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Rendlesham Forest Incident

Halt obviously didn't hoax anything. He recorded it all on tape, with other people present. So I'd guess he was acting entirely in good faith, even though he didn't have the skillset to investigate this properly. Of course, nobody does, really.
 
eburacum said:
Halt obviously didn't hoax anything. He recorded it all on tape, with other people present. So I'd guess he was acting entirely in good faith, even though he didn't have the skillset to investigate this properly. Of course, nobody does, really.
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His behaviour after the incident gets very strange. Mis-dating his official report of the event. Making copies of the tape for his friends to play at parties. Saying that he knows what happened...and then claiming he doesn't. Telling Warren that he had been "messed with" during the event. Maybe, you could argue, flipping the f*ck out - on tape, when looking at a lighthouse. All of his public activities (too many to mention) make him seem a deeply unreliable, untrustworthy person with an ulterior motive. All a bit odd for any military man...but a General?
 
Halt wasn't a general, but even if he had been that wouldn't necessarily make him competent to deal with his sort of event. Never attribute to a conspiracy what can be adequately explained by incompetence.
 
eburacum said:
Halt wasn't a general...
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Excuse me, you're right of course, my error- he was a Lieutenant Colonel and deputy base commander of one of the most deadly and prepared air bases in Western Europe. I think therefore it would be pretty remarkable if he were incompetent and give to losing his head when seeing light from a nearby lighthouse. And then spending the rest of his life publicising this, presumably more than a little embarrassing, horrible error.

eburacum said:
Never attribute to a conspiracy what can be adequately explained by incompetence.
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I wouldn't and didn't.
 
Halt was presumably perfectly competent at running the base (I get the impression he was in charge over this Christmas holiday). But he was no more competent at dealing with mysterious lights in the sky (or on the ground) than any other member of the human race. There are no reliable experts in that field, it seems.
 
I dont know how long he had been on that base but surly long enough to be
able to recognize what is normal light wise in the area, it was a active air
base they would recognize a light especially a aid to navigation like a light house
I see the one on Walney Island it is absolutely unmistakable what it is.
 
RaM said:
I dont know how long he had been on that base but surly long enough to be
able to recognize what is normal light wise in the area, it was a active air
base they would recognize a light especially a aid to navigation like a light house
I see the one on Walney Island it is absolutely unmistakable what it is.
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Hard to disagree.

Unless they were impaired or senseless. Given their roles, we'd have to assume temporarily.
 
RaM said:
I dont know how long he had been on that base but surly long enough to be able to recognize what is normal light-wise in the area,
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Perhaps not. Halt hadn't been there long. From Wikipedia
After serving in Vietnam, Japan and Korea, he was assigned to Bentwaters as deputy commander. The Rendlesham Forest incident of late December 1980 occurred shortly afterwards
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RaM said:
...it was a active airbase they would recognize a light especially a aid to navigation like a light house
I see the one on Walney Island it is absolutely unmistakable what it is.
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Lighthouses are an aid to navigation by sea not beacons for use by air traffic. The lighthouse was only visible from a very small part of the forest, and it is entirely possible that none of the party on the second night had been to that spot before.

John Burroughs was also unfamiliar with the lighthouse; according to his statement he walked two miles before he recognised what it was. That would be at least half an hour, if he has the distance correct. Half an hour for the penny to drop.
(Burrough's statement)Once we reached the farmer’s house we could see a beacon going around, so we went toward it. We followed it for about 2 miles before we could see it was coming from a lighthouse.
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He was obviously unfamiliar with the lighthouse, and so was his companion, it seems. As Rynner has posted upthread, there may have been unusual atmospheric effects that made the 'loom' (the beam) particularly visible, allowing the witnesses to see the beam even when the lighthouse was hidden from sight.
 
eburacum said:
Perhaps not. Halt hadn't been there long. From Wikipedia


Lighthouses are an aid to navigation by sea not beacons for use by air traffic. The lighthouse was only visible from a very small part of the forest, and it is entirely possible that none of the party on the second night had been to that spot before.

John Burroughs was also unfamiliar with the lighthouse; according to his statement he walked two miles before he recognised what it was. That would be at least half an hour, if he has the distance correct. Half an hour for the penny to drop.
He was obviously unfamiliar with the lighthouse, and so was his companion, it seems. As Rynner has posted upthread, there may have been unusual atmospheric effects that made the 'loom' (the beam) particularly visible, allowing the witnesses to see the beam even when the lighthouse was hidden from sight.
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Good post.

