Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident

[JMartJr]

A full Moon is magnitude -12.5 ...which is around 4 times brighter. SO....the lighthouse actual brightness was about 1/4 that of a full Moon. Bright, but not dazzlingly so.

However, LOTS brighter than, say, Venus (clocks in at around magnitude -4.6 to -4.9) which generates a large number of UFO reports, including cases with perceived physical size of the object (will have to dig out some actual physical books for source for that last bit, or have better luck with Google. Google wants to tell me just that Venus is often mistaken for a UFO, or more about George Adamski and such for searches that mention UFOs and Venus. Will dig out the books when I get a moment.)

 

[Scaramanga]

If you require a theory to cover every facet of a UFO tale, inculding the ones that bear no relation at all to reality, you are requiring a theory to account for and include bad data. Or so it seems to me -- I really, really, really hate UFO cases based on nothing but "witness(es) say that..." ^_^

The trouble is that the 'conventional' explanation for Rendlesham has such a cacophony of alleged mis-perceptions....and by multiple people...that it becomes absurd. I mean. trained airmen and military police, etc, had never seen stars before ? None of them on Halt's 5 man team ? Like no-one says on Halt's tape ' Er...don't you think that's a star ?' You know....the same star that was there the night before and the night after and in fact was and is visible low down throughout the entire winter months, and is every year, without instigating a UFO report or anyone feeling 'this is unreal'.

Why is that star only a UFO on December 28th 1980 ? The people involved must have seen that star hundreds of times before and since. Why does no-one going outside on December 29th, or any subsequent date, make a report ' hey....there's that same UFO again in the same place ' ?

That's the trouble with stars. They are not there just for one night.

 

[deirdre]

The trouble is that the 'conventional' explanation for Rendlesham has such a cacophony of alleged mis-perceptions....and by multiple people...that it becomes absurd. I mean. trained airmen and military police, etc, had never seen stars before ? None of them on Halt's 5 man team ? Like no-one says on Halt's tape ' Er...don't you think that's a star ?' You know....the same star that was there the night before and the night after and in fact was and is visible low down throughout the entire winter months, and is every year, without instigating a UFO report or anyone feeling 'this is unreal'.

im guessing a misidentified star only applies to ones wearing those weird light enhancing goggles? which patrolmen (or anybody) arent wearing those goggles on other nights.

i do agree with you the witness statements, taken days later, are a mess. i just dont find it surprising people dont pay attention to stars like some MB members seem to do. i know orion and the big dipper.. other than that if you asked me how many stars are in the sky i wouldnt know if i should say 5 or 100.

 

[JMartJr]

The trouble is that the 'conventional' explanation for Rendlesham has such a cacophony of alleged mis-perceptions....and by multiple people...that it becomes absurd. I mean. trained airmen and military police, etc, had never seen stars before ? None of them on Halt's 5 man team ? Like no-one says on Halt's tape ' Er...don't you think that's a star ?' You know....the same star that was there the night before and the night after and in fact was and is visible low down throughout the entire winter months, and is every year, without instigating a UFO report or anyone feeling 'this is unreal'.

Why is that star only a UFO on December 28th 1980 ? The people involved must have seen that star hundreds of times before and since. Why does no-one going outside on December 29th, or any subsequent date, make a report ' hey....there's that same UFO again in the same place ' ?

That's the trouble with stars. They are not there just for one night.

I mean, yeah, you'd think. But stars and planets are frequently misperceived as mysterious UFOs. I would assume all those other folks who have done this had also seen stars before.

 

[Scaramanga]

i do agree with you the witness statements, taken days later, are a mess

What's curious to me is that the witnesses lambaste Larry Warren for his alleged flights of fancy and meetings with alien beings, yet we're to believe that the witnesses themselves embellished their stories over time. If there was a sensationalist bandwagon to be jumped on, they'd surely jump on the Larry Warren one....yet they all vehemently oppose his story. Its yet another aspect of Rendlesham that really doesn't make any sense.

 

[JJB]

The trouble is that the 'conventional' explanation for Rendlesham has such a cacophony of alleged mis-perceptions....and by multiple people...that it becomes absurd. I mean. trained airmen and military police, etc, had never seen stars before ? None of them on Halt's 5 man team ? Like no-one says on Halt's tape ' Er...don't you think that's a star ?' You know....the same star that was there the night before and the night after and in fact was and is visible low down throughout the entire winter months, and is every year, without instigating a UFO report or anyone feeling 'this is unreal'.

Why is that star only a UFO on December 28th 1980 ? The people involved must have seen that star hundreds of times before and since. Why does no-one going outside on December 29th, or any subsequent date, make a report ' hey....there's that same UFO again in the same place ' ?

That's the trouble with stars. They are not there just for one night.

Some frame the Rendlesham incident as having "smoking gun" evidence, but when you actually break it down:

- Halts tape is interesting, but its just audio of people describing lights - no photos, no video, no craft.

- Radiation readings were slightly above background but not high enough to be extraordinary (and could've been caused by normal environmental factors).

- Triangular impressions in the ground? Those could've been from anything - vehicles, animals, equipment - nothing conclusively linked to a "craft."

- Binary code from Penniston? He wrote it down decades later from "memory" - zero independent verification.

- Multiple witnesses? Yes, but all at night, all under stress, all possibly influenced by one another's perceptions.

In other words: lots of stories, nothing concrete. No wreckage, no photos, no radar returns released to the public.

This is exactly why Rendlesham is still a legend rather than a case closed. It might be interesting, but it's all circumstantial - no hard physical evidence to prove anything out of the ordinary actually happened.

 

[John J.]

The problem being than in the 1980s UK police cars ONLY had flashing blue lights.

