Picture-postcard Suffolk with its ice-cream coloured houses, thatched cottages and village greens with duck ponds is hardly the sort of place one imagines aliens from outer space would choose to land. But, as modern folklore has it, in the bleak midwinter of 1980 they chose Rendlesham Forest near Woodbridge, just up the road from Aldeburgh, famed for its festivals of classical music and poetry. Rendlesham has been a Mecca for UFO enthusiasts – and the plain curious – ever since.

Local physicist Rob MacLean became interested in Rendlesham eight years ago after his son came home from school with the story.