Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident

[JMartJr]

Of course I get suspicious that the police were called to create a distraction to a different area.

Would it not be preferable not to have them out and about at all?

 

[Mendel]

Well, no, one has to really be stretching things to argue that a lighthouse beam rotating every 10 seconds ( two beams..so one flash every 5 seconds ) whose beam at Halt's distance would actually be travelling at 12,000 mph ( I base this on there being two opposing beams ) could possibly constitute a beam coming down to the ground long enough for Halt to even say those words. Plus it was a totally clear night. There was no haze or mist for the beam to have reflected off.

It's not a laser beam! The beam has enough width for ships to actually see it blink.

 

[John J.]

whose beam at Halt's distance would actually be travelling at 12,000 mph

The Orford Ness lighthouse made a single brief flash once every 5 seconds, visible at 15.5 nautical miles, nominally visible (I don't know what that means) at 30 nautical miles, see post #529. That flash would be visible across a substantial arc, not just along the line of focus (or whatever the term might be), see also @Ann K's post #530, @FatPhil's post #534, @JMartJr's post #536.

The light from a lighthouse might be most intense along the focus of the lens, but it's still extremely bright in all directions around that focus, it's not a well-collimated beam from a point source in a vacuum.
The whole point of a lighthouse is that it is clearly visible and identifiable (by its flash rate and duration) over several miles, often across a very broad arc.

It's not a laser beam! The beam has enough width for ships to actually see it blink.

Agreed.

If anyone finds footage of a clearly delineated lighthouse beam illuminating a spot on the sea or ground several miles/km from a lighthouse, and that illuminated spot moving at several thousand miles per hour due to the light's (or reflector's) rotation, I will be surprised.
The duration of an individual flash isn't affected by distance, though this is of less relevance to the Orford Ness lighthouse which was identifiable by its frequency, once every five seconds, not its duration, 0.16 seconds. The frequency will not alter with distance.

Edited to add:

Of course I get suspicious that the police were called to create a distraction to a different area.

It might be your suspicion, but there's no evidence for this. A cover-up would have been better served by not contacting the police at all, no-one outside the USAF witnesses would have known anything. No chance of "outsiders" stumbling across something they shouldn't: The attending officers were not obliged to only visit the identified site, and would have been free to travel anywhere outside the bases' perimeters.
But on a quiet countryside night immediately after Christmas, the Suffolk police officers don't notice light-alls, the hum of generators, low loaders/ recovery trucks or other military vehicles.

I sort of agree that the evidence that we have about the whole incident is shaky, sometimes a bit bizarre -Halt's eagerness to lead a "recce patrol", complete with equipment he relies on but clearly doesn't know how to use- and there are some internal contradictions/ red flags, notably Penniston not mentioning identifying a light they followed as a lighthouse, unlike Cabansag and Burroughs who were with him.
But the above concerns do not in themselves mean that there was a dramatic underlying cause or some military secret involved.

There is little credible evidence for a UFO visit to Rendlesham Forest, just as there is little credible evidence that any UFO reports are of alien (or time-travelling) craft, but people (including military personnel) keep seeing UFOs and interpreting them as alien (or whatever) artefacts, sometimes maintaining that belief even when a probable mundane cause is proposed. A UFO sighting, even by USAF personnel, isn't necessarily an indication that something exciting is responsible.

 

[Scaramanga]

It's not a laser beam! The beam has enough width for ships to actually see it blink.

You can't have it both ways. If the beam is wide then at Halt's distance of 6 miles every degree is 550 feet. Google AI says 'visible over an arc of 25 degrees'. It seems there were actually 3 mirrors ( or rather 3 'panels' ). This fits in nicely with the light appearing every 5 seconds....so basically the entire assembly rotates every 15 seconds during which each of the 3 panels is visible.

That also means we can say that the light is visible for at most 1 second, and at Halt's distance the arc subtended is 13,750 feet.....two and a half miles !

How on earth does a something subtending two and a half miles wide at Halt's distance get to be a 'beam of light....coming down to the ground ' ? No...it isn't a laser beam...that's just it ! That is my whole point.

Halt doesn't say a beam of light intersecting with the lighthouse in the distance. At his distance the lighthouse light on a misty day ( which it wasn't ) would be a wide and rapidly moving arc...not a 'beam', and it would not be 'coming down to the ground'.

And absurdly....Halt spends more time saying the beam comes down than the length of time the lighthouse light would even have been visible.

Sometimes I think some of the 'explanations' for what happened make less sense than aliens.

 

[Scaramanga]

If anyone finds footage of a clearly delineated lighthouse beam illuminating a spot on the sea or ground several miles/km from a lighthouse, and that illuminated spot moving at several thousand miles per hour due to the light's (or reflector's) rotation, I will be surprised.

But that is precisely what this so-called 'explanation' entails if one is saying that Halt's 'beam' is the lighthouse beam. One is essentially arguing that the light arc travelling at 12,500 mph at Halt's distance somehow magically becomes a 'beam...coming down to the ground' for long enough for Halt to even say those words. This is where the lighthouse theory strains credulity and aliens are easier to explain. It reminds me of just how utterly contorted some of the Calvine UFO explanations became.

 

[Scaramanga]

Would it not be preferable not to have them out and about at all?

I'd have to re-read it, but I'm pretty sure Jenny Randles book Sky Crash ( which I actually bought when it came out...1983 I think it was ) says locals saw odd lights on the same night....and such claim has been re-iterated numerous times elsewhere.

So,...how to explain the odd lights to the locals ? Well...the police showed up and looked around and found nothing. So...y'all go back to sleep. Nothing to see here. And even if there was...'X' marks the ( wrong ) spot.

 

[FatPhil]

You can't have it both ways. If the beam is wide then at Halt's distance of 6 miles every degree is 550 feet. Google AI says 'visible over an arc of 25 degrees'. It seems there were actually 3 mirrors ( or rather 3 'panels' ). This fits in nicely with the light appearing every 5 seconds....so basically the entire assembly rotates every 15 seconds during which each of the 3 panels is visible.

That also means we can say that the light is visible for at most 1 second, and at Halt's distance the arc subtended is 13,750 feet.....two and a half miles !

Don't confuse a light being "visible" with actually being in the beam - typically taken as the half-power beam width. The beams themselves are pretty narrow, but, as the following photos show, the light is visible no matter what direction the beam's pointing in (and we're far more off-centre in this example than you would be at a distance, as the lobes are shaped for elevation too).

img link: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/...3-2HC0MXLIMB80YLGENZFS/beams.jpg?format=2500w
via: https://www.nationalparksatnight.co...ssed-the-shot-lighthouse-beams-at-fire-island

 

[John J.]

But that is precisely what this so-called 'explanation' entails if one is saying that Halt's 'beam' is the lighthouse beam.

I don't think anyone who thinks the Orford Ness lighthouse played a part is claiming it was responsible for all lights seen (and misidentified), we know Penniston/ Cabansag/ Burroughs followed lights and ended up at the Boast farmhouse- which was much closer to the airbase than the lighthouse, and had (I'm guessing) been there for several years.

I haven't looked for the relevant supporting evidence, apologies, but I think it's likely Halt thought some bright stars/ planets were something extraordinary; IIRC he reported lights in the sky, which he thought were unusual, were visible for some time but that they became invisible as dawn broke.

One of our problems is that we have to imagine what the witnesses describe, and what we imagine might be more dramatic than what was there to be seen. Two policemen in 1968, Devon, England pursued what was almost certainly Venus, describing it as

...radiating points of light from all angles

(post #407).
Maybe the beams seen by Halt weren't objectively very impressive. (No photos taken. Maybe there were no cameras, just as there were no maps).

