Eburacum
Senior Member.
That's an interesting subject. Here's a Nicaragua stamp commemorating John Goodricke, who lived in my area.
http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/goodricke.html
http://www.ianridpath.com/stamps/goodricke.html
Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident
- Thread starter Eburacum
- Start date
John J.
Senior Member.
If biscuits are being handed out, I've found it useful to
Good to see you here @Ian Ridpath!
John J.
Senior Member.
I'm going a bit OT, but Ufophilately is a thing too:
Found these online but without any accompanying information; the lower picture refers to the tragic death of pilot Thomas Mantell in 1948.
From Grenada, 1978:
Descriptions of each, top to bottom -From a different (Tripod) site with inferior pictures, "Grenada Quest To Discover More About U.F.Os And Related Phenomena -- August 1978", T.J. Smith, 2003:
The Tripod webpage explains that the then-Grenadian Prime Minister had spokenExternal Quote:
and called forExternal Quote:
I don't think Royal Mail has minted a commemorative set for Rendlesham Forest yet.External Quote:
Mendel
Senior Member.
ChasingStorms
New Member
The most intriguing aspect about the Rendlesham Forest UFO case is that the testimonies of the eye-witnesses have slowly become more grandiose over time. I remember hearing about the incident 20 years ago and I found it interesting, or at least intriguing. The witnesses then started adding to their stories, almost as if it was an attempt to reignite interest in the case. I find it bizarre that Sgt. Penniston didn't think to mention this binary code at all during the initial buzz surrounding the event, and I can't help but wonder why? It's not due to a lack of memory because he remembers absolutely everything else about the incident. I suspect he underwent hypnotic regression and whoever was conducting the hypnosis session inadvertently created false memories - Phantom memories of the event which were conceived during hypnosis. I've never trusted this hypnotic regression to begin with. It often seems more about creating false memories than accessing repressed memories.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
There are several comments (233) on one of the BadUFOs blog posts from 2015 about the case:
https://badufos.blogspot.com/search?q=rendlesham
It includes a lot of back and forth with a guy, likely a Gary Osborne, claiming to have deciphered the binary code. He and Penniston eventually wrote a book about this. However, there was also a commenter claiming to be a friend of Penniston, and depending on how one takes her comments, she seems to infer she saw him writing the code or some more code:
External Quote:
It's an entertaining bit of commentary, even if @Ian Ridpath points out most of it has little to do with the actual events of Rendlesham, it's become part of the lore now. The book in question that reveals all the secrets of Penniston's codes is over 700 pages and $30. I'll pass, but will add to my list for thrift store finds:External Quote:
John J.
Senior Member.
Correct, there is no mention by Penniston of him touching the "UFO", or anything about binary code or any form of message, in his original witness statement to his superiors.
The original statement strongly implies that Penniston estimated the closest he and Burroughs got to the "UFO" was 50 metres (approx. 164 ft., 55 yards).
From @Ian Ridpath's excellent Rendlesham Forest UFO case website, "19 Jim Penniston's notebook" http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/pennistonnotebook.html#updateExternal Quote:
Penniston's colleagues Burroughs and Cabansag both wrote statements which describe them pursuing lights, finding at one point a lit-up farmhouse and eventually a lighthouse (Cabansag says "beacon light"), which would be the Orford Ness lighthouse. No encounters with an unambiguous landed exotic craft. Later Burroughs saw some blue lights through the trees; but we know the local civilian police force (Suffolk Constabulary) attended; UK police cars carry blue identifying beacons/ lightbars only (not e.g. red, white, blue lightbars like some American police cars have).
Again, Ian Ridpath has beaten us to it;
http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/pennistonnotebook.htmlExternal Quote:
The last line refers to similarities that Ian noticed between Penniston's beliefs following his 1994 hypnosis and the plot of a TV movie, Official Denial (1993)
http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/officialdenial.html
If Penniston's account is correct, we have to accept that the makers of the craft he claims to have touched- whether ETI or humans from the future- speak (or at least understand) English, identified Penniston as an English speaker and decided he was someone they should share their itinerary with. (Why? If they wanted 1980s humanity to know their intentions, I can think of more obvious ways).
And they use the alphabet, with the same number of letters in the same order as contemporary English-speakers do (the Latin alphabet has changed over time). We know this because the binary written down by Penniston is in the form of a simple substitution code, where strings of binary digits represent a decimal number (0-9) or a letter of the (contemporary English version of the) Latin alphabet. The message is only intelligible in English.
Interestingly, the substitution code used isn't the simplest that could have been employed (e.g. something like 00000001 = 1, 0001001 = 9, 0001010 = A, 00100100 = Z), nor is it the most concise- numbers 0-9 and letters A-Z require just 36 different binary numbers up to 100100, so the first two bits (00)* are redundant.
Instead, Penniston's code is (almost?*) identical to ASCII (Wikipedia), which uses 8 bits (1 byte) per character. ASCII has values representing punctuation marks (and, traditionally, teleprinter control prompts) that precede the representation of decimal numbers and letters, so decimal "1" is ASCII 00110001, not 00000001.
The visitors use ASCII. This should give us optimism about the future of our current civilisation.
