Rendlesham Forest…, A Christmas Story from 1980 - Can We ‘Let it Be’?

One Christmas long ago, three (perhaps not so wise) men followed bright lights in a foreign country … their names were Burroughs, Cabansag and Penniston. Over the following nights further intrigue was to follow.

Their stories (along with many others who eventually became entangled in the events) are a mix of fantastic, controversial, conflicting and also confusing statements. If even parts of the tale could be proven as true then it could become one of biblical proportions.

Christmas day 2013 marks the 33rd year since the events happened. There are already a number of threads on “Britain’s Roswell” AKA the Rendlesham Forest/Bentwaters UFO incident and one or two of them are excellent, although some of the links to further information are now dead. I am not going to go over all the details of the story yet again. This post is to pick up on points that were not addressed in those posts or at least to expand on them. It is also worth noting that the two threads below are now over 8 and 3 years old since they were first posted and many of the links are dead.

If you are not familiar with this incident though, please go to both of these threads for a more in depth explanation of events.

Gazrok’s – The Case for Rendlesham
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Rising Against’s -The Rendlesham Forest UFO - What really Happened?
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Late 1980



What’s not really covered in the other two threads is the backdrop to events of the day. The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan exactly 12 months before “Rendlesham”. The Warsaw Pact had also targeted their new SS20 missiles against Western Europe. As a result American Pershing II missiles were deployed in Western Europe and this was causing anti-US sentiment and protests from certain political groups in Europe. Just what the Soviets wanted.

Next door to Afghanistan, Iran was still holding more than 50 American hostages in the US embassy in Tehran and Poland’s Solidarity movement was causing serious problems inside the Soviet bloc. It was a time of particularly high international tensions.


The Rendlesham Incident: A Quick Overview


For a quick refresher, though, here is a very brief summary of the Rendlesham Forest Incident.

Christmas Night 25th into 26th December 1980 – after reports of strange lights in Rendlesham Forest, three USAF security policeman are sent to investigate a possible downed aircraft from the nearby twin bases of Woodbridge and Bentwaters. One of the men, SSgt. Jim Penniston claims to have touched an unidentifiable black triangular craft with strange glyph like markings and received a ‘binary download’ from it. Nearby John Burroughs described it as a bank of lights in the forest whilst Ed Cabansag was further back and describes a similar experience to Burroughs.

26th December 1980 – During daylight Penniston returns to the site and makes plaster casts of 3 equidistant indentations in the ground. Later that evening after further reports of lights in the forest a female shift commander ventures out into Rendlesham Forest , her patrol vehicle stalls and then a ball of blue light flies through the vehicle leaving her deeply traumatised and she is sent home.

27th/28th and /or 28th/29th December – More UFO sightings are made and Colonel Charles Halt, the deputy base commander leads a team into the forest, who record non-hazardous but higher than normal radiation readings at a suspected landing site. They follow a strange glowing red light as it moves through the trees which then disintegrates into small lights that disappear. Thousands of feet in the air strange craft are reported firing beams of light downwards in the areas of the twin bases. Parts of Halt’s investigation are recorded on audio tape which is now in the public domain and commonly known as the Halt Tape.This may have also been the same night Larry Warren reported seeing a landed craft in a clearing in a sort of ground fog and small beings communicating with a senior officer.

 
It Came Upon A Midnight Clearing - Burroughs, Cabansag and Penniston’s stories



John Burroughs, Ed Cabansag and Jim Penniston investigated the mysterious lights in the early hours of 26th Dec 1980. Even in the immediate aftermath of the events their stories differ.

All statements are available in full here:

www.ianridpath.com...

John Burroughs claims to have only seen a bank of indefinable red and blue flashing lights above a white light and then eventually losing sight as whatever it was rapidly vanished. He continues by saying that after that they could see a beacon which they identified as a lighthouse. He has later qualified his statement and said the lighthouse was not the source of the original lights.

Ed Cabansag’s statement once again mentions blue, red, white, and yellow lights.

