Rendlesham Forest incident—still no satisfying explanation?

I've been reading up on the Rendlesham Forest incident (December 1980) again, and I'm genuinely puzzled why this isn't talked about more. You had credible military witnesses, a documented physical encounter, radiation readings, and the thing still behaved intelligently. The lighthouse explanation always felt like a cop-out to me.

My question: is there genuinely new evidence that's emerged in the last few years? I know John Burroughs and Halt have given interviews, but I haven't seen anything that properly debunks the incident. What's the current consensus here on QR? Are we still in 'something happened but we don't know what' territory?

The lighthouse explanation is embarrassing, isn't it? A bunch of trained military personnel wouldn't get spooked by a lighthouse they literally had on their charts. What bugs me is the radiation readings and the physical marks left on the trees. Those aren't hallucinations.

is there genuinely new evidence that's emerged in the last few years?

Have a look at the 2010 BBC Conspiracy Files episode - they did some decent legwork investigating the lighthouse angle. The conclusion was basically 'we can't prove it wasn't the lighthouse, but we can't prove it was either.' Brilliant investigative journalism there.

The incident happened 40+ years ago. At this point, any 'new evidence' is just re-examination of the same witnesses and declassified paperwork. Unless someone produces the actual craft (unlikely), we're stuck in speculation land. That's not to say nothing happened - just that we're probably never getting closure on this one.

Cold take: it was almost certainly US military tech being tested. The 'alien' behaviour could just be prototype flight patterns. The reason there's no satisfying explanation is because the satisfying explanation is classified. But that's less fun than UFOs, so here we are.

I visited Suffolk in 2018 and walked the forest. Genuinely eerie place, especially at dusk. Whether that's atmospheric or genuinely haunted, I couldn't tell you. The locals are cagey about it - tried asking in the pub and got blank stares, which only made it MORE interesting.