A cynic might point out that ASCII tables are readily available (and might have been relatively easy to find in e.g. in books on computing/ telecommunications, perhaps from a library, even in the 1980s).
Rather than compile a binary substitution code from scratch, it would be easy for someone to use an ASCII table to compose a message.
Even if Penniston's message was in fact written around the time of the Rendlesham Forest events -and we have no evidence for this other than Penniston's accounts from c. 2010 on, contradicted by Burroughs- it isn't safe to assume that Penniston had no knowledge of binary or ASCII.
And even if he didn't, it's hard to understand why a rational person who felt somehow compelled to write down a long series of "0's" and "1's", which they didn't understand, would then sit on it and not make some effort to investigate its meaning (if any). Or visit a doctor- it must have been an alarming experience and is certainly out of the ordinary.
*Could be wrong, but I think Penniston's binary strings might have been of 7 bits, dispensing with the first bit- invariably "0"- of the corresponding 8-bit ASCII codes. Even if this is correct, it must be unlikely that this represents some far-future or extraterrestrial system for encoding alphanumerics that is coincidentally identical to ASCII minus the parity bit.
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FatPhil
Senior Member.
ASCII's 7-bit, and defined no in-band parity bit. For transmission or storage you may frame the binary septet with a parity bit, but then you're defining your own new code that just happens to contain an ASCII septet as one of its fields (that you might do so was indeed considered by the ASA, and that was one of the criteria that persuaded them to keep it to 7-bit).
Mauro
Senior Member.
Notice ASCII code has always been 7 bits long. It was designed for serial communication in the teletype era and using one more bit would have been wasteful, at a time when transmission speeds were very low. Iirc a total of 10 bits were needed to send a character, one START bit, the 7 bit code, a parity bit (a basic error-check function) and a STOP bit. When stored on a computer the 7-bit code was then usually padded with a zero to fit in 1 byte, but this was not part of the standard (which only concerned with data in serial format).
In 1980 ASCII was widely known, I personally came to know ASCII as a teen, in the mid-70s.
Edit: @FatPhil beat me to it xD
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John J.
Senior Member.
Ah, thank you. I mistakenly thought ASCII codes were routinely 8-bit. So Penniston's message uses unadulterated ASCII.
JJB
Active Member
As I remember it from when we talked about it years ago, it started with colored lights — most likely a prank involving a police car in the fog — which lured Halt and his crew into the woods, where they ended up staring at the Orford Ness lighthouse flashing through the trees.
We even have Halt's own audio recording where he counts the five-second intervals between flashes — perfectly matching the lighthouse beam.
The infamous "landing site"? Locals who lived and worked there for years visited it and found absolutely nothing unusual. Just three rabbit holes in a triangle. That's it.
As for the "radiation readings," even the manufacturer of the instrument used confirmed they were background levels — completely normal and scientifically insignificant. The tape recording from that night backs this up. No spike, no anomaly, no mystery.
There is zero documentation of any radar contact during the event. None. Another claim that falls apart under even light scrutiny.
The only extraordinary thing here is how silly it made the U.S. personnel look. Halt was told to file a memo so the whole thing could be quietly buried. And it probably would've been — until it was released via FOIA years later.
Then, like clockwork, the UFO crowd turned a minor Cold War embarrassment into a full-blown science fiction drama.
We even have Halt's own audio recording where he counts the five-second intervals between flashes — perfectly matching the lighthouse beam.
The infamous "landing site"? Locals who lived and worked there for years visited it and found absolutely nothing unusual. Just three rabbit holes in a triangle. That's it.
As for the "radiation readings," even the manufacturer of the instrument used confirmed they were background levels — completely normal and scientifically insignificant. The tape recording from that night backs this up. No spike, no anomaly, no mystery.
There is zero documentation of any radar contact during the event. None. Another claim that falls apart under even light scrutiny.
The only extraordinary thing here is how silly it made the U.S. personnel look. Halt was told to file a memo so the whole thing could be quietly buried. And it probably would've been — until it was released via FOIA years later.
Then, like clockwork, the UFO crowd turned a minor Cold War embarrassment into a full-blown science fiction drama.
John J.
Senior Member.
Broadly agree with your sentiments, but the Rendlesham Forest claims got nationwide publicity in the UK on 2nd October 1983, when the then-bestselling Sunday newspaper, the News of the World, published this headline (below) after someone who had been a USAF Security Police serviceman at RAF Bentwaters/ RAF Woodbridge (Larry Warren I think) spoke with a journalist.
The UK's Freedom of Information Act didn't exist until 2000 (Wikipedia).
FatPhil
Senior Member.
Opinions vary, but it doesn't take a particularly focussed websearch to find ones like:
That was ``"news of the world" garbage'' on Startpage, and was the top hit.External Quote:
(Aside: I tend to associate tabloid trash with post commoditisation-of-the-press Wapping more than Fleet Street, but Murdoch wouldn't move NotW (& Sun & Times) to Wapping until several years after that headline.)
Scaramanga
Senior Member
Gosh....hard to know where to begin with this.
