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

originally posted by: mirageman
I am going to start looking back at the 'early days' of the 1980s when the story first began to break.

Here's just a small taster from International UFO Reporter No.9

The incident is reported as 30th December and reported by a farmer (this was often repeated in other sources). Even back then the dates were being confused. Was it all just confusion and bad memories?

The source of this article is probably an article by Jenny Randles, you can find it on the pdf I gave earlier in the thread, on page 26.
It was written somewhere in 1982.

The source of the story was Steve Roberts (pseudonym), he was Brenda’s contact.

According to the article by Jenny, Roberts gave 30 December as the date it happened. In YCTTP, however, the date of Roberts’ story is given as December 27. If this really happened on December 30, we have a motive for Halt to shift the dates to such an extent that the third night overlaps December 30, and there was actually a fourth night… But on the other hand, the story could be based on rumours or deliberate disinformation.

Roberts claimed that this was not the first incident that happened in the vicinity of the base, although this was the most impressive as it involved contact. Robert told Brenda not to discuss the matter publicly. Brenda complied with his request until other sources informed her of the incident.

The story told by Steve Roberts matches that of Larry Warren very accurately.

Someone from the base newspaper went to the scene and is said to have filmed the object on the ground. Entities, three of them, about three feet tall and in silvery suits, were suspended in mid-air beside the craft within shafts of light. The base commander confiscated all the cameras and demanded a total news blackout. He himself spoke to the aliens whilst they worked. The object was on the ground for four hours.

a reply to: Guest101

I posted "Steve Robert's" flying saucer illustration a while back. It almost feels like he chased after Brenda with this story?

After further research, including APEN, I've come to the conclusion that for whatever reason, the RFI was leaked by those trying to hard to hide to this day. The reason I believe was that it was felt it as inevitable? The RFI would become public knowledge and therefore controlling the leak was the best solution.

As such, I think the next breakthrough for the RFI will come from one of three sources:
- Idenitfying the sources of disinformation, beginning with some corruption of early reports like Skycrash
- Burrough's and Dugdale's new discoveries and the radio show due this June
- Halt revealing some of the things he holds back

It's very interesting how one can find connections between the hearsay and stories at the start from "Roberts", Warren and Halt. Each shared key points of the original RFI story that are no longer spoken of or accepted.

Halt and Warren: an airman climbing the craft and being carried along
Roberts and Warren: the ufo being repaired and alien beings talking to a superior

Interesting how quickly this alternative narrative was embedded!

All I can say for certain is that the RFI was something and that it was in part a nuclear or radioactive incident.

a reply to: mirageman

That variation is nearly as "golden age" as you get,
short of the little fellers asking for well water
and paying with biscuits.

RFI is like the bible.. if you talk to 10 people who read it,
you will get 30 interpretations of it.

Kev

a reply to: Guest101

The story told by Steve Roberts matches that of Larry Warren very accurately.


Someone from the base newspaper went to the scene and is said to have filmed the object on the ground. Entities, three of them, about three feet tall and in silvery suits, were suspended in mid-air beside the craft within shafts of light. The base commander confiscated all the cameras and demanded a total news blackout. He himself spoke to the aliens whilst they worked. The object was on the ground for four hours

Larry Warren also claimed that there were British police officers, one with a camera, at the scene and it was taken away from him by a US airman.


Clip from Left at East Gate

Think about this act. If it really happened then it was surely a violation of international protocols.

Since when did the US air force have the right to interfere with the duties of HM Police Force in territory under the jurisdiction of the British authorities?

Early Reports on Rendlesham
===================================

The very first reports of the incident I can trace were recorded in Flying Saucer Review and written in early 1981.

Written in Feb 1981 by Jenny Randles.

........According to the story — which at present is complex, uncertain, and in some areas contradictory — between about December 27, 1980, and the end of_]anuary 1981, at least one major UFO event occurred in the area of Rendlesham Forest (which is just east of Ipswich and close to the USAF base at Bentwaters). If the rumours are to be believed then several other radar encounters have occurred, and the story attached to these has escalated locally to proportions which involve multiple landings on the base!

The consistent features of the rumour appear to involve a radar tracking of an object by the base radar, an Eastern seaboard civil radar, the civil aviation radar in West Drayton, and at least one other radar station. This object, it is claimed, was seen, visually, not only by personnel at the base, but from an overflying civil airliner, and by a local farmer — who called the police to investigate its crash into the forest. Subsequently air force personnel are alleged to have visited the site, seen the object on the ground, suffered EM interference with their jeep, and found both physical traces and residual radiation after the craft had left. In addition the USAF are alleged to have confiscated movie film of the radar tapes from the civilian radar establishments.



