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

reply to post by spacevisitor


No problem at all with that information. I'd lifted the quote and used a bit of literary licence there.

By the way, the forum is very poor at rendering long URL links, especially to Google Books and your link doesn't work. I've had to use tiny URL on a number of occasions. But even with that you have to add "www" into the tiny url for it to work on here as well !

This link should Budd Hopkins - Left At East Gate

Another notable quote from Budd Hopkins was :

Many naturally looked to the government and the armed forces for explanation and re-assurance but as Left At East Gate amply demonstrates, the official policy seems to be silence witnesses, explain nothing and to deny everything - even when UFO incursions take place at an Air Force Base and adversely affect American personal stationed there..........

Source : see link above.

reply to post by The GUT


Yes GUT.

The following is complete conjecture on my part as we also have to consider that an exotic experiment may never have actually happened.

The theory that it was all an experiment, backed up with a document, does provide a neat template for why the witnesses cannot agree, why some suffered psychological and physical problems and perhaps that this experiment may not have ended in 1980. If that is true then the Orford Ness lighthouse, the satellite rocket and the meteor may well be of little relevance to the case.

Now I did think it strange that this all happened off the base on British soil and how this simply brought extra complications to the case. Bentwaters was essential to any defensive action NATO may have to take against the Warsaw Pact in Europe. Surely any experiment would not be conducted on a base so close to the front line?

Nick Pope has basically declared the whole thing couldn't have happened as he would have recalled seeing something in the MoD files. Why? Not only that he believes if the tests were every carried out they would be back home in the United States.

I am not sure Nick Pope had the security clearances or a need to know about such a top secret exercise. His UFO desk role was more a public relations exercise for the general public and media. It was not as important as he likes to make out, especially to you guys across the pond.

Now I think about it there is a very good reason that hi-tec experiments may have happened in Great Britain.

Equipment that could cause hallucination, trauma and fear in the 'test subjects' could have unpredictable consequences if they were not aware an exercise was being conducted . Armed security policeman may well provide a serious threat to their colleagues and themselves if such an exercise was conducted anywhere in the USA or within the perimeter of a US military base abroad.

Taking them off base into British territory would create a logical reason for removing weapons without arousing suspicion. This would then minimize the risk of someone firing a loaded weapon and causing a fatality whilst the experiment was conducted.



As I say ,this is all guesswork, but it just could have a kernel (or even a Colonel) of truth in there

reply to post by mirageman

The trouble with all this speculation, Mirageman, is that we are way past the limit of the 30-year rule for Rendlesham. In that time, all the remaining UK UFO files have been released, along with the highly classified Project Condign report compiled by the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) which concluded that UFOs are misidentifications of natural and man-made objects.

We have had Wikileaks, Edward Snowden, and some genuinely damaging revelations to various governments including, for example, documents regarding illegal British treatment of the Mau Mau in Kenya. We know far, far more about government code-breaking - which surely is the ultimate secret - than we do about government knowledge of UFOs, let alone Rendlesham specifically.

So you have either to assume that UFOs are the greatest secret of the ages, kept under wraps for decades on end by a succession of governments in every country in the world in an era of increasing official porosity, so secret that even the very top of the Top Brass such as Lord Hill-Norton never got to hear about it.

Or that the whole thing is a fuss about nothing.

Which is the more likely?

ianrid
So you have either to assume that UFOs are the greatest secret of the ages, kept under wraps for decades on end by a succession of governments in every country in the world in an era of increasing official porosity, so secret that even the very top of the Top Brass such as Lord Hill-Norton never got to hear about it.

Or, alternately, that MK-style human-use experimentation of both psychological and physiological "weaponry" is a secret that MUST be kept under wraps. Not only for strategic purposes, but to keep heads out of the guillotine.

Meaning no UFOs necessary for this theory.

reply to post by ianrid


Of course this was merely conjecture as I made very clear. The original US DNA document is now out there. But just like that lighthouse, Jim Penniston and others don't think it can be applied to the Rendlesham incident.

This theory has nothing to do with UFOs and more to do with US security tests on their own nuclear weapons bases. Again if I was speculating ,then documents may well exist, but have as yet remained unearthed due to the low key nature of the UK giving the US forces permission to use sovereign territory, (e.g Rendlesham forest) for a security/military exercise to take place. This may well date back to the days when the twin bases were handed over to the USAF in Europe. After 30 years of the Cold War I would guess that careful wording of documentation had, on some occasions, become a fine art. It is also possible that my assertion is totally inaccurate. I don't hold a hardline point of view on this case.

