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

Just to add to my post a moment ago and my longer post yesterday, which hopefully has been brought to Andrew Pike's attention to avoid any misunderstandings:

SkywatcherUK
It is easy to know if the genuine item was handed over : is it A5 780 pages with a white cover and. a black triangle flying out of a yellow mist. If no, it is a fake. Simple!

So the book that was reviewed in Ufodata magazine back in the September/October 2006 issue of that magazine was a "fake"??? That review included the cover which appears on my version and referred to it as a "two hundred plus-page tome".

UFOdata is one of the various out-of-print publications which I've helped appear online as searchable PDFs, with the permission and support of those involved (in particular the kind permission of Steve Johnson). Steve Johnson wrote the relevant review, in the September/October 2006 issue of UFOdata at page 38:



If needed, I can post links to subsequent emails from Andrew Pike to a Rendlesham forum (which I saved from oblivion as part of my archiving efforts) which refer to the fact that Andrew Pike was working on an enlarged version of his book - which makes me think that I have the first edition of his book and it isn't "simple!" that I have a "fake" because it isn't 780 pages long. I referred to some of the relevant forum discussions in my post above:

I know from your posts on the old forum at Rendlesham-Incident.co.uk in a thread entitled “Bustinza phone interview,20 april 1984” and another thread entitled “May 2010 Transcript of Col Halt tape “ that you sold your book at a loss at best (and gave some copies away, including to Sacha Christie) due to the costs of self-publishing and the cost of your research. You also said that “to avoid any further smear of being a money maker on the back of this subject, I am going to withdraw rights from the publisher in an email this morning. It's dead and gone! And so am I, that's it!” - so I will not ask if you have any plans to have the second edition printed and sold commercially.

Is Andrew Pike really suggesting that the book reviewed in the UFOdata magazine was a "fake" (the word used in your posts)????

I repeat the question I posed in my post above: are you sure Andrew Pike has claimed that book is a "fake", rather than simply an earlier version of the book he wrote?

For those who cannot wait to read Andrew Pike’s scientific analysis of UFO’s, here’s a free online book by James McCampbell: www.nicap.org...

The general UFO characteristics he describes are easily recognized by anyone familiar with the RFI.

Note that McCampbell wrote his book in 1976, four years before the RFI:

witnesses frequently indicate that the UFO itself was luminous. As distinguished from a wide variety of white or colored lights that are reportedly attached to UFOs, light is observed radiating from the entire object or its immediate vicinity. Occasional references to "sparks" immediately suggest that some kind of electrical phenomenon is involved.

Very common descriptions such as "surrounded with a red glow" and "wrapped in a blue haze" clearly indicate that the source of UFO luminosity is not the object itself but the proximate air.

Apart from the diffuse luminosity, UFOs are frequently observed to carry ordinary "navigation" lights. One of the most common features is a prominent light on the top which may be of any color, either steady or flashing. Other lights are sometimes distributed over the surface, typically at the ends of elongated objects or along the periphery and on the bottom of discs. This display has been aptly compared to a "Christmas tree."

Another type of illumination less common than surface lights consists of one or more powerful beams resembling search lights. They are used for scanning the countryside, pointing directly downward or upward, or at houses and vehicles.

A favorite posture of UFOs is to hang nearly motionless in the sky or at very low altitude without any indication of how this stunt is achieved.
Nearly every investigator has the impression that UFOs are somehow defeating gravity, and obviously, they are.

