U.F.O. Testing?

I believe that this must have generated some sort of beam as one of our responsibilities was to form a triangulation point spread out around the site to keep watch for low flying jets, our call signs were Kimini 1,2 and 3, even though this was designated as restricted airspace the pilots would see the Environmental Enclosure in the middle of the forest and then try to get closer for a clearer view, when this happened we would alert the site to shut the test down. I was told that the test would interfere with the aircraft’s electronics and bring the plane down.

The Electromagnetic Compatability testing involved recreating the electromagnetic pulse which is generated during a nuclear bomb detonation and the problem this causes to electric circuits which tend to get fried.

Various tests were done on various types of equipment from satellites to army and air-force equipment, on one occasion a low loader got stuck carrying a Harrier Jump jet to the site (minus its wings) as the roads were not suitable for heavy traffic. It was after this incident that further equipment was flown in by helicopter and which sparked off complaints of low flying helicopters above the forest by locals.

This is a photo I took from a helicopter bringing equipment to the site in the early 90s.

It was probably sometime in October or November of 1989 when scientists were brought over from Los Alamos in New Mexico, the reason I know this was that the location was stamped on the boxes of equipment that arrived on site, I believe they were flown into the American air base at Lakenheath. I thought it was quite comical really as they had come in the back door so to speak and yet they were driving around a small welsh market town wearing baseball caps in dark vans with blacked out windows, really blending in with the local population. I believe that some of the work they were involved with concerned a satellite which they were running tests on, the infra red photograph below was taken by the satellite in orbit and shows the location of the site from space.

It was in conjunction with these scientists arrival that I believe testing took place over a period of about a week on what was described as a NTSV, this acronym I later found out stands for a Non Terrestrial Space Vehicle. I was not on shift when this was brought to the site by helicopter and a B.A.E. security detail accompanied it, I was relegated to the access road which approaches the site while what I termed as the Cupola section was on site.

During the week while the NTSV was on site I was only able to get a brief view of it, I would describe it as the cupola section of a larger vehicle, the colour was a gun metal grey and the size of it would be approximately six feet in height by about twenty feet in diameter. I assume that Electromagnetic Compatibility testing took place as the NTSV had been placed on the test pad in front of the Environmental Enclosure. In the early 90s I worked at the site again, this time testing was taking place on the radar section of the Rapier Missile system, a shed (really futuristic) had been placed on a scaffold tower, inside the shed was equipment which simulated an enemy aircraft.

The radar section of the Rapier missile system would interrogate the equipment which simulated the aircraft and if it didn’t receive the correct response it would activate the missiles to fire. The radar section of the Rapier Missile system can be seen in the photograph below it is sited beneath the skeletal remains of the Environmental Enclosure.

An interesting footnote to this story is that when the American stealth bomber flew over Farnborough airshow in 1996 it was the Rapier missile system that detected it, even though it is supposed to be invisible to radar. The newspaper cutting below describes the incident.