I'm pretty sure Jenny Randles book Sky Crash ( which I actually bought when it came out...1983 I think it was ) says locals saw odd lights on the same night....and such claim has been re-iterated numerous times elsewhere.

Jenny Randles has changed her views on Rendlesham Forest,

Randles investigated the Rendlesham Forest UFO case and was one of the first to do so, coauthoring the book Sky Crash: A Cosmic Conspiracy shortly after it happened. She subsequently became skeptical of that case's veracity and that it had anything to due with aliens, but her earlier claims contributed to some of the conspiracy that grew around it. She later stated of Rendlesham that "While some puzzles remain, we can probably say that no unearthly craft were seen in Rendlesham Forest. We can also argue with confidence that the main focus of the events was a series of misperceptions of everyday things encountered in less than everyday circumstances".

Wikipedia, Jenny Randles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Randles, my emphasis.
The "misperceptions of everyday things" arguably rules out a cover-up of something dramatic. Randles herself had wondered if the UFO reports were a cover-up for some incident involving a nuclear weapon:

Larry Warren, former USAF Security Policeman who has provided perhaps the most dramatic (and questionable) claims about the events of December 1980- aliens suspended in beams of light, communicating with a USAF Brigadier General and repairing their craft- has claimed that Randles and her Sky Crash co-authors Brenda Butler and Dot Street were part of a conspiracy to allege a nuclear weapon incident in order to cover up the truth about a UFO, claiming that 2 of the 3 were involved in the anti-nuclear movement, perhaps the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND); Jenny Randles wrote

Whilst I must judge the conflicting claims of Warren and the others without knowing who is right and who is wrong, that is not the case with some other aspects of Left at East Gate. For there are things in there which I can definitely refute from my first-hand perspective. For example, he makes the fantastic allegation (p. 128) that "two of the Sky Crash authors were affiliated with Britain's anti-nuclear movement". This ties in with his disbelief at our idea that the story about aliens might be disinformation to hide an accident with a nuclear weapon. Later the authors add (p.217) "Randles chooses to state and reiterate this theory and I could only speculate as to why".

The clear impression gained from passages such as these is that I was in league with CND to use the Rendlesham case for some obscure purpose. That is outright rubbish. I can state assuredly that I am not – and have never been – associated with the anti-nuclear movement in even the most minor of ways. I cannot say whether this is true of Brenda or Dot, but in all the years I have known them it has never once come up in conversation and certainly had no role to play in the writing of Sky Crash
... ...
Besides which, as Warren notes in his second quote above, the nuclear mishap theory was mine – nobody else's – and was referenced by me on several occasions between 1981 and 1984 (e.g. a comment in OMNI magazine which is also discussed in Left at East Gate). This is firmly attributed to me personally.

Jenny Randles, "Getting It Right at East Gate", Magonia 61, November 1992 https://magoniamagazine.blogspot.com/2013/12/getting-it-right-at-east-gate.html#mor.
The article was written before Randles' change of heart over Rendlesham, and includes questionable details like "Infra-red radiation was detected by an A-10 sent on an over-flight" which sounds impressive until you think about it.

Anyway, Randles identifies herself as the originator of the theory that the 1980 UFO reports were a cover for a nuclear weapon incident,

This amply demonstrates my feeling at the time that – with the huge public outcry over bringing Cruise missiles into Europe – it might have seemed appropriate to cover up an accident by creating a diversionary story so ludicrous nobody would believe it.

I don't think it's unreasonable that this theory might have been considered at the time (or in 1983 when the story was publicized) and it might be likely that people other than Randles et al. would independently have had the same concern. But again, there is absolutely no evidence for any event requiring a cover-up.

More recently, former Security Policeman Kurt Loutzenheiser has claimed that he worked with the 67th Air Rescue and Recovery Squadron to retrieve something from the forest (see post #547), but he isn't mentioned in any of the known near-contemporaneous accounts.
Why the 67th ARRS required an SP to drive a truck isn't explained. I don't know what ground vehicles 67th ARRS had to help in their mission, but on balance it might be more likely they, not the Security Police squadron, would have vehicles suitable for retrieving downed aircraft or stores. And if they didn't, the airbases would have had logistics units with trucks and drivers; crash response teams might have had recovery vehicles, perhaps there was an airfield damage repair team with suitable vehicles and heavy plant.

David Clarke's article with Loutzenheiser's account (https://drclarke.substack.com/p/dropped-object, with thanks to @Bristolian) was published online 30 December 2024; on 13th May 2024, post #120 I mused

There is no evidence that Halt ever alerted the USAF's 67th Air Rescue and Recovery Squadron (ARRS) at RAF Woodbridge (closer to the "landing site" than RAF Bentwaters), which would arguably be the best unit in Europe at that time to assist with a downed modest-sized aircraft /UFO, assuming there aren't secret UFO retrieval teams...

...and in post #222, 26 May 2024

67th ARRS personnel (and an HH-53) might have been ideal for this task.

But they're never mentioned in relation to "the incident".

I guess it's unlikely Loutzenheiser visits us here at Metabunk, but I think it's interesting that we discussed 67th ARRS as being a possible asset for retrieving an aircraft or store, and questioned why it hadn't been used if there was something to be recovered (the known witnesses other than Halt being the on-duty Security Policemen) months before Clarke's article with Loutzenheiser's claim was published.
As of now, we've several accounts from USAF SPs and Halt, but none from any members of 67th ARRS or any technicians/ armourers, combat engineers or logistics troops who we might expect to be involved in a retrieval of something interesting.

 

[JMartJr]

One is essentially arguing that the light arc travelling at 12,500 mph at Halt's distance somehow magically becomes a 'beam...coming down to the ground' for long enough for Halt to even say those words.

The speed of the lighted patch across the ground is not relevant unless you know how wise it is. It's period does not change as distance and thus speed across ground increase, as the speed and width scale.

This is where the lighthouse theory strains credulity and aliens are easier to explain.

Could not disagree more (though you may have intended that as a bit of dramatic hyperbole! If so, apologies for treating it as a literality!) We know that lighthouses exist, and we know that people who think they are seeing weird UFOs often give wildly inaccurate accounts of what they believe they have seen. Those known phenomena are hugely more likely to account for parts or even (at a somewhat less likelihood) all of this case than is relying on aliens, which we do not know exist, and then, if they DO exist, that they are space faring and able to traverse between stars, and if the CAN do that, that they have ever come here, and if the DO ever come here that there was one flying around GB at the right time and place -- while further not knowing ANY properties of the ship they'd be in, for example, whether it would have blinking lights or lights at all, nor anything else about it!

It reminds me of just how utterly contorted some of the Calvine UFO explanations became.

It's always going to be an issue with these data-poor UFO reports. Even with a claimed photograph in the Calvine case, there are huge numbers of ways it might have been produced, some of them seeming farfetched but all more possible then aliens. (And of course all but one of them are wrong, the one picture was produced one way, whatever it was!) The situation is going to be at least as bad with cases like this one, where there is no data beyond "the witness said," given how poor witness testimony can be, how changeable it is, and how difficult it is to tell a true bit from an incorrect bit.

 

[Ann K]

But that is precisely what this so-called 'explanation' entails if one is saying that Halt's 'beam' is the lighthouse beam. One is essentially arguing that the light arc travelling at 12,500 mph at Halt's distance somehow magically becomes a 'beam...coming down to the ground' for long enough for Halt to even say those words. This is where the lighthouse theory strains credulity and aliens are easier to explain. It reminds me of just how utterly contorted some of the Calvine UFO explanations became.