One of the most prominent but puzzling features of UFOs is their ability to change speed and direction of flight much more quickly than is possible for an airplane. Instead of making long, sweeping curves as a jetliner is compelled to do, they make sudden, nearly right-angle turns. Their general flight pattern is erratic or jerky, resembling the flight of hummingbirds, that dart hither and yon, hover temporarily, suddenly change altitude, and then zoom out of sight with astonishing swiftness.

reply to post by IsaacKoi


You will have to take that up with UFO DATA. But what is being said is YOU were handed a fake. I have a copy of the final book and maybe before final settings and designs were sent to press it was printed off in that form for magazines on tight copy close dates,or designs changed before going to press for some reason. It boils down to inside pages not a cover only, it is possible to condense text down onto larger pages, it is simple to remove covers and replace pages seeing as your illustration is clearly comb bound! I just go by what is said and until the two are examined side by side there are many possibilities here. I have to say if you want the cooperation of somebody already p'ed off by the UFO community you are not doing yourself any favours. As a barrister you should appreciate you need written permission BEFORE you copy, out of print does not mean out of copyright. Whether you have a fake or not that applies. Would maybe have been best to have made sure first given the situation and the troubles of this case! Besides it is reprinted soon and one way or another it will be settled.

SkywatcherUK
out of print does not mean out of copyright

Obviously. That's one of the reasons why I haven't posted the scanned copy of his book online, pending him saying whether he gives his permission or not.

I still don't know if you (and, more importantly if you don't mind me saying so, Andrew Pike himself) have actually read the email I tried to send to him about 2 years ago (repeated in my post above):
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Basically, Andrew Pike indicated that he was stopping any commercial publication of his book “to avoid any further smear of being a money maker on the back of this subject" so I wrote the relevant email offering AS A FAVOUR TO HIM AND THE UFO COMMUNITY to scan and upload his book to a free file storage website IF HE GAVE HIS PERMISSION.

He was the one talking about having published his book at a loss and I was offering a potential solution.

If he doesn't want his book made available for free online without him incurring any costs, that is - of course - up to him. I'll simply move on to other projects where various UFO researchers want my help in helping make their material more easily available without making any profit.

Guest101



The solution to that one (and many other questions) is in the timeline you posted earlier:
bentwaters1980.proboards.com...

Halt’s memo to the MOD mentions a sighting of the object near the back gate (East Gate) about an hour after Penniston, Burroughs, and Cabansag were send out to investigate:
“The object was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near the back gate.“ [Halt, official memo to MOD]
Jerry Valdez, who joined a team that went to East Gate to check out the situation, remembers seeing the object near the East Gate:

“I could clearly see the lights from the gate, just outside the back gate [east gate]. It was next to the road. They were intermittent lights, very bright, 15-20 feet above the ground. They were pulsating and from what I recall there were 3 lights, red green and blue. It made no noise, but it defied gravity. It was really weird and scary. We all knew what we were looking at, but no one really came out and said it.” [Valdez, James Easton interview]

I knew I'd seen this somewhere before - thank you.

This doesn't sound like it was anything to do with a lighthouse. Of course it would be a HUGE leap to link this to aliens, time travellers or something equally weird. But again we keep hearing about various coloured lights that cannot solely be attributed to a flashing lighthouse?

reply to post by SkywatcherUK


I hope Andrew Pike intends on re-publishing his book on Rendlesham for a reasonable fee. Kindle seems like a good solution as the production costs are minimal and would ensure there is no loss to the author.

This whole episode though seems to be a little bizarre, and takes this thread off at a very curious tangent. All Andrew has to do to resolve any issues is contact Isaac. It's as simple as that!

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

So back on topic:

I've just seen that Nick Pope's work alongside JB and JP - "Encounter in Rendlesham Forest" is retailing at around £14-£15 in the UK and around $19-$20 US on Amazon. Is anyone considering buying it on release?

I think I'll wait until some decent reviews have been made before making a decision over a purchase.

reply to post by mirageman


Very possibly yes, regarding buying Nick Popes version of the incident. I have read "Left at Eastgate", and still find the whole incident from top to bottom fascinating. I am sure many here,don't buy into everything Pope has to say, but I respect the fact that he has come to his changed opinion of ufo's and I think this incident had a lot to do with it.

Perhaps can this interview be of some use for members for whom this case is pretty new.
It is from Jerry Pippin with his guest Peter Robbins who is the co-author of the book “Left At East Gate” which he wrote together with Larry Warren who was a firsthand witness to one part of the events and became eventually the whistleblower for this case.