At the present it is impossible to say how much of this is fact and how much fiction generated by the inevitable stories that are sweeping the community. Some of it will probably prove to be exaggeration. But it does seem that there is a good deal of evidence that something did occur and that, if nothing else, it was a radar,/visual sighting which has created considerable interest for both the RAF and CAA as well as the USAF......

Source : Flying Saucer Review V26 No.6

A follow up on the above report from 1982 cover the case in a bit more detail. Although it was still sparse at the time.

It repeats the story as given above but also mentions that Brenda Butler and Dot Street were involved in investigations. All of the above was coming from one or more airman on the base. They were now adding in stories of a crashed UFO being repaired. Small entities were seen and that the area had been cordoned off and an aircraft crash was being used as a cover story. Although Jenny Randles was not particularly treating these additions as gospel.

A few further points :

Dot apparently spoke to two elderly gentleman in a house close to the edge of the woods who stated there had been a great deal of military activity in the woods during the previous month or so (this was Feb 1981). Their house lights had also flashed on and off at times and TV reception was poorer than normal. But alas they had no knowledge of any UFO crash landing.

Dot spoke with a farmer and his wife who reported a UFO landing and they had been visited by two man (or just one according to the wife) asking questions. Brenda claimed Suffolk police knew something after contacting them but she was referred to the Bentwaters Base Commander.

At the time it was felt that a cover-story concerning a crashed plane was being put out there to cover a UFO story.
It ends with a quote from Brenda Butler.

“We must have an open mind. It may have been a UFO . . . or a secret experiment of some sort.”

Source : Flying Saucer Review V27 No.6

Yep that’s the bit that hasn't changed!

Since that time though the plane crash story is only mentioned as the initial reactions as the possible cause of the lights in the forest on Boxing Day morning 1980.

Also the farmer who reported the incident seems to have disappeared from the narrative.


ETA :

This may be of interest to those who missed it the first time it was posted.

a reply to: mirageman

Fantastic share Mirage! I seem to remember watching a video clip of the two old men talking about TV interference during the RFI . Strangely, 'Peter Padget' talks of similar interference near the Broadhaven school.

Ripperston Farm would experience points where the TV would only work if switched to110 volts versus 240volts. This is incredibly odd and suggests the local US navy sonar station were switching power generation to US power standards.

I wonder if there is any evidence of 110volt power being used around the twin bases?

originally posted by: The GUT

Yep. Multifaceted testing. Full-spectrum in a sense. That's how it fits for me. Security-Psychological-Non-Lethal Weaponry. With that overlay--and including all aspects--it fits rather snugly. What it's become since then is hard to say. A mongrel for sure.

Legendary first Commanding Officer of the Navy Seals Richard Marcinko would probably know some about operations like this if it was one. He's made some interesting comments here and there about penetration testing.

Also, and I wish I had more time to go back and dig this stuff up, but the British have probably understood best and earliest the weaponization possibilities inherent in understanding UAP/EM/ball lightning/plasmas, etc. Nick Redfern has written some on it and maybe Pilkington too.

Aliens/Interdimensionals, Hysteria, or something along the lines of The Above. Those are pretty much the choices.

Those are my suspicions.

Andrew Pike allows these sightings could have a natural cause. Whether natural or not it would clearly be a technology much desired by government agencies.

My current hypothesis is this particular holiday season time travelers and et were occupied somewhere else.

Andrew Pike allows these sightings could have a natural cause. Whether natural or not it would clearly be a technology much desired by government agencies

a reply to: DaveBowman

Andrew is an interesting one, and he does pass my way from time to time.
I see Burroughs is mentioning Andrews book as a "must" read.
The only problem is , it is know longer available as many know.

Andrew kindly sent me a copy of his material (A CD version) to Ireland for me to read.
But I do know there has been problems for him in ufo land, so he is a quiet one.
UFO land and mediums such as these are not the kindest of places . So, I do
not blame him for been a tad aloof, he has been kind enough to answer things
I have asked now and again though. But Burroughs does bring up Andrew a fair
bit.

originally posted by: mirageman

Larry Warren also claimed that there were British police officers, one with a camera, at the scene and it was taken away from him by a US airman.

Clip from Left at East Gate

Think about this act. If it really happened then it was surely a violation of international protocols.

Since when did the US air force have the right to interfere with the duties of HM Police Force in territory under the jurisdiction of the British authorities?

