Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident

[deirdre]

just another useful resource with a bunch of useful maps
Rendlesham Resources by Isaac Koi Maps and Plans: https://avalonlibrary.net/Rendlesham_Forest_incident_1980/Maps/Rendlesham resources - maps - Koi as at 2018 12.pdf

 

[Ravi]

Another confusion factor may have been the beam from the lighthouse flashing consecutively off tree branches (bare, at that time of year) as it swept around.

Wasn't it so with lighthouses that the beam is blocked when shining on land?

 

[deirdre]

Wasn't it so with lighthouses that the beam is blocked when shining on land?

good point!!. there is a shield. there seems to be a small slit window though in the back..you can see it light up with the rotation if you go frame by frame in youtube.
add: i embedded video below to where we see this in action from afar.

interesting shot (no idea what year the window color covering was installed..but probably not bright enough to account for 'blue' lights)

Source: https://youtu.be/MBw0Cf25bYg?t=2213


edit to shrink photos a bit

 

[John J.]

Wasn't it so with lighthouses that the beam is blocked when shining on land?

good point!!.

It is a good point, and I think it's common to occult the light in arcs where it might be an unnecessary distraction.
But the evidence seems clear that the Orford Ness lighthouse was visible in the areas where the USAF Security Police pursued lights in 1980.
I don't think that there's any serious doubt about this.

I live near the coast (on land!) in England and can see a lighthouse beaming towards my bedroom window every night, except in the very worst fog. Guess that'll have to be anecdotal (albeit true) because I haven't got enough biscuits if you all turn up at my place at the same time to check.

We know all 3 airmen, following the lights in the early hours of 26 December, ended up viewing a rotating beacon, almost certainly Orford Ness lighthouse.
A1C Cabansag said in his statement:

...we got to a vantage point where we could determine that what we were chasing was only a beacon light off in the distance.

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

Another participant, John Burroughs, also stated: "We could see a beacon going around so we went towards it. We followed it for about two miles [3 km] before we could [see] it was coming from a lighthouse."[23]

Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendlesham_Forest_incident, citing Burroughs' hand-written statement, viewable on
Ian Ridpath's site here http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham2c.html


The Suffolk police (Woodbridge?) station log for the 26 December events recorded (my emphasis):

Result
Air Traffic Control West Drayton checked, no knowledge of aircraft. Reports received of aerial phenomena over southern England during the night. Only lights visible this area was from Orford light house. Search made of area- negative.
Content from External Source

In response to an unidentified correspondent, Suffolk Constabulary said, 23/11/1983,

The only lights visible to the officers visiting the incident were those from Orford Light House.

(The signature is indecipherable to me; don't know if it's a "pp", but "Chief Constable" is typed below- Suffolk Constabulary's most senior officer).
(Click to enlarge if interested).
From The Rendlesham Forest Incident Official Blog- sensationalist blog but the Suffolk police correspondence looks genuine.

Whoever wrote this police response in November 1983 would have been very aware that there was UK-wide interest in the story by this time, because of this 2nd October 1983 News Of The World front page (sadly the small print is unreadable):

The News Of The World was a weekly (Sunday) newspaper with a nationwide distribution and high circulation;
even outside of its readership it was widely known in the UK, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_of_the_World.

The police officer who wrote the letter of November 1983 would know that there was a fair chance that NOTW journalists (or hired investigators, which the paper used) would check out his / her claim about the lighthouse being visible.

As we've seen, a police inspector writing on behalf of Suffolk Constabulary Chief Constable Scott-Lee in 1999 said

The immediate area was swept by powerful light beams from a landing beacon at RAF Bentwaters and the Orfordness lighthouse. I know from personal experience that at night, in certain weather conditions, these beams were very pronounced and certainly caused strange visual effects.

-Same blog as above, also Wikipedia Rendlesham Forest incident

It would be foolish of the police officers to make those statements if they weren't true; remember the area(s) in question were publicly accessible (other than the airbases, of course).

