BELGIAN WAVE

Opening

On the evening of 29 November 1989, two gendarmes on patrol near Eupen in eastern Belgium reported a large, flat, triangular object with bright lights underneath, moving slowly and quietly at low altitude. Over the following months the Belgian group SOBEPS collected about 2,600 written reports of silent triangles over Wallonia.

On the night of 30-31 March 1990 the Belgian Air Force sent two F-16 fighters after an unknown radar target, and its own report described the targets changing speed dramatically each time the jets locked on. The wave's most famous photograph turned out to be a hoax. The F-16 night is still argued over.

Timeline

29 November 1989Gendarmes Heinrich Nicoll and Hubert von Montigny report the triangle near Eupen. Once the press picks up the story, about 140 people from the area come forward to say they saw something that night. That first night has its own report: Eupen 1989.

Winter 1989-90Reports pour in. SOBEPS works with the gendarmerie and, unusually, with the Belgian Air Force.

30 March 1990, about 23:00A gendarme at Ramillies, near Thorembais-Gembloux, south-east of Brussels, report three bright lights in a triangle, shifting colour. The radar centres at Glons and Semmerzake pick up an unidentified target.

31 March, just after midnightTwo F-16s from Beauvechain take off. Over about an hour they attempt nine interceptions and get three brief radar locks. Each lock breaks as the target appears to accelerate and change height sharply: the Air Force report records speeds jumping from about 150 to 970 knots in moments, with the altitude swinging by thousands of feet. The pilots never see anything. Gendarmes at Wavre watch four lights in a square making short, jerky movements. The jets land after 01:00.

April 1990A photograph from Petit-Rechain shows a black triangle with a light at each corner. It becomes the image of the wave.

July 1990General Wilfried De Brouwer, the Air Staff's chief of operations, holds a press conference on the F-16 data. The US says no stealth aircraft were flying over Belgium.

26 July 2011Patrick Maréchal tells RTL television he made the Petit-Rechain photo with a painted polystyrene triangle and torches, to fool his workmates.

Key figures

Heinrich Nicoll and Hubert von Montigny made the first famous report. General Wilfried De Brouwer spoke for the Air Force and remained open about not knowing what the jets were chasing.

SOBEPS collected and published the reports, and physicist Auguste Meessen of the Catholic University of Louvain argued the wave remained unexplained. Sceptics including Marc Hallet and Brian Dunning argued for media-driven misperception and radar error.

Physical and documentary trail

What exists: the gendarmerie reports, SOBEPS's two volumes of witness accounts, the Belgian Air Force's report on the F-16 mission written by Major P. Lambrechts, the radar recordings, and the Petit-Rechain photograph, now a confirmed fake.

Still missing: any clear photograph of a triangle, any visual from the pilots, and a radar analysis both sides accept.

Each time the pilots were able to secure a lock on one of the targets for a few seconds, there resulted a drastic change in the behavior of the detected targets.

Things you might not know

• The air force cooperated with ufologists. Belgium's military shared radar data and its F-16 report with SOBEPS, something almost no other air force has done.
• The fake photo fooled experts for 20 years. Analysts from the Belgian Royal Military Academy and others found no obvious sign of fakery before Maréchal confessed.
• The photo cost almost nothing. Polystyrene, black paint and torches hung on string.
• Stealth jets were the first suspect. De Brouwer's team considered the F-117 and B-2, and the US confirmed none were in Belgian airspace.
• The jets may have locked on each other. Sceptics argue the three radar locks were the two F-16s finding one another.

Competing explanations

Unknown craft. Thousands of reports over months, police witnesses, and radar targets the Air Force could not explain.

Helicopters, lights and suggestion. Some sightings have been matched to helicopters, and the first Eupen report has been compared to a military helicopter. Researchers argue most reports came after heavy press coverage invited people to look up.

Radar artefacts. The F-16 locks have been put down to the jets detecting each other and the ground radar contacts to atmospheric interference called Bragg scattering. These readings are disputed, and the Air Force never withdrew its report.

Later life of the case

The Belgian Wave made the black triangle the defining UFO shape of the 1990s. Maréchal's confession removed its best-known image but left the police reports and the F-16 night untouched.

Finding

Something set off one of the largest UFO waves ever recorded, and on 30-31 March 1990 an air force chased radar targets it couldn't identify and its pilots never saw. Helicopters and radar errors explain parts of the wave, and the famous photo was a fake, but no explanation has covered all of it.

What still will not resolve: what the F-16s were locking on to, and what the Eupen gendarmes saw on the first night.