USAF Pilot Encountered Spectacular UFO on the First Night of the Events at Rendlesham Forest
Col. Dan "Tanna" Isbell experienced UAP on Dec. 26, 1980 near RAF Upper Heyford, 100 miles west of the historic encounters at RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge.
Colonel Charles I. Halt wasn’t the only USAF officer to encounter UAP over the English countryside in late December 1980. Then-Captain Dan “Tanna” Isbell also experienced a close encounter with an unknown flying object. Due to official secrecy and public pressure on those who have experienced “The Impossible,” the two did not know of the other’s experience for almost half a century.
Today retired as a full colonel and an expert in advanced weaponry, Mr. Isbell kept the experience to himself for 45 years. Here’s the story in his own words, related to interviewers of UAP Files, minimally edited for clarity by The Residium:
“I had a red Corvette that I purchased after I got to England through the Army PX, the Air Force post exchange service, and I had it shipped over. And so, I’m driving my red Corvette home from the base to just south of the town of Bicester in a little area called Chesterton.
“…RAF Upper Heyford is about 12 miles north of Oxford, England. It’s in Oxfordshire, nestled in the Cotswolds – countryside with a lot of rolling hills. Beautiful place, beautiful. So, I’m headed home to my assigned base housing, which they had a small subdivision that was constructed for people who were assigned to the base to have a place to live.
“…On the way home, I was passing a golf course that I was familiar with, where I played on before, called the Bicester Golf Course. And it was a very small two-lane road and woodsy. And as I’m driving down that road, I noticed something in my rearview mirror. And it was all these changing colors of light and it was moving very rapidly toward my direction.
“But I could tell that it wasn’t down on the road. It was up above the trees. And like most golf courses, this one had some guard trees that were out along, you know, the edges. So that if somebody hit a stray ball, hopefully the trees would keep the ball in that park.
“So of course there were trees on the course but I was familiar with the place where when it zipped by me and it was going very, very fast. It just instantaneously stopped – doop! – when it went from fast zipping along to just stopped. And it’s completely stationary.
“That caught my attention, because there was no sound. It had these lights that were constantly changing around the bottom. It wasn’t like light bulbs that were blinking. The lights were blending into these various colors. So, in my mind, as as an engineer kind of guy, it reminded me of sort of an a plasma kind of effect along the bottom of the craft.
“The craft was triangular, but not pointed on the front. It was a little bit rounded on the front end; more pointed on the back ends. I only saw the side and bottom of the craft. (Col. Isbell estimated the object was about 40- to 50-feet in length).
“I guess it was up around 50 to 60-feet above the ground when I when it stopped there. So, I couldn’t see the front or the top of the craft. And it was a very dark night. But it caught my attention to the point that I stopped.
“Of course now I’m in an American vehicle. So, I’m driving on the left hand side of the vehicle. And and I’m driving in the left lane. There was no traffic. There were no other cars on the road. So, I pulled across the oncoming lane and pulled off the road on the side there next to the golf course.
“And I got out of my Corvette and I’m just standing there, staring at it. And you know, as part of our NATO training, we were required to memorize and instantly recognize all the types of threat aircraft from the Soviet Union that we might encounter — jets, helicopters — and to identify them as friend or foe. We had to know and identify all the NATO aircraft. We were regularly tested on that.
“And I’m just in shock because this is certainly not an aircraft. It has no wings. It had no visible means of propulsion. It had no helicopter blades. It was making no noise whatsoever. And of course, our jet fighters don’t stop instantly like that, because of the momentum and the inertia.
“So, I’m just puzzling (about its construction) as an engineer. I’m an aerospace engineer. How is it staying there stationary in the sky like that? And, of course, it was a bit of an ontological shock in the moment I realized, ‘No, this is not a craft of anything I’m familiar with.’ There was no real prosaic explanation for what it was.
“So, I was so curious. I walked around the back of my car and across the grass toward the tree line. And as I’m walking toward the craft, it reacted to me and it began to lower itself down toward the golf course. And at that point, suddenly, I’m back in reality.
“I’m probably 150-feet from it at that point. And, you know, the fighter pilot in me just wants to see if they’d let me hop in and take it for a spin. But the realistic fighter pilot in me said, ‘If anybody finds out that you’ve had a UFO sighting, if you tell a soul, your career is over before it’s, you know, just when it’s at the very, very beginning.’
“So, I quickly decided this is not a good idea to get closer to this craft. Plus, the plasma under it, I didn’t know what the effects would be if you got too close to that.
“As I say, that’s the only way I could define these rapidly changing colors underneath the craft. As they were kind of blending up on the sides a little bit, around from the bottom. So, anyway, I quickly said to myself, ‘Okay, nobody has seen you out here. Beat feet back to your car, get in, start it, and head to the house and don’t tell a soul.’
“And so I didn’t. For 45 years, I didn’t tell anybody.”
Col. Isbell is an extraordinary pilot with a 30-year career in the US Air Force, where he had flown in combat and then piloted almost every type of fighter, bomber, spy plane, along with most everything else in the U.S. inventory. He also served on active duty as a military test pilot and later as a test pilot instructor.
The encounter in the U.K. countryside was the first of a series of close encounters Col. Isbell would experience over his 26-year career. He first publicly shared his experiences involving the phenomenon in late 2025.
After hearing him tell this story, George Knapp, extraordinary journalist and ufologist, remarked to Col. Isbell: “They’re tracking you,” in regards to the encounter in the UK and several additional encounters over the course of his career.
“That spooked me out,” Col. Isbell said. “Who’s tracking me? What’s tracking me?”
Here’s the interview from the investigators at UAP Files.
When one of his recent interviewers asked why he didn’t report his encounter at the time it happened, Col. Isbell replied: “Pilots who reported UFOs would see their careers end. I decided to keep quiet about what I saw.”
Col. Isbell’s close encounter occurred on Friday, December 26, 1980, the first night of the series of close encounters that occurred at Rendlesham Forest, experiences chronicled by active duty US Air Force personnel, including Col. Charles I. Halt.
Fortunate for We the People of the United States that Col. Halt has stood by his report for more than four decades when denigrated by closed-minded skeptics. As a senior career officer of impeccable character and sterling service to his country, his word is as good as it gets. He stands behind his memo and memories to the present writing. As free citizens of the United States, we are fortunate Col. Halt remained in service to the nation as a member of the U.S. Air Force.
We the People also are fortunate that Col. Isbell remained in the military service. The fully-rated combat fighter pilot later became a leading experimental aircraft test pilot and then a test pilot instructor, a test pilot’s test pilot. After retirement from the flight line, he served as an aerospace engineer leading the development of new technology for the military — providing knowledge of how aircraft and technology behave at the cutting edge of science and performance for our side. Had he reported his UFO encounter, he likely would have had a very different career path.