Lieutenant Fred Buran of the 81st Security Police Squadron was the most senior serviceman (and the only commissioned officer) involved during the night of the 26th December, being the Security Police shift commander. He was at Bentwaters Central Security Control.
It appears that it was Lt. Buran who thought that the lights might be a crashed aircraft, or at least gave that as a reason to investigate (which, regardless of jurisdictions etc. seems wholly commendable to me)
-Information again from Ian Ridpath's site, http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham2c.html;
Lt. Buran stated:

SSgt Penniston reported getting near the "object" and then all of a sudden said they had gone past it and were looking at a marker beacon that was in the same general direction as the other lights. I asked him, through SSgt Coffey, if he could have been mistaken, to which Penniston replied that had I seen the other lights I would know the difference. SSgt Penniston seemed somewhat agitated at this point.

(A minor aside, Penniston's "agitation" is the only reference to the emotional state of any of the men in the statements IIRC).

Pretty certain that we can accept that the Orford Ness lighthouse beam was visible to the airmen, and local police, at some points of the airmen's route(s).

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(no idea what year the window color covering was installed

Maybe 1914

The lighthouse was further modernized in 1914: a new revolving optic was installed (which remained in use for 99 years), and a new additional light was installed along with fixed lenses at a level below the lantern, so the sector lights now shone from windows on the tower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orfordness_Lighthouse

 

[deirdre]

But the evidence seems clear that the Orford Ness lighthouse was visible in the areas where the USAF Security Police pursued lights in 1980.

is it? if you say so.
(your comments tend to be super long, so instead of reading ill wait to see if someone else contradicts you or ill just believe you)

 

[John J.]

if you say so.

Noooooo, not if I say so, but if the evidence is persuasive.

And there are several pieces of evidence which I think, considered together, are persuasive.

Edited to add: Every time you make me frown, I'm going to hide a cryptid from you.

 

[MonkeeSage]

is it? if you say so.
(your comments tend to be super long, so instead of reading ill wait to see if someone else contradicts you or ill just believe you)

Ian Ridpath did a video interview with Vince Thurkettle for the BBC in 1983 and they were able to see the lighthouse at night from the forest.

Article:

It shows the Orford Ness lighthouse flashing as seen from near the eastern edge of the forest, in the same direction that the US airmen saw their flashing UFO.

Source: http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham1c.html

http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/vince.mov - section of interview showing the lighthouse beacon at night from there.

Also more info and pics here from further visits by Ridpath:

Article:

Within days of the story breaking, I visited Rendlesham Forest at night with a BBC TV camera crew to interview forester Vince Thurkettle and film the lighthouse flashing as seen from the area where Col Halt, the prime witness, had seen his flashing UFO. However, it was not until many years after my initial visit that I was able to pin down exactly where Col Halt had been standing. The clue came from an online interview Halt gave to Salley Rayl on the Microsoft Network in 1997 May, by when he had retired from the air force and felt freer to speak. In this interview, the existence of which was brought to my attention by James Easton, Halt noted that the UFO had appeared closely in line with a farmhouse 'directly in front of us'.

Armed with this new lead, I returned to Rendlesham Forest in 1998 October. Scouting around at the forest edge, I discovered something that I had not appreciated previously: the top of the lighthouse peeps through a gap between distant trees, and can be seen directly from only a limited area of the forest. Remarkably enough, when I was positioned so that I could see the lighthouse through the gap in the distant tree line, the farmhouse lay right in front of me, in the same line of sight, just as Halt had described it as lining up with the flashing UFO.

Source: http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham2.html

Also further discussion of whether the beam would be visible:

Article:

Above is a super-telephoto view of the top of the Orfordness lighthouse peeking through a notch between trees on the skyline, as seen from the eastern edge of Rendlesham Forest where the flashing UFO was sighted.

Source: http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/lighthouse_visibility.html

Article:

The lighthouse photographed by me on Orford Ness on 2013 August 28. Comparison with Image 1 at the top of the page shows that the viewing azimuth is identical to the view from the forest edge. Through the windows, the outline of one of the three giant rotating Fresnel lenses that focused the beam can be seen.