Sorry, but there is simply no conceivable position or route in which the base buildings at Woodbridge would have been southwest ( 225 degrees ) . It just doesn't work. I'm in Google Earth right now and looking at it all, and Halt would have had to be way up near Wantisden Park, way off any stated position, for the base to be at 225 degrees. And yet, multiple witnesses, including Halt himself who recently went over the exact route again on Youtube, all say he headed past the farm in the infamous field and towards Butley Abbey.
In fact the base buildings would not have been south or southwest of Halt....but due west. Halt's bearings would have had to be off by a massive 90 degrees. And if we are to be consistent, this also throws off your claim that Vega is 'the star to the north'.
Note that at 2.44 in the Halt Transcript he states..
HALT: 2:44. We're at the far side of the farmer's...the second farmer's field
So we do know where Halt was ( in the second farm field...the one on the other side of the road beyond the first farm field ). Just 20 minutes or so later we have Halt stating...
HALT: 3:05. At about ten degrees, horizon, directly north, we've got two strange objects, er, half moon shape, dancing about, with coloured lights on 'em.
and 10 minutes later...
HALT: 03:15. Now we've got an object about 10 degrees directly south, 10 degrees off the horizon.
So, it is just half an hour between Halt being at the far side of the second farmer's field and him spotting the 'object to the south'. Nothing I have ever heard in any telling of the story by anyone indicates that in that time Halt travelled 1.5 miles to the north....for no reason whatever...in order for the base to be due southwest !
As for Jupiter / Saturn, you surely cannot be consistent if you claim that a particular phenomenon ( stars, planets ) lies behind a report and yet omit the most glaringly obvious such example in the sky 'because it doesn't fit'. Surely you do have to consider it in the analysis, precisely so it can be asked why didn't Halt confuse that as well and why he picked on poor Sirius that was only shining at about 60% of the brightness of Jupiter at the time. Surely the close conjunction of Jupiter/Saturn would be THE most obvious such thing in the sky to confuse for a UFO....yet it is never mention in the Halt tape. Surely you can't just cherry pick which stars and planets 'fit' as that is selection bias.
Oh, and a fascinating fact. During that time period, Jupiter and Saturn ( less than a degree apart ) rose in the east literally right behind the infamous lighthouse. The lighthouse is at 94 degrees relative to the East Gate....Jupiter and Saturn rose at 93 degrees or so.
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Scaramanga
Senior Member
To this day, Halt is tight lipped about whether there were nuclear weapons. So, he'd be equally tight lipped about what 'really' happened. And in my view, that includes the entire UFO incident being a cover story.
It's odd how the infamous 'landing site' just happens to align within a few degrees of the runway. Just the right location for something to fall off a plane coming in to land from the east, in fact. Well....a piece of ordnance landing in a forest outside the base would not go down too well. They'd have to remove it....hence all the massive floodlights. And why else would Halt have his Geiger counter with him ?? Why take a Geiger counter to debunk a UFO ? In fact, why even be out there at all at 3am, on a cold winter night, with Geiger counter, floodlights, a team of at least 5 people, and relaying everything back to base, just to dismiss some 'lights in the woods' ?
Ask yourself...why would they have floodlights in the forest at 3am to look for the landing site, when they already knew where the alleged site was ( Penniston says he returned to it the day after his incident, to make plaster casts ) and Halt went right there on his visit 2 days later. So what are those floodlights really looking for ?
And go through the Halt tape......over 2/3 of it, at the start, makes zero reference to any lights or UFO but is ALL related to radiation levels. They are in the forest for over half an hour before anyone even mentions any lights. All very odd if the sole reason for them being there IS the UFO lights....almost as if the UFO bit is added later.
So Halt is charged with concocting a cover story for what really happened. 'Make it look like a UFO'. There are claims that the OSI turned up. Would they really care about odd lights in the woods ? I doubt it. There'd be a cover story covering several nights, to confuse the actual date ( which the Halt memo further compounds by getting the dates 'wrong'...which is odd for someone who meticulously records everything ), and various staff including Halt himself would be the fall guys for a crazy UFO story where Halt can't recall important details and people keep changing their stories....because none of it ever actually happened.
So, 45 years later we have the 'Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident'...rather than 'Yet another embarrassing incident where nuclear ordnance fell off a plane' ( actually known as 'Broken Arrow' incidents ).
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Scaramanga
Senior Member
I should elaborate to make it clearer...
Halt is at a late Xmas dinner when he's told 'They're back'. He drops everything and heads out into the woods with a small team ( 5 people, it seems ) and a Geiger counter. He claims he intended to debunk the whole thing. Yeah, right, like a Geiger counter is going to dismiss lights in the woods ?
But hold on. Halt already knows where the 'landing site' is . Penniston went there in broad daylight, the day after the 1st incident, to get the plaster casts. In fact the entire base has had two days in which to look at the landing site, and many have done so. Halt arrives and finds a load of floodlights. So everyone knows where the landing site is and is already there. Why ?? To look at some new pixie lights in the woods that are actually not there when Halt arrives ? Why are the floodlights there ?
And is the first thing that Halt asks ' OK so where are the 'they' that are back ?' No. There's zero mention of any 'they' or any lights for 2/3 of the Halt tape. Yet 'they' are the only supposed reason Halt is out there. So why is Halt checking for radiation at 3am on a cold winter night rather than coming back a few hours later when its broad daylight. Why is Halt even checking for radiation levels at all ?
