Belgian UFO Wave (1989-1990)

Separate episodes within a reporting wave

The Belgian UFO wave was not one continuous encounter. It was a series of reports beginning in eastern Belgium on 29 November 1989 and continuing into 1990. Accounts differed in duration, geometry and evidentiary quality. The archive therefore separates the initial police observations, the later F-16 operation, radar interpretation and photographic claims instead of combining them into a single vehicle narrative. [2] · [4] · [7]

What the Eupen officers described

According to an early interview-based report, gendarmerie officers Heinrich Nicoll and Hubert von Montigny first noticed unusually strong lights at about 17:45 while travelling near Eupen and Eynatten. They described slow movement, little or no audible engine noise and an impression of three lights arranged around a dark triangular area, sometimes with a red light near the center. These details are important testimony, but they are not calibrated measurements of distance, size or speed. [4]

The officers followed the lights through their patrol area and remained in radio contact with their superior, René Creutz. The report places later observations near the Gileppe reservoir and says the phenomenon finally disappeared at about 20:39. The online text is a later mirror and translation of a report based on a 9 December 1989 interview and press conference, not the original gendarmerie file. Exact wording and fine details must therefore be treated as attributed witness reporting. [4]

How the reports spread

Reports spread across Belgium over the following months, with triangles, corner lights and slow or hovering motion becoming recurring descriptions. That repetition made the wave socially and historically important, but it does not show that every observer saw the same object. Different nights, locations, aircraft traffic, stars, helicopters, expectation effects and later media coverage could all contribute to a mixed record. [4] · [7]

Why report totals need definitions

Franck Boitte’s November 2012 review, hosted by COBEPS, explains why a wave’s report count is not a count of independent confirmations. In the Catalogue des Observations Belges, observations by the same witness or group separated by more than ten minutes, or involving movement of more than one mile, can become separate entries. Its statistics also distinguish notifications from cases with an investigation report. Those rules describe how the catalogue was compiled; they do not establish that each entry represents a different object, an additional independent witness or an unexplained event. Totals quoted without their time range and inclusion rules can therefore misrepresent the record. [7] PDF 2–4

The F-16 launch and interception attempts

On 30 March 1990, ground reports south-east of Brussels were passed to the Control and Reporting Center at Glons. The surviving Belgian Air Force operational report records an alert around 23:00, a scramble order at 23:56 and the takeoff of two F-16s at 00:05 on 31 March. Between approximately 00:07 and 00:54, the aircraft made repeated interception attempts. The pilots had brief radar contacts and lock-ons, but neither pilot obtained visual contact with an unidentified object. [2]

What the operational report can establish

The operational report described several correlations between ground observations and radar activity and regarded a number of ordinary explanations as unlikely. It also recorded major limits: the airborne contacts were brief, no object was visually acquired by the pilots, and ground observers did not obtain contemporaneous film or photographs. Its conclusions document how the event was assessed at the time; they are not a complete modern reconstruction of every radar return. [2]

What the Salmon analysis changed

In June 2025, Belgian Defence released a partially redacted 173-page technical report by Lieutenant Colonel Salmon concerning the F-16 radar echoes. The report analyzes thirteen contacts between about 00:13 and 00:50, identifies contacts 8, 9 and 10 as the wingman F-16, and warns that display precision, assumed motion, target switching and the radar's Kalman filter can generate discontinuous or fictitious tracks. It concludes that the contacts do not form one regular trajectory and that, if some were material targets, the interceptions probably did not all concern one object. This sharply limits claims that the radar proved impossible acceleration while leaving the separate ground reports unresolved. [1]

Which fighter did the ground radar follow?

The Salmon report identifies a specific obstacle to combining the radar records. During formation flight, one identification signal served both fighters. The complete Semmerzake ground track therefore followed the F-16 transmitting that signal, not the fighter whose radar screen had been recorded; the Glons track contained interruptions during tight turns. The analysts had to account for this difference when reconstructing positions. Contacts 8, 9 and 10, attributed to the other F-16, then provided comparison targets. These were not two independent recordings of the same unidentified object, and an apparent mismatch cannot simply be converted into the target’s speed. [1]

Finding the Belgian records in British files

The UK National Archives’ August 2009 guide supplies useful document locators: DEFE 24/1970, pages 86–87, for a Belgian Air Force statement sent to the Ministry of Defence in November 1993, and DEFE 24/1960, pages 320–324, for an account by Wilfried de Brouwer. It also points to correspondence saying the British ministry had not been informed at the time and judged that there was no threat to the UK. This establishes an archival trail for the later exchange, not a British radar confirmation or an independent identification. The guide’s page references should lead readers to the underlying files, rather than be counted as another sighting. [3] PDF 4

The photograph confession and the remaining record

The most famous image associated with the wave, the Petit-Rechain triangle photograph said to have been taken on 4 April 1990, cannot be used as event evidence. In 2011 its maker admitted photographing a small model with lights. That confession does not erase independent reports made before the photograph, but it removes the image from the positive evidence. The responsible classification is DISPUTED with credibility B: the wave includes documented police testimony and a real military response, yet its components do not establish a single extraordinary craft or non-human origin. [5] · [6] · [7]