Source: http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/lighthouse_visibility.html

 

[Rationalman]

Ian Ridpath did a video interview with Vince Thurkettle for the BBC in 1983 and they were able to see the lighthouse at night from the forest.

Article:

It shows the Orford Ness lighthouse flashing as seen from near the eastern edge of the forest, in the same direction that the US airmen saw their flashing UFO.

Source: http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham1c.html

http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/vince.mov - section of interview showing the lighthouse beacon at night from there.

Also more info and pics here from further visits by Ridpath:

Article:

Within days of the story breaking, I visited Rendlesham Forest at night with a BBC TV camera crew to interview forester Vince Thurkettle and film the lighthouse flashing as seen from the area where Col Halt, the prime witness, had seen his flashing UFO. However, it was not until many years after my initial visit that I was able to pin down exactly where Col Halt had been standing. The clue came from an online interview Halt gave to Salley Rayl on the Microsoft Network in 1997 May, by when he had retired from the air force and felt freer to speak. In this interview, the existence of which was brought to my attention by James Easton, Halt noted that the UFO had appeared closely in line with a farmhouse 'directly in front of us'.

Armed with this new lead, I returned to Rendlesham Forest in 1998 October. Scouting around at the forest edge, I discovered something that I had not appreciated previously: the top of the lighthouse peeps through a gap between distant trees, and can be seen directly from only a limited area of the forest. Remarkably enough, when I was positioned so that I could see the lighthouse through the gap in the distant tree line, the farmhouse lay right in front of me, in the same line of sight, just as Halt had described it as lining up with the flashing UFO.

Source: http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham2.html

View attachment 68310


Also further discussion of whether the beam would be visible:
View attachment 68311

Article:

Above is a super-telephoto view of the top of the Orfordness lighthouse peeking through a notch between trees on the skyline, as seen from the eastern edge of Rendlesham Forest where the flashing UFO was sighted.

Source: http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/lighthouse_visibility.html

View attachment 68312

Article:

The lighthouse photographed by me on Orford Ness on 2013 August 28. Comparison with Image 1 at the top of the page shows that the viewing azimuth is identical to the view from the forest edge. Through the windows, the outline of one of the three giant rotating Fresnel lenses that focused the beam can be seen.

Source: http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/lighthouse_visibility.html

I love the beautiful countryside.

 

[Mendel]

Source: http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/lighthouse_visibility.html

ty for confirming my contention that, to debunk, all one needs is to read that site thoroughly

 

[Trailblazer]

(The signature is indecipherable to me; don't know if it's a "pp", but "Chief Constable" is typed below- Suffolk Constabulary's most senior officer).

The surname looks like "Kitson" to me, and a first initial "R".
Google turned up a Roy Kitson who was deputy chief constable in the Suffolk area in the 1980s, as per this site.

From Companies House it appears his middle name is Barry, so the signature R. B. Kitson looks very plausible to me.

 

[deirdre]

ty for confirming my contention that, to debunk, all one needs is to read that site thoroughly

or you could have just corrected Anne and told us that the video proof provided by Ian shows the beam does not sweep through the trees

Article:

Vince Thurkettle lived and worked in Rendlesham Forest at the time of the UFO incident and knew how bright the Orford Ness lighthouse could appear between the trees – that's it, just over his shoulder and above the blue on-screen clock. Click on the picture to see a 1.6 MB QuickTime file of my interview with him, showing multiple flashes. To download my entire report, click here (20MB file). Note to broadcasters: The BBC library reference number for the original footage is CIN LISC 713022.

Source: http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/rendlesham1c.html

note: you have to skip to 2:12 in the movie, and go to original page...software wont let me link to the movie from here direct

 

[John J.]

...and told us that the video proof provided by Ian shows the beam does not sweep through the trees

Sorry, I might be being a bit dense- is anyone claiming that the Orford Ness lighthouse was not visible to Cabansag, Burroughs and Penniston at times in the early morning of 26 December 1980?
Having read Cabansag and Burroughs statements, Lt. Buran's mention of Penniston's reports in his statement and the accounts of local policemen?