Jim Penniston’s declaration that he got within 50m and made a positive sighting.

“it was definitely mechanical in nature. This is the closest point that I was near the object at any point.”

All 3 witnesses have admitted they downplayed the whole incident at the time as talking about UFOs in the military in 1980 was not a good career move.



Ed Cabansag

Despite his somewhat bland statement, Ed Cabansag has gone on record as saying :

The only thing that I signed was for Colonel Halt. I didn’t type anything out. Maybe someone else did it and asked me to sign it. Besides, I couldn’t type, I had never used a typewriter before. I don’t even remember what I signed. I was so nervous, I just signed it. I don’t remember talking to Halt, I remember sitting in his office in fear of Halt. …….

……I’ve read all that stuff about me being a com-link, but I can’t remember any of that. I remember being with Penniston and Burroughs, there were only three of us, Sergeant Chandler stayed back with the jeep. We all saw something, and I kept thinking this was a joke, but as we got closer and closer we could see a light, and our radio transmissions were cutting out.

I remember what I saw; it was to the right of the lighthouse. It was cone-shaped – egg-shaped, with lights running around its belt from left to right. They were blue, white and red lights, flashing, sometimes rapid, sometimes slow. Then we saw flakes of metal coming from it. It is difficult to describe. We were all trying to make sure what we’d seen . . . It wasn’t the lighthouse. I saw the lighthouse, this wasn’t it, it was to the right of the lighthouse.


Source : Georgina Bruni – You Can’t Tell the People

Continues below >>>

John Burroughs

John Burroughs was present on both the first night and at some point during the night Halt led a patrol out into the forest. He noted the high level of static electricity; how time seemed to be slowing down and that small basketball sized blue lights were seen affecting the lightalls on the second night. He is one of the few witnesses who has also mentioned the night of the 26th and how a female shift commander ventured into the forest on a Paracast interview in 2009.

Some kind of blue light flew through her vehicle. She totally lost her composure as it had upset her a lot and they sent her home for the evening. At that point I decided I was going to go back out that night and see what went on..

His story has not really changed over the years. However his position in relation to others involved in the case is interesting. After the mid-90s UK production for ITV’s “Strange But True” on the case, Burroughs seemed to disappear for a decade.

He did feature in the History Channel production “Britain’s Roswell” and has since appeared on a number of productions and radio shows. Burroughs has often claimed that Colonel Halt tried on a number of occasions to keep him out of other TV productions and believes the Colonel knows a lot more about this case then he has revealed. Burroughs has also had issues with the stories of Larry Warren and Jim Penniston in the past.

Here are some of his comments from this very forum :

“To all who feels Larry Warren was there please understand he was not. He took Adrian Bustinza's story and ran with it!!!! How do I know this? I was there!!! “

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I will also say Penniston and Halt have also have hurt the case . Penniston by the way his story has grown and Halt from the beginning putting the wrong dates on his memo holding onto important evidence and getting witness to change or withdraw their stories

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Q: The second night - So you didn't see Larry Warren there?

No I did not see him out there. The Blue balls of light were out there on the second night. One of them did fly right at us. And one of them did send down a beam of light at Halts feet. As far as acting intelligently be careful how you imply that. I stated if there was anything out there that could be taken as acting in a intelligent manner that would be the Blue lights. And there in fact is where Warren gets his story of aliens making contact with AF personnel . We did have them come towards us. Also look at one of his first interviews when he stated LT Col Williams the Base commander was out there. It was LT Col Halt Dep Base commander who was out there. Not Col Bri Gen select Williams Wing Commander . Also I got to meet with Warren in the late 80's in Califorina when a man by the name of Curt Bruebaker flew us out to possibly do a documentary on Bentwaters and his story did not even come close to adding up and has changed so very much over the years.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Burroughs remembers no heavy interrogation or non-standard de-briefings like some of the other airmen re-call. This is despite rumours that he disappeared on the later night near the UFO. He did eventually undergo hypnosis in the mid-1990s which resulted in him being contacted by a future incarnation of humanity (time travel).