(1) Bear in mind that a lighthouse beam seen through the trees is not the same as when seen from an unobstructed view, such as from a ship at sea, and might well have been seen as a shorter blink. Your description of the length of the light path is off the mark.
(2) You've already been told that "miles per hour" is not the way to measure a rotating light. You need the angular speed instead.

 

[NorCal Dave]

But there is equally no evidence for anything else about the incident. The only thing we know with certainty is that 'reports' were filed and that includes a police file as the police were called out.

This sounds like classic conspiratorial thinking. There's no evidence of a physical UFO, no evidence of a Broken Arrow incident, no evidence of any crash and no evidence of anything that required an extensive cover-up. There is evidence of several people wondering around in the woods looking at lights. The lack of evidence for anything beyond guys looking at lights is not evidence that some secret accident or catastrophe took place.

Lack of evidence being claimed as evidence of something is just conspiratorial and ends up in things like this:

Of course I get suspicious that the police were called to create a distraction to a different area.

There are conflicting reports about what these guys saw or perceived or thought they saw. This is what many convoluted UFO cases are made of.
As is making big deals out of simple things like the Geiger counter:

He's said numerous times he went out to debunk the UFO. Why does he need to take a geiger counter to do so ? There is zero evidence he had any prior interest or knowledge of UFO lore.

The bigger question is why is Holt out there at all? IF this is a Broken Arrow or plane crash, he as part of the base command structure, would have dispatched the appropriate personal for the task at hand. He MAY have wondered out to get a look at whatever was supposedly going on sometime later, but he wouldn't be running around the woods with a bunch of enlisted SPs and a Geiger counter no one knew how to work to find a lost nuke.

He's part of the base command, an administrator, not a field operative. He would not be tasked with grabbing a Geiger counter he could't use and going out to find a nuke. Makes no sense at all.

Your claim, among many, suggests he was out there as part of a ruse or a cover-up. At least for part of it? Again, makes no sense at all. After losing a nuke we send a base commander out with some SPs, a night-vision scope, a Geiger counter and have them record it so as to imply there looking for UFOs?

Or is the first part of the recording with Holt, some SPs and Geiger counter actually the real search for the nuke? Then what?

Instead of destroying or classifying the recording which could hint that they were looking for a nuke, who ever was coordinating the cover-up instead had Holt and the rest add a bunch UFO sounding segments to the original tape at a later date. Really?

The idea that Holt was a bit of micromanager who liked to get his shoes dirty with "the men" explains his presence. He leaves a party filled with other officers and spends the night running around in the woods with a bunch of enlisted guys cosplaying that he's looking for the previous nights UFO. Running around in the woods with a bunch of enlisted guys is certainly not how a base commander finds a lost nuke.

And the lighthouse:

none of them were ever aware of the lighthouse before that night ?

Google AI says Burroughs had been at Rendlesham since June 1979 as a base policeman. He's the only one for whom I can find that info ( though I suspect it is out there for the others ). So, Burroughs had been there a year and a half and had never heard of the lighthouse ?

Maybe not. These are not trained aviators or even officers, they're enlisted men stationed on a base in a foreign country. You are an avid astronomer, photographer and hiker I believe. If you were stationed at Beal AFB in California as a British national, I'm sure you'd be out exploring off base whenever you had the chance, but that doesn't mean these guys would. They may have been content to sit around the base with some cigarettes and a Playboy on their off duty. They may have gone into town on occasion, but they may not have been aware of the lighthouse.

They may not have been the most curious folks. They may have taken the jobs seriously, but this time frame is known as the "Hollow Forces" era for the USAF due the low quality recruits post Viet Nam:

Losing trained and experienced personnel was bad enough, but the late 1970s also saw a drop in the quality of new recruits. Figure 3 shows a general decline in the number of recruits with high school diplomas. Quality also declined in terms of Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) scores. The AFQT classifies recruits on a scale of trainability—Category I being the highest, Category IV the lowest. Figure 4 shows the percentage distribution over the period. The numbers of Category IV trainees peaked at nine percent in 1979 and 1980.

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0494hollow/

And let's be clear, a lost nuke is about the only thing that might fit your narrative. You pushed hard for a lost nuke for pages, before saying it was just a possibility, but really, what other possibility works? One can't hide a plane crash in the English countryside with a UFO tale. So, we need something catastrophic enough to cause higher ups to concoct a UFO cover story that:

• Includes false, but contradictory statements.
• A fake or partially faked recording.
• Sent the local police on a wild goose chase.
• A continued insistence on the cover story for decades while new and ever fanciful elements are added.
• Not one shred of evidence for whatever was being covered-up has ever materialized.

Even then, IF this was all just a ruse to hide a Broken Arrow event, it was 40 years ago and clearly the nuke was quickly and quietly recovered. It seems like a relic of the Cold War and not worth keeping secret today with those involved continuing the cover story decades later.

 

[John J.]

From Halt's tape, courtesy of Ian Ridpath's site http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/halttape3.html

HALT: OK, we're looking at the thing, we're probably about two to three hundred yards away. It looks like an eye winking at you. Still moving from side to side. And when you put the Starscope on it, it sort of has a hollow centre, a dark centre, it's...

ENGLUND(?): Like a pupil...

HALT: Yeah, like a pupil of an eye looking at you, winking. And the flash is so bright to the Starscope that it almost burns your eye.

Also from Ian's site is this interview with forestry worker Vince Thurkettle (copyright BBC), the location is believed to be approximately where the airmen saw the flashing UFO, near the eastern edge of the forest.
The flashing light is the Orford Ness lighthouse. When it flashes it appears to have a darker centre, exactly as Halt described on his tape.

Ian Ridpath observed

The time interval between 'There it is again...there it is' [on Halt's tape] is 5 seconds, the flash rate of the Orford Ness lighthouse.

It would be very bright viewed through a Starlight Scope, he's looking at a lighthouse through an image intensifier which also has 4x magnification (power cuts out above a set level of brightness, TM-11-5855-203-10, Operator's Manual... ...AN/PVS-2 https://www.liberatedmanuals.com/TM-11-5855-203-10.pdf).

Re-reading the transcript, it seems likely Englund (like Halt) confused the Starlight Scope (an image intensifier, as the name suggests) with an infra-red vision device. Note Halt's invocation of "...some form of energy" based on an instrument he doesn't understand.

ENGLUND: Yes, there is, definitely. That's on the centre spot. There is an after-effect.
NEVELS: What does that mean?
ENGLUND: It means that when the lights are turned off, once we are focused in and allow time for the eyes to adjust we are getting an indication of a heat source coming out of that centre spot, as er, which will show up on...
HALT: Heat or some form of energy. It's hardly heat at this stage of the game.

The lights that supposedly shone down beams appear to be associated with lights in the sky which are not connected with the light they had been following (probably Orford Ness lighthouse).

HALT: 03:30 and the objects are still in the sky, although the one to the south looks like it's losing a little bit of altitude. We're turning around and heading back toward the base.

HALT: The object to the south is still beaming down lights to the ground.

HALT: 04:00 hours. One object still hovering over Woodbridge base at about five to ten degrees off the horizon, still moving erratic and similar lights and beaming down as earlier.

I don't know if the USAF has an equivalent to a "Stand To", where personnel are awakened/ abandon routine tasks, security measures are implemented and a higher level of vigilance expected, but it almost certainly does (at least for personnel responsible for physical security).
Halt, the deputy base commander, believes he is seeing unidentified aerial craft sending beams down onto his airbase, but doesn't order any increase in alert status. Frankly, it's as if he doesn't quite believe it himself.
We're not aware of any attempt made by Halt to find out what celestial objects might have been visible at the time of his sightings.

