Belgian wave 1989-1990: the only case where a European army published its F-16 radars

November 29, 1989: the first evening in Eupen

The Belgian wave begins on the evening of November 29, 1989, in Eupen, in the province of Liège. Around 5:20 p.m., two gendarmes on patrol, Heinrich Nikoll and Hubert von Montigny, saw a dark, triangular object, equipped with three powerful white lighthouses at the three peaks and a flashing red light in the center. The object flies over a field at low altitude, in silence. He advances at walking speed, then quickly disappears.

In the hours that followed, more than 100 people reported a similar sighting in the same region — valleys of the Hautes Fagnes, Eupen, Verviers, Liège. The Belgian gendarmerie recorded the first reports.

During the next five months, until April 1990, observations will multiply throughout the country. More than 13,500 testimonies will be recorded by the SOBEPS (Belgian Society for the Study of Space Phenomena), a recognized civil association which collects reports in collaboration with the national gendarmerie.

The unprecedented choice: the Belgian Air Force publicly investigates

Faced with the massive influx of testimonies, the Belgian Air Force — Belgian Air Force (FAB) — takes a decision that has no equivalent in Europe. Instead of classifying it as secret or minimizing it, it decides publicly from:

• Collaborate with SOBEPS (civil organization) to centralize testimonies.
• Issue instructions to civil and military air traffic controllers to report any atypical radar detections.
• Prepare an interception device for future credible sightings.
• Commit to publishing its radar data if such an interception takes place.

The responsible authority is the Major-General Wilfried De Brouwer, head of operations of the Belgian Air Force. It is he who validates the transparency policy and who will later sign the official report.

“We decided to be transparent. If we get something, we'll post it. The credibility of the military institution is more important than maintaining secrecy on a file over which we have no control. »

Major-General Wilfried De Brouwer, FAB — RTBF interview 1991 (recorded in the official archives)

Night of March 30 to 31, 1990: 12:05 a.m., two F-16s take off

The night of March 30 to 31, 1990 marks the climax of the wave. Around 11:00 p.m., the controllers of the land radars of the gendarmerie in Wavre detected unidentified echoes, confirmed shortly after by the radars of the NATO CRC (Control and Reporting Centre) of Glons. From 11:30 p.m., the object was followed with an erratic trajectory, sudden stops, accelerations that exceeded anything known to the civil or military fleet in Europe.

À 12:05 a.m. March 31, two Belgian F-16s take off from the Beauvechain base. Pilots: Captain Yves Meelbergs (F-16 #1) and his teammate. Mission: intercept and identify the target.

The F-16s repeatedly obtain a radar lock (lock-on) on the object, but this lock is lost in seconds every time. Radar recording of the F-16s shows:

• A measured acceleration of ~280 km/h to ~1,800 km/h in seconds (beyond the capabilities of a manned device known in 1990).
• A vertical descent of 3,000 meters to 1,700 meters in one second (50g acceleration, lethal for a human pilot).
• Right angle trajectories, without curves.

The interception continued for more than an hour, without direct visual contact from the pilots (night, low altitude, radar context). The F-16s return to Beauvechain in the early morning.

1991: the official publication of the F-16 radars

In accordance with its commitment, the Belgian Air Force published an official report in 1991 signed by Major-General De Brouwer: “A UFO in the Belgian sky — The official report of the Belgian Air Force”. The report is released in French and Dutch, and includes F-16 radar recordings as well as extracts from civilian and NATO radar data.

The document explicitly concludes:

“The Air Force cannot give a conventional explanation for last night’s observations. The exact nature of the object has not been determined. The recorded performances are compatible neither with a civil or military production aircraft of our knowledge, nor with a balloon, nor with a meteorological phenomenon. »

FAB official report — “A UFO in the Belgian sky”, 1991

It is, to date, the only case in Europe where a national army has:

• Publicly admitted to having engaged hunters on an unidentified object.
• Published on raw radar tracks obtained by the F-16s.
• Officially concluded at the absence of a conventional explanation.

The F-117 Nighthawk hypothesis and why it doesn't hold up

One of the most common hypotheses to explain the Belgian wave is that of F-117 Nighthawk, the American stealth fighter which was publicly unveiled in April 1990. According to this theory, the Belgians observed night tests of F-117 carried out without coordination with NATO.

This hypothesis does not stand up to scrutiny for several reasons:

• The F-117 is an aircraft conventional : jet engines, triangular wings, subsonic flight. He is incapable to reach 1,800 km/h in vertical acceleration, nor to descend from 3,000 to 1,700 m in one second.
• The F-117 is not silent : its engines are audible at low altitude. Belgian witnesses unanimously describe a silent object.
• The USAF has formally denied, in a written response to Belgium in 1990, any deployment of F-117s in Belgian airspace during this period.
• The mission profiles of the F-117 (stealth bomber) do not include hovering at low altitude over civilian areas.

The photo of Petit-Rechain: the most controversial piece of the file

On April 4, 1990, in Petit-Rechain near Verviers, a young Belgian named Patrick Maréchal photographs what he describes as a triangular object with 4 lights at the vertices. The photo, taken with a flash with a 35mm camera, clearly shows a sharp black triangle detached from the sky. For decades, she has been the iconic image of the Belgian wave, taken up by almost all world publications on the subject.

En July 2011, Patrick Maréchal publicly announces to RTBF that the photo is a hoax. He said he photographed a model he had built out of expanded polystyrene with light bulbs. He said he wanted to check “if the media were buying anything”.

The author of the hoax himself recalled: “My hoax does not change the multiple and independent observations. People saw something. What they saw, I don't know. »

Why the Belgian wave remains a unique case in Europe

Nearly 35 years after the events, the Belgian wave retains a special place in European UFO files. No other European army has, before or since, published its fighter radars in the face of an unidentified object, nor officially concluded that there is no conventional explanation.

Major General De Brouwer remained active on the issue after his military retirement. In 2007, at age 75, he participated in the National Press Club conference in Washington where he testifies alongside former American soldiers. He confirmed the full contents of the official 1991 report until his death in 2024.

The file remains open in the academic sense: it has been analyzed by physicists, aeronautical engineers, radar specialists, without any of them having produced a proven conventional explanation for the performances measured by the F-16s. The Belgian military archives, accessible to accredited researchers, still contain the original radar bands today.