However there is still the original DNA - document from the USA which does imply that the US military were going to use an airbase to test some very exotic technology. The patents for which date back to as early as 1977.

It could all be bunk and nothing. And the selection of Bentwaters/Woodbridge seems unlikely.

All I am trying to do is represent all the various angles that have come out down the years and get to the truth.

Perhaps that truth does not involve an extra-terrestrial spacecraft or a lighthouse. Which may disappoint a lot of people.

reply to post by The GUT

The first mentioning of a light on Halt's tape recording:

-We know Halt's initial position and rough path when taking radiation readings from the supposed landing site shown below. The position is confirmed on his tape by his comments- "We’ve passed the farmer’s house and are crossing the next field".... We've just crossed a creek", after walking away from the site:
=====================================================================================

-We know the lighthouse could be seen from Halt's position from various photographs taken and Google sky view:


Screen grab from the night time 'YouTube 2' video below with adjusted contrast/brightness to show camera position:

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-We know the lighthouse beam isn't completely blocked at their position by a barrier, as suggested:

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-We know the sweep of the lighthouse 'beam' is 5 seconds:
Video from Ian Ridpath's site -
HERE

From Ian Ridpath's site also, the Orford Ness Lighthouse record and stats in 1980. Flash frequency is highlighted in yellow:

=====================================================================================

-We know during Halts taped recording, the span of time between the "There it is again... There it is", is 5 seconds. In Halt's YouTube clip below, this starts at 11 seconds and ends at 16 seconds.
YouTube 1

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-When you combine the two, you have the YouTube video below that I linked earlier:
YouTube 2

=====================================================================================

Given these facts, how can anyone assume the lighthouse played zero part in this sighting? First, you would have to ignore the lighthouse being in that position all together. Second, you would have to ignore the fact of being able to see a 5,000,000 candela powered lighthouse beam/flash in that position. Third, you would have to ignore the fact that the lighthouse 5 second flash coincides exactly with the 5 second span on Halt's tape. Fourth, you would have to assume a "UFO" from outer space or the future happens to also: A)Flash B)Flash exactly at the same rate as the lighthouse.

Before anyone comments, at least watch the last YouTube video I linked above. Explain why the very first acknowledgement of a light from Halt's tape is purposely ignored by believers, when it clearly is in sync with the lighthouse flash. Even though Halt says 30 years later he knew the lighthouse was there. Why was it never mentioned once on his taped recording? In the very least he should have acknowledged it in some way, but he did not. His comment after seeing the second flash was- "I see it too. What is it?"

Ectoplasm8

Given these facts, how can anyone assume the lighthouse played zero part in this sighting? First, you would have to ignore the lighthouse being in that position all together. Second, you would have to ignore the fact of being able to see a 5,000,000 candela powered lighthouse beam/flash in that position. Third, you would have to ignore the fact that the lighthouse 5 second flash coincides exactly with the 5 second span on Halt's tape. Fourth, you would have to assume a "UFO" from outer space or the future happens to also: A)Flash B)Flash exactly at the same rate as the lighthouse.

I would say Ectoplasm8 because of what for instance Rising Against posted about it in his marvelous thread;

post by Rising Against

Rising Against


Also, here is what the men themselves say about the Lighthouse Theory, something that they are certain about that this incident is not the result of!


John Burroughs - Airmen first class at time - present on first night
"There is no way that many people were fooled by that lighthouse...There is just no way that we were fooled, something actually went on on out there."

Jim Penniston - Staff Sergeant at time - present on first night
[Arguing with Vince Thurkettle] "You know, we've worked out here for months. We know where the lighthouse is, it's just so ridiculous to bring that up."

Charles Halt - Deputy base commander at time - present on second night
"The whole time this was going on, we could see the lighthouse, the lighthouse was about 33-35 degrees off where this object was this seen....A lighthouse doesn't move through the forest, the lighthouse doesn't go up and down, it doesn't explode, doesn't change shape, size, doesn't send down beams of light from the sky."

Edward Cabansag - Airman at time - present on first night
"It [the UFO] was to the right of the lighthouse" "... It wasn't the lighthouse."

Charles Halt - Deputy base commander at time - present on second night
"I knew where the lighthouse was. This thing was not it. I saw the lighthouse as well but I never mentioned it [on the tape]. Why should I? Everybody present knew what that was!"

"A lighthouse doesn’t move through the forest; the lighthouse doesn’t go up and down, it doesn’t explode, doesn’t change shape, size - doesn’t send down beams of light from the sky”.