 

[Scaramanga]

The bigger question is why is Holt out there at all? IF this is a Broken Arrow or plane crash, he as part of the base command structure, would have dispatched the appropriate personal for the task at hand. He MAY have wondered out to get a look at whatever was supposedly going on sometime later, but he wouldn't be running around the woods with a bunch of enlisted SPs and a Geiger counter no one knew how to work to find a lost nuke.

He's part of the base command, an administrator, not a field operative. He would not be tasked with grabbing a Geiger counter he could't use and going out to find a nuke. Makes no sense at all.

Your claim, among many, suggests he was out there as part of a ruse or a cover-up. At least for part of it? Again, makes no sense at all. After losing a nuke we send a base commander out with some SPs, a night-vision scope, a Geiger counter and have them record it so as to imply there looking for UFOs?

Or is the first part of the recording with Holt, some SPs and Geiger counter actually the real search for the nuke? Then what?

Instead of destroying or classifying the recording which could hint that they were looking for a nuke, who ever was coordinating the cover-up instead had Holt and the rest add a bunch UFO sounding segments to the original tape at a later date. Really?

The idea that Holt was a bit of micromanager who liked to get his shoes dirty with "the men" explains his presence. He leaves a party filled with other officers and spends the night running around in the woods with a bunch of enlisted guys cosplaying that he's looking for the previous nights UFO. Running around in the woods with a bunch of enlisted guys is certainly not how a base commander finds a lost nuke.

Yet you fail to explain what Halt is doing in the woods with a geiger counter and why he ever took one ' to debunk a UFO'. No amount of sophistry explains that.

You talk of things that don't 'makes sense'. Well, it makes sense to take a geiger counter to actually do what its job is for....to measure radiation !

You don't take a geiger counter just to debunk some 'lights in the woods'. I mean...what are we expecting in that hypothesis ? That Halt was simply going to say ' Nope, no radiation, so can't have been a UFO'. Seriously ?

 

[Scaramanga]

1) Bear in mind that a lighthouse beam seen through the trees is not the same as when seen from an unobstructed view, such as from a ship at sea, and might well have been seen as a shorter blink. Your description of the length of the light path is off the mark.
(2) You've already been told that "miles per hour" is not the way to measure a rotating light. You need the angular speed instead.

Where does this 'seen through the trees' come from ? They are no longer in the main woods. Halt clearly states just minutes before the 'beam' comment that...

HALT: 2:44. We're at the far side of the farmer's...the second farmer's field and made sighting again about 110 degrees. This looks like it's clear off to the coast. It's right on the horizon.

So Halt can see the horizon, which implies there are not masses of trees in the way.

And I stand by my 'miles per hour'. Halt's end of the alleged 'beam' is sweeping across the sky at 12,500 mph. If you are going to have a 'beam' at all, then that is what it is doing.

How do we get 'coming down to the ground' out of any of this ? I would have thought Halt's words were pretty unambiguous.

HALT: Now we're observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground.

I am open to any examples of beams of light from any lighthouse 'coming down to the ground'.

 

[Scaramanga]

Re-reading the transcript

No-one ever seems to re-read this bit...

ENGLUND: Now it's stopped... Now it's coming up... Hold on. There we go... about approximately four foot off the ground, at a compass heading of 110 degrees.
http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/halttape3.html

The lighthouse is actually at 95 degrees. So the alleged UFO is a full 15 degrees to the right of where the lighthouse was. That's some 30 times the diameter of the Moon, for scale. A big difference.

How can people stand by the 'UFO' being the lighthouse when the bearing, measured with a compass, clearly shows it can't have been.

( In fact to get 110 degrees they would have had to have been some 1.5 miles further north than they were and just a few hundred metres from the other base, at Bentwaters...and not in the woods at Rendlesham )

 

[NorCal Dave]

Yet you fail to explain what Halt is doing in the woods with a geiger counter and why he ever took one ' to debunk a UFO'. No amount of sophistry explains that.

You talk of things that don't 'makes sense'. Well, it makes sense to take a geiger counter to actually do what its job is for....to measure radiation !

You don't take a geiger counter just to debunk some 'lights in the woods'. I mean...what are we expecting in that hypothesis ? That Halt was simply going to say ' Nope, no radiation, so can't have been a UFO'. Seriously ?

Then why did he take it? He doesn't know how to use it and it appears that the enlisted men with him don't either. What's the point?

IF he's looking for radiation, radiation from what?

IF there is a lost nuke, why would a base commander and some enlisted men go out looking for it when there was a dedicated team to do just that?

IF he's searching for a lost nuke and the UFO story is a cover for this search why the hell are the tape recordings of this search public? There is zero evidence of a lost nuke, meaning either there wasn't one or it was quickly and quietly recovered and that operation has been classified ever since. Except for an audio recording of an inept group of guys running around the woods looking for something radioactive. Huh?

Radiation and UFOs are, and were a well known trope. IF Holt thinks he's looking for UFOs, then a Geiger counter makes sense, even if its wrong.

Why do you think he took a Geiger counter? To look for a nuke? Or maybe he didn't take one and the whole recording is fake? Of course if the whole audio recording is a fake ruse, either recorded in an office or even assuming Holt actually took a bunch of enlisted guys out into the woods with a Starlight and Geiger counter just to create a fake recording about looking for a UFO, he still took a Geiger counter. Why? Why take the Geiger counter?

1. He took it to look for a lost nuke, for which there is no evidence of. In that case, why is this audio tape of a highly and still classified recovery operation public?
2. He took it out to create a fake audio tape to conceal a lost nuke recovery operation. In this case, he takes it because radiation and UFOs is a well known trope and it lends credence to the fake story about looking for a fake UFO.
3. He's out looking for a UFO and radiation and UFOs is a well known trope, so he grabs one when they head out.

Seriously, why do you think he took it? If he did at all.

 

[JMartJr]

Yet you fail to explain what Halt is doing in the woods with a geiger counter and why he ever took one ' to debunk a UFO'. No amount of sophistry explains that.

You talk of things that don't 'makes sense'. Well, it makes sense to take a geiger counter to actually do what its job is for....to measure radiation !

I think we've pretty well established that toting a Geiger counter along on a UFO investigation was (maybe still is) a thing, if you found radiation beyond what was normal, maybe oooOOOooOOOoOOOoooOOHHhhhH, you have a space ship from beyond the stars or something. Even if it is not something YOU would do, it's a thing that people investigating UFOs did/do.
.....
(Another example, the Cash Landrum UFO case of 1980:

In 1998, journalist and UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass, found a few reasons to doubt the story by Cash and Landrum: When Schuessler inspected Betty's car in early 1981 and used a Geiger counter to check for radioactivity, he found none. Presumably he also checked for radioactivity when he visited the site of the (alleged) incident, and found no abnormal radiation ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash–Landrum_incident

and one more, the 1965 Kecksburg UFO "crash"

Roadblocks went up in Kecksburg after the thump in the woods was heard, and firefighters, officers from the Pennsylvania State Police and members of the U.S. Army's 662nd Radar Unit from Pittsburgh scoured a 15-square-mile area for seven hours. The result? "We found no fire and no marks," according to Capt. Joseph Dussin of the Greensburg state police post. Geiger counters were used to measure potential radiation, but nothing was detected.

https://www.observer-reporter.com/n...put-westmoreland-county-community-on-the-map/

It's a thing that is part of the meme-plex of UFO investigatiing.)
.....

Of course, you'd also take one if you were trying to find misplaced nuclear devices. Investigators carrying a Geiger counter is perfectly consistent with either hypothesis of what they thought the were looking for, its presence does not indicate one over the other, nor rule either out.

 

[Ann K]

I am open to any examples of beams of light from any lighthouse 'coming down to the ground'.

Lighthouses are meant to shine a beam toward ships that are at sea level.