“Peter Robbins was Jerry's guest on his Monday night UFO show on IRN, March 3, 2014. They discussed the Rendlesham Forest incident, including Peter's update from his recent visit to the area - as well as a number of other UFO-related issues.”

Windows Media Version, Part 1 starting after 09:15

www.jerrypippin.com...

Windows Media Version, Part 2

www.jerrypippin.com...

Windows Media Version, Part 3

www.jerrypippin.com...

Windows Media Version, Part 4

www.jerrypippin.com...

www.jerrypippin.com...

reply to post by spacevisitor


Thanks for the links, Spacevisitor. The soil samples have always been an interesting piece of the story.

The ‘yellow mist’ that was 2 or 3 feet off the ground may be an important piece of information to tie in the accounts of Bustinza and Warren with the Halt tape.

In 1984 Bustinza told Boeche:

We kept searching the area -- kind of like trying to follow the object. And it was moving through the trees. And in the process, we came upon a yellow mist about 2-or-3 feet off the ground.

On Halt’s tape we hear the men taking radiation readings from ‘something not on the ground, something very large’ that is ‘a fraction of four feet off the ground’. This could be the patch of yellow mist Bustinza is talking about.

LT COL HALT: Right I, he's turned the meter off. Better say that again, About four feet off the ground, about a hundred and ten degrees, getting the reading of about four clicks?
SGT NEVELS: Yes sir.
LT COL HALT: Yeah but. .
SGT NEVELS: [Sneeze] excuse me, now it's died.
LT COL HALT: Now it’s died, I think it's something not on the ground. I think it's something that's...something very large.

In the next part of the tape, it is quite possible that Englund’s remark ‘yeah, it’s yellow’ refers to the mist, not to the light:

LT COL HALT: There is no doubt about it, there's some type of strange flashing red light ahead.
LT ENGLUND: Yeah, it's yellow [talking in the background about the mist].
LT COL HALT: I saw a yellow tinge in it too [responding to Englund]. Weird. It appears to be making a little bit this way?
SGT NEVELS: Yes sir.
LT COL HALT: It's brighter than it has been
SGT NEVELS: Yellow? [Responding to the remarks about the mist]

Bustinza told Boeche about the mist: ‘We kind of ignored it. We were worried about the object.’

I was unsure whether to create a new thread or not on the new book “Encounter in Rendlesham Forest” by Nick Pope, Jim Penniston and John Burroughs.

I’ve decided to add it to this thread as it does little in giving the case any sense of closure.

Disappointingly there are a several spelling and grammatical errors in the text. In the Kindle edition Appendix B , including the full binary code, is completely omitted. There are more than you would expect to come across in a book of this nature and at least one sentence is left unintelligible by this lack of proof reading.

However to give it credit it is a fairly easy to digest and readable volume in which Nick Pope presents the Rendlesham story from the main focus of two of the main witnesses, Jim Penniston and John Burroughs. He also gives an insight into the inner workings of government (and sometimes how it doesn’t work!). For a beginner to the case (or even the UFO subject) it is fairly balanced history of the Rendlesham Incident. Both exotic and the more ‘down to earth’ theories are covered with the ‘lighthouse theory’ dismissed as one of the poorer explanations. The book is heavily padded with other UFO cases and military and government procedure explained in great detail. Which some may find drags away from the main story and possibly even irrelevant.

There is also little in this book that has not already been discussed in this thread. In fact there is more material directly relevant to Rendlesham in this thread. The civilian witnesses, and many of the military witnesses, are simply ignored. Larry Warren’s part is given serious doubt, whilst Charles Halt’s testimony is presented as hard facts. Sometimes additional information is omitted to leave a false impression as well. Penniston’s expansive story is mildly questioned. But is accounted for by his numerous interrogations by unknown agents where drugs were sometimes used to mess with his memory. Overall the time travel theory seems to be the one being given prominence.

When summing up Nick Pope declares some ‘facts’ which are not accepted by everyone.

