Description
Geographical and historical note
Orford Ness is a shingle spit on the Suffolk coast. For much of the twentieth century it was owned by the Ministry of Defence and was used for secret military tests. In June 1940 the inhabitants of nearby hamlet Shingle Street were ordered to evacuate for reasons that remain unclear, although it is rumoured that the finding of charred and burned bodies washed up on the beach was connected. The Atomic Weapons Research Establishment was operational at Orford Ness between 1956 and 1972, with early tests on the UK’s first nuclear weapon ‘Blue
Danube’ being carried out there. In 1972 testing on a new over-the-horizon radar system called ‘Cobra Mist’ began, but the project was abandoned in June 1973 due to unidentified background interference. The nearby Rendlesham Forest was the site of the UK’s most famous UFO sighting in December 1980; along with other US military personnel, the deputy base commander of RAF Bentwaters, Lt Col. Charles Halt, witnessed a series of unexplained lights in the sky, recording his experience of the incident on a tape recorder. Sceptics attribute the sightings to the nearby Orford Ness lighthouse. In 1993 Orford Ness was sold to the National Trust, and the area, known to locals as ‘The Island’, became accessible to the public once more.