 

[FatPhil]

It's a thing that is part of the meme-plex of UFO investigatiing.)

In Yesprimeministerish: they need to take measurements, that takes measurements, therefore they must take that.
But, more simply, in Montypythonish: it's the machine that goes "ping".

 

[John J.]

...you fail to explain what Halt is doing in the woods with a geiger counter and why he ever took one ' to debunk a UFO'

It's your assertion (and Halts?) that Halt took the Geiger counter to "debunk a UFO".
But to me it looks like he was looking for evidence of something extraordinary.
As has been pointed out, investigators taking a Geiger counter to claimed UFO landing spots is practically a trope, and had been before Halt's expedition. The idea that UFOs emit radiation featured in Close Encounters, released 3 years before.

Halt's responses to the Geiger counter readings, and what could be seen looking at trees with scraped bark through a Starlight Scope (!) rather support this. His reactions to lights in the sky also support this. They don't seem to be the actions of someone looking for mundane explanations.

Please have a quick look at "What were the other lights seen by Colonel Halt?" on Ian Redfern's website
http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham3.html. Halt's account of lights in the sky beaming down onto RAF Woodbridge were refuted by his superior, Conrad, who had been listening in to the radio traffic and who went outside to have a look. A later claim by Halt- that a beam fell on the weapons storage area (WSA) at Bentwaters- was refuted by USAF Security Policeman Tim Egercic who was on duty at the WSA at the time.

British investigator Jenny Randles adds another telling quote on pp. 123–4 of her book UFO Crash Landing (1998). She says Halt told her that when he was back at base, 'the objects were still in the sky – however, it was getting light and they were getting faint'. Jenny adds: 'I suspect that this is the final clue that demonstrates that these star-like lights to the north were, indeed, just stars.'

Would add, Halt described the lights as moving erratically. He viewed them (at least some of the time) through an 8-12 magnification optic (maybe a monocular or binos), anyone whose done a bit of stargazing with unsupported binoculars (i.e. hand-held, not on a mount) will be familiar with how the "target" dances and zig-zags.

If you're looking for fissile material, and you have the resources of two US airbases, one hosting a near-as-dammit SF rescue and recovery unit (67th ARRS), plus potential support from the major base at RAF Lakenheath in the same county (which, whatever the case at Bentwaters/ Woodbridge definitely had nuclear weapons) you would use personnel who knew how to use Geiger counters. And who carried maps.
It's inconceivable (to me) that the airbases didn't have NBC instructors, and Lakenheath certainly had personnel familiar with the storage, handling and transport of nuclear weapons.
Plus you have a friendly host government planning to invite additional US nuclear weapons onto its soil as well as buying Trident missiles, with its own means of securing sensitive materials should the need arise.
Planes crash; there had been US military aircraft crashes in the UK before, and the UK electorate knew there were US nuclear weapons in the UK, just as they knew British military aircraft might carry nuclear weapons and also sometimes crashed.

An accident involving a US nuclear weapon might have been exploited by/ been of legitimate concern to the then growing anti-nuclear movement in the UK, but UK electors returned Thatcher to office with a large majority after US cruise missiles were based in the UK, and after the (rightly) horrific docudrama Threads*, showing the possible effects of a nuclear attack on Britain, was broadcast with much publicity on BBC1.

On February 28 1958 at RAF Greenham Common, a USAF strategic nuclear weapon was engulfed by an intense fire:

A B-47E of the USAF 310th Bomb Wing developed problems shortly after takeoff and jettisoned its two 1,700 gallon external fuel tanks. They missed their designated safe impact area, and one hit a hangar while the other struck the ground 65 feet (20 m) behind a parked B-47E. The parked plane, which was fuelled, had a pilot on board, and was carrying a 1.1 megaton (4.6 PJ) B28 nuclear bomb, was engulfed by flames. The conflagration took sixteen hours and over a million gallons of water to extinguish, partly because of the magnesium alloys used in the aircraft. Although two men were killed and eight injured, the US and UK governments kept the accident secret: as late as 1985, the British government claimed that a taxiing aircraft had struck a parked one and that no fire was involved.

Wikipedia, List of military nuclear accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents

This clearly was a serious incident. It was kept secret for 27 years- we're 45 years post-Rendlesham Forest. It was revealed at a time when the Cold War was still on; Mikhail Gorbachev only came to power in March 1985 and negotiations on intermediate nuclear forces (SS-20, GLCM, Pershing II) would not re-start for another year. It is hard to imagine a more serious incident (requiring a longer period of secrecy) that nonetheless could be cleared up overnight, off-base, without anyone noticing.

There isn't any evidence of anything in Rendlesham Forest, 1980, requiring a cover-up. The UFO reports drew attention to the twin bases, as could have been easily predicted.
Much more mundane cover stories, that might have allowed a recovery effort to proceed unhindered and which discouraged sightseers could be drawn up on the back of a cigarette packet. An Air Force road tanker carrying toxic lubricants skids off a dark, icy December road. A drop-tank is lost from an aircraft at take-off and ruptures, there are initial concerns that it might have been asbestos-lined: thankfully, after a couple of days it's confirmed senior USAF staff had demanded the use of environmentally safe alternatives some years previously, but everyone commends the local base commander for his caution and transparency.

The UFO reports, and the subsequent revisions/ additions, are evidence of claimed UFO sightings; in the absence of other evidence, they aren't in themselves evidence of anything else.


*Watched it again last year; despite the ultra-low budget special effects still the most chilling drama I've ever seen.

 

[John J.]

The lighthouse is actually at 95 degrees. So the alleged UFO is a full 15 degrees to the right of where the lighthouse was. That's some 30 times the diameter of the Moon, for scale. A big difference.

(1) Englund might be carrying the Geiger counter at that point, a substantial piece of metal, as well as the compass.
At some points he is carrying the Starlight Scope. Both have batteries and electric current.

(2) Halt says "We're heading about 110, 120 degrees from the site out through to the clearing now..." so he's accepting a 10 degree margin of error (in fairness, that doesn't mean Englund does).

(3) The lighthouse is perhaps 95 degrees from the group's estimated position on the map.
But they don't appear to be using a map, just a compass.

At that time (well, 01 Jan 1981) and approximate location, magnetic north was over 5 degrees to the west of grid (map) north,
using the British Geographical Survey's International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF), 14th​ Generation Calculator
https://geomag.bgs.ac.uk/data_service/models_compass/igrf_calc.html:

...so that's 5 degrees to be deducted from the proposed discrepancy.

(4) The men are using a compass marked in degrees; NATO (including US) ground forces "in the field" use compasses marked in NATO mils, a system roughly based on milliradians (6400 NATO mils in a circle). NATO air forces and navies still use degrees in some contexts, but their platforms usually have elaborate navigation aids. Halt's expedition not only doesn't have maps, it uses a compass that would seem inadequate to an average soldier- this doesn't make the compass less reliable, but it might mean the team are not experienced at using a compass to navigate on foot.
They might not be aware of the need to leave large metal masses and electrical items (Geiger counter, Starlight Scope, Dictaphone, radio) a short distance away before getting an accurate compass bearing.

(5) At no point does anyone state they're looking at the lighthouse. It would have been a useful landmark- it flashes every five seconds.
If they knew it was there, it would probably have been the only visible, recognisable landmark in the direction they were looking.
Instead, they have a mysterious light that flashes every five seconds, demonstrated on Halt's tape. It has a yellow tinge, as did the Orford Ness lighthouse lamp at that time. And it appears to have a darker centre, as the Orford Ness light has in the 1983 BBC footage posted in #572.

 

[Mendel]

Seriously, why do you think he took it? If he did at all.