Burroughs mentioned seeing some blue light while the men returned from seeing the lighthouse, which might have been the Suffolk police car.
(Or a distant ambulance or fire engine, who knows).
But as @JJB pointed out in post #393, USAF Security Police used American-style police cars (as well as utilities and pick-ups) with red-white-and-blue lights at airbases. JJB raised Kevin Conde's story; Conde had been a USAF Security Policeman at Woodbridge at the time of the Rendlesham Forest events:

Conde—then a Technical Sergeant—on one occasion adapted a USAF police car's fancy lighting system to generate a brilliant display of coloured illuminations in a foggy night sky. This could have created the impression that mysterious beams of light were being shone not up from, but down onto, the Woodbridge base from above.

"Stomping around, goofing off, Why the US Air Force and the British MoD kept quiet about the Rendlesham Forest Incident",
Peter Brookesmith; an expansion of "Forgive Us Our Trespasses", The Skeptic 17 (2, 3) 2004, PDF attached below.

While Conde's story might not be the unlikeliest to be put forward , I'm not sure how relevant it is: he'd have to be on duty but unobserved and uninterrupted for some time, or off-duty but awake and pretty damn bored (and with access to a police car) to decide to play a prank at 03:00 am on the night after Christmas.
But it does tell us the USAF Security Police at Woodbridge/ Bentwaters had vehicles with red and blue lights.
This doesn't mean that's what Penniston, Burroughs and Cabansag saw, or that they actually saw (not misperceived) red, blue etc. lights.

You don't invite the local constabulary to come and try to find it.

Well, you might ask them to try and find it, but not to touch!

You don't handle it at all, you cordon off an appropriately big perimeter and call in the bomb removal squad to defuse it.

Absolutely. The USAF in 1980 Britain probably had ordinance disposal technicians and obviously had armourers and maintenance techs for their weapons, but no-one from those specializations has ever featured in any of the Rendlesham Forest accounts or documentation.
They would have no authority to deal with unexploded bombs outside of US bases in the UK (although I'm sure their input would be sought should a store drop from a US aircraft: I wouldn't rule out a UK government discretely allowing US "hands on" in a retrieval).
Suffolk Constabulary don't have a bomb squad; Greater London's Metropolitan Police are the only UK regional force to have one. Bomb search and disposal in the rest of the UK is mainly handled by the Royal Logistics Corps' 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Search Regiment;

The unit is responsible for providing EOD (Improvised Explosive Device Disposal (IEDD), Conventional Munitions Disposal (CMD), Biological and Chemical Munitions Disposal (BCMD) and Radiological and Nuclear Munitions Disposal) and Ammunition Technical support

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_Explosive_Ordnance_Disposal_and_Search_Regiment_RLC, my bold.

I completely reject that in this context. A light that is 1/20 of the diameter of the Moon...appearing 6 times larger than the Moon ? How does that work ?

Also, people make statements about how dazzlingly bright the lighthouse was.

We don't know how objectively bright, or large, the lights "pursued" by Penniston, Burroughs and Cabansag were.
We do know they were sometimes hidden by trees.
We know that, following lights, they first encountered a farmhouse with lights on, and later, a lighthouse:
They were following any light, and not consistently following the same light.
Many of us might have experienced seeing lights in mist or fog that appear much larger (if less intense) than the actual source.

As @JMartJr alluded to in #395, we know that some solved UFO reports indicate that the claimant(s) made significant errors in their estimates/ descriptions of what was actually present.

The description in Halt's memo of the whole forest being lit up appears to be based on a discussion with Penniston to which Burroughs and Cabansag were not party, and which might have included that description which wasn't in Penniston's statement. This might call into question Halt's understanding of how witness statements should be regarded: If verbal testimony differs significantly from that person's written statement, it should be a red flag. This is well-understood in policing/ legal settings; statements given in court by police officers that differ substantially from their written statements rarely help their case.
Halt's judgement in this regard is questionable, particularly as he had a habit of hanging out with the SPs:

Halt's now-famous habit of riding around at night with security police patrols would certainly suggest a certain Walter Mitty-ish tendency. Regarding this, Col Morgan commented: "I was concerned that he would usurp Major [Mal] Zickler's authority and often spoke with Major Zickler to ensure he was not irritated by Halt's actions. As long as Maj. Zickler could tolerate Halt's meddling and as long as Halt did not compromise his job performance, I did not interfere.

-Peter Brookesmith as per attached PDF.
Colonel Morgan was Col. Conrad's successor and Halt's CO, IIRC he released the Halt tape.

Brookesmith also gives us Kevin Conde's opinion,

Senior officers generally stayed out of our business, as they did not want to interfere or become part of something they [might] have to rule on later. Halt rode all the time... ... Folks that ride with cops want the excitement... ...That's Halt—he watched, but could not participate, and he hated that. Until Christmas 80-81. Then he had the chance to be a man of action.

Conde's first sentence above- and Morgan's reference to (SP) Major Zickler- are interesting. Service Police have authority that sometimes conflicts with the rank structure, e.g. a USAF SP airman might have to breathalyse, and report or even arrest, an officer of senior rank. This can cause resentment. As Conde implies, commanding officers at an overseas military base might act, in effect, as judges for all but the most serious offences committed by their personnel. For these reasons service police in many militaries function somewhat apart from their peers in other specialisations, to reduce allegations of favouritism and to prevent non-police senior ranks being in a position to influence junior rank service police. Halt's hobby of riding with Security Police patrols wasn't wrong per se, but is of questionable wisdom.

Col. Morgan, even more than Conrad, is critical of Halt's actions re the Rendlesham Forest events,

Halt was meddling as usual and went to check things out. Halt was over reacting when on the scene and it was recorded on a pocket tape recorder. I got this tape and... [it] started a story which, for Halt, shined a light on him. He could have addressed the facts or he could have inflated the story. He chose to inflate the story. Soon the story was much bigger than he expected and he does not now have a graceful way out.

(Peter Brookesmith, PDF attached).
Morgan does not come across as a man supporting a Halt-concocted cover story involving UFOs!

