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Home > Reports: Places > Orford Ness

Special Report: Orford Ness

An old Official Secrets Act warning sign A Site of Special Scientific Interest, Orford Ness is the largest bank of shingle in Europe, with unique and rare species of plant and animal peppered amongst decaying military structures. One could spend a day on Orford Ness and once disembarking from the small foot ferry, not actually meet another person for the duration of the stay. I accompanied the film team from the BORN Quest, their project to document Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty along the Suffolk coast. Our guide, the caretaker of Orford Ness, spent a morning driving and showing us around the sixteen mile long shingle spit.

The area was a haunt for smugglers during the 1800s, though it was dominated by the military during the twentieth century.

An Orford Ness pagoda

Britain’s first atomic weapon, Blue Danube, was developed and tested in large pagodas which dominate the coast. The skeletal remains of other buildings used during the two World Wars and during the Cold War are scattered across the shingle.

The waters around Orford Ness have several strange stories attributed to them. In 1749 The Gentleman’s Magazine carried a story concerning several fishermen who were attacked by a winged crocodile-like creature which they snagged in their nets while off the coast in this area. The beast killed one man and disabled another before being slain. The ‘sea-dragon’ as it came to be known, measured just over a metre in length (though was said to be larger when alive), and possessed two legs with cloven feet. A fisherman travelled the county of Suffolk displaying the creature, though what became of the oddity is unknown.

The 1197 case of the Orford Merman is well documented (albeit a short while after the event by Ralph of Coggeshall) and still embraced by locals – a local pub is named after him. A ‘man’ from the sea was caught and held in the castle for a period of six months before finally escaping back into the ocean. The merman never talked during his captivity, and appeared to have a preference for fish over other types of food.

Large empty building

Most sea monster tales can be explained away as cases of mistaken identity (eg a long neck as the arm of a squid or the mermaid as manatee), but what identified sea creature resembles a winged crocodile? What manatee spends six months in a castle before escaping back into the wild? There is much for historical cryptozoologists to investigate in this area of Suffolk.

Certain ufologists have maintained that parts of the island have been used to store downed alien craft. The current caretaker of the island laughed away the possibility of UFO cover up, though did point out the large grey building, now owned by Merlin Communications International Ltd, on the Cobra Mist site where a few investigators believe a spaceship still remains.

Large empty building

Cobra Mist was part of an over the horizon radar system used to monitor Soviet (and possibly Chinese) activities during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The system had noise problems and was decommissioned in 1973. The BBC World Service now transmits from the site.

Even if we entertain the notion that no extraterrestrial spacecraft is concealed at Orford Ness, the area is still of curiosity to ufologists. During the 1970s, two men (one the son of a former worker for Cobra Mist) watched a pair of lights hovering close to the surface of the sea. As they approached to get a better look, the lights darted off at incredible speed. More recently, witnesses have seen strange lights at night swimming around under the water.

Large empty building

The lighthouse on Orford Ness has been named (blamed?) as responsible for the Bentwaters UFO sighting by Holt et al in December 1981, their alien craft nothing more than the lighthouse beam passing through the tree line of Rendlesham Forest that stands a few miles away.

Some have reported that electrical equipment malfunctions on Orford Ness; batteries quickly drain, computer monitors flicker before failing, and cameras refuse to work until back on the mainland. If this is the case, then we were fortunate – all our video and still camera equipment worked fine throughout our visit.

Large empty building

Many of the buildings on the island remain closed for visitors. Glass litters the floors, rusting metal juts out from all angles, and lead paint peels from the walls. Guard rails have gone, leaving sharp drops into yawning hollows partially filled with decaying waste from the last sixty years.

While much of the inner workings of the pagodas have been removed, the artefacts that remain hanging from the wall take on the form of Christian icons. Man-sized crucifixes stand high and rust, and although the contemporary Ark of the Covenant has been removed, the casing of an A-Bomb is still on display.

We have our UFOs and we have our cryptozoological surprises, but are there haunting entities on Orford Ness? The environmental ambience is strong enough to suggest so, but actual reports are sparse. The lack of reports could be caused by the many years of top secret activity here, and that now the area is an Site of Special Scientific Interest, visitors are few.

While a few ghost stories have dribbled out recently, most of these tend to be quite vague, only hinting at strange presences felt in the derelict buildings or the lighthouse.

Large empty building Before we know it, our time has run out and we return to the mainland. My morning on the remote shingle spit, albeit brief, reinforces my belief that Orford Ness stands firm as one of the true fortean places in Suffolk.

Darren Shaun Mann, May 2007. All photographs by the author.

Note: Orford Ness is only accessible via foot ferry; some places are not accessible at certain times of the year, while access to other areas are restricted to guided tours only. It is recommended to contact the Orford Ness National Nature Reserve on 01394 450900 before visiting. As of 2020, Orford Ness Lighthouse is no longer standing.

Sources:
Bord, Janet and Colin. Mysterious Britain
Dixon, Geoffrey M. Folktales and Legends of East Anglia
Fortean Times, Issue 56
www.nationaltrust.org.uk
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