It would suggest though that staff guarding (and commanding) one of the most powerful and active USAF airbases in Western Europe were incompetent idiots. It would also suggest that for two nights they could be so confused by a fixed, repetitive lighthouse that they saw it as a. a landed airborne vehicle in front of them and then taking off and b. a whole series of lights moving across and around the night sky shooting down beams and behaving with apparent intelligence.

It then suggests that, rather than accepting their silly mistake, they then feel a sensible course of events is to publicly announce and tout their incompetence loudly for decades with all the attendant risks.

I used to buy the Lighthouse theory totally. Ian Ridpath's work on it is excellent. However, for me, it doesn't add up. There is undoubtedly more to it.


If anyone is interested in this, I'd thoroughly recommend Georgina Bruni's "You Can't Tell the People". An incredible masterclass in researching an event. The people she works to get access to is extraordinary. Incredibly well-written ; sober, sensible, rational. For me it's flawless except the final two chapters where she states that what occurred was the landing and activity of alien spacecraft. I don't think this is the case. Apart from these two final short chapters I'd argue it's the absolutely definitive document of Rendlesham.

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Avoid Warren's "Left at East Gate". Which is clearly the fantastical fiction of a man who is probably unwell. And, it seems, wasn't even there.
 
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According to Christian Nash, Brenda Butler had said to him that strange lights in the forest had been seen way before 1980 .. she 'lucked out' in that she was researching Rendlesham before and during the UFO sightings (and apparently still is with a small group of friends and followers although he told me she's thinking of jacking it all in soon) ... most of this hardcore small crew (including Brenda) have grown to believe that the lights are supernatural in nature instead of extra terrestrial ... another strange twist these days is that a commonly reported phenomena (or trick of the light wishful thinking) is that of little dense black figure shapes .. I was shown a few pictures of this but wasn't convinced.

Brenda conducted a private after family wake for Christian a few backs at Rendlesham which I think he would have appreciated.

Here she is back in 2010 ..

 
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It would suggest though that staff guarding (and commanding) one of the most powerful and active USAF airbases in Western Europe were incompetent idiots.
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The evidence is there, in their own statements and in the tape. Don't take any notice of idiots like Bruni; all they are doing is encouraging Halt and Penniston to embroider their fantasies further. What does Bruni make of the inconsistencies in the stories told bty the witnesses, for instance? If their stories are inconsistent, then they must be mistaken- or unreliable. If Rendlesham were a conspiracy, then they would have made some effort to be consistent- this also implies incompetence. So what is it? Incompetent but genuine witnesses or incompetent conspiracists? Occam's razor favours the former.

Like Roswell, Rendlesham has become an industry- it is up to us to dismantle that industry.
 
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Swifty said:
According to Christian Nash, Brenda Butler had said to him that strange lights in the forest had been seen way before 1980 ..
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Maybe she did see lights in the forest before 1980. One of the 'explanations' for the lights in the forest is that certain members of the base staff were addicted to playing practical jokes. Kevin Conde stated to the BBC that he was one of the hoaxers, shining different coloured lights from his security vehicle.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/east/series3/rendlesham_ufos.shtml

However his story does not seem to fit with the main event at Christmas 1980, since he gets many details of time and place wrong- this may mean that he was not involved at that time, but he may have carried out similar hoaxes both earlier and later, and this might have been the cause of some of the lights seen by Butler.

I'd guess that the light at Orford may have been responsible for at least some of the other phenomena Butler has seen- the light is apparently switched off now, and maybe that will reduce the incidence of strange sightings there. Alternately, I suppose, it might make it easier to see the real lights, especially if they have a supernatural origin.
 
eburacum said:
The evidence is there, in their own statements and in the tape.
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What do you think their evidence proves?

eburacum said:
Don't take any notice of idiots like Bruni...
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Her research into Rendlesham is first class and impeccable. She is far from an idiot. What she makes, or doesn't make, of the inconsistencies isn't of interest to me. I'm not interested in her opinions preferring my own. I think her book does a first-class job of presenting evidence and background. I'm interested in these.

