The Air Force's account of the night: gendarmerie sightings around 23:00, two F-16s from Beauvechain, nine interception attempts over about an hour, three brief radar locks, no visual contact by the pilots, no identification.
Transcription hosted by a UFO site; the original document is not online in an official archive we have found.
Guide to released Ministry of Defence UFO files. It points to an official Belgian Air Force statement sent to the MoD in November 1993 (DEFE 24/1970, pp. 86–87) and to De Brouwer's four-page account of the F-16 night (DEFE 24/1960, pp. 320–324).
“The account, from General Wilfried de Brouwer, Chief of Operations, Belgian Air Staff confirms that F-16 pilots obtained "lock-ons" with their radars but were unable to explain the phenomena.” source
The guide describes the files; the files themselves (TNA Discovery, download needs a login) were not read for this case.
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 003SHEET 2 OF 4
Testimony
Interviews and witness statements: who, in what role, when and where it was said.
WITNESSPatrick Maréchal, interviewed by RTL (archived) · 2011-07-26
Reports the photographer's admission that the Petit-Rechain picture of 4 April 1990 showed a polystyrene model, ending twenty years of analysis of the image.
Anniversary piece summarising the wave, Gen. Wilfried De Brouwer's early suspicion of US experimental aircraft (denied by the US), and the open ending.
“the Air Force's decision was that the evidence was insufficient to prove that there were real crafts in the air on that occasion” source
The quote is De Brouwer's own wording from his chapter in Leslie Kean's 2010 book, as quoted by The Week. Previously linked via a Yahoo News copy that now refuses access.
CLASSIFIEDDeclassifiedFILE NO. 003SHEET 4 OF 4
Analysis
Our own reading of the file, written from the sources on the other sheets. Opinion is marked as such.
The Belgian wave is unusual because an air force took it seriously in public: it scrambled fighters, published what its radars showed, and said it could not identify the objects. That report is the spine of the case, and it is honest about its limits: the radar locks were brief and the pilots saw nothing with their own eyes that night.
Against that stands a long sceptical literature. The radar locks are plausibly explained as the two F-16s locking on each other and on atmospheric scattering; the first Eupen sighting matches a helicopter in several details; and the sheer volume of reports grew after the press and the civilian group SOBEPS asked the public to send them in. The Petit-Rechain photograph, once the best physical evidence, is now a confirmed hoax.
Our label is Unexplained, not Explained, because the official investigation closed without a conclusion and because no single explanation has been shown to cover all the police reports. It is not Speculation: the F-16 night is documented by the Air Force itself.
What it shows
That a NATO air force took the reports seriously enough to scramble fighters and publish a report on what its radars recorded.
That many independent witnesses, including police officers, reported similar triangular shapes over several months.
That even a photo examined by specialists for twenty years can be a hoax: the Petit-Rechain image is now a confirmed fake.
What it doesn't prove
That the objects were craft of unknown origin. The Air Force report does not identify them; it also does not rule out conventional explanations.
That the radar locks were on a solid object. Sceptical analyses attribute them to the second F-16 and to atmospheric scattering, and the Air Force report itself describes the locks as brief.
Anything at all from the Petit-Rechain photo, which is confessed as staged.
The other side
Sceptics argue the wave needs no unknown craft: the first Eupen sighting matches a helicopter in several details, the F-16 radar locks of 30–31 March 1990 are consistent with the two jets locking on each other and on atmospheric scattering, the pilots saw nothing with their own eyes, and the number of reports grew after the press and SOBEPS asked the public to send them in. The one piece of physical evidence, the Petit-Rechain photo, is a confessed hoax.
Where is the original Belgian Air Force report, and the 1990 press conference by Maj Gen Wilfried De Brouwer, archived officially? We have a transcription on a UFO site and a UK National Archives pointer to Belgian papers in British MoD files.
How many reports did SOBEPS actually collect, and how many were investigated? Figures from 1,000 to 2,600 circulate.
Were any of the ground-radar contacts of 30–31 March recorded and later analysed by the Air Force?
Sceptical walk-through: the first Eupen sighting as a helicopter, the F-16 radar locks as [[the other jet and Bragg scattering]], and the wave as a social phenomenon amplified by SOBEPS and the press. One analyst's view, not an official finding.
Overview article; useful for dates and as a map to the primary and sceptical sources, which we cite directly where we can. Not a primary source; its date changes with every edit.
COMMENTARYJean-Michel Abrassart and Nicolas Gauvrit, Science & pseudo-sciences (AFIS) · 2014-12-04
Sceptical review: the wave fits a socio-psychological model fed by the media; the F-16 radar signature was confirmed by nothing else. Cites the two SOBEPS volumes and Magain & Remy's 1993 article in Physicalia Magazine.
“Le radar d’un des deux F-16 enregistra une mystérieuse signature, qui ne fut confirmée ni visuellement par les pilotes, ni par le radar de l’autre F-16, ni par un radar au sol, ni par un témoin au sol au même moment et au même endroit.” source
In French. Published online 4 December 2014; printed in issue 309 of the magazine of the Association française pour l'information scientifique.
TO VERIFY Candidates, not yet checked
An official Belgian copy of the Air Force report and of De Brouwer's 1990 press conference (video or transcript): none found online. The UK files DEFE 24/1970 pp. 86–87 and DEFE 24/1960 pp. 320–324 (tna-guide-2009) hold Belgian material but were not read. The press conference is usually dated 11 July 1990; a search result for a French TV clip suggests coverage on 6 July 1990. Not checked.
Gen. De Brouwer's later testimony: his chapter in Leslie Kean's 2010 book (quoted by The Week; the book itself not checked) and a Washington press event the same year; no linkable primary text found yet.
The SOBEPS reports ‘Vague d'OVNI sur la Belgique’ (1991, 1994) and Magain & Remy, ‘Les OVNI : un sujet de recherche ?’, Physicalia Magazine 15 (1993), pp. 311–318: cited by AFIS (afis-2014); the originals are not online.
YouTube: Belgian television (RTBF/VRT) archive footage of the 1990 press conference; no official channel upload verified.
Found, but not linked to a source we trust. Not on the sheets until they are.