John Burroughs is always careful to separate his own memories from what came out during his hypnotic regression. He maintains he has no re-collection of any contact with a UFO let alone strange entities. At present he seems to have developed a closer working relationship with Jim Penniston, and has even been more conciliatory towards Larry Warren in recent years.

This could be because he is playing a careful game to ensure that he is not sidelined again from having his say. John Burroughs seems to now concede that some of the people involved have been psychologically manipulated and this is why nothing really adds up when they tell their stories. He is adamant that he does not know what he saw that night but that it was not the Orfordness lighthouse.



Continues below >>>

Staff Sergeant James Penniston

Penniston was the senior ranked officer of the three and his story has become the most expansive. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows and at a number of conferences. Penniston claims to have seen a mechanical craft of some sort in his initial statement. If there is some consistency here he also mentions red and blue lights that Burroughs and Cabansag saw.



After coming off duty, Penniston made plaster casts of the circular indentations at the alleged landing site with some plaster obtained from a friend in Ipswich. The indentations are mentioned in the “Halt memo”. The memo clearly states that the radiation readings peaked in the centre of the indentations in the ground. Sceptics dismiss the “evidence” as nothing more than marks made by animals and the equipment used to measure the radiation as unsuitable.

Jim Penniston’s notebook evidence has been partially shown on TV on a number of occasions. I am not sure if a loose leaf ring binder type notebook was standard USAF issue in 1980 but it does make things more difficult for him when presenting it as evidence. Pages may well have been removed, moved or added in the past 30 years. In fact if he is a victim of mind control , as some think, then perhaps this notebook is as only reliable as his manipulated memories.

The picture is from “UFO Invasion at Rendlesham”. Another problem with the evidence is that the date seems to say the “27th Dec 80 “when the events took place on the 26th December.

However the Halt memo also quotes the date of the unexplained lights as being the 27th. Could Penniston have become so confused as to forget what day it was? Or is there another reason that date is wrong?

He has slowly introduced other elements to his story. In “Strange But True (1994)” he mentioned that he saw strange symbols on the craft as it rapidly disappeared. In later years he has claimed he spent 45 minutes photographing the craft, taking notes and even touched, what he describes, as a glasslike surface on the landed craft. Etched into the surface were symbols that he also drew in his notebook.



In 2010 Penniston revealed that he had also received a “binary” code download from the craft which also turned up in his notebook with a message once decoded that reads.



Penniston also underwent hypnosis during the 1990s which revealed a similar tale of a visit from our far future that John Burroughs sessions pointed to. Also under hypnosis he reveals he was interrogated and Sodium Pentathol was used on him during questioning. This has led a number of people (Charles Halt being just one) to believe that Penniston may well have been subject to illicit methods of mind control after the incident. Others simply believe Penniston to have become a total unreliable witness in the case and he could even possibly be a disinformation agent.

Present Day

Whilst Cabansag has now confirmed his story he has since got on with his life. Penniston and Burroughs have been busy writing a book with Nick Pope. The book is due for release next year. It will be interesting to see if there is any new information offered and how they explain their apparent incongruent memories of events on that first night of the incident.

On a side note John Burroughs recently had to undergo open heart surgery. I am sure we all wish him a full and speedy recovery.


Continues below >>>

reply to post by mirageman


The reason why Rendlesham Forest event cant be let be is because its a situation where 4 people from the base have a close encounter with something extremely unearthly in the forrest. They report it to the line of command above and beyond them who essentially reply they imagined the whole thing.

Its a classic Roswell case where the officer on the scene says he came into contact with Alien artifacts , and the brass above issue a official media circulation saying he confused it with a weather balloon. In the 90s they revised the story to crash test dummies. What will the revised Rendlesham Forest story be?

Ding, Dong Scarily on High: Colonel Halt’s involvement

The then Deputy Base Commander at the Twin Bases – Charles Halt is the most senior first hand witness. He became involved because on the 27th December 1980 a number of US military personnel were once again out in Rendlesham Forest looking for a UFO and he wanted to put an end to the nonsense.

