...over US air base last year, unearthed report reveals

A police helicopter was forced to take emergency action during a terrifying encounter with mysterious high-speed 'drones' over a US air base last year - in an incident officials would later dismiss as nothing more than a passing fighter jet. 

But newly released video and incident logs of the November 22, 2024 event now tell a very different - and far more alarming - story, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal. 

Witness even described one of the unidentified flying objects as a 'tic-tac' - the same oblong shape reported by Navy aviators in a now infamous 2004 encounter. 

The Daily Mail obtained images taken from a National Police Air Service (NPAS) EC135 chopper of one of the unidentified craft, which was said to have 'targeted' and come close to colliding with the helicopter mid-air around RAF Lakenheath, a US military base in England.

The incident occurred amid weeks of reports of drones and unidentified objects breaching airspace over US military bases in New Jersey, the wider northeast, and overseas.

A report by a UK aviation safety board attributed the chopper's close encounter to pilots misidentifying an American F-15 fighter jet flying in the area.

But British police logs released under the Freedom of Information Act describe multiple, hi-tech drones 'targeting' and appearing to pursue the law enforcement helicopter at high speeds. 

'They were forced to take emergency evasive action in relation to a drone which came within a dangerously close proximity to them,' said an incident log from Suffolk Police, recounting a debrief of the chopper pilots. 

Police chopper was forced to take 'emergency evasive action' after being targeted by UFO over US air base last year, unearthed report reveals By JOSH BOSWELL, US SENIOR NEWS REPORTER and CHRIS SHARP Published: 00:33 AEDT, 21 November 2025 | Updated: 00

A newly released police report reveals NPAS pilots said they were forced to 'take emergency evasive action' during the late-night encounter with the unidentified objects over RAF Lakenheath (pictured)

'They had to perform an emergency dive and described that they were pursued in the dive by two drones who matched their speed approx 165 knots and then pursued them for several minutes out of the area.

'They feel that drones have targeted them and chased them off at approx 140 knots [161mph].'

A UK military source, who has viewed the entire 30-minute video captured by the chopper's infrared camera, said there was more to the incident than a close brush with a fighter jet.

'In the 30-minute video with pilot audio, nobody mentions F-15s,' the source said. 

'They only talk about the drones. How they're basically mirroring the helicopter's movements. How fast the drones are going. That they're basically forcing them out of the area.'

The source added that the footage shows one object pursuing the craft performing maneuvers impossible for a fighter jet.

'A fixed-wing craft is caught on the video, where you can see a corkscrew move,' the insider said. 'An F-15 cannot make a small corkscrew turn like that.'

The Daily Mail obtained a short section from the chopper video showing a small object, no more than a blob on the infrared camera, slowly moving towards the top right of the screen.

A screengrab of the helicopter video obtained by the Daily Mail shows a small object, which appears as a tiny blob on the infrared camera, slowly moving towards the top right of the screen

Radar data cited in the reported issued by the UK Airprox Board, concluded that the 'drones' were actually the lights of a US Air Force F-15 Eagle jet and showed the two aircraft coming within 1,700ft of each other

The local police incident logs from November 20-22, 2024 reveal a slew of drone sightings across three bases used by the US Air Force in the English counties of Suffolk and Norfolk: RAF Feltwell, RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall.

'Over past 2 nights there have been approx 20 drones flying over RAF's Mildenhall, Feltwell and Lakenheath. This has been between 1800-0000 hrs,' said a Suffolk Police log from November 21.

'They report that due to the size of said drones, the pilots could be 'miles and miles' away,' the log added, with 'they' appearing to refer to UK military police protecting the airbases.

'Mildenhall/Lakenheath/Feltwell - believed 10-15 drones have been at each one - and appear not to be "hobby drones",' the logs said.

One police report from Lakenheath said an officer had 'night vision goggles and can see 5-6 drones [near the highway] A1065 coming back over airfield'.

An 'informant' in the logs told police they saw 'multiple drones' which were 'very large and they make a lot of noise'.

The witness in the November 22 logs described what they saw around the airbase as 'large stationary things - tictacs - they are not birds.'

'The drones are well lit - they are not trying to hide themselves and they are flying very low now,' another log from November 22 said.

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Additional reportage from Chris Sharp