We also know who took them and who gave the order:

“At one point, Larry Warren was out there, and we were instructed — I don't know if Larry told Colonel Halt that some people had cameras or recorders out there or something, or if I told him I saw them when we were driving up, but I do remember seeing when we were driving up all kinds of police officers — we called them bobbies (U. K. policemen). Colonel Halt instructed us to go confiscate and I remember confiscating several cameras, and we took them back and gave it to them (Col. Halt).
I had conversation with John, and I was telling John the type of cameras there was. And I remember specifically one of them was like a Minolta camera, but I think it was more like a Monica or something to that effect. I remember because it had the big letters in the front of the camera. So we turned those in. I lost track of Larry Warren at that point.”

Bustinza in his recent interview on Phenomenon Radio, 2015

“There were 2 bobbies there. ... Colonel Halt approached myself and Larry [Warren] … Was it Larry? I'm trying to remember -- I'm not to sure of the other guy's name. [Halt] told us to approach the individuals who at that time were standing in the grass area. … They had some very sophisticated camera equipment, which wasn't unusual for the British. … [Halt] told us to confiscate the material from the British nationals. Well, we confiscated the film and turned it over to Colonel Halt and [he] put it into a plastic bag. Colonel Halt said it would be dealt with at a higher level of command. He didn't say exactly at what level or anything. I would assume it went to the photography department on base at the time. It could easily have been the intelligence department as well.”

Bustinza to Ray Boeche, 1984

Georgina Bruni tried to find and interview those Bobbies, found one of them, but did not get much cooperation …
The PC she found who had allegedly been there refused to speak to her and was a bit aggressive on the phone.
The story is in her book.

a reply to: ctj83

I confess I've started to read through Sky Crash again, since that's where I started all those years ago.
Its amazing what you forget!
I've just read about Dot and Brenda's first investigative foray into the woods and I don't recall ever reading about the mishap with the car, which suddenly accelerated up to 70 mph, going down a track.
After they regained control and continued on their journey, spoke to the people in a local cottage and gleaned a little info, they decided to return along the same route.
The car went super fast again in the same spot.
The car was taken to a garage and checked over but with no problems discovered.

I'd forgotten this little incident and I'm wondering if this has any relevance to all this.

Could it be something to do with the area itself, a sneaky little weapon used on the investigators, or simply a transient mechanical defect???

Could be nothing but coincidence but with locals reporting car stops and ignition problems, TV and radio interference intermittently is this a clue?

If this is a side effect of some exotic tech being tested ( or just in use) its odd that it caused their car to speed up instead of making it stop like others.

Perhaps this mystery tech has a positive/negative setting?

Like I said, possibly of no interest at all but I'd forgotten about this completely.

a reply to: mirageman

Am I the only one who has noticed, with this thread, that even when we get to "nothing happened whatsoever", that eventually everything gets reset to "it might have been aliens/extradimensionals/natural phenomenon"?

The old, "it was a satellite" comes around too, but it does not have a leg to stand on ;-) (it would have burned up/fallen over)
Or it was the lighthouse or a meteorite show.. those are not particularly credible either..

then we wind to "it was a test" either of a physical weapon, or a psyop.. and we circle round and round.

A really paranoid person would claim that we are all in the grip of the phenomenon, which has us in it's (presumably evil) grip, and we and others will go in endless circles chasing our tails, no matter which new evidence comes our way.

Even if a particular person becomes 100% non-credible, such as say "JP", another source will pop up and make someone else quite credible and interesting.. for a while..until eventually they become trashed.

Kev

a reply to: Guest101

None of which is recorded on the Halt Tape which brings me on to.....

Colonel Halt Discrepancy No.1
================================

As said I am going to dissect what Colonel Halt has said about the incident. There are two major contemporary pieces of evidence that come from the Colonel. His memo and his tape.

The Halt memo declares :

1. Early in the morning of 27 Dec 80 (approximately 0300L) two USAF security police patrolmen saw unusual lights outside the back gate at RAF Woodbridge. Thinking an aircraft might have crashed or been forced down, they called for permission to go outside the gate to investigate. The on-duty flight chief responded and allowed three patrolmen to proceed on foot.

We now know that to be wrong as he has claimed he wrote it all from memory a few weeks later. Throwing not only the MoD off balance but researchers for years in trying to find further evidence. Even though he’d not only otained written statements from the main witnesses but had made a tape himself and had access to base records. Surely an unforgivable error in an official memo to the MoD. He will probably claim it was a casual note and not that important as he was trying to pass any investigation over to the MoD. Even though he never asks for any particular response by the MoD in the content of the memo.