Who had given the original permission for them to leave the base is somewhat unclear. After his investigation and expedition out into Rendlesham forest, Colonel Halt has often repeated the story of strange objects flying around in the skies above and beams of light coming down onto the base.



However his decisions at the time are questionable based on later testimony and given that he was technically in charge of operations. There was a request from RAF Watton for a radar report at 3:00am. But no major alert was called on the base, nor was a request for air support made. Afterwards, given the significance he now places on the incident, Halt seemingly procrastinated and did not compose his memo to the British Mod about the incident until the 13th January 1981.

I posed questions to both Nick Pope (on ATS Live) and Col. John Alexander (who was on AMA) to comment on the apparent seriousness of the incident and Halt’s decision to not put the bases on any kind of alert.

Nick Pope referred me to a paper trail leading to General Gabriel , who at the time was head of the USAF in Europe. I wouldn’t know where to start with that. Nick Pope didn’t seem too clear on it himself and despite his “cold case” review in the 1990s he left his answer at that loose end.

Colonel John Alexander’s reply was:

As for going on alert; alert for what reason? Most of the events happened off the base and there was no threat to the base or the weapons stored there.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I then pressed him and, credit to him, he did respond again

Note they left their weapons behind because they were on UK soil, and SOFA did not allow weapons off base. As for close air support, doubt any was available nor would it have been useful. That part took Chuck be surprise and happened over a very short period of time. You should ask him about the context.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

This is an intriguing answer and reinforces my view that whilst these events were happening that Lt. Colonel Charles Halt was not that keen to draw too much attention to events which he later describes as being covered up by the UK and US .

Many a time in interviews he has declared that craft in the sky were beaming what looked like lasers into the weapons storage areas and a number of other unidentified objects were present in the skies over the Bentwaters and Woodbridge for hours. Halt however seems to have taken very little action beyond stomping round the forest.

To hear Colonel Halt’s response on his actions (or lack of) I went through some old interviews.
Charles Halt spoke to George Knapp on Nov. 18th 2012 on Coast to Coast AM

www.coasttocoastam.com...

At around 19 mins in, George Knapp asks directly if at any time Halt was going to “call in the cavalry….call in some jets?”

Halt says :

“… actually the command post didn’t seem too excited about the whole thing…the reason they stayed silent was other controllers who’d reported things were de-certified…they weren’t going to say anything…..it was confirmed by two separate radars there was definitely something there.”

Halt sidesteps the question and appears to be placing the responsibility with lower ranked officers on the base without clearly answering the question. In fact gleaned from his own tape recording Halt, cold and wet from crossing a ditch, eventually just packs in and heads back towards the base reporting objects are still in the sky and still sending beams of light down. Which all seems rather odd based on his later declarations.

A couple of years earlier in 2010 Tim Eggercic, who was working in the Weapons Storage Area (WSA) at Bentwaters on the night in question, doubted Halt’s story that beams of light were coming down directly where he was located and confronted Halt directly on a radio show back in 2010.

Original source page of all podcasts : www.behindtheparanormal.com...

The specific one is Show #1: April 11, 2010 part 3 and available directly by clicking this link.

www.behindtheparanormal.com...

On the show, Halt claims to have a witness confirming something penetrated the airspace above the WSA .Tim Eggercic maintains that he saw nothing to threaten the security of the area . Later Eggercic does mention that, Rick Bobo, in the observation tower reported a “big huge spaceship in the air towards Woodbridge hovering for hours…probably directly south from the WSA”.

Eggercic goes on to explain that he feels sure he would have been ordered to alert and recall people from their barracks if an ‘unknown’ had got anywhere near to the WSA. Halt declares that he had a problem because the command post didn’t want to do anything. Once again seemingly agreeing with the decision to take no action because you don’t report UFOs.

“…do you think I wanted to initiate it?….it was a public relations disaster and there were about 25 people out in the forest”.

Which brings us on to the next point.

