In late December of 1980, what is sometimes considered the most well-known and disturbing UFO encounter in England happened in Rendlesham Forest around the duel RAF-USAF airbases of Bentwaters and Woodbridge near Ipswich in Suffolk. Christmas night, a UFO had touched down in the forest and one of the investigating military men had gotten so close as to touch the craft. Two nights later, another set of mysterious lights was seen dropping into the forest and now the Deputy Base Commander, Lt. Colonel Charles Halt, has taken personal charge to get to the bottom of these untoward events.

Gathering more security personnel and lighting equipment, he also called in Sgt. Monroe Nevilles of the Disaster Preparedness Unit who included a camera and Geiger counter in his gear while Halt picked up a tape recorder, torch, and a night vision scope. Upon arriving at the East Gate, he found confusion and chaos. The lighting equipment refused to work properly and replacements encountered the same difficulty. Lt. Commander Halt still went to investigate.

Heading out to the Eastern edge of the forest, he began working his way in. He and his team soon found an area where the trees had their branches snapped off along the sides facing inward to a small central clearing. There were once more, three triangular indentations in the ground. It was when Sgt. Nevilles' checked his Geiger counter that the site's mystery was exposed. The radiation levels in the center were very high, registering four clicks on the counter while even the back sides of the trees and the area only a few feet out from the "landing zone" only registered the normal background radiation count.

As they were examining this area, suddenly all the animals on the nearby farm began to raise a cacophony of sound as thought they had become frightened. Looking up, the soldiers saw a dark red glowing object, pulsing in the sky above them no more than a few hundred yards away. While skeptics try to say all they saw was the light from a distant lighthouse, Lt. Colonel Halt distinctly mentioned that they could also see the lighthouse beacon. After a minute or so the object then disappeared only to quickly reappear, heading out into the field beside the forest edge.

As they once more took up pursuit of the object, they noticed the farmhouse emitting a strange glow itself and the air around them again developed an uncomfortable static electrically charged feeling. This new object was described as looking somewhat like an eye, with a darker "pupil" inside the ring of dark red winking light. It also looked to the men that there was golden light "dripping" off the object as though it were molten gold, although they could find nothing on the ground to explain the effect. By now the object was surrounded by over twenty of the search crew. As they were discussing the possibility of drawing closer, the object suddenly exploded into several disparate white lights.

It was then that the most disturbing aspect of the entire encounter began. One of the bright white objects began to emit a beam of light, completely straight and undiminished by distance; like a laser light as Lt. Colonel Halt described. This light began to play across the forest and eventually into RAF Woodbridge itself, directing itself into the ordinance warehouse where the USAF had nuclear weapons stored for the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing. Later reports from the men stationed in the building indicated that the "light" actually appeared inside the building and played across some of the atomic weapons.

Radio traffic around the base was full of reports of the light beams coming down from the glowing objects in the sky. There were reports that the beams were following a search-grid pattern as thought looking for something. An unconfirmable rumor is that the beams of light that passed through the thick walls of the Weapons Storage Area had actually disabled the ordinance. Throughout the event Lt. Colonel Halt had been recording the occurrence. That the men were in a heightened state of excitement is clearly heard as the objects then began to pass quickly past them traveling North before all but one took up station some thousands of feet up. The one still off to the South was still hovering over RAF Woodbridge and emitting the white light beams into the base.

Lt. Colonel Halt decided it was time for his men to return to base as there was no more activity on the ground. By the time they got there, the objects were gone. This second night of activity was witnessed by hundreds of military personnel, not just a handful of guards. The Deputy Base Commander himself had taken part in the hunt and had audio recordings of the search through the Forest and the actions taken by the UFO's as they watched.

While it was released decades later that the Ministry of Defense had in fact investigated the men and the evidence surrounding these events, at the time they only issued the standard statement that there was no concern regarding national security and said little more. This statement was issued despite the fact that the unidentified craft seemed to be very interested in the atomic weapons stored at RAF Woodbridge.

As the sun rose on the morning of December 28, 1980, it found confusion and an enduring mystery for the military men who experienced the events. This had not been some random sighting by a single individual but a series of events both investigated and experienced by the full range of military personnel from lowly airmen to high ranking officers. To this day it is still unknown who or what controlled the craft or what they were truly looking for on the twin airbases in Suffolk, England.

Outer space comprises the relatively empty regions of the universe outside the atmospheres of celestial bodies. Outer space is used to distinguish it from airspace and terrestrial locations.

Contrary to popular understanding, outer space is not completely empty (i.e. a perfect vacuum), but contains a low density of particles, predominantly hydrogen plasma, as well as electromagnetic radiation and neutrinos. Hypothetically, it also contains dark matter and dark energy.

Outer space is the closest approximation of a perfect vacuum. It has effectively no friction, allowing stars, planets and moons to move freely along ideal gravitational trajectories. However, no vacuum is truly perfect, not even in intergalactic space where there are still a few hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter.
(For comparison, the air we breathe contains about 1019 molecules per cubic centimeter.) The deep vacuum of space could make it an attractive environment for certain industrial processes, for instance those that require ultra clean surfaces.

All of the observable universe is filled with large numbers of photons, created during the Big Bang, the so-called cosmic background radiation, and quite likely a correspondingly large number of neutrinos called the cosmic neutrino background. The current temperature of the photon radiation is about 3 K (−270.15 °C; −454.27 °F).

Many people ask that if we put a thermometer in Space with no other light or heat source around and absolutely no background radiation there, what it would read. Would the temperature be really cold or what?

Yes, it would be really cold. Temperature measures the energy per “degree of freedom” (i.e. way something can move) of whatever molecules happen to be around. So, it becomes so cold that the molecules stop all together, and then this is the “absolute zero” temperature. On the Celsius Temperature Scale (i.e. water freezes at 0, and boils at 100), this takes place at -273 degrees C.

We usually use the Kelvin temperature scale, where Zero Kelvin is this “absolute zero” temperature -- or -273 degrees C. Water freezes at +273 Kelvin and water boils at +373 Kelvin.

If we put a thermometer in darkest space, with absolutely nothing around, it would first have to cool off. This might take a very long time. Once it cooled off, it would read 2.7 Kelvin. This is because of the “3 degree microwave background radiation”. No matter where you go, you cannot escape it -- it is always there.