So we have floodlights, and radiation level checking, and no sign of any 'they' for 2/3 of the tape....and I'm to believe that some odd pixie lights in the woods are behind all this ?
And howcome Halt goes into great detail on the radiation checking....2/3 of the tape when there's no lights visible...yet a UFO supposedly hovering 2000 feet above him and shining down a beam of light gets just 2 lines. Why the lack of any detail on the most interesting bit ? Almost as if it was added later.
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Mendel
Senior Member.
You've proposed this last year, but you're as short on evidence now as you were then. John's rebuttal at https://www.metabunk.org/threads/rendlesham-forest-ufo-incident.13457/post-315316 still stands.
It looks to me like both bases had tactical nukes, but they were gone by December 1980.
Article: Apparently, long before I was stationed here [Woodbridge, 1988], they had had a small tactical nuclear storage area whose boundaries (not shown) were easily discernible in my time by the decaying remnants of doubled fences, razor wire, a concrete guard bunker, and a tower.
Article: The Voodoo's were replaced with the F-4C Phantom in 1966 (later the F-4D model replaced the C) which were roughly the same size as the Voodoo, but had two crew. These were all still tactical nuclear strike mission aircraft.
When the A-10 'Tank Buster' jets replaced the F-4 Phantoms in 1979, the nuclear strike mission finished.
Halt probably took a Geiger counter because he had one, and perhaps because their incident boxes had been set up with them during the time when the nukes were still there.
Scaramanga
Senior Member
John simply gives the 'official' position. Which never lies about anything
Yes, I'm raising the issue again, because my 'why' questions have never been answered. Don't just dismiss these out of hand...give them some serious thought...
1) No-one, not a single witness, has ever explained what caused the 'they're back' claim. Amazingly, Halt never asks 'what did you see ?'. The tape makes no mention of any earlier sighting of 'they' that night. So Halt is heading out into the woods to investigate 'they'....yet has not asked a single person as to the nature of 'they' or exactly what was seen. All very odd !
2) Halt claims he arrived and there were floodlights set up. Nobody ever seems to have asked why. It's not as if nobody knew where the 'landing site' was...as Penniston had been back there in broad daylight the day before and according to some of Halt's own interviews many had been out there during daylight on day before Halt went out.
3) And here's an odd fact. Halt claims he asks for the floodlights to be switched off so as not to draw attention. Yet he then managed to find the landing site anyway ! Which makes it clear the floodlights were NOT needed in order to actually find the landing site. So what were they there for ??
4) The tape makes no mention of any 'they' or any lights or UFOs or such thing for a large part of its duration. The very reason Halt is supposedly there gets no mention for 2/3 of the tape ! Instead we get over half an hour of radiation level readings in some detail.
5) Why does Halt say, in relation to the radiation readings......".HALT: OK, we're still comfortably safe here. " . He's out in the woods chasing pixie lights. Why would he not be safe ? Why would there be unsafe radiation readings ??
6) Why does Englund make a reference to a 'blast' ? When did anyone else reference an explosion. Why does no-one question why he uses the word 'blast' ? .. "ENGLUND: Each one of these trees that face into the blast, what we assume is the landing site"
7) Halt very clearly implies that something FELL through the trees... " HALT: Looking directly overhead one can see an opening in the trees, plus some freshly broken pine branches on the ground underneath. Looks like some of 'em came off about 15 to 20 feet up. "
SO.....we have something falling through the trees according to Halt's own thesis, in line with the runway, a blast, indentations in the ground, above background level radiation readings, floodlights....a story with zero actual detail, that Halt never questions, about 'they' returning....and you think my idea about something falling off a plane is far fetched ?
Incidentally, under this theory the Penniston/Burroughs incident never happened at all...but would have been invented later as a reason for there to be a place in the woods to go to.
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Mendel
Senior Member.
You have NO evidence. All you have is incredulity.John simply gives the 'official' position. Which never lies about anything
John gives some reasonable answers, not the official position.
Halt dictated to tape what he observed. You don't have evidence that Halt never asked that because the tape is not continuous. He may have found the answer not worth recording.
That's probably procedure. When police get called out to a "scene" at night, they set up floodlights so that things can be seen, equipment doesn't go missing, people don't injure themselves, etc.
fllood lights are not guidance lights, why would you assume that?
Because Halt reports on his observations. You seem to expect Halt to talk about lights when he does not see any, and that's on you.
Because a Geiger counter has safe and unsafe readings.
He was bringing it because he did not know what to expect. He may have heard about UFO stories that involve radiation.
Englund saw the damage to the trees, and jumped to a conclusion.
Yup. Ask yourself how well he could see 15 to 20 feet up a tree in the dark.
no, we don't have something falling through the trees, because there's no ground clues supporting an impact
if something falls from an aircraft liw on approach, it won't fall straight down, because it has considerable horizontal velocity that wont disdipate during a fall from low altitude
you also have NO evidence of an aircraft landing
no evidence of a blast by daylight
What, in your nuke theory, would have caused a blast?
rabbit holes
not true
yes, we know where they came from
what detail do you expect?
yes. you have zero evidence.
exactly. your theory doesn't even fit the evidence we do have.