We know that a UFO landed next to one of the most sensitive military installations in the NATO alliance......

We know that light beams from the UFO struck the ground just feet in front of the Deputy Base Commander and ....onto the base in particular, into the Weapons Storage Area....

We know that the UFO was tracked on radar...."

.

If there is anything new that has not been covered in this thread then there is an interesting tidbit of information about Nick Pope’s father holding a senior position in the civil service at the time of the Rendlesham Incident and being in position to answer questions about any part employees from Porton Down may have played. Although Pope claims he never mentioned a thing.

The legal battle to get Penniston and Burroughs medical records released is also a new and interesting development in the case.

Another interesting part is mention of a meeting with General Gordon Williams that took place in 2012 with Penniston and Burroughs. Williams was presented with a document referenced in Project Condign by the pair that mentions their encounter. Williams confirmed that there was a ‘phenomenon’ and that he, and other USAF Wing Commanders, had been briefed on it. We are seemingly being told to in a round and about way to dig through the Condign report to find our answer. Even though Pope then claims it was written for a military/government audience and , without wanting to appear ‘patronizing’ declares Ufologists aren’t capable of analyzing or following up in a meaningful way.



It seems that this book is just the kick starter for even further squeezing of the story. I can't say for £3.99 it was a waste of cash but I'd be disappointed paying for the hard cover and it seems we aren't being given the answer for a reason.

In fact to quote from the book :

"Is this really the story of the witnesses and has everything from the witnesses been addressed? Is there more to come? Yes, there is more to come."

.

Oh yeh and those binary codes also have a final message :

EYES OF YOUR EYES

ORIGIN 52.09425532N 13.131269w (Hy Brasil)

ORIGIN YEAR 8100

Looks like Rendlesham will roll on for a while.

a reply to: mirageman

Oh yeh and those binary codes also have a final message :




EYES OF YOUR EYES

ORIGIN 52.09425532N 13.131269w (Hy Brasil)

ORIGIN YEAR 8100

Is the bit in brackets (Hy Brasil) meant to be part of the actual code? If it is then that is proof positive that Penniston is making stuff up now. When he mentioned the original code and it was deciphered as Hy Brasil he said that was wrong and it was meant to be Woodbridge.

Seems like after getting caught out he is now running with the "mystical places" angle and just can't stop himself cooking up more BS. Hence the extra list of 5 or 6 coordinates that came out a while back.

-----


Guest101: it's not clear to me from that transcript that he is taking readings from whatever is "4 feet of the ground". Sounds more like he is talking about the meter and then switching his attention to the light and stating where it is.

a reply to: Rob48

Yes, the four feet off the ground could be referring to the meter, but we still are left with this one strange episode where Halt says “I think it's something not on the ground. I think it's something that's...something very large.”

He says it just after they were measuring radiation four feet off the ground in a direction of 110 degrees.
Could this ‘very large object’ be the yellow patch of fog that Bustinza remembers seeing?

The next thing they would logically do is to move towards the patch of fog and examine it, and find out it has a yellow tinge.

According to Bustinza:
“we came upon a yellow mist about 2-or-3 feet off the ground. It was like dew, but yellow … like nothing I've ever seen before. … We kind of like ignored it. We were worried about the [other] object … to see if we could locate it again or catch up to it again …”

Because they "kind of ignored it" there is hardly any reference to it on the Halt tape, but the "yellow" and the "something that is very large" may well be connected to the yellow fog.

a reply to: Guest101

I was interpreting that as referring to the light itself appearing to be a distant "very large" object, and "off the ground", but I'd have to listen to the audio again really.

(Incidentally, why is there no mention on the audio tapes of touching the craft, making notes, copying hieroglyphics etc etc?)


As for the mist itself, I just pulled up the weather reports for RAF Bentwaters for December 1980.

www.tutiempo.net...

