Incident · 26 December 1980 · Near RAF Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire, England
Upper Heyford triangle (Dan Isbell)
Also known as Upper Heyford 1980, Dan Isbell sighting, RAF Upper Heyford UFO
On the night of 26 December 1980, the day after Christmas, Dan Isbell — then the youngest F-111 aircraft commander at RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire — came off nuclear alert and drove home alone in his red Corvette around 10 p.m. On a deserted wooded road past a golf course, he says, strange lights came up fast behind him and stopped instantly above the trees. He pulled over, listened through the open window, then got out and walked toward it: a silent craft about 50–60 feet long, triangular but rounded at the front, dark except for a constantly shifting field of purple, red, yellow and green light around its underside that he compared to an aurora. When it began to descend toward him, he decided it was "genuinely a UFO", walked back to his car and drove away.
Isbell, who went on to become an experimental test pilot and F-22 program manager, says he kept the sighting to himself for 43 years because a UFO report could have cost him his place in the nuclear Personnel Reliability Program and his flying career. He came forward to Ryan Graves's Americans for Safe Aerospace in May 2023 and described the encounter in detail in a 2026 interview with Graves; he says he does not know what he saw and ruled out helicopters, Soviet and NATO aircraft and a secret U.S. craft. The night is the same as the first Rendlesham Forest sightings near RAF Bentwaters and Woodbridge, about 115 miles to the east.
The account rests on Isbell's own testimony; there is no contemporary record, and the FBI interview he describes has not been released. The only other report of a craft at Upper Heyford that night comes from an anonymous witness on a 2024 podcast.
Sources: Safe Aerospace Podcast, Dan Isbell Part I (2026) · Earthfiles podcast 108 (2024) · DEPS biography
Facts and claims
- claimed Driving home alone from nuclear alert duty at RAF Upper Heyford around 10 p.m. on 26 December 1980, F-111 pilot Dan Isbell saw strange lights close fast in his rear-view mirror and stop dead over a golf course beside the road. He pulled over, got out and walked to within about 150 feet of a silent craft some 50–60 feet long, triangular but rounded at the front, with a constantly shifting, plasma-like field of colour around its bottom and sides. — Dan Isbell Source: Air Force Test Pilot Saw a Silent Triangular Craft Over an English Golf Course | Dan Isbell Part I at 1:16:21
- claimed Isbell says the craft began to descend as he approached; trained to recognise every Soviet and NATO aircraft, he concluded "This is genuinely a UFO" and drove away, both for his safety and because reporting it could have ended his career under the Personnel Reliability Program. He told no one for 43 years. — Dan Isbell Source: Air Force Test Pilot Saw a Silent Triangular Craft Over an English Golf Course | Dan Isbell Part I at 1:19:01
- claimed Isbell says he came forward to Americans for Safe Aerospace on 27 May 2023, that Ryan Graves arranged an interview with the FBI, and that the FBI later asked his permission to release the account without his name. No such FBI record has appeared in the PURSUE releases so far. — Dan Isbell Source: Air Force Test Pilot Saw a Silent Triangular Craft Over an English Golf Course | Dan Isbell Part I at 1:07:03
- unverified An anonymous witness (alias "Smith Jones") on Linda Moulton Howe's Earthfiles podcast in November 2024 described a large triangular craft with a glowing underside at RAF Upper Heyford on 27 December 1980, with reports from RAF Croughton and Bentwaters; Isbell says this man's sighting was at about 1:15 a.m. on the 27th over a weapons storage area, some three hours after his own. Source: podcast.earthfiles.com (archived)
Connected files
Incidents
- Edwards AFB black triangle (Dan Isbell) (same witness as) — The same witness saw both; unlike the 1980 craft in England, the 1990 triangle had no glowing edge
- Rendlesham Forest incident (same night as) — The same night as the first Rendlesham Forest sightings; the bases are about 115 miles apart
People
- Dan Isbell (witnesses)
Videos
- Air Force Test Pilot Saw a Silent Triangular Craft Over an English Golf Course | Dan Isbell Part I (subject of)
Mentioned in this file
- Ryan Graves (Person)
- RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge (Place)
- Federal Bureau of Investigation (Organization)
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