I'm out.
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JMartJr
Senior Member.
That does not seem unusual in UFO investigations of what I like to think of as the Golden Age of Flying Saucers.
Examples
The Cash-Landrum case (1980)
Quote from the CSI - The Klass Files #53, appearing at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash–Landrum_incidentExternal Quote:
The Fishersville, Virginaia UFO "flap" (1964)
Source: https://www.whsv.com/2023/04/25/story-alleged-1964-fishersville-ufo-landing-chaos-that-ensued/External Quote:
The Socorro (Lonnie Zamora) case (1964)
Source: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/...atches-as-investigators-news-photo/2169426096External Quote:
Socorro policeman, Lonnie Zamora watches as investigators from Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque use a geiger counter to check out a bush burned by the exhaust from a "flying saucer." Zamora spotted the egg-shaped flying object 4/24 and said he watched it fly away. Using the geiger counter are Major William Connor (C), UFO(unidentified flying objects) investigator at Kirtland and Sgt. David Moody...
(The extent to which they are worried about radiation may be indicated by the kids watching from a few feet away! -- JM)
So, the idea of taking a Geiger counter to investigate a UFO landing seems pretty common. That of course does not speak to issues of timing, etc. that you raise.
Ann K
Senior Member.
People bring Geiger counters to examine UFOs for the same reason they bring miscellaneous bits of hardware to search for the presence of ghosts. They don't know what kind of signal they expect to find, but "doggone it, we're going to be prepared!" (However it's not unreasonable to think that extraterrestrial travel might entail nuclear power.)
Of course, the challenge with a Geiger counter is having a baseline measurement. Everything will read as radioactive with the right settings and some prosaic things have unexpected levels, like granite countertops and beach sand.
So if you're wandering around in the woods with a Geiger counter and you wave it over a boulder or in a clearing that you hadn't checked before...
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JMartJr
Senior Member.
Plus, your options are limited. The UFO is long gone (in most investigations, such as the ones that created the "check for radiation" meme in UFO investigation), you are looking for traces that might still be there. Other then things you can see by eye ("landing pad" prints, burn marks, crushed vegetation) which are also mostly easy to fake, it's hard to think of much beyond radiation you might look for.* Plus, if you happened to find sharply increased radiation at the site, it would tend to support the idea that SOMETHING unusual happened -- hard to see how a distant lighthouse would drive up the radiation over here at the "landing site" i the forest! ^_^
*I do recall a case where they also checked a car to see if the "magnetic fingerprint" or something along those lines had changed. Lemme see if I can find it...
Ah, here:
The phrase "no definitive results" there is perhaps misleading -- the thesis was that a strong enough magnetic field to cause some of the effects reported, in terms of stopping clocks and such, should have produced changes in the magnetic field of the car, which were not found. Not finding such changes would seem reasonably conclusive to me -- the car was not exposed to a powerful magnetic field. But I suppose, from the point of view of somebody wanting a particular answer, the test was "inconclusive" sounds better than "was negative."
Source: https://www3.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/event/val-johnson-incident-1979External Quote:
The phrase "no definitive results" there is perhaps misleading -- the thesis was that a strong enough magnetic field to cause some of the effects reported, in terms of stopping clocks and such, should have produced changes in the magnetic field of the car, which were not found. Not finding such changes would seem reasonably conclusive to me -- the car was not exposed to a powerful magnetic field. But I suppose, from the point of view of somebody wanting a particular answer, the test was "inconclusive" sounds better than "was negative."
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Really? The entire origin of the story is a fake prequel made up at a later date?
So, if I understand correctly a plane of some sort that was capable of carrying at least tactical nukes, such as the previously stationed but absent by 1980, F4 Phantom came in for a landing and dropped said nuke in the woods by mistake. Why it's there with nukes, we don't know. The A10 Warthogs stationed there by 1980, don't carry nukes.
Col. Holt heads out to conduct, supervise, or at least check up on, the recovery of the dropped nuke. Hence the floodlights and ginger counter. Realizing that a US aircraft has inadvertently dropped a nuke in a UK forest, Holt thinks "Shit! This is going to look bad, we need a cover story". Holt conceives of a UFO sighting as a possible cover-up.
At this point we can go in 2 directions:
1. Holt conducted/supervised the nuke recovery THEN got some guys together and made the recording as part of a cover-up. This seems unlikely, as if the recording were specifically made afterwards, there would have been more UFO details and less apparent confusion. A post-nuke-recovery fake recording likely would NOT mention a ginger counter. Holt wouldn't want to leave clues in the cover-up story about what was really going on, right? Some internet sleuths might pick up on that years later.
OR
2. Holt, having conceived of some sort of UFO cover story on the spot, begins adding things about lights in the sky and UFO sounding stuff as he's recording. Sort of off the cuff type stuff, including noticing the light house, knowing full well it's just a light house, but pretending it's some sort of mysterious light in the forest. As he's improvising a possible UFO cover story while conducting/supervising the recovery of a lost nuke, it results in the jumbled and confused audio tape we now have. It was literally a "work in progress".