We do know that celestial bodies, which are essentially point light sources to the naked eye and not bright enough to cast visible shadows have been taken to be UFOs by claimants, including police officers.

Roy Craig's riveting book UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official Quest for Evidence.. ...includes an account of veteran police officers in Georgia chasing a mysterious, fast-moving object "about 500 feet above the ground." Yep, it was Venus.

"UFO? No, It's Venus", Discover magazine, 21 August 2013, Corey S. Powell https://www.discovermagazine.com/ufo-no-its-venus-2345

Two policemen in Dorset, south England pursued a flying cross; from The Times, 25 October 1967

British UFOlogists still recall the famous Devon 'flying cross' case of 1967 October 24 in which two police constables, Roger Willey and Clifford Waycott, chased an apparent UFO in their police car along country lanes at up to 90 mile/h in the early hours of the morning. 'It looked like a star-spangled cross radiating points of light from all angles,' Constable Willey told the press. 'It was travelling about tree-top height over wooded countryside near Holsworthy, Devon. We drove towards it and it moved away. It then led us on a chase as if it was playing a game with us.'

Ian Ridpath, Devon 'flying cross' of 1967 revisited, http://ianridpath.com/ufo/flyingcross.html. My emphasis for what might be seen as similar features to the Rendlesham Forest reports. Note also,

Constable Waycott said that once it seemed to stop in a field.

It was not an aeroplane or a helicopter, but it was as large as a conventional aircraft.

The nearest they could get to the object was 400 yards [approx. 366 metres].

It is widely accepted, perhaps not by the officers involved, that they had been pursuing Venus, a theory advanced by astronomer Howard Miles.
A UK Ministry of Defence investigation concurred,

The most likely explanation is still Venus... ...it was apparent that the policemen had rehearsed their story several times as a result of interviews [before being interviewed by an officer from DI55]... By this time, they had drawn certain conclusions from their observations, e.g. that they had seen a spaceship, which were quite unsupported by their factual account of events.

http://ianridpath.com/ufo/image/FlyingcrossMoD.jpg (thanks again to @Ian Ridpath's work, which has informed this thread enormously).

I think it's possible Halt was less prosaic in his approach to Penniston's account than the MoD DI55 officer was re. the 1967 Dorset Police sighting.

Of course, if the claimed witnesses are all lying about seeing lights (whatever their description of those lights may be) to cover up something, i.e. they are involved in a conspiracy, then there's no point in thinking about what they might have been seeing.
We could apply this logic to many unusual claims. It is an easy (if not very pleasant) way to deal with narratives we can't fully explain.
But we have absolutely no evidence for this conspiracy theory, and we have no evidence of anything that might have needed a cover up.*
I think, in the first instance, we have to take unusual claims as presented.
If contradictions are present, they should be noted and we can decide if it affects that claim or perhaps calls into question the claimant's accuracy and/or reliability.

Not only is there zero evidence that the Penniston/Burroughs incident ever happened....but the statements on it totally contradict each other. I don't just mean minor contradictions...I mean mutually exclusive versions.

Perhaps you could back this up by quoting the appropriate passages from the original witness statements?
We know Penniston's account differs...

I don't think this has been addressed yet. You (@Scaramanga) haven't shown how the statements "totally contradict each other", or are "mutually exclusive versions". We know Penniston's statement had a significant unique claim (he could see a mechanical source of lights) and a significant omission (he followed lights and ended up looking at a lighthouse) compared to the others, but otherwise the statements by Buran, Chandler, Penniston Burroughs and Cabansag don't strike me as "mutually exclusive" though Penniston's is the outlier.

We have, for example, Penniston and Burroughs claiming to see a landed object

Again, please could you show us where Burroughs says this in his witness statement?
I'm not saying it's not there, I can't understand all of his handwriting, but I didn't see it in the bits I could read.

So we're not allowed to bring in Penniston's statements made 15-20 years later....but we can bring in this guy's statements made 21 years later and which provide no date for the alleged incident.

Penniston: Saw and touched a landed UFO. Walked around it (for 45 minutes?). The two men with him were totally unaware. He didn't report anything to Master Sergeant Chandler in his vehicle, who he was in radio contact with. The craft he saw looked how he described it years after the event, not the one drawn within a week or so of the event. He lied in his witness statement about not getting closer than approx. 50 metres.
Years later still, adds that he received a telepathic message, in ASCII, giving coordinates of various ancient religious sites and the (wholly refutable) location of a (completely) mythical island.

Conde: Fiddled with the lighting on his police car so it looked impressive or entertaining in the mist.

There is a qualitative difference in the nature of these claims.

*Proof that the conspiracy succeeded?!

 

[deirdre]

What's curious to me is that the witnesses lambaste Larry Warren for his alleged flights of fancy and meetings with alien beings, yet we're to believe that the witnesses themselves embellished their stories over time. If there was a sensationalist bandwagon to be jumped on, they'd surely jump on the Larry Warren one....yet they all vehemently oppose his story. Its yet another aspect of Rendlesham that really doesn't make any sense.

makes sense to me. he's bogarting their story. not cool.

 

[John J.]

The trouble is that the 'conventional' explanation for Rendlesham has such a cacophony of alleged mis-perceptions....and by multiple people...that it becomes absurd. I mean. trained airmen and military police, etc, had never seen stars before ?

You're using the "trained observer" trope.
We know people misidentify stars. Being an airman does not make you an astronomer. I don't think USAF aircrew (a small minority of USAF personnel) were using celestial navigation in the 1980s (long range bombers, maritime patrol aircraft etc. did up to at least the 1950s).