Because he was there, and he wanted to take something as to not seem unprepared.

 

[Scaramanga]

He's out looking for a UFO and radiation and UFOs is a well known trope, so he grabs one when they head out.

Absurd.....as the absence of radiation, which is surely what he would have been expecting under that scenario, would not prove there was not a UFO.

Oh hell...let's just adjust the Halt tape accordingly...

HALT : Hey guys, you can't have seen what you saw with your own eyes that the US government trusts you to use to police this base properly, as there is no radiation and every abductee thus side of Arizona KNOWS that every UFO just HAS to have radiation.

 

[Scaramanga]

Lighthouses are meant to shine a beam toward ships that are at sea level.

And your point is ? I mean, they are at sea level....effectively the same height above sea level ( about 50 feet ) that the bridge of a small ship would be.

 

[Scaramanga]

Of course, you'd also take one if you were trying to find misplaced nuclear devices. Investigators carrying a Geiger counter is perfectly consistent with either hypothesis of what they thought the were looking for, its presence does not indicate one over the other, nor rule either out.

Why did Halt need to measure the radiation in the impressions in the ground, when Penniston had already ( shortly after the first sighting ) taken plaster casts that would themselves clearly have been exposed to radiation and would even contain radioactive pine needles. Halt was aware of their existence....so why didn't he just ask for those. Why didn't Penniston measure the radiation at the time ? I mean...that was far more his job that it was Halt's.

People had been at 'the landing site' for two entire days prior to Halt's visit. That's two entire days for someone to say ' Hey...aren't UFOs associated with radiation ?'. Yet there is zero indication anyone did so.

Halt knew that people were in the woods for those two days. At any time he could have gone out and said ' stop this nonsense and return to base'. Instead he heads out in the wee small hours of the morning in the middle of a party...armed with a geiger counter.

None of this story makes any sense.

 

[Scaramanga]

It's your assertion (and Halts?) that Halt took the Geiger counter to "debunk a UFO".

No, Halt has never specifically stated that he took the geiger counter to debunk the UFO. He has stated that he went out to put an end to all the UFO nonsense ( which he'd already had two entire days to do, I might add ), and that he went home and got changed and grabbed the geiger counter on the way. So there's never been ( to the best of my knowledge, and I've watched all his videos ) any statement even years later that he took the geiger counter for the purpose of debunking. Which of course begs the question....why did he take it.

 

[FatPhil]

No, Halt has never specifically stated that he took the geiger counter to debunk the UFO. He has stated that he went out to put an end to all the UFO nonsense

That's a distinction without a difference.
Bunk = nonsense.
Debunking = ending nonsense.

 

[JMartJr]

Why did Halt need to measure the radiation in the impressions in the ground, when Penniston had already ( shortly after the first sighting ) taken plaster casts that would themselves clearly have been exposed to radiation and would even contain radioactive pine needles. Halt was aware of their existence....so why didn't he just ask for those. Why didn't Penniston measure the radiation at the time ? I mean...that was far more his job that it was Halt's.

Don't know. But those questions are equally MORE odd if they were looking for a lot nuke, and knew that what they were looking for was radioactive. If they were instead looking for a UFO, wouldn't they grab whatever bit of kit was close to hand that seemed potentially useful? Or were part of the ideas permeating the culture when thinking about investigating a UFO, one if which would be a Geiger counter?

None of this story makes any sense.

People after do things that make little sense to me. The question is, is this a thing they might have plausibly done in the moment? Under either scenario, it seems reasonable that a person would have grabbed a Geiger counter. They are quite useful in looking for a nuke that's gone walkabout, and IN THE CULTURE, IF NOT IN REAL LIFE, they are seen as a tool for investigating UFOs. I suppose he could have gone out without any equipment, but to what purpose? Why NOT grab a Geiger counter?

 

[NorCal Dave]

Absurd.....as the absence of radiation, which is surely what he would have been expecting under that scenario, would not prove there was not a UFO.

Apparently, Holt and the Geiger counter could use its own dedicated thread.

WHY do YOU think he took the Geiger counter? You still haven't answered that simple question. Everyone else has offered their opinion, with examples, that searching for radioactivity is a standard trope in UFO stories particularly in the time frame of the event. Holt taking a Geiger counter to a possible UFO landing site fits the trope. He's right in the middle of the UFO zeitgeist of the time.

You find this "absurd". You have soundly disagreed with all of these ideas, but have not provided an alternative. So, what is your idea about why he has a Geiger counter? This seems to be one of the central contentions of your theory of a cover up; Holt had no reason to take a Geiger counter to a UFO site. So why did he take it?

Claiming he and a bunch of base policemen with 1 Geiger counter running around the woods looking for a lost nuke, while recording their little adventure, is more problematic than looking for a UFO.

 

[JMartJr]

Apparently, Holt and the Geiger counter could use its own dedicated thread.

I'm not sure there is much more to be said about it. It has been posited that taking it makes no sense, a response has been given that it is a standard thing people do in that situation. This has been repeated several times, and barring somebody thinking of anything new to add, I don't think there's much need to keeping repeating either position.

 

[JJB]

Well, no, one has to really be stretching things to argue that a lighthouse beam rotating every 10 seconds ( two beams..so one flash every 5 seconds ) whose beam at Halt's distance would actually be travelling at 12,000 mph ( I base this on there being two opposing beams ) could possibly constitute a beam coming down to the ground long enough for Halt to even say those words. Plus it was a totally clear night. There was no haze or mist for the beam to have reflected off.

The miles per hour figure is meaningless because nothing is moving through space. It is just the angular rotation of a light source projected over distance. Quoting a speed for the beam edge sounds technical but describes no physical process and adds no explanatory value.

A lighthouse emits a rotating light, not a static beam. When that sweep repeatedly crosses the same trees and terrain, especially when viewed through branches at night, it can easily appear as one descending to the ground. Human perception fills in continuity where none exists.

Fog or haze isn't required; bright beams are visible in clear air when hitting terrain or trees. The timing, direction, and color all match the lighthouse. No independent witnesses saw beams hit the ground, no damage was found, and no instruments recorded anything.

Once you account for perception and geometry, the lighthouse explanation fits perfectly.

 

[Ann K]

And your point is ? I mean, they are at sea level....effectively the same height above sea level ( about 50 feet ) that the bridge of a small ship would be.

Here's a photo (photographer Kristin Wilkinson) of a lighthouse on a foggy night. And yes, I know, the night this event was seen was clear; I am showing you a lighthouse in fog only because it illustrates that the light, as has been pointed out for you before, is NOT a sharply-focused laser beam. Light scatters all over the place, so please don't get your knickers in a twist about the beam "not reaching the ground". Observe the light on the green grass in the foreground.

 

[Scaramanga]

WHY do YOU think he took the Geiger counter? You still haven't answered that simple question. Everyone else has offered their opinion, with examples, that searching for radioactivity is a standard trope in UFO stories particularly in the time frame of the event. Holt taking a Geiger counter to a possible UFO landing site fits the trope. He's right in the middle of the UFO zeitgeist of the time.

What I am arguing against is precisely this sort of contrived use of 'tropes', and a whole bunch of other stuff with contrived simplicity, that is deemed to 'explain' an event. And how people settle for one of these simplistic 'explanations' and then refuse to budge.

I dislike the whole way people go from ' It might have been.....' to 'It must have been...' and no further questions get asked.

Debunking is surely about asking all the pertinent questions....even if that puts long held assumptions under scrutiny. I love tugging at the loose ends, and the Rendlesham incident is full of them.