Having recovered the nuke, Holt and/or the OSI/MiBs realize his recordings that hint at, but don't really specifically describe a flying saucer or UFO is a bit weak as a cover story. So, they recruit/order Penniston, Cabansag, Burroughs and the rest of the people involved, to repeat a UFO prequel story that Holt/OSI/MiBs have scripted for them about what happened 2 (1?) nights before. They tell the story and sign statements and go along.
Perhaps the original script was just about some lights and MAYBE something landing in the forest and Penniston and the gang just ran with it, like an excited improve troupe. Especially Penniston. Even more clever, some elements of the story include what could be interpreted as the men seeing the light house. Some statements from the men make it clear that's what they saw, but others aren't so sure. The light house becomes a possible debunk of a fake UFO story, further throwing everyone, including people like Redpath, off the track of a lost nuke. Brilliant! Either it's a real UFO story, or it's a debunk-able UFO story of misidentification and confusion. No one ever thinks it's a made up fake UFO story.
I must say, that's a lot of people in on a cover-up that to this day are still playing their parts. Penniston has gone from a security guard to an Oscar worthy method actor. 40 years on, he's not only still living and acting out a non-event he was never involved in that Holt and others created for him, he's been expanding and embellishing it. Note in post #246 above, I included a link to his 700 page book about this event that never happened. I guess if it never happened, one can make up whatever they want.
Or, a bunch of guys got confused by a light house and some lights out in the forest. Twice.
Scaramanga
Senior Member
You do seem to practice completely missing the point.
Halt goes into the forest because of the claim that 'they're back'. At no point either then or in any future telling of the story is there ever any account of what 'they're back' actually constituted. Don't you find that just a little odd ? That nobody has ever stated what was seen ? Halt himself never mentions asking anyone, in any of his accounts of the matter. He never states anyone told him, or what they said.
You think 'they're back', and that alone, which is all we are ever told, is good enough reason for a base deputy commanded to head off into the forest at 2.30am looking for pixie lights ?? Seriously ?
So....why does Halt head for the alleged 1st night 'landing site' ?? He has never stated that anyone told him that's where 'they' that were supposedly back were located. Why does he head there ? Nobody has ever said the UFO was back and it was at the Penniston/Burroughs landing site....yet nobody ever asks why Halt went right there.
What's more, we're talking two days after the alleged first incident, in which time Halt has interviewed Penniston and Burroughs, and has also noted that a lot of people have visited the alleged landing site. So again I ask...why does Halt need to go out into the forest at 2.30am based on some totally nondescript 'they're back' claim that nobody has ever elaborated on ? He can't leave it just a few hours till sunrise ?
Halt doesn't need to go into the woods to tell the men to stop messing about there and come back to base. And....by the time Halt had had time to get changed and grab the geiger counter it was quite some time after whatever caused 'they're back'....and there was no UFO or lights when Halt arrived. 'They' are no longer back.....yet Halt then spends half an hour messing about with a Geiger counter for absolutely no legitimate reason.
Does Halt ever, in any interview, say that he asked anyone what the hell was going on ? No. He just says he was concerned about the floodlights that were already there before he arrived as they might draw attention. He never says he asked anyone why they were there.
People spend too much time focusing on lighthouses and not enough time focusing on the start of the story not making any sense.
Mendel
Senior Member.
Really? Let me see if I can find that for you:
Or we could go to the EVIDENCE:
Article: On the night of Saturday 1980 December 27 Lt Col Halt was at an officers' dinner at RAF Woodbridge when Lt Bruce Englund came in and said: 'The UFO is back'.
Throughout the events recorded on the tape, it is Bruce Englund who is guiding Halt around the site.
You are assuming it's strange that Halt didn't ask for things just because you were not told he didn't ask, when he had every opportunity to do so because he was with the person whom he would have been able to ask THE ENTIRE TIME.
I'm assuming he did ask. Prove me wrong.
Congratulations, you trolled me.
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Scaramanga
Senior Member
The participants of the alleged 'first night' completely disagree on what happened and what was seen. That's precisely the sort of thing that occurs when stuff didn't really happen and a vague cover story is all that really exists. Howcome we have Penniston describing a 9 foot wide lit up metalic craft, whilst Burroughs....who by all accounts was not hugely far behind ( only about 60 feet ) makes zero mention of any craft but saw a light in the forest. Penniston allegedly has time to get close to the craft and walk around it with his police notebook and even touch it...yet Burroughs never comes any closer ? Why do these stories vary so much ?
If you listen to the halt tape...for the first 2/3 there is no mention of any lights, UFOs, or anything of that sort. Its right there in the tape that Halt thinks something fell through the trees and created a 'blast' of pine needles going outwards. The bit of the tape everyone overlooks while the lighthouse gets all the attention.
What if something did ?? What if Halt is not guessing but already knows that's exactly what happened ?
Surely the essence of any good cover story is to have people taking for granted and as accepted precisely the bits they should be questioning most. Heck...lets introduce a lighthouse for people to get worked up over. Let's throw in a fictitious 'first night' ( Penniston and Burroughs ) because it gives Halt somewhere to go to when he goes to the forest. Oh yes....its the 'UFO landing site'. Now Halt has a 'reason' for being in the forest...and at a specific place in it.
