TU-1990-900001 · Historic case

Belgian UFO wave: F-16 intercept and radar contacts, 30-31 March 1990 (1990)

Reports of silent triangles massed across Belgium from late 1989. On the night of 30-31 March 1990 gendarmes and ground radar tracked objects, two F-16s were scrambled and achieved brief lock-ons, but the pilots never saw anything.

Case number
TU-1990-900001
Date
30 March 1990
Location
Thorembais-Gembloux (Gembloux), Namur Province, Belgium
Coordinates
50.567° N, 4.683° E
Shape
triangle
Colour
Unknown
Witnesses
5
Status
unresolved

Case summary

From late November 1989, reports of silent low-flying objects - often triangles with lights at the corners - came in across Belgium, beginning around Eupen. The civilian study group SOBEPS logged some 2,600 accounts before the wave faded that spring. The best-documented episode, in the Air Force's report by Major Lambrechts, is the night of 30-31 March 1990.

At about 23:00 gendarme A. Renkin telephoned the Air Force's Control Reporting Centre at Glons to report three colour-changing lights in a triangle over Thorembais-Gembloux; a Wavre patrol confirmed them and radars registered contacts. Two F-16s were scrambled from Beauvechain after midnight. The report logs nine interception attempts in some 50 minutes and three brief radar locks; one target was recorded accelerating from 150 to 970 knots and swinging between 9,000 and 11,000 feet. Neither pilot obtained visual contact.

The Air Force excluded US stealth aircraft, drones, ultralights and balloons, and released radar plots at a July press conference. Chief of Operations General Wilfried De Brouwer later told the UK MoD that lock-ons had been obtained but the phenomena could not be explained, and held the evidence was insufficient to establish abnormal air activity. Skeptics counter that most reports came after media coverage, that analysis suggested the F-16s locked onto each other, and that atmospheric Bragg scattering can create spurious returns; the best-known photograph of the wave was admitted a hoax in 2011.

Nearby strategic sites

More UFO case files