A British National Police Air Service (NPAS) helicopter was forced to take evasive action when it nearly collided with an unidentified craft over a joint US/UK air base last year. The NPAS is responsible for security at UK military facilities.
The incident occurred over the RAF Lakenheath base on November 22, 2024, when a number of unidentified drone-like aircraft were reported over the base and the police chopper was vectored to the area to investigate. Suffolk Police logs of the incident revealed that the helicopter was forced to take evasive action when one of the drones approached too near the aircraft. The helicopter had to perform an emergency dive to avoid a collision, and was reportedly pursued by two of the drones. After the maneuver the mystery drones proceeded to chase the chopper away from the area. The drones were reportedly well-lit and not attempting to conceal themselves.
A UK safety board report attributed the incident to the helicopter crew sighting the navigation lights of an F-15 jet fighter, which was in the vicinity at the time, but a 30-minute video recorded by the helicopter’s infrared camera captured one of the drones performing a small corkscrew turn, which is an impossible maneuver for a fixed-wing aircraft like the F-15. Radar data showed the helicopter coming within 1700 feet of the F-15, but no other object was detected on radar. There is also the question of why the F-15 was dispatched to the area in the first place.
Some witnesses on the ground described the drones as resembling the “tic-tac” craft recorded by Naval aviators from the USS Nimitz during an incident in 2004. Witness logs describe some of the tic-tac craft as being large stationary objects hovering in the sky. Sightings of the mystery drones were also made over RAF bases at Mildenhall and Feltwell during the period from November 20-24.
The RAF sightings are reminiscent of the well-known “Coyne helicopter incident” in which a U.S. Army reserve helicopter flown by Captain Lawrence Coyne had a close encounter with a lighted UFO over Mansfield, Ohio on October 18, 1973. In that case the chopper was also forced to take evasive action when the unknown craft approached. The UFO emitted a green beam that caused the chopper to climb over 1000 feet in altitude. The RAF Lakenheath base was also involved in a series of radar-visual sightings that took place on August 13-14, 1956, in which large, glowing unidentified craft were detected over the base and was later investigated by Project Blue Book.
Paul Meehan is a member of Colorado MUFON and is the author of ten books, including Saucer Movies: A UFOlogial History of the Cinema and Alien Abduction in the Cinema. His work has been featured in the Turner Classic Movies web site, Cinefantastique online, the Noir City Sentinel and the MUFON journal.