried to get them six months ago and I still don’t have access to them.”
Burroughs said only select personnel within the Department of Veterans Affairs can access portions of the information related to his case. Other physicians, he said, must coordinate treatment recommendations through those channels.
“I am getting treatment,” he said. “But my records are still locked down.”
A mystery that refuses to disappear
More than four decades after the events in Rendlesham Forest, Burroughs finds himself discussing the incident at a time when public interest in UFOs has surged.
The Pentagon released two batches of UFO files last month — with documents of unexplainable phenomena dating back to the 1940s.
Burroughs isn’t too interested in the release of the files. He describes the content released from the files as baseless, and a ploy for the U.S. to hold back the entire story on UFOs.
“They're not going to give up any of the good stuff," he said, adding he believes it will only add to alien sensationalism and mockery.
Burroughs said the paranormal isn't about little green men. Rather, he said the military uses UAP-related tools and technology to develop weaponry.
“Just like the stealth fighter was kept secret for years… eventually they're going to admit we have these capabilities,” Burroughs said. “They're just going to not tell you how they developed them or how it works. But unfortunately it is tied into possibly other intelligence, and that's an even bigger problem to deal with.”
When deployed in Bosnia two decades ago, Burroughs said he witnessed the technology that resulted from whatever he encountered in 1980.
“I've been around the new technology that we have that most people don't even know exists right now,” Burroughs said.
Some of these technologies include the use of frequencies surrounding tanks, preventing drones and other air strikes from attacking.
“They've been working on putting these little modules in backpacks for soldiers where they can actually disappear,” Burroughs said. “And they're working on Star Trek technology where they can transport you from one area to another.”
The reason why Burrough knows this technology inside and out is because he personally experienced it himself, "missing time" for 45 minutes.
“I just completely disappeared,” Burroughs said.
With secrecy surrounding new technologies and other military advancements, Burroughs said it’s unclear what the future holds.
“I've been to top secret facilities and everything else. This is all going on, but I'm not sure what they're going to do,” he said.
Bringing the conversation home
Some of those individuals who have a better idea of UAPs will be speaking at Burroughs’ Edge Of The Unknown — a single day dedicated to the exploration of frontiers in science, history and unexplained phenomena, with an emphasis on UFO encounters.
Among those scheduled to appear is author and publisher David Childress, known for his appearances on the television series Ancient Aliens. Other speakers include researcher Tony Rodrigues, known online as "Mockingbird Tony," and members of the Paranormal Rangers, who investigate reports of unexplained phenomena in the American southwest.
Burroughs said there are even more unknown aspects in relation to the U.S. military that may never be discovered. The Rendlesham Incident extends beyond his fighting the government for medical answers. It raises questions about what else we as human beings have yet to find out.
“There is an intelligent life other than us and exists here,” Burroughs said. “The question is how much they're going to tell us.”
Still, Burroughs argues that uncertainty itself is part of the story.
“What I do know,” he said, “is there's something going on.”
The Edge of Unknown conference will take place June 20 from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Chateau Hotel and Conference Center in Bloomington. Tickets are available on Eventbrite.
Burroughs is also the co-author of Crossing the Threshold, a book detailing his experiences and his ongoing efforts to understand what happened during the Rendlesham Forest incident.