 

[deirdre]

Sorry, I might be being a bit dense- is anyone claiming that the Orford Ness lighthouse was not visible to Cabansag, Burroughs and Penniston at times in the early morning of 26 December 1980?

not that i've ever seen. i can guess some ufo believers might say that.

did you watch the movie? i didnt see a BEAM.

since the UFO was moving across the sky, I assumed the lighthouse explanation meant the lighthouse BEAM was sweeping through the woods.
this is a lighthouse BEAM, the long cone shaped lightbeam ..or no?

 

[Eburacum]

Yes, Orford Ness will have had a beam. It still has, but much less bright than in 1980.

When the beam is visible but you can't see the light itself, that is called the 'loom', and it can be very difficult to tell where it is coming from or going too.

Here's an interesting image about lighthouse 'looms'; it is intended to debunk the Flat Earth theory, but it gives a good description of what a 'loom' is.
The Orford Ness lighthouse was mostly invisible from the forest, except in a few specific places; but the loom would still be visible overhead.

 

[John J.]

not that i've ever seen. i can guess some ufo believers might say that.

did you watch the movie? i didnt see a BEAM.

-Ah, thanks for that deirdre it was me being a bit dense. (Releasing my captured cryptids in gratitude).

I think the visibility of a beam / loom (TY Eburacum!) must depend on the atmospheric conditions, like with a laser.
Paradoxically more visible "side on" in light fog / mist etc. than in crystal-clear conditions. I think.

 

[deirdre]

When the beam is visible but you can't see the light itself, that is called the 'loom', and it can be very difficult to tell where it is coming from or going too.

well we can see the back hole of the light. but not the glass side facing the sea.

but you're saying:
like a spotlight reflecting off distance clouds.
so even though the movie footage is horrible and i cant see any loom (beam), in real life they probably did see it but it was facing away from them and reflected off clouds or fog something.

 

[Eburacum]

Yes, perhaps so. A thin layer of mist would be enough to show the beam quite clearly.

Judging from this photo, the loom would have reached around almost to the location of the observers, so it would have shone over their heads briefly before winking out.

 

[Ann K]

.

Yes, perhaps so. A thin layer of mist would be enough to show the beam quite clearly.

It's England, and it's right beside the sea. I think it would be very unusual NOT to see the beam of light in moist air/mist/fog.

 

[MonkeeSage]

This part of Halt's tape made me think they were definitely looking at the lighthouse based on the BBC interview clip with Thurkettle.

Article:

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.

[Ian's note: The starscope amplified light by about a thousand times and had a magnification of 4 times, so naturally the light appeared much brighter and larger than to the naked eye.]

Source: http://www.ianridpath.com/ufo/halttape3.html

This is what one sequence of the flash looks like on the BBC video. Even with the terrible VHS quality and low resolution I can still make out the "pupil", then bright flash, then "pupil", then nothing until the next flash, like it is "winking".

 

[Eburacum]

Those look like Airy disks. The instrument Halt was using to look at the lighthouse was a Starscope photomultiplier, which produces a lot of artifacts, including flares and glare.

According to Ridpath, a very bright light could burn out the centre of the image as well, making it look dark.

 

[deirdre]

According to Ridpath, a very bright light could burn out the centre of the image as well, making it look dark.

do we have examples of this? i dont see any in similar photos yandex images

wouldnt occams razor tell us that if we see the exact thing in the movie, it is probably just whatever causes that?

 

[Eburacum]

I think they are probably the same effect, appearing on different types of electronic imaging devices.

 

[Eburacum]

Airy disks are quite variable, and depend on the focus and optics of the device; but some do have darker circles in the centre.

 

[FatPhil]

Airy disks are quite variable, and depend on the focus and optics of the device; but some do have darker circles in the centre.

