The Soesterberg Air Base Sighting

Vliegbasis Soesterberg lies in Utrecht province. In 1979 it was run by the Royal Netherlands Air Force, while its northern section, Camp New Amsterdam, housed American fighter squadrons. Guard posts lettered A to E ringed the field, about one to three kilometres apart.

The early morning of 3 February was cold. Minus one degree on the ground. Full overcast, the cloud base at about 1,500 metres. Visibility 25 kilometres. And, as it would later matter, temperature inversions at about 250 and 2,000 metres.

About 05:45. At least 12 men of the guard service of 10 Squadron were on the night shift across five posts. Trained observers, used to identifying aircraft.

At Post A, in the west, three bright white lights appeared. As the thing passed overhead, a fourth light became visible. Red. Beams angled forward and converged on the ground. Outside them, the object was completely dark. One witness said the light was so strong you could read a book in it. Yet you could look at it without being dazzled.

Post D, in the northwest, saw three large spheres, the middle one highest, each with a black rim. The guards followed the lights for two to two and a half kilometres. They put it at about 50 metres up, lower than the streetlamps at the edge of the field. Others described white lights about 50 metres apart, joined by dark outlines. Some saw an enormous black triangle.

It moved low and almost silently, in two passes. First east to west across the base. Then in from the northeast, curving south. At times it seemed to stand still. At Post E there was a flash. The white lights went out. The red light left westward at high speed, like a bullet from a pistol, as one Dutch account put it. Afterwards, every post but one heard a very faint hum for about an hour.

Watch commander Van Vliet filed the report. The base radar and nearby radar posts showed nothing unusual. From The Hague, the Royal Netherlands Air Force concluded the lights were a mirage: car headlights reflected off an inversion layer.

The civilian group NOBOVO disagreed. Investigators W.A. Kuiper, Dr W. de Graaff and D.J. Bosga noted that a mirage needs a very low viewing angle and cannot appear directly overhead. Several posts facing different directions had seen the lights pass straight above them. They classed it as a UFO sighting. In 1981 the Defence staff magazine De Vliegende Hollander wrote that they were not aeroplanes, not helicopters, not car headlights, and not a staged joke.

Van Vliet rejected the mirage, asking why he had never seen such a thing in all his night duties there. Over the years, memories drifted apart. Sergeant De Groot, interviewed around 2013, recalled a small sports aircraft with ordinary lights. Jan van Esseveld, a radar operator at the base, blamed American laser tests. Stealth aircraft were suggested, though the F-117 first flew in 1981. Former captain Jan Castenmiller concluded there must have been something they could not explain. Coen Vermeeren of TU Delft called a UFO sighting above Soesterberg very likely.

The guards were disbelieved and ridiculed, left to talk only among themselves. In 2023 Bram Roza, co-founder of UFO Meldpunt Nederland, released the crowdfunded documentary De UFO's van Soesterberg. Most witnesses still declined to take part. It also features Josie Zwinenberg, who saw a huge UFO over the nearby Leusderheide range in 1979. The closed base remains a hotspot, with 126 reports between 2011 and 2020. The black triangle of that February morning has never left it.