We don't have a proper explanation for why Halt took the geiger counter. We don't know why the security chief at Bentwaters ( an entirely different base ) called the police only after he'd called the men back to base. Nobody has ever explained how a lighthouse light becomes a 'beam...coming down to the ground'. Everyone has missed the bit where ( its on the tape ) there was not just one object but five 'similar' such objects. Five lighthouses ? The more I read the Halt tape the more questions it raises, and it is clear that much of the 'debunking' is quite selective not only in which comments are chosen but in how their context is interpreted.

I am reminded of the highly selective manner in which Mitch Stanley's alleged sighting of the Pheonix lights is latched onto and one account somehow over-rides several hundred others. Just ignore the bits that don't fit.

 

[Scaramanga]

Here's a photo (photographer Kristin Wilkinson) of a lighthouse on a foggy night. And yes, I know, the night this event was seen was clear; I am showing you a lighthouse in fog only because it illustrates that the light, as has been pointed out for you before, is NOT a sharply-focused laser beam. Light scatters all over the place, so please don't get your knickers in a twist about the beam "not reaching the ground". Observe the light on the green grass in the foreground.

By what conceivable stretch of the imagination could your pic be interpreted as a 'beam....coming down to the ground' ? I mean, those are Halt's actual words. How is it that people are quite happy to use the exact and literal meaning of words from the tape in one context...yet not do so in another. A 'beam coming down to the ground' is not an ambiguous statement. ' coming down' clearly implies that the source is 'up'......not 6 miles away on the horizon. In any other context, people would implicitly understand and agree on what a ' beam...coming down to the ground' means....as it is pretty obvious. Halt must be the only case in all of existence where its ambiguously construed to mean anything else.

 

[Scaramanga]

If they were instead looking for a UFO, wouldn't they grab whatever bit of kit was close to hand that seemed potentially useful? Or were part of the ideas permeating the culture when thinking about investigating a UFO, one if which would be a Geiger counter?

But Halt has never said he went out to 'look for a UFO'. He has consistently stated in every single interview on the matter that he went out to debunk and to 'put the matter to rest'...I seem to recall his phrase being. In other words, Halt did not believe there was any UFO to investigate. That is the context. He's not going out to prove UFOs exist.

Its kinda like me taking my camera to the bottom of the garden to prove fairies don't exist. It what conceivable way does me NOT taking a photo of a fairy at 3.30am on a Sunday establish that there aren't any fairies there ? I don't understand why people can't see that their rationale for Halt taking the geiger counter specifically to debunk the UFO is ass backwards. I'm sure even Halt was clever enough to grasp that you can't disprove a negative.

 

[John J.]

No, Halt has never specifically stated that he took the geiger counter to debunk the UFO... ...Which of course begs the question....why did he take it.

But Halt has never said he went out to 'look for a UFO'. He has consistently stated in every single interview on the matter that he went out to debunk and to 'put the matter to rest'...

We don't know why he took the Geiger counter, but I find other poster's points about Geiger counters often featuring in accounts of investigations of claimed UFO landing sites persuasive. I think Halt took the counter along because he thought a UFO might leave radioactive traces.
Halt clearly thought the readings were significant, that they indicated an unexpected level of radiation (we know that wasn't the case).
He (and Englund) also thought that the Starlight Scope showed unusual "hotspots", which again Halt seemed to find significant, though we know they both misunderstood the functioning of the scope.
Despite not being familiar with the equipment, Halt appears to have interpreted readings/ imagery as being indicative of something unusual.

Halt does not factor in his evident unfamiliarity with the Geiger counter or Starlight Scope, he seems to have assumed that they showed evidence of something unusual. They did not. We don't know why Halt came to have those assumptions.

Halt's actions and responses don't strike me as being those of someone looking for mundane explanations, he isn't debunking anything.
If anything he's adding to the mystery (perhaps unintentionally).

As has already been said, if fissile material (or other radioactive material) had needed to be recovered, it would be a serious business.
It would be sensible to use personnel who knew how to interpret Geiger counter readings. Halt did not, and if anyone with him did they didn't correct him.

There would have been USAF personnel in Suffolk- probably at Bentwaters/ Woodbridge, definitely at Lakenheath- who would be adept at using Geiger counters. The Security Police accompanying Halt would not have had training in dealing with aircraft munitions, it just wasn't their trade / speciality (just as the armorers/ weapon technicians/ crash teams wouldn't be trained to use breathalysers, know the finer points of Service law or get as much range practice as the SPs).

People had been at 'the landing site' for two entire days prior to Halt's visit.

I'm not aware that there is (reliable) evidence for a continuous presence of USAF personnel anywhere in the vicinity of (but outside of) RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge over this time.
If Halt's expedition took him to the (hypothesised) landing site, there is no indication on his tape that there were personnel already there.
If there were, they could have guided Halt and co. to their location using flashlights (this of course would not be necessary if light-alls were in use) but instead we get the impression of a group of men walking in the dark.

The 'landing site" was "found" early (but probably after dawn, Suffolk police visiting c. 10:30) on 26th December; it was proposed as a landing site because of the ground scrapings and marked/ damaged trees, it hadn't been identified by Penniston/ Cabansag/ Burroughs during their excursion a few hours earlier.

We don't know why the security chief at Bentwaters ( an entirely different base ) called the police only after he'd called the men back to base.

Both bases were protected by the 81st Security Police Squadron, using the same personnel and command structure.

The bases were not "entirely different",

Beginning on 8 July 1958, Woodbridge was operated as "twin base" (twin airfield) with RAF Bentwaters, and as a single unit with Bentwaters under the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing.

Wikipedia, RAF Woodbridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Woodbridge

You've raised the matter of Buran calling the SPs back to base and the subsequent call to the local police before.
You have to remember there was no legal basis for uniformed, on-duty USAF SPs to be conducting any sort of "investigation" off-base.
There were fears that an aircraft might have crashed and a few SPs were sent to check, which is commendable, but as it became clear there hadn't been a crash there was no reason for them to remain.

Armold's recall of events was discussed in post #539, this is originally from Brian Dunnings Skeptoid website, https://skeptoid.com/episodes/135, "The Rendlesham Forest UFO" (06 Jan 2009):

EASTON: As your call was apparently logged after 4.00 a.m., this must have been subsequent to Burroughs having any 'close encounter'. In Flight (Shift) Commander Fred Buran's statement, he wrote:

"At approximately 0354 hours, I terminated the investigation and ordered all units back to their normal duties".

According to this timeline, you must have driven to see Burroughs after he had returned to duty and was back at 'east gate'.

ARMOLD: Yes, I remember the call was rather late in the shift and I'm certain the decision to call the local constabulary was one that was made late in the morning and with hesitation. You see no one was particularly eager to call the local police and ask silly questions about UFO's. However one also must cover all the bases so we made the decisions to call and ask if they had any reports of aircraft accidents or similar phenomenon. I'm quite certain the word UFO wasn't a part of the conversation. It was after that time that I scooted out to RAF Woodbridge and met up with Burroughs and yes, we did indeed stomp around the forest a bit more.

Armold and Burroughs (one of the 3 SPs sent into the forest earlier on the 26th) met the two Suffolk PCs at East Gate (IIRC) and accompanied them into the forest.

Nobody has ever explained how a lighthouse light becomes a 'beam...coming down to the ground'. ...Everyone has missed the bit where ( its on the tape ) there was not just one object but five 'similar' such objects. Five lighthouses ?

Nobody here (as far as I know) has ever claimed the lighthouse is responsible for all the lights seen by Halt, nor does Ian Redfern's site.
You said something similar very recently, I responded (as per below); again, please check out the link.