You know....the same star that was there the night before and the night after and in fact was and is visible low down throughout the entire winter months

Halt had dragged them out on a light-stalking expedition. The deputy base commander, significantly older than most of the other men present and of higher rank (and probably longer service) is implying that the lights he can see are significant, they have salience.
We have no reason to believe any of the USAF men involved enjoyed stargazing.
If the base(s) had books or charts with the constellations, there's no indication that Halt used any.

Why does no-one going outside on December 29th, or any subsequent date, make a report ' hey....there's that same UFO again in the same place ' ?

Sanity prevailed. Perhaps Conrad advised Halt that unofficial off-base expeditions of uniformed personnel was not part of his remit.
The younger airmen are kept busy; those with the appropriate rest days or leave are looking forward to New Year.
The overwhelming majority of the bases' personnel, if they've heard of the events, are mildly interested, amused or dismissive.
Many "Other Ranks" need little convincing that senior officers spend too much time on irrelevancies or flights of fancy, not the real problems; I don't know the situation in the USAF of 1980 but empathy for service police amongst other young servicemen is often limited.

 

[John J.]

im guessing a misidentified star only applies to ones wearing those weird light enhancing goggles? which patrolmen (or anybody) arent wearing those goggles on other nights.

I don't think any of the 26th December witnesses had (or at least reported using) any night vision gear.

IIRC the Halt expedition took a "Starlight scope", an image intensifier designed to be mounted on a weapon (though can be used separately).

In 1980, probably an AN/PVS-2, about 6 pounds/ 2.7kg.

Has a fairly narrow field of view, so you have to look over the sight (or lower it) to stay aware of what's around you.

 

[FatPhil]

How is your response not evading the actual point I made ? Classic red herring....especially given that the specific lengthy post you are responding too never once mentions broken arrows.

On that note - can I have an answer, not merely a response, to the question I asked upthread please?

 

[JMartJr]

However, LOTS brighter than, say, Venus (clocks in at around magnitude -4.6 to -4.9) which generates a large number of UFO reports, including cases with perceived physical size of the object (will have to dig out some actual physical books for source for that last bit, or have better luck with Google. Google wants to tell me just that Venus is often mistaken for a UFO, or more about George Adamski and such for searches that mention UFOs and Venus. Will dig out the books when I get a moment.)

Finally had a minute. Will post two that seem illustrative.

From right here in beautiful North Carolina, from 1976:

...The first report had come in the early morning from six excited sanitation workers, who called the Apex (Town name -- JM) police department to say that a UFO was hovering over the (nuclear power plant construction) site. Then, around 5:00 am, a guard at the facility also had called the police to report a "strange object hovering right over the plant. It's shining a light right on us. Bright as day here."

Officer Ross Denson jumped into his patrol car and drove over to investigate. ... Denson said: "It was about half the size of the moon and it just hung there over the plant Must have been there nearly two hours."
...
Next night the same thing happened... Deputy Sheriff Ron Stewart reported "a large lighted object..." Auxiliary police officer Danny Mathews saw "five objects -- they appeared to be burning. An aircraft came by while I was watching. They ... seemed to be 20 times the size of the plane. Wake County magistrate Philip Castlebury ... saw an astonishing sight. "It was a rectangular object, looked like it was on fire -- We figured it was about the size of a football field. It was huge and very bright."

Reporters on the scene on a subsequent night saw no UFO, but were told to wait a bit, it usually showed up around 5:00 am. Which it did. They engaged in the classic car chase, trying to get closer to the UFO which always managed to stay the same distance from them! As often happens with celestial objects mistaken for nearby UFOs. Eventually they stopped and the photographer set up to get a picture with a telephoto lens,

After viewing the UFO through the lens, photographer David Ranns commented: "Yep, that's Venus all right."

The reporters went back to their hotel, where they got a call from the Apex police informing them the UFO was being observed over the plant site again, so back they went, and confirmed that what the police were seeing was Venus.

Source: Klass, Philip J. (1983). UFO's: The Public Deceived Prometheus Books Pp . 75-76

So we have reliable observers seeing Venus as a UFO half the apparent size of the moon, or 20 times the size ofa plane, or the size of a football field! (Plus being bright enough to light up the area, and being 5 objects!)

The other case I'll mention is the famous Jimmy Carter UFO, which caused a lot of confusion as Carter had misremembered the date and the wrong town is often listed. The incident occurred on the night of a speech Carter gave to a local Lion's Club. When records for the club were located, and the correct date and town was established it turns out that on that night Venus was right where Carter reported seeing the UFO. He later said:

"I am convinced that UFOs exist because I have seen one ... It was a very peculiar aberration (apparition? -- JM), but about 20 people saw it ... It was the darnedest thing I've ever seen. It was big, it was very bright, it changed colors and it was about the size of the full moon."

Carter also described how the UFO:

...seemed to move towards us from a distance, stop, move partially away return then depart.

Various claims about and and alleged quotes from supporting witnesses were made in the National Enquirer, etc. but were difficult to corroborate (possibly due to the wrong date and town being often cited?) A supporting witness eventually located had some difficulty recalling the incident, but said,

"It seems like there was a little -- like a blue light or something or other in the sky that night [pause] like some kind of weather balloon they send out or something ... it had been pretty far back in my mind."

Source: Sheaffer, Robert (1986). The UFO Verdict: Examining the Evidence. Chapter 2, "Close Encounter of the First Kind: Jimmy Carter" Prometheus Books

Celestial objects like Venus, Jupiter and the brighter stars are capable of generating UFO reports that bear little resemblance to what caused them, with witnesses getting the size wrong by some fairly sizable amounts. Among other errors.

EDITED: To remove about a zillion line-feeds that showed up for some reason. Possibly ghosts.

 

[Scaramanga]

You're using the "trained observer" trope.
We know people misidentify stars. Being an airman does not make you an astronomer.