Nope, those aren't Airy rings of point sources. Something like 80% of the light is within the first dark ring. Something to do with Bessel functions and things that are way beyond my pay grade right now. I'm not saying what you're showing aren't Airy rings, but they aren't Airy rings of point sources through a medium of constant refractive index. (If you can dick around with the medium, of course anything can happen. Stars don't twinkle, the medium twinkles them.)

Late EDIT - some real numbers rather than faded memories: "Hence the fractions of the total power contained within the first, second, and third dark rings (where J_1( k a sin ⁡ θ ) = 0 are 83.8%, 91.0%, and 93.8% respectively." -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airy_disk#Mathematical_formulation

 

[NorCal Dave]

The binary code thing is the biggest red flag to me in this whole sorry tale.

Agreed. The primary sources all say or insinuate the lighthouse, and maybe some other assorted lights in the area. If one wants to go with the standard story, Penniston is the main source, with Halt bringing up the rear. And if one wants to go with Penniston, they have to buy the code story, with all its faults and problems.

I've wondered if Gary Osborn's reinterpretations of the code is a bit of a face-saving act. If I get Osborn's idea right, it's not the actual places that are identified by the code, real or not, rather the relationship between the places that leads to greater insights. Or something like that. It appears I may have to put up the $5 for the Kindel version of Penniston and Osborn's book and attempt to plow through the 700+ pages.

 

[John J.]

I guess the USAF airmen couldn't have seen much of the body of the lighthouse,
but in mist I've seen a vertical line of light down the body of lighthouses, a bit like an inverted "!", with a gap between the actual light (the dot of the inverted "!") and the line.

Sometimes appears quite well-defined; first time I noticed it I wondered if there was a vertically-mounted strip of LEDs turned on because of the misty conditions.

Obviously caused by the main light, but not a simple reflection per se off the lighthouse surface as it isn't evident in dark-but-clear nights.

As it happens, it's visible now (01:20 BST, 00:20 UST/ GMT, 20:20 in New York / 17:20 LA) though not very distinctly,
on the webcam (via YouTube) covering The Needles lighthouse off the Isle of Wight (England).


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrjeXgNqsQY

The camera's looking approximately NW from the Island to the mainland coast.
Light shines approx. 2 secs. on, 2 off, 16 on, 2 off.

Couple of opportunistic screen grabs

Was thinking about the airmen reporting a light shining down, but I'm guessing the body of the Orford Ness lighthouse wasn't sufficiently visible (unless this vertical light is due to some phenomenon other than illumination of the observed lighthouse side).

 

[deirdre]

(unless this vertical light is due to some phenomenon other than illumination of the observed lighthouse side)

looks like a reflection on the water,no?

fog:

add

 

[Mendel]

Obviously caused by the main light, but not a simple reflection per se off the lighthouse surface as it isn't evident in dark-but-clear nights.

Your webcam shows a reflection on the water.

Notice the clearly discernible loom.

It's directed energy!!!!

 

[Eburacum]

Nope, those aren't Airy rings of point sources.

Bear in mind that the lighthouse was not a point source; indeed, it was a complex source issuing from a Fresnel lens.

 

[John J.]

looks like a reflection on the water,no?

Your webcam shows a reflection on the water.

I know what I-

On reviewing the newly-shared findings available at this time, I cannot exclude your hypotheses with certainty.

I have seen this vertical "beam" from a lighthouse sited on a spit of land while standing at the other end, but because of the mist and the shape of the spit I was probably looking over water then too without realising it. *cough.*

 

[JMartJr]

Bear in mind that the lighthouse was not a point source; indeed, it was a complex source issuing from a Fresnel lens.

Trinity House, which acts as the the General Lighthouse Authority (GLA) for England, Wales, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar, donated the lens from Orfordness Lighthouse, which was completed in 1792 on the east coast of England and guided mariners until it was decommissioned in 2013. The optic lens was installed in 1914 and served for 99 years.