But what did actually happen on the 27th Dec 1980?

Colonel Halt claims his first awareness of the Rendlesham Incident was on Boxing Day morning as he was catching up with the overnight reports in the office. Apparently Burroughs, Penniston and Cabansag has been “out chasing UFOs” but no one wanted to write it up.

For a long time he has always ignored the 2nd night (26th/27th Dec 1980). However last year in his talk at Woodbridge (see around 19:55 into the video below) he claims he did not become aware of the events of this night until 7 or 8 years ago (around 2007/8). The story, according to Halt, is that female shift commander Lt. Bonnie Tamplin was out in the woods and whatever happened she threw her gun down and ran. She left the base a few days later and supposedly had a nervous breakdown. But Halt claims he was never told about this. Really?



The story from other personnel (John Burroughs, John Trementozzi and Lori Buoen)is that Tamplin saw a blue light fly through windscreen of her patrol vehicle, she screamed for her supervisor MSgt. Bob Ball and went into complete panic. She then had to be relieved of duty.

I find this incredible that Halt would not be aware of such an incident. All senior officers have a duty of care towards their staff so Halt would surely have know about this incident at the time. Even if it hadn’t got that up the command chain straight away, MSgt. Bob Ball accompanied Halt on his excursion off base the following night. So I would find it highly unlikely that it wasn’t mentioned to Halt at that time by Ball himself.

Was he a forgetful bumbling Deputy Base Commander as he has made out?

Could Bonnie Tamplin’s incident have alluded him for decades as he states?

Even though he obviously knew her well as he says he quite liked her in the video above. Didn't he ever wonder where she'd gone if she never returned to work?

Or does it all suggest he knew full well what had been going on but chose not to relate the details in public and controlling what was released into the public domain?

a reply to: Tulpa

Jenny Randles wasn't too impressed by the story of Brenda losing control of the car after repeating that story in FSR.

"I am forced to wonder if an old car, on a rough track in winter, might not have a loose connection shaken about by the terrain?"

But who knows?

a reply to: mirageman

The blue light flying through the windscreen is the single most interesting event (allegation of an event anyway) for me.

It's the kind of thing which nearly *everyone* tries to sweep under the rug.

The ETH folks rave on about plasma drives and what not.. but physical plasma won't "fly through windscreens" unless it's melting it's way through. Neither will satellites or meteorites.

"plasmas" or "light orbs" which disregard matter entirely surely point to something quite unusual underlying the entire event, if of course you think the eye witness was not lying or delusional.

Kev

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Very true. You step through the revolving doors into a hall of mirrors shifting on quicksand eventually leading back to the revolving doors which take you out into the smoke again.

But perhaps this was all an experiment to see how humans interact with this phenomena at close range and John Burroughs became patient zero?

a reply to: mirageman

It has to be said that it is a merry dance we've been on since so long ago.
No ones ever come up with a satisfactory answer and so many people really want it to be whatever their favourite theory is.
As for the evidence. Seems to go nowhere really so every last little bit gets over analysed until some kind of meaning gets forced to fit.

As for the car story. Accelerator cables could freeze up I suppose but in an already warm engine compartment its unlikely.
I've had a front brake freeze up on a motorbike once and that's no fun. You shouldn't ride in freezing fog. But anyway, these little diversions can be amusing if nothing else.

a reply to: mirageman

Well as I mentioned a year or two ago; the Earthlight or "artificially generated Earthlight" theory is one of the better theories which nobody seems to be championing. Perhaps Andrew Pike did...but we know That something/someone shutdown Andrew.

Now since "plasmas" have been artificially generated since "foo fighters", I don't see why this theory is seemingly buried with great gusto.

It seems intuitively obvious to the most casual of observers (Blaise Pascal).

It also does not necessarily imply anything supernatural.

But if some group is using a similar technology for mind control and cultural manipulation...then that would explain why this perfectly servicible theory never grows legs.

Kev

a reply to: Tulpa

i know nothing about cars, but it's interesting at least. When compared with the testing going on near Broadhaven and the interference, electricity wise there as well.

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Kev, not sure if it was clear but the reason I brought that up was that Randles introduced that theory via APEN and Dr Alan Bond. She gave far less detail to the public than she did to Ray Boeche.

It's quite clear that it could never have been that, and I was bringing it up not as a valid option but as one I think we can totally discount. More than that though, I see it as a disinformation narrative that SOMEONE has being trying to inject into the RFI for decades.

a reply to: mirageman

I've heard audio recording of Halt talk about Tamplin crying down the walkie talkie to him.