The 'people misidentify stars' is a trope in itself. And far too easy to gaslight with. What about all the bright stars that aren't in Ridpath's list, and which were visible that night yet Halt didn't misidentify them ? What about Jupiter....1.5 times brighter than Sirius at the time, which was at a similar elevation to Sirius yet does not get misidentified ? What about Arcturus, in the north. Why does Halt pick on poor Vega, a less bright star ?

What you have with Ridpath is effectively the 'drawer effect'. Its the same effect with psychic researchers when then they ignore or file away negative results and only focus on the positive ones. Thus Ridpath gives the impression that Halt was misidentifying all the bright stars.......which appears the case ONLY because Ridpath completely omits to mention the brighter stars Halt could have misidentified but didn't !

 

[Scaramanga]

On that note - can I have an answer, not merely a response, to the question I asked upthread please?

I retract that Penniston walking around the craft is in original statements....its a later addition. However I stand by Penniston seeing a craft he thought was 9 feet wide and 6 feet high, as that is in the Halt memo.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Halt_Memorandum.jpg

 

[FatPhil]

I retract that Penniston walking around the craft is in original statements....its a later addition. However I stand by Penniston seeing a craft he thought was 9 feet wide and 6 feet high, as that is in the Halt memo.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Halt_Memorandum.jpg

 

[FatPhil]

"I retract that Penniston walking around the craft is in original statements"

Aside: Why's the forum software not quoting corectly, I had to recreate that myself. And why is it saying that my response to S. is a response to myself!?!?

"I retract that Penniston walking around the craft is in original statements"

That's progress.

Why in the first place did you stand by the thing that you later retracted?

 

[Scaramanga]

makes sense to me. he's bogarting their story. not cool.

I had to look up 'Bogarting'. Never heard the expression before.

The thing is, you can't really accuse Larry Warren of that, as it was ( allegedly ) Larry Warren who publicised the story after Citizens Against UFO Secrecy ( and not Warren himself, as is sometimes claimed ) got the Halt memo released.....as this article relates...

"The memo, it turns out, had been released just a few months earlier, to a group called CAUS (Citizens Against UFO Secrecy), who filed a Freedom of Information request in the US.

The source of the rest of the story was later revealed to have been Larry Warren, a former Air Force police officer who has himself become a controversial figure over the past 35 years."
https://www.thejournal.ie/rendlesham-forest-incident-charles-halt-interview-2015-2422702-Dec2015/


So the first of the Rendlesham crew to regale the story publicly was Warren. He got in first with his wild story. The Halt tape was released in 1984 by Colonel Sam Morgan ( according to Google AI ). And the cat was out of the bag.

The question arises as to why Penniston, and to a lesser extent Burroughs, played up their stories beyond the original. Its all rather bizarre to me that the people who claim Warren is making wild stories are not exactly refraining from that themselves.

 

[Scaramanga]

Why in the first place did you stand by the thing that you later retracted?

Because I have read and watched practically all media, interviews, videos, etc...from Penniston, Burroughs, Halt. I've seen all of Halt's walks in Rendlesham forest, subsequent interviews, lectures, etc. I know practically everything that has been said and claimed over the years. Which gives a very different perspective to the somewhat abridged version here and includes way more information.

The trouble is, I'd then have to find all that info again as the policy here is to quote stuff. Which is a bit like having to read the entire trilogy of Lord Of The Rings to find one line one partly recalls. It's easier just to go with a 'never mind'.

 

[Scaramanga]

Burroughs mentioned seeing some blue light while the men returned from seeing the lighthouse, which might have been the Suffolk police car.
(Or a distant ambulance or fire engine, who knows).
But as @JJB pointed out in post #393, USAF Security Police used American-style police cars (as well as utilities and pick-ups) with red-white-and-blue lights at airbases. JJB raised Kevin Conde's story; Conde had been a USAF Security Policeman at Woodbridge at the time of the Rendlesham Forest events:

Yes, I accept that the alleged 'hoax' US police car would have had red lights too ( unlike the UK police who only had blue lights back then ). BUT...Burroughs mentions red and orange and blue and the blue lights are 'below' the red and orange....and the red and orange lights moved 'up and down'.

http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/Burroughs3.PNG

Cabansag says blue, red, white, and yellow.

http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/Cabansag.PNG

Penniston only mentions blue and red. I wish he wrote more clearly, as it is hard to understand what ' the area in front of us was lighting up a 30 meter area ' means....yet he then says the blue light was only lighting up an area a meter or so wide. So what was lighting up the 30 meter area ? But Penniston and Burroughs both agree the red light was on top and the blue light underneath.

http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/Penniston1.PNG

So its hard to see how the blue lights being below the red lights would correspond to a police car. Unless there were some other lights fitted to the 'hoax' car.

And given that Penniston was a military policeman...why would it never have occurred to him that he was seeing police lights ?

 

[JJB]

Yes, I accept that the alleged 'hoax' US police car would have had red lights too ( unlike the UK police who only had blue lights back then ). BUT...Burroughs mentions red and orange and blue and the blue lights are 'below' the red and orange....and the red and orange lights moved 'up and down'.

http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/Burroughs3.PNG

Cabansag says blue, red, white, and yellow.

http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/Cabansag.PNG

Penniston only mentions blue and red. I wish he wrote more clearly, as it is hard to understand what ' the area in front of us was lighting up a 30 meter area ' means....yet he then says the blue light was only lighting up an area a meter or so wide. So what was lighting up the 30 meter area ? But Penniston and Burroughs both agree the red light was on top and the blue light underneath.

http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/Penniston1.PNG

So its hard to see how the blue lights being below the red lights would correspond to a police car. Unless there were some other lights fitted to the 'hoax' car.

And given that Penniston was a military policeman...why would it never have occurred to him that he was seeing police lights ?

These conflicting color descriptions between witnesses show how unreliable visual memory can be, especially in stressful, low-light conditions. Colors blend, shift, and our brains try to make sense of ambiguous stimuli - often inconsistently.