The United States military, technically, had no right to be out in the forest as it fell under direct jurisdiction of the United Kingdom.

Halt and the Sovereignty Question



The United States and United Kingdom were (still are) close allies and part of NATO. It is probably fair to assume that things were reasonably relaxed over the exact boundaries given that access was also required between the two bases by roads. I also think it is fair to assume that the response by Burroughs, Cabansag and Penniston was a situation where normal diplomatic protocols could be ignored. Time would be of the essence if an aircraft had gone down as first thought.

However once Halt and other USAF personnel on duty had ventured off base on subsequent nights , without the permission of Her Majesty’s government, then they had effectively jumped out from behind the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement). The text of which is ambiguous when applied to this case. But Halt, and prior to that the other US airmens' trespasses, could certainly explain some reluctance at the time to escalate matters further.


It could even be that Halt had no intention of calling for more support once he was out in the forest for reasons that he still keeps to himself.

The British and American authorities also seemed quite keen avoid responsibility. It’s a US matter as it involved USAF personnel was the official line from the MoD. It happened on UK territory so the United States DoD has always maintained it was a matter for the British authorities.

A convenient get out for both government to keep a lid on anything that may have happened.



Continues below >>>

The Halt Tape

The Halt Tape is one of the pieces of hard evidence in this case. It was recorded “live” at the time of the incident. Whilst a few have questioned its authenticity even most sceptics believe it to be a genuine recording. Apparently a copy of the tape was leaked by Halt’s new boss, Sam Morgan, in the early 1980s and it soon ended up in the hands of the UFO community.

Why it came to be in the public domain and whether this is a merely an edited version are important questions.

Halt was out in the forest for 4 hours. The recording that has been made public lasts for 18 minutes. Whilst Halt time checks certain events he doesn’t check the time at the start of the tape and there are many pauses in it.

Adrian Bustinza told Georgina Bruni (in an interview for her book You Can’t Tell the People) that the tape is heavily edited, that he was with Halt’s group and they eventually sighted a landed UFO. Halt denied Bustinza was with him at first, but he can be heard on the tape confirming his name and his call sign ‘Alpha Two’.

Charles Halt has mentioned he has more tapes linked to the incident but has been somewhat contradictory about whether these are further recordings made out in the forest or simply tapes of other matters relating to the incident. Georgina Bruni thought that Halt may have copied them before they were seized by the intelligence services. Consequently if he released them it could have serious repercussions for him. At present though whatever he claims to be sitting on is unclear.

Bruni also hints that the reason at least a portion of the tape was made public was that the intelligence agencies wanted to reinforce the story that the men were confused by the Orfordness lighthouse. The flashing light is exactly in sequence with part of Halt’s tape and has been used by de-bunkers to explain away the whole case. However it has also been pointed out that Halt’s voice is slightly higher in pitch, than when you hear him speak , perhaps indicating that the tape speed is running faster than normal.

The Halt Memo

See this link for the memo : www.ianridpath.com...


Whilst this is considered one of the best pieces of evidence in the case the Halt Memo also contains inaccurate dates of events and remains a source of confusion.

It begins :

“Early in the morning of 27 Dec 80 (approximately 0300L)…..”

The date of the first encounter began on Christmas night and continued into the early hours of the 26th December. The errors continue in paragraph 2 where Halt states the following night was the 29th December 1980. This confuses the timeline even more as the following night would have to be the 28th.

The following night (29 Dec 80) the area was checked for radiation.

Halt’s then boss Colonel Ted Conrad said in 2010 concerning the incident.

…..If any meaningful evidence were not found, we would document that fact and close the entire episode down by providing our facts to authorities in a low key manner. Events dictated the latter approach.

drdavidclarke.blogspot.co.uk...

This memo seems to suggest that Halt followed exactly that “low key” path reflecting his actions whilst he was out in the forest and in the immediate aftermath. The incorrect dates confused officials and researchers for a long time and left people chasing records and evidence from the wrong days.
Perhaps Halt intentionally caused the confusion by inserting incorrect dates. Or maybe he too has false memories?

