A new witness has broken his 36 -year silence to speak out about Britain’s most famous UFO incident.

Steve Longero was told to keep quiet by his superiors following the infamous Rendlesham Forest incident in Suffolk.

But now the retired U.S. Air Force police officer has gone on the record for the first time and said: “I think it was something not from this world.”

The incident – dubbed the British Roswell – took place over three nights between 26 and 28 December, in 1980.

Military personnel from nearby RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge, including the deputy base commander, witnessed strange lights in the forest and hovering above the twin NATO airbases which were on high alert as the Cold War was at its peak.

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Steve, who served as a police sergeant in the USAF, was guarding the weapons storage area when the alarms started going off.

He said: “While on duty that night, we had a very sophisticated alarm system and everything just went off.

“And then I could see these lights over the treetops, and I was thinking, what’s going on? Then they started sending people out there and at first it was hard to believe, all these bright lights. It was hard to take in.

"Well from what I remember the lights, fluorescent lights, kind of a glow, like a reddish glow. I remember going out there.”

Steve went out into the forest where he remembers seeing a large group of other military personnel had already gathered including Staff Sgt Jim Burroughs, Airman First Class Edward Cabansag and Airman First Class Larry Warren.

Describing the UFOs, he said: “They looked like fluorescent coloured lights, like red and green, glowing lights and that’s what they looked like.I could see them hovering over the treetops like an eye that was almost following everybody.”

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He added: “It was real kind of quiet and this thing hovering over the trees, and you were like kind of tracking it and like ‘what is this?’. And it was like following, it was like watching us, that’s what it looked like to us. It seemed like something watching us.

“From what I remember it was like aglow, it was really glowing like a reddish, greenish light. It was really glowing, like something was really hot and it was just glowing.”

He also recalled seeing Colonel Charles Halt there, who made a tape recording describing how beams of light were being shone down by the UFO. He has written an explosive new book called The Halt Perspective describing his close encounter.

Mr Longero said: “Col Halt came afterwards, after all that was called in. I remember him turning up, that’s when they kind of gathered everyone around and said this is what we are going to do, and everybody kind of dispersed and did what they were told to do.

"I remember we had a little briefing right there and everybody was just like, we just could not believe what we were seeing. Your adrenalin was flowing and I remember people saying like ‘what is that?’.”

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Rubbishing theories that the lights in the woods were caused by a lighthouse on the east coast, he laughed: “I don’t think so. Not unless the lighthouse could move. Unless they could float that thing in the air.

“And then, as people were getting close to this thing it kind of came nearer to us and then it would go forward and then go back and all of a sudden it just disappeared, like something out of Star Trek, it was like warp speed and we were all ‘what was that?’ it was gone and then that’s when they started doing all their investigations. After we secured the area they said okay, you’re gone, get out of here.”

Steve said he was debriefed a few days later and was told not to talk about what he saw as the base had nuclear weapons on site.

UFO investigator Philip Mantle, who interviewed Steve for Outer Limits Magazine, said: “Steve does not claim to be anything special but he wanted to emphasise that there were a lot of others involved who were witness to the events in question, many of whom have yet to add their voice to these events.

“Steve has confirmed the open secret that nuclear weapons were stored at RAF Bentwaters at the time although he did not personally witness any lights being shone onto the WSA.

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“He has confirmed much of what Colonel Halt has already said on the record and he is in no doubt that Larry Warren was there.

“What is clear is that despite the best efforts of some this case will continue to be hotly debated for many years to come.”

The story originally appeared on The Sun.