I don't think anyone who thinks the Orford Ness lighthouse played a part is claiming it was responsible for all lights seen (and misidentified),

Please have a quick look at "What were the other lights seen by Colonel Halt?" on Ian Redfern's website
http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham3.html. Halt's account of lights in the sky beaming down onto RAF Woodbridge were refuted by his superior, Conrad, who had been listening in to the radio traffic and who went outside to have a look. A later claim by Halt- that a beam fell on the weapons storage area (WSA) at Bentwaters- was refuted by USAF Security Policeman Tim Egercic who was on duty at the WSA at the time.

British investigator Jenny Randles adds another telling quote on pp. 123–4 of her book UFO Crash Landing (1998). She says Halt told her that when he was back at base, 'the objects were still in the sky – however, it was getting light and they were getting faint'. Jenny adds: 'I suspect that this is the final clue that demonstrates that these star-like lights to the north were, indeed, just stars.'

Would add, Halt described the lights as moving erratically. He viewed them (at least some of the time) through an 8-12 magnification optic (maybe a monocular or binos), anyone whose done a bit of stargazing with unsupported binoculars (i.e. hand-held, not on a mount) will be familiar with how the "target" dances and zig-zags.

Others here have been discussing lighthouse beams on the ground because of your comments about the (apparent) speed of rotating beams at a distance, not (I think) because they think the Orford Ness lighthouse was responsible for Halt's claimed sightings of objects sending beams down.

 

[JMartJr]

But Halt has never said he went out to 'look for a UFO'. He has consistently stated in every single interview on the matter that he went out to debunk and to 'put the matter to rest'...I seem to recall his phrase being. In other words, Halt did not believe there was any UFO to investigate. That is the context. He's not going out to prove UFOs exist.

But he WAS going out to investigate one. So he grabbed the closest-to-hand piece of equipment (or prop) UFO investigators liked to carry, and headed out into the night. Using a Geiger counter to find no radiation does not disprove a UFO claim, of course -- but it does allow you to say "I went out there and didn't find any stupid UFO, and yes I did check thoroughly, I even checked for radiation like the guys in all those other UFO investigations did, and I found nothing."

Its kinda like me taking my camera to the bottom of the garden to prove fairies don't exist. It what conceivable way does me NOT taking a photo of a fairy at 3.30am on a Sunday establish that there aren't any fairies there ?

If you DID take pictures, and showed no fairies, it might be more supportive of your position than if you left the camera in the house.

I don't understand why people can't see that their rationale for Halt taking the geiger counter specifically to debunk the UFO is ass backwards. I'm sure even Halt was clever enough to grasp that you can't disprove a negative.

Then his goal to "put the matter to rest" was one he should have known was impossible. Can't prove a negative, after all.

But let's say I told you that there were fairies dancing all around down in the garden, and you wanted to convince me I was wrong and put the matter to rest. So what would you do? Would you go down there empty handed, then come back and say "I didn't see any fairies, JMartJr, so that puts it to rest and you'll hush up about it now, right?" Or, if there was a camera handy, would you take it down there with you? Who knows, maybe you'll spot some unusual butterfly that I might have been mistaking for a fairy, and you could take a picture and show me where I was wrong. Or maybe there is nothing at all down there that even vaguely looks like a fairy -- you could take lots of shots from lots of angles showing the garden, to show that at least when you were there the fairies were not in evidence. That might be analogous to taking Geiger counter readings and finding nothing unusual. Would it prove no fairies ? (Or no UFO?) No. But it MIGHT be more convincing to me than you just saying "I didn't see any." And at worst you wouldn't have to hear me be a smart aleck and say "Hey, Scaramanga, you obvious shill for the Big Fairy Coverup, you didn't do a serious investigation, you didn't even carry the camera we have down there to take a picture, which is something even the most inexperienced fairy investigator would know to do!" And Halt would not have to hear "Well of course you didn't find evidence of a UFO, you didn't even take the Geiger counter out there to take readings like all the serious UFO investigators do!"

We may not be going to have a meeting of the minds here. Which is fine. I don't think the Geiger counter is a strong point in your case, but is consistent with it. I think taking gear to investigate a UFO sighting is an obvious thing people do (not only those who "believe"), and including a Geiger counter is a thing that is common enough in UFO investigations that it is not surprising if it was a piece of gear that was grabbed. You have a different opinion. But barring some new angle or thought on the subject, I'm not sure we have a lot more to say about it. Repeating our opinions on this point seem unlikely to change each other's minds. So barring anything new occurring to you or to me on the Geiger front, I'm willing to let a difference of opinion on that stand and move on to whatever else you or anybody else wants to post about the case.

Debunking is surely about asking all the pertinent questions....even if that puts long held assumptions under scrutiny. I love tugging at the loose ends, and the Rendlesham incident is full of them.

Sure, and you're asking some of them and trying out solutions. All of which is 100% fine with me, not that you need my approval to do so! But for what it's worth, you have it anyway! ^_^

But asking the questions is going to mean that folks here are going to have different answers, and debate them. It's one of the reasons I really like this place -- we can firmly but politely debate about this stuff -- and it is one of the reasons I read what is posted by you and some other folks here with opinions that I do not share (or at least not yet!) Your hypothesis on this case is interesting and worth discussing, if it wasn't I wouldn't be engaging with it. I'm not persuaded, and I don't think the Geiger counter is a strong point in your favor.

And with a modicum of self restraint I'll try not to keep poking at it, I don't want to be abrasive or an irritant. (Or a further irritant! ^_^)

And I do want to go back and re-read all of your posts on this, in case I am focusing on the Geiger counter to the exclusion of some other point that might be, to me, more convincing.
'

 

[Scaramanga]

But he WAS going out to investigate one. So he grabbed the closest-to-hand piece of equipment (or prop) UFO investigators liked to carry, and headed out into the night. Using a Geiger counter to find no radiation does not disprove a UFO claim, of course -- but it does allow you to say "I went out there and didn't find any stupid UFO, and yes I did check thoroughly, I even checked for radiation like the guys in all those other UFO investigations did, and I found nothing."

Well...firstly there's zero evidence Halt had any knowledge of 'UFO lore'. So this is precisely one have those ' must have been....' contrivances that I object to.

But consider also.....after the initial incident in the woods ( which caused the very imprints in the wood that Halt later measured ) two entire days passed. In those two days there's zero indication that anyone took any radiation measuring device into the woods. So why is Halt suddenly concerned about radiation after two days in which it would seem half the base had been trampling the woods. Why the need to suddenly measure the radiation at 2am in the morning ?

Indeed, let's start asking some unanswered questions that never get asked . Like...why did Halt need to go into the woods at all at 2am ? He's deputy base commander. He could just order the men in the woods to stop messing about and come back to base. He's already aware that people have been messing in the woods since the Penniston incident, and that Penniston and others went back out there and Penniston even took a plaster cast.

Why does Halt suddenly need to abandon an award presentation, go home and get changed, grab a geiger counter, and head out into the woods at frikin 2am when he's got no end of people under him to do that job....and it seems some were already out there. Why could he not have radioed and asked what the hell was going on and got his subordinates to sort it out ?

People have asked why would a deputy base commander be the one checking for a dropped nuke. But one should really be asking why was Halt out there at all. If I report a UFO to the police, I'm pretty sure the Deputy Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police is not gonna show up...especially not at 2am.

 

[John J.]

.....after the initial incident in the woods ( which caused the very imprints in the wood that Halt later measured )

Are you talking about the scrapings that local police thought might have been caused by rabbits?

 

[Scaramanga]

Are you talking about the scrapings that local police thought might have been caused by rabbits?

Whatever it was, it was clearly being thought of as a 'landing site' before Halt even went out there. Indeed, that is why Halt was taken to it. People were already there. Halt wasn't stumbling around in the dark looking for 'the site'. Everyone already knew where it was.