In short, the variations and contradictions in colors, positions, and light behavior point strongly toward flawed perception and memory rather than any definitive light source explanation. It's a textbook case of how stress, darkness, and expectation can distort eyewitness accounts.

 

[JMartJr]

The 'people misidentify stars' is a trope in itself. And far too easy to gaslight with. What about all the bright stars that aren't in Ridpath's list, and which were visible that night yet Halt didn't misidentify them ? What about Jupiter....1.5 times brighter than Sirius at the time, which was at a similar elevation to Sirius yet does not get misidentified ? What about Arcturus, in the north. Why does Halt pick on poor Vega, a less bright star ?

What you have with Ridpath is effectively the 'drawer effect'. Its the same effect with psychic researchers when then they ignore or file away negative results and only focus on the positive ones. Thus Ridpath gives the impression that Halt was misidentifying all the bright stars.......which appears the case ONLY because Ridpath completely omits to mention the brighter stars Halt could have misidentified but didn't !

Not sure that I follow. I know of no case where every possible bright star was mistaken for a UFO. Does that mean that there is no case where a star or planet has been taken to be a UFO? If not, if it is usual for cases where a celestial object is seen as a UFO to have other potential bright stars not so misidentified, then why would it not also be normal in this case?

 

[JMartJr]

Yes, I accept that the alleged 'hoax' US police car would have had red lights too ( unlike the UK police who only had blue lights back then ). BUT...Burroughs mentions red and orange and blue and the blue lights are 'below' the red and orange....and the red and orange lights moved 'up and down'.

See: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/rendlesham-forest-ufo-incident.13457/post-353898 where future-presidentbCarter describes venus as changing colors and moving around... just as a point of comparison.

 

[Scaramanga]

Not sure that I follow. I know of no case where every possible bright star was mistaken for a UFO. Does that mean that there is no case where a star or planet has been taken to be a UFO? If not, if it is usual for cases where a celestial object is seen as a UFO to have other potential bright stars not so misidentified, then why would it not also be normal in this case?

Sort of missing the point. There is nearly always a 'bright star' within some ignorable distance of any point in the sky. Why pick on Vega, for example, when you've got the brighter star Arcturus in that sector to pick on ?

Why doesn't Halt confuse Arcturus as a UFO ? Or Jupiter, which is blazing away brightly in the south east and is the brightest 'star like' object in the whole sky that night ?

Why pick on Sirius when there's Betelgeuse, Rigel, Procyon, Aldebaran, and Capella....all 'bright stars'....to pick on ? Why doesn't Halt 'confuse' those as UFOs ?

This is classic drawer effect. Find a star that's 'close' to where Halt claims to see something. 'Oh look....its obviously that star he's 'confusing''. Just brush under the carpet all the other bright stars ( some of them even brighter ) that Halt doesn't 'confuse' and hope nobody mentions them.

I do sometimes wonder if the same thing happens when people use Flightradar to argue some plane was 'in the same direction' as an object seen. I mean, yes....that certainly picks out genuine mistaken identify sometimes, but then purely by chance you are bound to get a plane 'in the same direction' as a sighting on a number of occasions. Just as you are with stars.

 

[John J.]

Yes, I accept that the alleged 'hoax' US police car would have had red lights too ( unlike the UK police who only had blue lights back then ). BUT...Burroughs mentions red and orange and blue and the blue lights are 'below' the red and orange....and the red and orange lights moved 'up and down'.

To be honest, I'm not sure Conde's story is likely to be part of the explanation for the Rendlesham Forest events.
But if it were, perhaps the easiest possible "field modification" he might have performed (lighting mounts allowing) would be to tip back a lightbar/ beacons 90 degrees so their beams rotate in the vertical, not horizontal plane.
Hey presto, lights go up and down in the mist. -Admittedly speculation on my part.

Pretty much all cars have a hazard light function, where all the (amber, orange) indicators flash simultaneously.

Some US police cars have red, blue and orange lightbars, don't know if this applied to any USAF SP cars in 1980.

(IIRC there are others in red-white-and-blue with much shorter amber lights at each end).

Again, I don't know what US SP cars might have routinely carried; I do know that 1980s British service police vehicles often (depending on role) carried a few battery-powered amber beacons a bit like (not the same as) this, which could be set to flash.

(Edited to add; British service police vehicles also sometimes carried Bardic lamps, with a rapidly-switchable red-green filter; wouldn't be surprised if USAF SPs had similar. Or perhaps some fancy attachment for their Maglites).

Burroughs mentions red and orange and blue and the blue lights are 'below' the red and orange....and the red and orange lights moved 'up and down'.
Cabansag says blue, red, white, and yellow.
Penniston only mentions blue and red.

Well, they can't all be completely accurate, can they?
If it's a cover story, it's crap.
Instead, it reads like the recollections of people who had seen quite difficult-to-discern lights, and who tried to make out their colours (if any).

We have to accept that the airmen on the 26th (Burroughs, Cabansag, Penniston) were following pretty much any light they saw- that's why they ended up at one point looking at a farmhouse with its lights on, and finally ended up looking at a lighthouse. As per their statements.*
They could not have been in constant visual contact with a single lightsource.

@JMartJr gave an excellent example (post #412) of three policemen and a magistrate describing a sizeable (not a point) light in the sky, one describing it as rectangular. Other witnesses said it shined down on them. It was Venus.
Jimmy Carter probably saw Venus.

It was big, it was very bright, it changed colors and it was about the size of the full moon. ...seemed to move towards us from a distance, stop, move partially away return then depart."

Post #407 has examples of police officers in Georgia and England pursuing Venus- in the latter case it was sort of cross-shaped, radiated beams of light, stopped in a field and acted as if it knew it was being chased.