"I don't want to talk to people that tell me I was looking at the lighthouse... I could see the lighthouse... I knew where the lighthouse was. That's ludicrous."

"They [the sceptics] weren't there that night, I certainly wish some of them had been - they might have had a different opinion of things. But they're entitled to their opinion, they certainly are. I know what happened. I was there."

reply to post by spacevisitor

Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Unfortunately, their own words _at the time_ tell a different story.

Oh, and Penniston lied (again) when he said “we’ve worked out her for months”. In fact, none of them had been out there before and they didn’t know about the lighthouse — that's why they chased it for some time before realizing what it was.

As I have said before: you are welcome to believe the changes of story made years after the event if you wish, but to understand what actually happened you gave to go back to the original documentation. And, based on what they said at the time, it’s honestly not difficult to work out what it was they were seeing.

reply to post by ianrid


Says the man who spends so much time telling people how halt changed his story and his 1997 testimony is riddled with inaccuracies and then uses that self same 1997 testimony to support his own argument. That's called blatant hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty where I come from. Says the man who is self proclaimed "UFO expert" and yet know little or nothing about the subject as whole past what he's read on the net. The same man who appears to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the MOD, a MOD which has consistently lied about it's involvement and interest in the subject. The MOD that conveniently loses every last bit of film every last photo, every last document that the true Ufologists wanted to explore.

A man who, when his slipshod and intellectually dishonest methodology fail, resorts to calling witnesses liars when the truth is. The security staff on base did regularly enter the forest to look for people who might be spying on the activities there and they nearly all carried cameras to take photos of anyone seen in the forest.

reply to post by ianrid


Indeed they do and this is really bugging me now.

I'm not going to get involved in the lighthouse argument,the witnesses, who were there, will question where the red/blue lights came from, what caused the dripping molten metal effects, how the UFO moved up and down and through the trees then split into part etc. The sceptics, who weren't (some were!), will continue to claim they were all mistaken . It will just go round and round in circles depending on which side of the story you want to believe in. I don't particularly believe in either side of the story as there still seems to be questions marks over all of this.

What I will say is the lighthouse was seen by the airmen, "there's no doubt about it".


So as suggested lets look back to what is on record back in 1980/1981 at the witness statements as kindly provided on your website.

" These statements should be read in conjunction with the report of the local Suffolk police who were called to the scene of the incident on the first night and again the following morning. Source : www.ianridpath.com..."

We know that Penniston, Burroughs and Cabansag went out in the early hours of the 26th December.

Burroughs finally identified the beacon as a lighthouse.

Master Sergeant Chandler mentions Penniston’s identification of a “beacon light” - yes I think we can conclude that was the lighthouse.

The British Police, went out on Boxing day and reported that the only lights visible were those from the Orford Light House. Although what else could they report after the event(s)?

So we will note there is definitely a re-occurring theme here. There seems to be a lighthouse involved in all of this.

Some of the witness statements appear undated others were written up on Jan 2nd 1981. So I think it is safe to assume that most of them were taken around the first week of January 1981.


In David Clarke's "New Light on Rendlesham article" (I am now cheating here because this interview was conducted 30 years after the event - however we will assume that Colonel Conrad has not "compressed" his story after such a long time and has not changed his story from seeing the lights from his home in Woodbridge as Colonel Halt claimed in Unsolved Mysteries as time has gone by. He does after all seem to forget that the Suffolk police were involved if you read the whole piece. )

"The incident was discovered, investigated, reported and finished all during an eighteen-day period from 27 December…through 13 January 1981 [when Halt’s memo was sent to the Ministry of Defence]. Claims of more sightings at different places and later times are unrelated to the Christmas 1980 event."

"After all that, we found we had no hard evidence. In my judgement further investigation would likely gain us nothing but notoriety. We summed up what we had and Lt Col Halt composed a letter addressed to Wing Commander [Don] Moreland [the British Base Commander/RAF liaison officer, who was away on leave during the Christmas holiday], leaving it up to him if he thought it necessary to forward any of the information [to the MoD]. It was my intention to suggest that we would be happy if the whole thing died there."



drdavidclarke.blogspot.co.uk...

Woooah! hold on a minute here.

Colonel Conrad and the then "Lt. Colonel" Halt (a first hand witness) have witness statements all pointing to the fact that all that we really could identify once we got out there was a lighthouse. They say there were investigations but no hard evidence.

The big public "reveal" is some 3 years away in 1983. It will be almost a further decade before Colonel Halt appears on TV to give his "embellished" account of what happened. Something back in January 1981 he surely could not have predicted.

