UFO sighting was fertiliser fire

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2623984/UFO-sighting-was-fertiliser-fire.html

UFO sighting was fertiliser fire
HARRY HAYDON
05 Sep 2009

THE mystery behind Britain's most famous UFO sighting may have been solved after a pensioner claimed it was his haul of burning FERTILISER.

The infamous sighting, known as Britain's Roswell, happened in December 1980 in woods near a US airbase at Rendlesham, Suffolk.

Sighting ... stunned airmen saw 'pulsating light'

Stunned American Air Force personnel reported seeing a pulsating blue and red circle of light moving through trees.

The shocked servicemen also said they found marks on the ground that indicated that an alien craft had landed.

And files released recently have revealed the then head of the armed forces, Lord Hill-Norton, said the lights may have been an unauthorised aircraft entering UK airspace.

The sighting has baffled UFO experts for decades and became one of the world's most significant suspected alien encounters.

But retired engineer Peter Turtill, 66, of Ipswich yesterday insisted he was responsible for the incident after he set fire to a van load of fertiliser.

He confessed he had been driving home in a truck he had lent to a friend when it broke down near the USAF base.

Mr Turtill said: "To my horror it was loaded with stolen fertiliser so we towed it off the road into the forest and set light to it to destroy the evidence of the crime.

"The truck had an aluminium body and the fertiliser and metal made some very unusual coloured flames which flared among the trees.

"Some of the airmen from the base thought it was a multi-coloured cross from out of space, and with the truck tyres popping they were getting a bit edgy.

"They had guns and we didn't want to get in their way so we towed the burning vehicle onto the road. I admit it probably looked spectacular rolling through the forest but it was hardly a spaceship."

Mr Turtill said the burned out chassis stood in the forest for 20 years until it was finally removed.

He added: "It really is a load of nonsense - there was no real fuss at the time and it was only later people started saying it was aliens and this story spiralled

But Rendlesham UFO investigator Brenda Butler rubbished Mr Turtill's claims.

She said: "I don't get what he is saying. There have been so many witnesses who have come forward.

"He would have to come up with an awful lot of proof to call them liars.

Why has he waited 29 years to come forward?"