There is no official "fog" observation for the 26th, but I note that there was half an inch of rain (12.95mm) the previous day (Dec 25), and a minimum temperature of 3C overnight. With wet ground and chilly temperatures, it seems pretty likely that localised patches of mist would form. When skies clear overnight in winter after rainfall, you often see mist occurring.

I am picking up a copy of the book today, and look very much toward starting a read today.

a reply to: Rob48

You’re confusing the first night (25/26 Dec) with the third night (27/28 Dec).

Maybe it’s good to take some time to carefully read the timeline:
bentwaters1980.proboards.com...

Penniston is the only one claiming he touched a craft, and he only was a witness to the first night (25/26 Dec).
The Halt tape was made on the third night (27/28 Dec). Penniston was not there.

The third night started with a sighting by Battram and his patrol.
The ground fog is also mentioned by Battram in the CNN documentary posted earlier in this thread, so maybe Bustinza was referring to the ground fog seen by Battram (Bustinza arrived with Englund shortly after Battram had left the forest):

Battram: We were about halfway into the shift, I guess, when we noticed some lights in the sky that didn’t seem to follow any pattern of any aircraft we’d seen.
We watched them for a while and they disappeared. And the next thing we saw was the lights in the forest…in a clearing off the end of the runway.
We called Central Security Control to tell them we’d like to go investigate it, and they gave us permission to go on out.
As we got in there, we could see into the clearing and see a series of lights in there surrounded by like a ground fog. It was kind of common of the area so we did not really think much of it.
We decided to get a little bit closer to see what we could find out.
When we got closer, you began to feel the hair on your arms, and the back of your neck, under your hat even, stand on end. Like there was a real big static charge in the air.
We could see into the clearing and see a set of lights that seemed to be alternating through different color ranges but it was predominantly a red or reddish-orange hue to it.
I said ‘let’s just get the heck out of here’ and turned around and left. And we took off at a run (laughs) and went back to our vehicle.
I looked like a fire at first, that’s what we thought it was. … red or reddish orange color but it had other colors moving around in it.

a reply to: Guest101

You are right of course and I know this, that was me posting without thinking! All those binary codes have dulled my brain

From those weather records the temperature dropped to -1C on the night of the 27th-28th so again with damp ground and clear skies you would expect to see patches of mist or fog forming.

The ground drops away from the forest towards the farmhouse and there is a stream there, so ideal conditions for mist formation you would think. Perhaps possible for the lighthouse beam and/or farmhouse lights to reflect off the mist and fog and create an orange/yellow effect?

a reply to: Rob48

No - (Hy Brasil) is placed in brackets for the readers benefit. (Well at least that's my assumption as the same is done with the other mystical places).

In fairness to Nick Pope he does pose questions about these codes and the interpretation(s) given especially the "New Age holiday wish-list" as he calls it. But given that he's in the difficult position of also authoring a book with Penniston then he understandably treads carefully with this part of the story.

The book itself is a good read for those who have maybe read a few articles or seen a documentary or two and want to know more. For me there was a lot of covering of the information I'd already read previously. But Nick Pope has done a decent job of pulling it all together even if things are still left somewhat open ended.

a reply to: mirageman

Thanks for the info. Many years ago in my slightly more credulous days I read Pope's book (Open Skies, Closed Minds I think it was called) and it was quite interesting.

a reply to: Rob48

I too owned a copy of that book but haven't read it for a long time. I seem to remember that I did find it very interesting. The 1990s seem quite recent in some ways but so much has changed since the turn of the millennium that it really was a different world back then.

As for Rendlesham, well, it's a great mystery. However the Roswell mythology started around 30 - 35 years after the event and we are now at that same point after Rendlesham.

a reply to: mirageman

I don't think its a mystery at all. Its clear that an object, unidentified and extraterrestrial in nature, came down in a very sensitive military area, which was most likely spying/observing the weapons systems as lots of ufo's seem to do, and was seen by many, high ranking officers from within the Air Force. It continued to come back at least two more times. It had physical and mental effects on at least the 2 A.F. Officers who came into close contact with it.