The radiation readings have long been contested. But it seems that radiation was somewhat lower at the back of the trees than the front where the object had allegedly landed and the the radiation peaked in the middle of the indentations in the ground.

Summary

Colonel’s Halt’s role in this mystery is a complex and seemingly shifting one. He went on record a few years ago to state :

“I believe the objects that I saw at close quarter were extraterrestrial in origin and that the security services of both the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted – both then and now – to subvert the significance of what occurred at Rendlesham forest and RAF Bentwaters by the use of well-practiced methods of disinformation".

In December 1980, if the objects were extra-terrestrial, then by simply wandering around Rendlesham Forest with a reluctance to call for further support it suggests that the events Charles Halt witnessed were not actually as dramatic as his own descriptions. Or that he too wanted to subvert the significance of events at the time.

The memo to the MoD was dated 13th Jan 1981 and well over two weeks after the incidents. Halt’s excuse being that he wanted to wait until the RAF liaison officer Don Moreland had returned from holiday in Wales. As previously discussed it contains a number of incorrect dates to events whilst records on the base must still have been to hand.

Halt has bemoaned that the MoD did not even respond to his letter and that he received no support from his superiors in the United States military over the case. However we also have to consider the issues of the time. The Halt memo is inaccurate. Not only that it does not actually ask a question nor indicate that any response is required.

So we have to ask questions about what Colonel Halt actually hoped to achieve by sending it?

However without it we probably wouldn’t be still discussing it now.

The Ministry of Defence has always maintained that nothing of defence significance happened. ……perhaps it didn’t?



Sorry it’s getting really late here in the UK and Christmas Eve is upon us. If I have more time over the holidays I’ll post up more information here on this case concerning Larry Warren’s story, Lord Hill Norton’s questions in the Houses of Parliament, the rumoured evacuation plans for two nearby prisons in the area over Christmas 1980 and maybe the story from a member of the local fire service……

Until then please feel free to add your thoughts on the UK’s blockbuster UFO case and correct me if I’ve got anything wrong.

And even more important enjoy the holidays

Penniston reports that during the download of information from the vehicle, he was told that "they" are "us" from the future. I observed a UFO during the 90's, during which in my mind I asked the question, "who are you"? ...the answer which popped into my head was "we are anthropologist 's". For years , that never made sense to me, Pennistons statement was for me a long awaited epiphany.

mirageman
Sorry it’s getting really late here in the UK and Christmas Eve is upon us. If I have more time over the holidays I’ll post up more information here on this case concerning Larry Warren’s story, Lord Hill Norton’s questions in the Houses of Parliament, the rumoured evacuation plans for two nearby prisons in the area over Christmas 1980 and maybe the story from a member of the local fire service……

Until then please feel free to add your thoughts on the UK’s blockbuster UFO case and correct me if I’ve got anything wrong.

And even more important enjoy the holidays

:popcorn:

The Suffolk prison stuff sure is weird.

Thank you for not posting a YouTube video and asking "what do you think".
People ask for thoughts and insight of the OP. you went beyond bed bath and beyond....and really gave the chunk of the story. bravo... Even the skeptics have to read the articles and stop to have a thought.

These personnel believed they saw something those nights. Trained observers told they mistaken a lighthouse far away for an object they have seen up close. Last I checked if both eyes didn't function together and you had depth perception issues...you were declined entry into the service. These individuals had much to lose. Not to mention their mental well being in a time of ACA enrollment. Military pension denials.

Even if what was witnessed was man made and not extra-terrestrial..... I don't know I was not there. Go as far as to say it was mass hysteria..OK. but what was that cause for these men.

Ravenna revisited was another post by Karl 12 that also put extensive time and research into such a matter. These 2 post are good and fun reading.

keep Calm. And Carry On.