I don't believe any of those witnesses were lying. I doubt if any of them were inherently unreliable witnesses.
It is possible that all, in each case, gave as honest and accurate account as possible.
But all were very likely mistaken, and the descriptions they provided probably do not describe what was objectively visible.
For whatever reason, all interpreted something reasonably mundane as something unusual.

*Penniston told Chandler that the lighthouse was not what he had seen in the forest. Even if he believed that, omitting the lighthouse from his (Penniston's) statement must be highly questionable, and perhaps an early red flag. They had gone out to investigate lights, and ended up looking at a lighthouse. That fact is pertinent, even if Penniston didn't like it. Instead, it looks (to me) like Penniston didn't document the lighthouse because he didn't like the conclusions that others might have drawn from that information.

 

[Scaramanga]

Well, they can't all be completely accurate, can they?
If it's a cover story, it's crap.
Instead, it reads like the recollections of people who had seen quite difficult-to-discern lights, and who tried to make out their colours (if any).

They all accurately relate red and blue. Just reading Penniston's account again, I got it wrong and he does mention the yellow that Cabansag mentions. Well...orange is a mix of red and yellow, so one can even understand how Burroughs mentions orange.

I mean, its not like anyone mentions green light and no-one else does. The accounts are actually in pretty close agreement. Everyone mentions red and blue. Two mention yellow. One mentions orange.

It's pretty clear ( to me anyway ) that this is not the lighthouse.....though they do end up following it eventually.

 

[Scaramanga]

To be honest, I'm not sure Conde's story is likely to be part of the explanation for the Rendlesham Forest events.
But if it were, perhaps the easiest possible "field modification" he might have performed (lighting mounts allowing) would be to tip back a lightbar/ beacons 90 degrees so their beams rotate in the vertical, not horizontal plane.
Hey presto, lights go up and down in the mist. -Admittedly speculation on my part.

Pretty much all cars have a hazard light function, where all the (amber, orange) indicators flash simultaneously.

Some US police cars have red, blue and orange lightbars, don't know if this applied to any USAF SP cars in 1980.

View attachment 84757
(IIRC there are others in red-white-and-blue with much shorter amber lights at each end).

Again, I don't know what US SP cars might have routinely carried; I do know that 1980s British service police vehicles often (depending on role) carried a few battery-powered amber beacons a bit like (not the same as) this, which could be set to flash.
View attachment 84758
(Edited to add; British service police vehicles also sometimes carried Bardic lamps, with a rapidly-switchable red-green filter; wouldn't be surprised if USAF SPs had similar. Or perhaps some fancy attachment for their Maglites).


Well, they can't all be completely accurate, can they?
If it's a cover story, it's crap.
Instead, it reads like the recollections of people who had seen quite difficult-to-discern lights, and who tried to make out their colours (if any).

We have to accept that the airmen on the 26th (Burroughs, Cabansag, Penniston) were following pretty much any light they saw- that's why they ended up at one point looking at a farmhouse with its lights on, and finally ended up looking at a lighthouse. As per their statements.*
They could not have been in constant visual contact with a single lightsource.

@JMartJr gave an excellent example (post #412) of three policemen and a magistrate describing a sizeable (not a point) light in the sky, one describing it as rectangular. Other witnesses said it shined down on them. It was Venus.
Jimmy Carter probably saw Venus.

It was big, it was very bright, it changed colors and it was about the size of the full moon. ...seemed to move towards us from a distance, stop, move partially away return then depart."

Post #407 has examples of police officers in Georgia and England pursuing Venus- in the latter case it was sort of cross-shaped, radiated beams of light, stopped in a field and acted as if it knew it was being chased.

I don't believe any of those witnesses were lying. I doubt if any of them were inherently unreliable witnesses.
It is possible that all, in each case, gave as honest and accurate account as possible.
But all were very likely mistaken, and the descriptions they provided probably do not describe what was objectively visible.
For whatever reason, all interpreted something reasonably mundane as something unusual.

*Penniston told Chandler that the lighthouse was not what he had seen in the forest. Even if he believed that, omitting the lighthouse from his (Penniston's) statement must be highly questionable, and perhaps an early red flag. They had gone out to investigate lights, and ended up looking at a lighthouse. That fact is pertinent, even if Penniston didn't like it. Instead, it looks (to me) like Penniston didn't document the lighthouse because he didn't like the conclusions that others might have drawn from that information.

Gosh...I just found something no-one seems to have noticed before. It's not just the lighthouse that is in the field of view...

There's electricity pylons...short ones not the huge metallic tall ones....running literally right next to the farm house, and right in front of it ( from the perspective of anyone in the woods ).

From the perspective of the 'UFO' witnesses, the pylons would run from just left of the farmhouse, right in front of it and across the field heading right. Google Earth shows the pylons there as far back as 2000...there are no earlier images....but they were probably also there in 1980.

Now just add an electrical fault and some arcing....and one gets Halt's odd sparks and stuff falling. And a bright blue light. According to Google, if the arc burns copper it can also burn red.

Here's the farm house...with the electric line right next to it...which heads into the field..

One of the pylons is literally just to the right of the farmhouse, when viewed from the forest location, exactly where the line of site of the UFO allegedly is.

 

[John J.]

They all accurately relate red and blue.

"Accurately"?
How do you know?
And does this mean you think Burroughs/ Cabansag/ Penniston did pursue lights?
Because you seemed sure that they didn't.

The entire Penniston/Burroughs 'encounter' is a diversion. The entire reason Penniston, Burroughs, and Cabansag vary so wildly over what happened is because it never happened.

I am insisting that stories are cover stories...and that if you really examine all the evidence it points that way.

Now just add an electrical fault and some arcing....and one gets Halt's odd sparks and stuff falling.

So the three 26th December witnesses couldn't be misled by a lighthouse beam, but Halt and co. are misled by an electrical fault?!
That Halt observes it in the sky for a protracted period, until dawn slowly renders it invisible?

