Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident

[Scaramanga]

But we know for a fact that most cases just don't happen that way. Reality is complicated and, almost always, several unrelated factors contribute to a certain outcome. Think of it like an air crash investigation. Almost always, a long chain of events leads up to a catastrophic outcome, and few crashes can be explained by a single cause.
I simply don't agree with you on that. A group of people isn't necessarily a more reliable source than a single person. Independent witnesses are obviously a different matter, but humans in groups often conform to the emerging interpretation, even if their initial perception differs. This is classic conformity (think of Asch's line experiments), where individuals adjust their reports to match the group in order to avoid standing out or seeming "wrong." It's not that they're lying — memory is reconstructive, and social influences are strong factors.

Surely the crux of the matter is just how many 'complicated factors' you have to fudge into the equation. It reminds me of one of the bizarre interpretations of the Calvine UFO....that it was an upside down photo of a pond where the fence and the rock that was the 'UFO' and the tree branches hanging down ( or is it up ) all magically line up and the upside down clouds that only 'look' upside down but aren't really, and........heck it would be simpler if an alien spaceship was actually there !

And so it is with all these 'complicated factors'. A lighthouse that doesn't have the blue lights that were seen by Penniston, and two others on the first night. A lighthouse that gets recognised AS a lighthouse in statements from that first night.....and yet which somehow gets completely forgotten about by the time Halt goes out. A lighthouse that 'shoots off pieces'. And the bit everyone misses...two lights, not just one...

HALT: Pieces of it are shooting off.

VOICE: At eleven o'clock...

HALT: There is no doubt about it. This is weird!

VOICE (NEVELS?): To the left...

HALT: Definitely moving...

VOICE (NEVELS?): Two lights – one light just behind [?] and one light to the left.

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


Then we have 'Stars' in the north that get mysteriously mistaken for UFOs. But hold on....its not the mere two stars ( Vega and Deneb ) that Ian Ridpath claims. Once again we have numbers just being ignored....as the tape clearly says five lights....

HALT: We've passed the farmer's house and are crossing the next field and now we have multiple sightings of up to five lights with a similar shape and all but they seem to be steady now rather than a pulsating or glow with a red flash.

And then we have to explain how Sirius, which had been sitting there all along, suddenly manages to achieve this....

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

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

SHOUT IN BACKGROUND: Colours! [?]

HALT: This is unreal. [Laughs]


The deputy commander of a top USAF base, responsible for defending us from the Soviets, thinks a star twinkling in the night sky is 'unreal' ? And I don't hear his men say ' Nah, boss....you just drank too much at the party'.

And none of this is the old bugbear of 'reconstructive memory' that gets dragged out as an excuse every time....for this is a live recording as events unfold.

 

[John J.]

And the fact that something bizarre is occurring is demonstrated by the ' this is unreal'.

Someone saying "This is unreal" is not necessarily evidence that something bizarre is happening.
We know that Halt has already decided that something strange is going on. The three ground depressions are evidence of a "pod", there's a blast area (not seen two days earlier in daylight, or as far as we know by anyone after Halt's expedition), the marks on the trees (all at the same height facing into the clearing- forestry worker axe marks) are something strange, they're detecting heat signature through an instrument that can't detect heat signatures and misreading/ arguably misusing a Geiger counter and finding the readings significant.

There is nothing on his tape, or memo to the MoD, about a light overhead shining a beam down to the ground close to the men, nor did Halt say this over the radio as far as we know. If it happened, it doesn't appear that anyone present mentioned it at the time.

It's entirely possible the men saw moving lights near the horizon, airspace over SE England is busy and was in 1980. There is no evidence that Halt, or the USAF, ever attempted to find out if there were aircraft in the direction(s) they were looking. As you (@Scaramanga) point out, distant aircraft can appear to be fixed points of light until a change of direction makes the point of light move.

 

[John J.]

The deputy commander of a top USAF base, responsible for defending us from the Soviets, thinks a star twinkling in the night sky is 'unreal' ? And I don't hear his men say ' Nah, boss....you just drank too much at the party'.

Well, defending FRG from Soviet tanks, so part of NATO's collective defence.
The point that other ranks/ NCOs are unlikely to question a Lt. Col. has already been made, and I fully agree.