I find it curious that you would create a re-hash thread and then ask if we can 'let it be'... Lol

Well presented: One of the guys has been fighting to get his military medical records released from the Airforce during his duty assignment in the U.K.. He has had two Senators trying to get them released and one of the Senators was John McCain.. This info was on C2C in the month of December but I do not know the date of the broadcast... When I heard this little tid bit I thought it was extremely strange to say the least. It might have been the guy having open heart surgery but I honestly do not know. Sorry that is all I have....

reply to post by mirageman


The Rendlesham UFO reports are one of the more plausible accounts and i imagine we will only let this be, if and when we find the origin of the UFO which apparently is/was/could be High Brazil.



www.therendleshamforestincident.com...

mirageman

The United States and United Kingdom were (still are) close allies and part of NATO. It is probably fair to assume that things were reasonably relaxed over the exact boundaries given that access was also required between the two bases by roads. I also think it is fair to assume that the response by Burroughs, Cabansag and Penniston was a situation where normal diplomatic protocols could be ignored. Time would be of the essence if an aircraft had gone down as first thought.

However once Halt and other USAF personnel on duty had ventured off base on subsequent nights , without the permission of Her Majesty’s government, then they had effectively jumped out from behind the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement). The text of which is ambiguous when applied to this case. But Halt, and prior to that the other US airmens' trespasses, could certainly explain some reluctance at the time to escalate matters further.

In my experience of USAF bases in the UK in the early 80's (I worked on some for the MOD) the exact boundaries were clear and respected by both sides and diplomatic protocols were pretty much always adhered to.

Whilst an emergency could lead to emergency action being taken I'm not sure that at any point on any of the days in question it was / could / should have been considered an emergency. If it had been thought that a plane had gone down outside the base the UK police would have been notified immediately (is there any record of that ?) even if US military guards (unarmed) were sent to investigate.

If there was a hesitation in contacting the UK police I assume this would have been because of the nature of what would have been reported (lights in the forest / sky) with perhaps the time of the year having an effect also. In not doing that in the first instance it would make it awkward to escalate matters but I can't see how Halt could have really escalated anything with the UK domestic police without creating a possible PR fiasco - which kind of happened subsequently though anyway.

reply to post by 727Sky


Yes John Burroughs is the guy who had open heart surgery and was the only airman present on two nights during this incident. I haven't caught the Coast to Coast AM interview although I was aware both he and James Penniston were having serious problems with their medical records even after all this time.

reply to post by andy06shake


I am still to get my head around Hy Brasil (High Brasil - however it's spelt) that Penniston's binary codes point to.

Let's take his hypnosis session and assume it is entirely accurate and that humanity in the future sends back a probe in time.

Why would they store a message in binary code that can somehow be transmitted on contact with the "time machine" to a human being. This then has to be converted back by said human being by writing it all down to ASCII to reveal a message in English? With an awful lot of gibberish in between and some co-ordinates to a mythical island?

chunder

In my experience of USAF bases in the UK in the early 80's (I worked on some for the MOD) the exact boundaries were clear and respected by both sides and diplomatic protocols were pretty much always adhered to.

Whilst an emergency could lead to emergency action being taken I'm not sure that at any point on any of the days in question it was / could / should have been considered an emergency. If it had been thought that a plane had gone down outside the base the UK police would have been notified immediately (is there any record of that ?)........

Thanks for that information. I am convinced that the Status of Forces Agreement is relevant in this case because no one seems to have been given permission to venture out into the forest from the British authorities. There are even some unsubstantiated tales that all weapons were not handed in at the gate(s) by some of the personnel who left the base. One of them being the shift commander on the evening of the 26th who actually lost a loaded weapon.

As regards contact with the police. There is evidence to confirm they were contacted at 4:11am on the 26th December and also again at 10:30am when an officer actually filed a report that was basically saying "nothing to see here" except for the lighthouse.