Text and image from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/imo-un/21704353505/in/photostream/

 

[deirdre]

I have seen this vertical "beam" from a lighthouse sited on a spit of land while standing at the other end, but because of the mist and the shape of the spit I was probably looking over water then too without realising it. *cough.*

did it change when the lights rotated? or blinked off like your above example? (some of our lighthouses are literally lit up..a spotlight on the ground).
or maybe a low fog bank 'sea' around it would produce the same reflection effect as a real body of water.

 

[Eburacum]

...until it was decommissioned in 2013.....

So it has gone completely now, it seems. The last time I was in that part of the country it was to visit the archaeological site at Sutton Hoo, but we drove past the Rendlesham forest.

 

[John J.]

did it change when the lights rotated? or blinked off like your above example? (some of our lighthouses are literally lit up..a spotlight on the ground).
or maybe a low fog bank 'sea' around it would produce the same reflection effect as a real body of water.

Hurst Point Lighthouse: Small, traditional style lighthouse with a cylinder of glass near the top.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurst_Point_Lighthouse

It's not a rotating light (was once, I think), nowadays LEDs provide a red and a white sector.

Don't know if you caught the footage from the webcam (of a bigger lighthouse at The Needles, Isle of Wight as in your pic),

the "vertical" light was only visible when the main light was on- again, I think it's a solid-state non-rotating light now.
Same with my "sighting" looking towards Hurst Point lighthouse:

I had totally mis-imagined it, looking at images online.

This is what I thought my position was on seeing the lighthouse with a (red) vertical beam apparently descending from it

-but the real position would be much closer to this

No doubt in my mind that you (@deirdre) and @Mendel are right, I misperceived/ misremembered what I had seen.

From now on, we can refer to the claimed vertical beam as "John J's Brightness (Debunked)".

Now, The Needles Lighthouse, that's a proper lighthouse!

 

[deirdre]

that's a proper lighthouse!

but it's ugly.

 

[Mendel]

No doubt in my mind that you (@deirdre) and @Mendel are right, I misperceived/ misremembered what I had seen.

I made no statement about what you had seen. But I'm glad you figured it out!

 

[Scaramanga]

Ridpath can claim that because he follows Halt's notes dictated to tape at the time:

Well, no, he is following those bits he wants to follow and ignoring the rest. I just feel we are in classic 'swamp gas' territory here.

Ridpath wants the 'object directly south' ( Halt's words ) to be Sirius. But Sirius was NOT directly south at the 3.15 time of that comment. It was a good 45 degrees off south, in the southwest. That's hardly a minor discrepancy.

Ridpath wants the two lights to the north to be Deneb and Vega. Never mind that Deneb, at just 7 degrees above the horizon, would not have particularly stood out at all and in fact the stars of Cassiopeia ( a little higher to the left ) would have been brighter ! I mean...anyone can play this absurd game of 'lets pick a star and pretend that's what was seen'. But if we are going to argue that Halt was confusing stuff in the sky for UFOs......why not Arcturus, which was dazzling away in the east, or Jupiter, which was 4 times brighter than even Sirius and blazing away in the south east. Halt has a bunch of far more impressive objects to confuse for UFOs.....yet he picks on magnitude 2.2 Deneb struggling away in the north ??

And Ridpath totally ignores Halt stating....

HALT: And the ones to the north are moving. One's moving away from us.

BACKGROUND VOICE: (indistinct, but includes 'moving')

NEVELS: Moving out fast.

and before the infamous beam of light we have...

HALT: They're both heading north. Hey, here he comes from the south, he's coming toward us now.

So these alleged 'stars' are moving....and noticeably so, such that 'moving fast' comment is made.

And somehow these mere stars on a cold winter night so confuse the Deputy Commander of a nuclear armed base holding the largest tactical fighter wing of NATO in Europe, and his colleague Nevels, and several others who were there as well, that it is declared....

HALT: This is unreal. [Laughs]

Because if Ridpath is right then its damned scary that these people could ever have been in charge of a BB shooter let alone nuclear weapons. Maybe we should be scared anyway, regardless, but I also smell the distinct whiff of swamp gas as well.

 

[Mendel]

Because if Ridpath is right then its damned scary that these people could ever have been in charge of a BB shooter let alone nuclear weapons.