So, imagine you are Colonel Halt and it's mid-January 1981. All the facts are assembled and seemingly point to a case of mistaken identity as carefully detailed on the website. You after all were out there yourself and have had time to calm down in the cold light of day and realise that it was all probably a shooting star and a lighthouse.

Why on earth send the (Halt) memo, as we now know it to be, to the RAF?

spacevisitor


I would say Ectoplasm8 because of what for instance Rising Against posted about it in his marvelous thread;


Also, here is what the men themselves say about the Lighthouse Theory, something that they are certain about that this incident is not the result of!

You're pointing out quotes from years after the incident by various people. I'm not talking about a story of what was or wasn't seen years after the fact, I'm speaking of what was actually said during the incident via Halt's taped recording. The first mention of anything mysterious was a light that was flashing. Flashing at exactly the same rate as the lighthouse.

So Halt said he saw the lighthouse, but didn't mention it. So we're to assume then that there were two lights in the forest blinking at the same rate? That makes it even more coincidental.

ianrid

As I have said before: you are welcome to believe the changes of story made years after the event if you wish, but to understand what actually happened you gave to go back to the original documentation. And, based on what they said at the time, it’s honestly not difficult to work out what it was they were seeing.

Well, I have gone thru a lot of documentation about this case since some time now were under of course much of the original but I cannot do other than to try to separate the wheat from the chaff as good as possible just as I tried to do that in other UFO cases which is definitely not that easy in my opinion because of the disinformation that is brought out about it since day one and not to forget the debunkers that are doing their jobs.
But I came nevertheless to the conclusion that it could not have been that lighthouse they were seeing.
And as I said in an earlier post, it seems that that lighthouse theory was being used right from the beginning in order to try to kill the story.

But perhaps you will find this interesting, its Gary Heseltine’s view on the lighthouse theory, it starts after 1:16:00.

The Rendlesham Forest Incident by Gary Heseltine

www.youtube.com...

mirageman
reply to post by ianrid

 

Why on earth send the (Halt) memo, as we now know it to be, to the RAF?

Halt gave the following explanation in his 1997 interview with Salley Rayl:

Rayl: Okay. Now, two weeks later on January 13, 1981 you issued a memorandum to the British Ministry of Defense.

Halt: That’s correct.

Rayl: And why did you do that?

Halt: At the request of the R.A.F. Liaison Officer or the R.A.F. Base Commander, as we called him, Don Moreland.

Rayl: Okay.

Halt: I went and approached him, and I said, “You know, this happened off base”. Well, I did discuss this through our channels and the real answer from our channels was, “Hey, we don’t want to touch this with a pole. This was a British incident. It happened off the installation. Let them handle it”. So, I contacted him. In fact, I contacted him earlier and the only reason the memo was dated that late was that he was on vacation and I wasn’t able to find out what he wanted and how much detail he wanted and what he wanted to do with the information. When I finally caught up with him on the, about the 10th or the 12th, he said, “Well, write a brief memo. Kind of sanitize it and we’ll send it to London. We’ll see what happens.” So, that’s what I did.

If you've seen interviews with Wing Commander Gordon Williams, who was in overall command of the base, you'll realize that he now wishes they had just kept quiet about it.

reply to post by mirageman
Continuing from the above...

Ted Conrad, Halt’s direct boss at the time, gave Dave Clarke his recollections of the event in 2010, which you can read on this page
drdavidclarke.co.uk...

Specifically regarding the point you raised, he said:
“If I have any regrets, it is that I should have challenged Lt Col Halt’s account of the events on the night of 28 December. However since I wanted to avoid the appearance of shaping the story, I was reluctant to require any changes to his letter to Don Moreland [sent to MoD on 13 January 1981]. Also, I think maybe Don Moreland and I should have met over lunch one day to discuss a better way to handle the information in Halt’s letter. Halt’s letter gave us cover by putting Don on the spot. This left Don with the full burden of the letter and its disposition. When the letter was eventually released from MoD, it generated the frenzy of speculative reporting and the inevitable allegations of cover-up.”