If there's and old cliche that is trotted out time and time again it's the blather about the "cold war was at its' height". That goes for Roswell, right through to the Belgian flap immediately prior to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and it really is merely simply lazy journalism and "pop" historical analysis. If we were take all these claims at face value then, the cold was "at its' height", from immediately post world war 2, to the very day the Berlin Wall came down.

let's try the evidence the right way round with regards to Rendlesham. The base contained warheads that were borderline illegal under various treaties NATO and the Warsaw pact had signed and therefore, even now, they have to trot out some total blather to cover their arses over it. I say borderline as the Americans had absolutely no legal right to station nuclear weapons at Rendlesham so they, in cahoots with Thatcher's poodle like line towards the USA, allowed nuclear warheads, as yet unattached to delivery system, so legally not actually a nuclear weapon, to be stored at Rendlesham.

Of course, even in retrospect, both the MOD and the Executive are not about to pony up and admit. "Oooo yes, well actually all those so called conspiracy nuts were right and we were at best, being economical with the truth". In short we said it was utter tosh the base had nuclear weapons, when actually, in any normal person's eyes, it did.

The USSR told the West it intended to occupy Afghanistan and told them exactly why. The reason being that, the USSR felt its' own borders were threatened by Iranian exported Islamic terrorism. The West did what the West was expected to do in such circumstances and privately said... "Your funeral mate", whilst in public they handed out the usual trite and utterly meaningless diplomatic tut tuts.

It was years later when Ronnie and his Godsquad buddies took the line that. Commies are atheists, Islamics beleive in God ergo we support the Islamics and damn the consequences that anyone in the West really took any notice of the USSR's occupation of that country and look how well that all worked out in the long run?

In other words, the whole "height of the cold war" cant, is merely a total pile of bovine waste. The war was no hotter or colder than it was on a mundane day to day basis and it is only referred to, to excuse the base being home to weapons that really shouldn't have been there.

One interesting fact that is, to this day either, not mentioned or sidelined is that. There are well documented claims that, during the incident, armed American troops left the base and set foot on British Sovereign soil. Now, for that to occur there must have been something that was perceived to be possibly, a truly serious military threat. In other words, American military personnel most certainly didn't wander around on British Sovereign territory because someone mistook a lighthouse for meteor that had bounced off a falling satellite and ignited some marsh gas whilst doing an impersonation of Sirius.

Now, if it had the slightest bit to do with the Russians and they thought, in any way shape or form it could be the Russians, then explain this. Why hasn't anyone ever come forward to provide a shred of evidence to show that, the whole of the Western Europe was placed on high alert that night? Well, that would be because, it wasn't that night placed on high alert and it never was, over that holiday period. In other words, the "emergency" was wholly confined to a small forest in the South East of England. Even when it happened again, there was still no alert sent out and the NATO defenses were actually almost all "out for the Xmas holidays" and on as close to a virtual shutdown as it ever came to for 50 odd years. This was in part because, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, had a tacit agreement about, "No wars at Xmas".

Whatever happened that festive season some 33 years ago, had nothing to do with the USSR and the country was on no more of a standby than normal, anyone who tells you different is either totally ignorant of their history and the accepted procedures, or just lazy and ignorant.

The binary code thing always bothered me. It was binary coded 8-bit ASCII , in English.
Why would any entity that knew that they were in a place where English was understood, not just blurt out the message in English, instead of coding each character in binary? The 8 bit ASCII code is our invention, for encoding symbols that a computer can read.... I never thought that this part of the story made any sense at all.

BTW: All of the encoded letters fit into the lower 6 bits, yet the binary codes they used were all eight bit , with 2 leading redundant '0' bits. To cute for my book.

reply to post by mirageman


Very compelling.

Tons of evidences.

Thanks for this. Worth...
S&F.

reply to post by charlyv

Exactly. If an alien species had an understanding of the translation from binary to English, then they understand English! The entire code is based off the human English alphabet, translated with human chosen strings of numbers. It's nonsensical bunk that gets passed around as being a logical form of communication by people that want to believe so badly that they forgo any common sense. It's a naively put together message by Jim Penniston. With Earth coordinates to a 'mysterious' mythical Irish island, no less.

Not to mention, this binary code came to light 30 years after the incident for an episode of Ancient Aliens (I believe). No where has Penniston mentioned this code in the initial reporting of the case.