I'll add the caviar, that at least on the recording, these are enlisted men who are not out running around with their enlisted supervisor (a master sergeant I believe) or even their officer supervisor, likely a Lieutenant or Captain. Rather, they are running around with a Lt. Colonial that is the deputy base commander, that is their boss's, boss's, boss's boss. Even if any of these guys were accomplished astronomers, in this situation, they were going to just nod along and say "yes sir"

It is strange that Halt didn't, or couldn't, get a Warrant Officer or more junior commissioned officer to join him. This is very unusual in a military context. And though deputy base commander of an airbase, he didn't take anyone who worked professionally with aircraft.

 

[Ann K]

The trouble with a lot of the skepticism is that it doesn't evaluate the event....it just ignores any of it that doesn't fit the narrative. People aren't listening to what the tape is actually saying. They've already decided it can't be anything unusual so it has to be forced into some simplistic 'stars' narrative...whether it actually fits or not.

Any sensible investigator MUST first examine the known factors. Why do you disapprove of that? If the story doesn't fit the known facts, you really have to consider the possibility that the error is in the story.

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.

BALL(?): This one on the right's heading away, too.

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

"They're going north" and "here he comes from the south" sound exactly like the way one would describe the beams from a rotating object, i.e. a lighthouse.

 

[Scaramanga]

Someone saying "This is unreal" is not necessarily evidence that something bizarre is happening.
We know that Halt has already decided that something strange is going on. The three ground depressions are evidence of a "pod", there's a blast area (not seen two days earlier in daylight, or as far as we know by anyone after Halt's expedition), the marks on the trees (all at the same height facing into the clearing- forestry worker axe marks) are something strange, they're detecting heat signature through an instrument that can't detect heat signatures and misreading/ arguably misusing a Geiger counter and finding the readings significant.

Well, no, we can't just invent Halt's state of mind. And the simple fact is that however they were using or mis-using the Geiger counter, it clearly did detect more of whatever it was they were mearing in the depressions than outside of them. So the notion they were 'mis-using' it is a bit of a red herring. To me its just another example of how important aspects get ignored when some simplistic explanation claims to have explained it all.

 

[Scaramanga]

Any sensible investigator MUST first examine the known factors. Why do you disapprove of that? If the story doesn't fit the known facts, you really have to consider the possibility that the error is in the story.

There is a huge difference between fitting the story to the known facts and forcing the story into the known facts and just ignoring any aspects that don't actually fit. If a simplistic explanation can explain the whole story then fine...but it should not otherwise leave one with a whole load of ' but what about XYZ ?' questions or loose ends.

For example, why would Halt mistake Sirius for a UFO...and not mistake the twice as bright Jupiter/Saturn conjunction for one ? In fact at 3am Sirius would not even have been at its full brightness, due to being so low down. What's more, Halt comments at 3.15am...

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

But Sirius was not to the south. It was pretty much due southwest. In fact the embarrassing truth for the 'stars' theory is that in between Sirius due southwest and Jupiter due southeast there was 90 degrees with NO bright stars...with due south right in the middle of it.

Halt has been giving compass readings all night...and now he's suddenly off by a whole 45 degrees ? Doesn't that place all the previous bearings, including those closer to the lighthouse, in doubt ?

Sirius is a classic example of something that has been forced to 'fit'. Gosh, if you've got 45 degrees to play with you could make almost any star 'fit' any UFO !

 

[Scaramanga]

"They're going north" and "here he comes from the south" sound exactly like the way one would describe the beams from a rotating object, i.e. a lighthouse.

Which Halt had failed to notice for the past 3 hours and suddenly finds 'unreal' at 3.15am ?

And a lighthouse 6 miles to the east would not produce a beam 'coming down'. It would be horizontal. Not only that, but as the lighthouse had 3 mirrors you'd get a beam every 5 seconds. But halt only says 'a' beam...not multiple ones separated by 5 seconds.

The lighthouse is a classic example of an 'explanation' that people will defend at all costs.....even when it doesn't fit what is actually being described. And, of course, whatever it was can't have been Sirius and be the lighthouse. Oh....but I suppose one could contrive that too.