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Halt's report was received by the same Ministry of Defence section where, a little over ten years later, I would spend three years researching and investigating UFO sightings. The report went to my predecessors, who began an investigation. But they were hampered by a critical mistake that was to have dire consequences. For whatever reason—and it may have been nothing more than a simple typographical error—Charles Halt's report gave incorrect dates for the incident. So when the MoD checked the radar tapes, they were looking at the wrong days. Looking at radar evidence is a critical part of any UFO investigation. There have been plenty of spectacular UFO sightings over the years, many correlated with radar. The MoD's comprehensive UFO files detail several such cases, including ones where RAF pilots encountered UFOs and gave chase—unsuccessfully, I might add. In the absence of any radar data that might confirm the presence of the Rendlesham Forest UFOs, the investigation petered out. Yet, as I was to discover years later, the UFO had been tracked, after all. I spoke to former RAF radar operator Nigel Kerr, who had been stationed at RAF Watton at Christmas 1980 and had received a call from the anything unusual on his radar screen. He looked, and for three or four sweeps, something did show up, directly over the base. But it faded away, and no official report was ever made. It was only years later that Kerr even heard of the Rendlesham Forest incident and realized he might have a aw missing piece of the puzzle. At the time, however, in the apparent absence of radar data to verify the presence of the UFO, arguably the most critical piece of evidence was never followed up: The Defence Intelligence Staff had assessed the radiation readings taken at the landing site and judged them to be "significantly higher than the average background." In fact, they were about seven times what would have been expected for the area concerned. In reassessing the case during my review, I was disappointed by what I found. I discovered a series of additional mistakes that had fatally flawed the first investigation: failure to cordon off the landing site, search it with metal detectors, or take soil samples; delay in reporting the incident to the MoD; failings in information-sharing between the MoD and the USAF. If the investigation had been handled differently, we might know a lot more today about the strange object that landed. While delay and poor information-sharing were arguably human errors, the root of the problem was confusion about jurisdiction and whether the British or the Americans should lead the investigation. My own view is that both had jurisdiction but that the UK authorities had primacy and should have led. In fairness, the difficulties were compounded by the unprecedented nature of the incident. There was simply no standard operating procedure to cover a situation like this. I rechecked the assessment of the radiation readings, this time with the Defence Radiological Protection Survey, and they confirmed might confirm somebody at RAF Bentwaters. The caller wanted to know if there was