They're trained and experienced with regard to their job, not with regard to UFO hunting.
They can be good at one thing and bad at another.
If you're trying to appeal to authority, you need to establish credentials in the field, but that's difficult because, until today, nobody has successfully identified a confirmed UFO.

I don't have a problem with some discrepancy, because if they had a compass, they were using it near active electrical equipment (the starscope).

Another poster above mentioned that optical illusions of motion are known phenomena with lights in the dark.

 

[Ann K]

Another poster above mentioned that optical illusions of motion are known phenomena with lights in the dark.

When in college I was a volunteer in an experiment (run by the psychology department, I think) in which I rode a stationary bicycle in a mostly darkened room and was asked which direction "the little light moved". (I wasn't fooled.)

 

[John J.]

And somehow these mere stars on a cold winter night so confuse the Deputy Commander of a nuclear armed base holding the largest tactical fighter wing of NATO in Europe, and his colleague Nevels

Plenty of evidence elsewhere on this forum of highly-trained, intelligent, healthy and honest people, including USAF combat pilots, misidentifying things (and making false positive identifications).

nuclear armed base

Alleged by some. The A-10 is specifically designed to be a close air support aircraft, a "tank buster".
In the event of war in Europe in 1980, its specialist CAS capabilities would have been in huge demand.

Wouldn't be surprised if all USAF combat jet types could carry free-fall nuclear stores in extremis, but AFAIK the A-10 wasn't assigned a nuclear strike role. Its low speed (439 mph, 707 kph) would make a medium/high altitude overflight very vulnerable to WP air defences. Equally, a low-level 'lob' attack-
(approach fast and low, climb and release store on upward trajectory something like this)

-would be problematic. RAF Buccaneers practised this for nuclear strike, IIRC it was considered very high risk, and that for a 670 mph / 1070 kph at 200 ft. altitude aircraft.
Maybe the F-4 Phantoms that preceded the A-10s (until 1979) at Bentwaters had nuclear stores.
USAF F-111s were based at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk (same county as Bentwaters) 1976-1992; these were strike aircraft and definitely had nuclear stores co-located with them.

the Deputy Commander of a nuclear armed base holding the largest tactical fighter wing of NATO in Europe

Col. Halt was the deputy base commander at Bentwaters, which hosted half of the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing's 6 squadrons.

After the events of early a.m. 26 December, maybe Col. Halt was already considering the possibility of alien visitation.

He had yet to read Cabansag, Burroughs and Penniston's statements (first two dated 02 Jan; Penniston's believed
contemporaneous but undated; odd that an undated statement was accepted by a superior). Cabansag's/ Burroughs' statements implicated Orford Ness lighthouse, something Halt might not have known when he investigated the forest.
And before Halt's foray, we had this,
(already posted), 1st Suffolk Constabulary log of the incident, 04:11, 26 December 1980

USAF A.1.C Arnold, Law Enforcement Desk Bentwaters had sent

We have a sighting of some unusual lights in the sky, have sent some unarmed troops to investigate, we are terming it as a U.F.O. at present

https://www.therendleshamforestincident.com/2022/04/suffolk-constabulary-have-record-dated.html

It's difficult to understand what Halt thought he could accomplish in person as opposed to staying on-base and doing his job;

They're trained and experienced with regard to their job, not with regard to UFO hunting.

Halt was career USAF but not USAF Security Police. He was relatively new to the area.
We know he misinterpreted the readings from a Geiger counter, giving them a significance that did not exist.
In his memo to the RAF Halt reported that forest animals were in a "frenzy", which was not corroborated by locals.
He also got the date wrong on his memo,

-full memo viewable at The Black Vault
https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/the-halt-memo-the-rendlesham-forest-incident/

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...

Is there any evidence of any sightings made by personnel at RAF Woodbridge at this time?
If not, why not?

(Edited to add: As always, will defer to those here who have actually served with these aircraft on appropriate details- enthusiastically reading Observer's Books isn't the same )