Don Moreland’s recollection of events, given to Dave Clarke in 2002, can also be found on that same page:
““Chuck Halt came to my office and recounted an incredible story about a series of incidents which occurred between 27-30 December. He told me about flashing lights, about a UFO landing in the forest, the indentations left behind after landing, and enhanced radiation levels in the area. I assumed he was pulling my leg, but being a good staff officer, I asked for a report in writing I could forward to the MoD. When I received his memo I wrote a covering letter and sent it off to DS8 [the Air Staff Secretariat at Whitehall that was responsible for UFO reporting]. I did not delay it (if it was urgent in their view they could have passed the information to the RAF liaison officer at Mildenhall) nor did I ask him to sanitize it.”
“I didn’t receive a reply so I telephoned DS8 several times, and was eventually told that they (MoD) had carried out a search of the defence radar logs for the period in question but nothing was found. They assumed it was the light from the Orford Ness Lighthouse flashing through the trees.”

reply to post by Ectoplasm8

The first mention of anything mysterious was a light that was flashing. Flashing at exactly the same rate as the lighthouse.

Halt has explained that he was speaking into a dictaphone with a limited amount of tape, so that he had to keep switching the thing on and off to avoid running out. So we aren't hearing everything in real time. Seconds or minutes could elapse between each new sentence, but it sounds instantaneous.

CJCrawley
reply to post by Ectoplasm8

 

Halt has explained that he was speaking into a dictaphone with a limited amount of tape, so that he had to keep switching the thing on and off to avoid running out. So we aren't hearing everything in real time. Seconds or minutes could elapse between each new sentence, but it sounds instantaneous.

The section with the 5-second flash is continuous, though. Or haven't you listened?

FireMoon
What Ridpath conveniently forgets to tell you is that, his lighthouse is only ever described as a red light, the lighthouse was not red it was bright and white and no gerrymandering of specious science about temperature inversions, can change it from white to red.

...

Halt: And they're both heading North. Here he comes from the South, he's heading toward us now. Now we're observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground. This is unreal.

Halt: 330, or 0330 and the objects are still in the sky although the one that's South looks like it's losing a little bit of altitude. We're turning around, heading back towards the base. The object to the, the object to the South is still beaming down lights to the ground.

Halt: 0400 hours, one object still hovering over Woodbridge Base at about 5 to 10 degrees off the horizon, still moving erratic, and similar lights, and beaming down as earlier.

Yeah stars, see them like that every night.

A star an estimated 8.6 light years away, is responsible for shining a beam of light down, vertically. Say the testimonies and the case was an outright hoax, say it was someone high up in a hot air balloon shining a light down, a malfunctioning aircraft even, but a lighthouse?

That will never wash with me.

Before reading this thread I was on the fence about this incident, but the evidence presented is about as conclusive as it gets.



But for many it's not about evidence, but rather maintaining the impression of remaining doubt, no matter how small, on which to hang their Extraterrestrial hopes. If only these people could produce supporting evidence of similar quality they wouldn't have to rely so heavily on ever-evolving testimony, using fallacious appeal to authority arguments and accusations of ad hominem attacks directed at anyone so bold as to question said anecdotal evidence as defense.

Science views eyewitness testimony as one of the lowest forms of evidence for a reason, but I guess when it's all one has...

reply to post by Defragmentor

A star an estimated 8.6 light years away, is responsible for shining a beam of light down, vertically. Say the testimonies and the case was an outright hoax, say it was someone high up in a hot air balloon shining a light down, a malfunctioning aircraft even, but a lighthouse?

No one is arguing that the lighthouse was responsible for shining down a vertical beam of light. That is a misrepresentation of the argument. Perhaps you should read the actual arguments and consider the actual evidence as has been presented instead of embracing a misrepresentation of the actual arguments by other posters who obviously have some agenda.

The lighthouse is only responsible for a part of the story. This is important because it shows just how confusing things can get for anyone even "highly trained personell".

ZetaRediculian
reply to post by Defragmentor

 

A star an estimated 8.6 light years away, is responsible for shining a beam of light down, vertically. Say the testimonies and the case was an outright hoax, say it was someone high up in a hot air balloon shining a light down, a malfunctioning aircraft even, but a lighthouse?

No one is arguing that the lighthouse was responsible for shining down a vertical beam of light. That is a misrepresentation of the argument. Perhaps you should read the actual arguments and consider the actual evidence as has been presented instead of embracing a misrepresentation of the actual arguments by other posters who obviously have some agenda.

The lighthouse is only responsible for a part of the story. This is important because it shows just how confusing things can get for anyone even "highly trained personell".

That would be as opposed to Ridpath misrepresenting just about everything in his vain attempts to shut this one down. Penniston was not "new" on the base, he'd been there several months, every last visual witness says it was not the lighthouse and yet, Ridpath still bangs on like a stuck record in his every increasingly desperate attempts to deny the actual evidence. The huge mistake that the likes of Ridpath make and that is in part deliberate, as they simply want no discourse on this particular incident at all, is that "strange happenings" automatically equates with aliens. it doesn't.