Scaramanga
Senior Member
How about keeping up ? I'm saying the first night incident never happened. There never were people wandering about the woods for two days after it. You don't need to look any further than Halt even getting the date of that wrong in his memo. It's easy to get the date wrong of something that never happened and you have to invent it afterwards.
The reason for the invented 'first night' was for Halt to have an existing 'UFO landing site' to go to....rather than whatever was really there.
But do feel free to find anywhere that Halt or anyone else elaborates on 'they're back'. I've watched just about every Halt interview that exists and I can't find any.
Mendel
Senior Member.
It's not elaborated because everyone knows what it means.
But you need to elaborate how "they're back" is code for "they lost a tactical nuke", and how they knew exactly where it was.
You are contradicting the EVIDENCE, and you have NONE of your own.
Scaramanga
Senior Member
And yet Halt fails to perceive Arcturus, Rigel, or the Jupiter/Saturn close conjunction....all of which are at the same elevation above the horizon, as being UFOs. How does Vega get to be a UFO and not Arcturus...which is brighter in the sky ( though in real magnitude it is fainter, it is a little higher in the sky ). What about the huge elephant in the room...the brightest starlike thing in the sky...even brighter than Sirius...the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. A prime candidate for confusing for a UFO....yet Halt never even mentions it.
The way the story often gets presented is as if Vega and Sirius were the only star-like objects at lower elevation that could be confused for UFOs. Yet they weren't. There were brighter objects that conveniently get left out of this theory.
Scaramanga
Senior Member
Evidence ? What evidence ? Show me some actual evidence. All we have is 'he said, she said'. There is not a single scrap of irrefutable evidence that anything happened on the nights in question...let alone that it happened as related.
How many nights do we need for this story ? Larry Warren claims there were even more nights. Where's his evidence ? The same place as everyone else's.
And you still trust Penniston after his 'binary codes' malarkey ? How many goes at being 'economical with the truth' are we going to allow him ?
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Scaramanga
Senior Member
I simply start by noticing how close the 'UFO landing site' is, and fairly well in line with, the end of the runway. If it was way off the flight path then there'd be nothing to wonder about. But it is close enough to wonder if something fell off a plane. It would not be the first time such event happened.
I'm arguing that 'they're back' never happened. There never was any 'they' before the dinner Halt went to. My theory is that the Penniston/Burroughs encounter, where they themselves totally disagree on 'what happened', was invented later in order to provide Halt with an excuse for having gone into the woods to look for whatever was really out there.
There was never 3 or 4 nights, as Larry Warren claims, or two nights, as Penniston/Burroughs claim. Just the one night. Occam's razor.
Mendel
Senior Member.
First time it fell sideways, for sure.
Scaramanga
Senior Member
I'm not 'assuming' anything. No wonder you keep 'disagreeing' when you don't even seem to grasp what I am saying.
Halt has related the story numerous times. Perhaps you simply haven't watched all those times. I have. The story is usually related as...
Halt is at dinner....when someone shows up, Halt usually relates them as having a face as white as a ghost, and says 'They're back'
Halt asks 'Who's back ?'...and whilst it is vaguely related that its the UFO, no further details are ever given.
Anyone would surely ask what exactly was seen. There's no indication Halt ever did so. Yet Halt relates in detail how he went home, got changed, grabbed the geiger counter, and a host of other things prior to heading into the woods. So he's heading into the woods to look for 'they're back'.....yet at NO point ever tells us just exactly what occurred to cause this trip.
That is not just a minor omission. It is a glaring one. In a story rife with detail, not to mention half an hour of recorded tape on him checking radiation levels, nowhere is the detail of the event that caused him to be out there ever related. Not once...in 45 years.
It just astonishes me that there are questions about the Rendlesham incident that nobody has thought to ask in all that time. Well...I am asking them. But by all means carry on 'disagreeing' just for the sake of it.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
What is a "blast of pine needles"? Looking around a bit, one of the likely candidates for a tactical nuke is the B43. It was phased out in the '80s and could be carried by a large variety of NATO aircraft, including the F4 Phantoms that were previously stationed at Bentwaters:
External Quote:
Obviously about 1/2 of the list aircraft were out of service by 1980. The B43 it' itself was a tad over 2000 pounds with a yield of between 70 Ktons and 1 Mton:External Quote:
External Quote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B43_nuclear_bomb
Assuming it was being carried by some of the US aircraft capable of delivering it at the time, that could include the A6, F4, F16, F15, F111 and the F/A18. I'm excluding the B52 as it has an internal payload section, so the pilots would have had to open the bomb-bay doors first, then accidentally dropped the B43 while attempting to land.
Many of the fighters listed seem to have landing speeds anywhere from 150-200+mph depending on wight and configuration. The F111 could land a bit slower with it's swept wings. Still we have 2000 pound missile shaped bomb being dropped off an aircraft going anywhere from 140 mph to well over 200 mph. The drop and the forward momentum is going to do a lot more than scatter some pine needles.
And again, what's the "blast"? IF a 2000 pound bomb dropped into the area at 140-200 mph, it would be pretty obvious. It'd likely leave a good size trench, something never mentioned. If by "blast" it means the device went off, well even at 750 k-tons, it's going take a lot more than a UFO story to cover that up. Even if the high explosives in the B43 went off without causing the nuclear reaction, it's going to be obvious.