Rendlesham has become an industry. Mainly due to Warren. However- the fact people have made money out of it isn't of interest to me. What happened on those nights and mornings, late December 1980 is. To be totally honest - I am almost 100% certain that we will never learn the "truth". However - I am pretty certain, and of course it's just conjecture, that what didn't happen was a bunch of USAF personnel mistook the nearby light from a lighthouse as a whole range of strange and unexplained aerial and physical phenomena. I'm equally fairly certain that what didn't happen was that some aliens flew around Rendlesham in their spaceships and stopped off in the woods...and don't even get me started on the, ahem, binary codes...
 
eburacum said:
Maybe she did see lights in the forest before 1980. One of the 'explanations' for the lights in the forest is that certain members of the base staff were addicted to playing practical jokes. Kevin Conde stated to the BBC that he was one of the hoaxers, shining different coloured lights from his security vehicle.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/east/series3/rendlesham_ufos.shtml

However his story does not seem to fit with the main event at Christmas 1980, since he gets many details of time and place wrong- this may mean that he was not involved at that time, but he may have carried out similar hoaxes both earlier and later, and this might have been the cause of some of the lights seen by Butler.

I'd guess that the light at Orford may have been responsible for at least some of the other phenomena Butler has seen- the light is apparently switched off now, and maybe that will reduce the incidence of strange sightings there. Alternately, I suppose, it might make it easier to see the real lights, especially if they have a supernatural origin.
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She claims in that video link that she did see an actual craft quite early into the video but of course she could be hoaxing for financial gain or attention or both.

It's an interesting video to watch even if she is bullshitting (or not), she seems to be a fairly confident public speaker either way.
 
If i saw something, i wouldnt lie to make money from it, i would just tell the truth, i see no need to lie, to me that is important.
 
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eburacum said:
Ask David Clarke about Bruni. She was perfectly prepared to take credit for Clarke's research without giving him attribution. And Bruni was working hand in hand with Hill-Norton, who was completely off his rocker.
http://drdavidclarke.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/why-cant-you-tell-people.html
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He said she said. If true it would suggest she is incapable of some pretty unscrupulous behaviour.

Doesn't change a thing though, for me, in regards to the "evidence" she researched and collated.
 
Sadly, Georgina Bruni died in 2008, so we will never know if she could be persuaded to abandon her extraterrestrial interpretation of this event. I expect that history will make that judgement eventually.
 
eburacum said:
....so we will never know if she could be persuaded to abandon her extraterrestrial interpretation of this event.
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Doesn't make any odds to me. As I said - for me, her book is the definitive collection of "evidence", witness accounts and background research into the night's activities. I don't care for the last two chapters where she states that she believes the events were a result of visitation by aliens in their vehicles. It's her opinion. Of little interest to me because I think it's wrong. But it's her's and that's fine.
 
^ Thanks for mentioning that book by Bruni....I might look for a used copy.
I've always thought the Rendlesham case was interesting on multiple levels.
 
dr wu said:
I might look for a used copy.
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I'd recommend it. Cracking bit of research.

And yes - for me, the incident or supposed incident (no less interesting because of that) is very interesting on many different levels; least of all of the possibility of aliens coming a'visiting which I don't think it was.
 
Did'nt notice that but was puzzled about the RAF using Vampire's and that explains it,
seems the area was popular with UFO's, A ex RAF pilot used to visit as a rep he flew
all through the war and had a few good stories to tell, finishing on Meteors he did
say that flying one he had a encounter with a UFO and if he had the presence of mind
at the time to press the camera gun button he would have had irrefutable proof but
I bet if he had the film would have melted away once in the hands of others.
 
David Clarke has a nice piece about the Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident;
https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/secret-files/lakenheath-bentwaters-ufo/
Davis’s own brief written account of his involvement in the Bentwaters-Lakenheath incident, which I discovered in MoD papers during 2003, reveals that he was already airborne in a Venom interceptor from RAF Coltishall when the UFOs were detected. He was vectored by GCI radar (presumably by Wimbledon at Neatishead) towards “a suspected UFO” but his radar operator could not make contact with it and Davis found himself “chasing a star.” This star may have been a bright planet, either Mars or Venus, both of which were prominent in the clear night sky.
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Add to this that the Perseids were active that night, and this might explain a few of the so-called 'visual' contacts. Looks like a case of wonky 1950's radar to me. Particularly significant is the fact that three of the traces seem to traverse directly above the radar station concerned - exactly what you'd expect from wonky radar.
 
In the early days of Radar they often go what some operators called Angels,
that wandered about at will it was quite a wile before they figgered out it
was flocks of birds.
 
The Rendlesham Forest incident was just Satan & his cohorts trying to fool humankind that we are being visited by aliens (see my post UFO Origin & the End Times) they are supernatural not extraterrestrial.
 
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