An electricity cable arcing/ burning copper for three days? (Red lights reported on the 26th and 28th, IIRC).
And the farmhouse inhabitants don't notice or bother to tell anyone?

You were insisting that all the accounts were cover stories.
The witnesses were all part of a cover-up.

 

[John J.]

I mean, its not like anyone mentions green light and no-one else does. The accounts are actually in pretty close agreement. Everyone mentions red and blue. Two mention yellow. One mentions orange.

Not only is there zero evidence that the Penniston/Burroughs incident ever happened....but the statements on it totally contradict each other. I don't just mean minor contradictions...I mean mutually exclusive versions.

Er... I'm no longer sure where this thread is going.

 

[Mendel]

Now just add an electrical fault and some arcing....

they were able to see stars. what does that tell you about the weather?

Er... I'm no longer sure where this thread is going.

goes wherever S. wants it to go
picking a destination and throwing everything overboard that won't get him there

we normal folks looking at where the evidence leads us can't understand

 

[Scaramanga]

Er... I'm no longer sure where this thread is going.

In the direction of there just being so much bad faith that I just lose interest. It's all but impossible to have a debate where people feel free to include the word 'if' a hundred times in their posts yet wont allow others that same privilege.

 

[Scaramanga]

"Accurately"?
How do you know?
And does this mean you think Burroughs/ Cabansag/ Penniston did pursue lights?
Because you seemed sure that they didn't.

Bad faith. How do you 'know' any of what is reported even happened at all ? Perhaps the uncertainly should be spread around a little more evenly.

 

[Scaramanga]

The description in Halt's memo of the whole forest being lit up appears to be based on a discussion with Penniston to which Burroughs and Cabansag were not party, and which might have included that description which wasn't in Penniston's statement. This might call into question Halt's understanding of how witness statements should be regarded: If verbal testimony differs significantly from that person's written statement, it should be a red flag. This is well-understood in policing/ legal settings; statements given in court by police officers that differ substantially from their written statements rarely help their case.
Halt's judgement in this regard is questionable, particularly as he had a habit of hanging out with the SPs:

I'd be asked for a link to this discussion. I'd certainly be asked for one if I pointed out that Penniston later said he deliberately left out the full details in his statement.

 

[Scaramanga]

*Penniston told Chandler that the lighthouse was not what he had seen in the forest. Even if he believed that, omitting the lighthouse from his (Penniston's) statement must be highly questionable, and perhaps an early red flag. They had gone out to investigate lights, and ended up looking at a lighthouse. That fact is pertinent, even if Penniston didn't like it. Instead, it looks (to me) like Penniston didn't document the lighthouse because he didn't like the conclusions that others might have drawn from that information.

Assuming things even happened as transcribed...why would he mention something that was not relevant to what he considered the most pertinent information ? Of course he's left out the lighthouse deliberately. Not for nefarious reasons but I suspect because to him it just obfuscates the matter. The fact that they 'also' chased the lighthouse is in his mind irrelevant if the red and blue lighted object they all saw was not the lighthouse. Why bring in extraneous material ? That's my take on it. He's doing his job...focusing on what's relevant.

 

[Scaramanga]

we normal folks looking at where the evidence leads us can't understand

You'd be less confused if you grasped that I don't have a fixed position on Rendlesham. I am playing devil's advocate...deliberately challenging the 'conventional' explanations. I'm not 'changing my mind' every 5 minutes. I'm simply attacking any and every loophole I see. To me that is the method of getting to the truth.

You confuse that I am stating an opinion with it being my opinion.

 

[John J.]

They all accurately relate red and blue.

"Accurately"?
How do you know?

Bad faith. How do you 'know' any of what is reported even happened at all ?

I don't.
We can only know if, for example, people are accurately quoting the documents in the public record. Or if some theories align with checkable facts, e.g. was Orford Ness lighthouse visible from parts of Rendlesham Forest.

Most of us are not "insisting" on a certain interpretation,

I am insisting that stories are cover stories

defending that position (for which they provide no evidence whatsoever), and then apparently dropping it without admitting so.

Please, can you say how you know Cabansag, Burroughs and Penniston accurately reported red and blue lights?
The lights that you insisted were a made-up cover-story just a few posts ago?

 

[John J.]

You'd be less confused if you grasped that I don't have a fixed position on Rendlesham.

I am insisting that stories are cover stories

 

[Scaramanga]

So the three 26th December witnesses couldn't be misled by a lighthouse beam, but Halt and co. are misled by an electrical fault?!
That Halt observes it in the sky for a protracted period, until dawn slowly renders it invisible?

An electricity cable arcing/ burning copper for three days? (Red lights reported on the 26th and 28th, IIRC).
And the farmhouse inhabitants don't notice or bother to tell anyone?

You were insisting that all the accounts were cover stories.
The witnesses were all part of a cover-up.

So it's totally, utterly, irrelevant that there is an electricity pylon, complete with insulators, etc, directly below the lighthouse ? Couldn't possibly be the cause of any of what was seen...such as Halt seeing sparks falling to the ground ?

 

[deirdre]

Please, can you say how you know Cabansag, Burroughs and Penniston accurately reported red and blue lights?
The lights that you insisted were a made-up cover-story just a few posts ago?

i think youve been hanging out with fat phil too long. you are twisting his meanings, which isnt like you. (and it wasnt a few posts ago. its odd seeing you like this).

 

[Scaramanga]

Where's the contradiction ? I am playing devil's advocate. When I argue a position then I put myself in the mindset of someone arguing it. If a particular line doesn't work, I move on. I am arguing positions...none of which are my own personal position, which is simply that the lighthouse and stars theory is inadequate and does not fully explain what transpired.

 

[Eburacum]

I'd certainly be asked for one if I pointed out that Penniston later said he deliberately left out the full details in his statement.

Well, to (mis)quote Mandy-Rice Davies, "He would say that, wouldn't he?"