My problem with creating a UFO story latter is it seems a solution in search of a problem. IF Holt was really called away from dinner because an errant aircraft had dropped a nuclear warhead in the forest, why record what was going on. Why involve Cabansag, Burroughs and a serial fantasizer like Penniston? What's the point.
If Halt gets called away he just says it's for official business, don't ask. He goes out to recover the bomb and does NOT record anything. The men involved are told what they are doing is classified. Bomb is returned and there is no story. No need to create a UFO cover-up that actually calls attention to what you're trying to keep quiet.
Involving more people that had nothing to do with the situation in the first place is just counter intuitive to begin with. Involving them by giving them a fake story to spread about something they were NOT involved with is just asking for trouble.
It seems your theory is based on why Halt left dinner and the idea that the "landing site" is in line with the runway. It's not:
It's ~330m (1000 feet) from the line up for the runway:
IF the aircraft were banking into the airfield from either direction (red) and accidentally released it's bomb, maybe it would carry to the "landing site" but if so, the direction of the trench it would have left has to be in the direction it was traveling (blue):
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Also:
Just going back to Ian's page, here is a photograph supposedly taken on the 26th, the day after Pennniston and the gang saw the UFO and before Holt went out:
Just going back to Ian's page, here is a photograph supposedly taken on the 26th, the day after Pennniston and the gang saw the UFO and before Holt went out:
I suppose the constables could have been in on the fake UFO story and actually took this photo days later after Holt had concocted the fake UFO story. But that's another layer of people to get involved in a cover-up. If it's anywhere near the actual "landing site" it sure doesn't look like 2000 pound bomb came through at 150+ mph.External Quote:
Ann K
Senior Member.
Nor does it look as if the viewers are concerned about radiation.
If I saw an area like that in my woods with the vegetation crushed down, I'd be wondering which animals were mating in the place.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
"A dirty mind is a joy forever..."
John J.
Senior Member.
Well, I posted my opinion, while trying to consider what we know about the Rendlesham Forest incident and the context in which it happened. (Smiley face noted, though).
It's unlikely that the A-10s at Bentwaters were nuclear tasked.
("...very high risk" mainly because of the effects of the weapon).The A-10 is specifically designed to be a close air support aircraft, a "tank buster".
In the event of war in Europe in 1980, its specialist CAS capabilities would have been in huge demand.
Wouldn't be surprised if all USAF combat jet types could carry free-fall nuclear stores in extremis, but AFAIK the A-10 wasn't assigned a nuclear strike role. Its low speed (439 mph, 707 kph) would make a medium/high altitude overflight very vulnerable to WP air defences. Equally, a low-level 'lob' attack-
(approach fast and low, climb and release store on upward trajectory something like this)
-would be problematic. RAF Buccaneers practised this for nuclear strike, IIRC it was considered very high risk, and that for a 670 mph / 1070 kph at 200 ft. altitude aircraft.
Maybe the F-4 Phantoms that preceded the A-10s (until 1979) at Bentwaters had nuclear stores.
USAF F-111s were based at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk (same county as Bentwaters) 1976-1992; these were strike aircraft and definitely had nuclear stores co-located with them.
It's even less likely that an A-10, which was not (at that time) considered capable of operating at night, would be involved in carrying a live nuclear weapon at night, and that the deputy base commander would be at a "do" at the time.
A "night/ adverse weather" variant of the A-10 was trialled in September 1979 but never adopted;
"Republic Night/Adverse Weather A-10 (YA-10B)", National Museum of the United States Air Force (link):
LANTIRN was first fielded in 1987, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LANTIRN; AFAIK A-10s didn't receive it but there were parallel advances (e.g. NVGs) which made the A-10 capable of night ops, but not in 1980.External Quote:
...or nuclear weapon. 67th ARRS was not "just" a search and rescue squadron, and in 1988 was incorporated into a new Special Operations Wing.
It is clear that Halt was not as familiar with his Geiger counter as perhaps he should have been. But there were airmen proficient in the maintenance of nuclear weapons at RAF Lakenheath (a USAF base) in the same county, even if there weren't any in Woodbridge/ Bentwaters. Halt did not avail himself of USAF specialists who might be (1) skilled in securing an area and extracting a sensitive piece of equipment, (2) familiar with handling nuclear ordinance.
And we have to remember the USAF personnel requested the attendance of the local police,
...who duly sent a car. This isn't compatible with an attempt at a cover-up, and is hardly a credible response to a nuclear weapon lost outside the airbase(s). In the event of a major incident, the command staff at RAF (effectively USAF) Bentwaters/ Woodbridge would presumably have lines of communication with more appropriate UK authorities.
Given the political situation in Britain, 1980, the OSI might well have been concerned with uniformed US servicemen sojourning off-base chasing UFOs after a Christmas party. Not a good look at a time when a substantial part of the host population is worried that the presence of US forces might make a nuclear attack more likely.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
Why's this even worthy of discussion on metabunk, then? Have you read the posting guidelines? Yes, I know I can just "ignore thread", but if all you're doing is fighting noisily about noise, then perhaps that's the more pertinent issue.
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