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prank

If this case was indeed a prank why did they see fit to cut down all the trees in the general area?

Secondly any prank involving american military personel who were likly to be armed being lead through a forest in the dark while being fooled into beliving there own safety may be at risk would be very foolish indeed.

any prankster would need to leave something obvious to be found later on to show that it was a prank or as in this case the joke is compleatly lost on there pray,making it no prank at all no matter how you look at it.
 
The likelihood that the Rendlesham incident was faked by a piss-pot helmeted cop flashing his headlights is about as likely as Roswell being the result of a discarded cigarette butt.

I don't beleive either were caused by alien visitation, but to give any credence to Mr Conde's evidence in the light of the facts in simply absurd.

I don't doubt for a moment that he did flash his headlights through the forest (these rent-a-cop types need something to fill their time - they do f#ck all else) but what makes him for a moment assume that anybody took any notice of him? Just like they shouldn't take any notice now.

Hey, Mr Conde, if you're out there, why not log onto the board and explain to us all how you managed it all. We'd all love to hear it. :rolleyes:
 
possibly it was an atempt by the english goverment to snoop on an american base
they would make it seem so rediculious as to make any discovery of it eaisy to cover up
while all the commotion was going off in the forest either its a perfect diversion,or the actual snooping was involed in the incedent but made out to look like a ufo
no one would ever take the incident seriously
 
Brenda Butler, a local resident, said: "It was definitely a craft, because we've seen craft down here.

"Rendlesham is a very strange place - it's like a doorway opening from another dimension."
It's conclusive then!!

Personally I'd go with the "it wasn't a UFO, but this guy is just out for his 15 minutes" theory.
 
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unicycle said:
I've posted something similar before, I think - but Jacques Vallee made a convincing case for military UFO incidents being set-ups to test people for their suitability for intelligence circles.
They are put in a situation where everything that they know they saw is denied. The powers that be won't admit that something unusual happened. So the question is, do they still respect the chain of command under those circumstances, or do they run to the media and bring the full story (as they see it) to the public?

Yes, the Franck Fontaine case, Bentwaters, UMMO, and others are all most likely tests of reaction to extraordinary events staged by the military or other clandestine groups.
We could also include here The Teasdale Inheritance scam in France/England and the APEN case in England.
 
Vallee's idea about this has always struck me as stretching the possibilities waaaaaay to far. It seems like alot of fuss and nonsense to test a few people to see if they may or may not be suitable for working in intelligence circles. I still think Rendlesham case suffers from more hype and overactive imaginations than anything more otherwordly.
 
Unicycle sez..

I've posted something similar before, I think - but Jacques Vallee made a convincing case for military UFO incidents being set-ups to test people for their suitability for intelligence circles....



For what it's worth, a few years ago I was acquainted with an ex RAF engineer who had been based at Rendlesham at the time of the 'incident'. He wasn't involved in the flap himself, but remembers it well - there was blanket secrecy on the base, and officially nothing happened.

He did some nosing about, is pretty sure that the UFO story is itself a cover-up of something else. In the weeks before the incident, they had been working on a prototype VTOL jet, which he described as looking like a smaller, sleeker version of a Harrier. After the incident he never saw it or the project engineers again. Rumour had it that the jet had crashed in the forest that night, and the whole UFO story was something the intelligence officers fed to the public when journalists started sniffing about.

Of course he might just have been spinning me a yarn - but his story seemed to hang together.
 
The things that would make me wonder about the VSTOL theory are:
1) If it was a secret US aircraft, why test it outside of the US?
2) If it was secret UK VSTOl aircraft, why test it at a US airbase?

Just seems a bit odd... :)
 
If this case was indeed a prank why did they see fit to cut down all the trees in the general area?

I know with the Travis Walton incident, Mike Rogers recorded an accelerated tree growth rate in the area where the UFO was sited. As abnormal levels of radiation were found in the forest after Travis disappeared, the trees began to grow at a substantial rate.

Maybe the same growth rate was seen in Rendlesham and the decision was made to eliminate the trees either because of a hazard to the environment or simply because it was proof.

So, if your Rendlesham Files glow in the dark, you know what trees the paper was made out of :eek!!!!:
 
Fortis sez..
..that would make me wonder about the VSTOL theory are:
1) If it was a secret US aircraft, why test it outside of the US?
2) If it was secret UK VSTOl aircraft, why test it at a US airbase?

Just seems a bit odd...


What about a joint US/British project. We seem to be experts in VTOL technology, and the US does a lot of military R&D.

Everything about the case is odd - but I'm convinced the USAF throw bogus UFO stories to the media to throw people off the scent of top secret stuff.
 
My two penn'orth

Did something strange happen at Rendlesham?
Yes - the Halt memo surely wouldn't have been written/sanctioned if it was known to somebody just to be a few blokes fannying around with torches and police cars, surely.
Was it a genuine bona-fide UFO encounter?
Who knows? As seems to happen with these things, everybody sticks their oar in (this Conde bloke, Emrys' mate, that bloke who nobody believes who wrote "Left at East Gate" - Larry Warren was it?, Brenda Butler with her "windows", usw) and before you know it, the whole story looks a complete mess.
I've read a couple of books on the incident (Jenny Randles "UFO Crash Landing" and Georgina Bruni's "You Can't Tell The People") as well as articles in FT, bits of Tim Good's books and it seems to me that the only people in the whole matter who have got their facts straight are the ones you know were there - Halt, Bustinza et al...

I don't believe any of Warren's "meeting the aliens" bollocks and while I think the lighthouse at Orford Ness may have played a role, too much weird stuff was going on according to the witnesses for that to have been the only cause.
 
I think the Rendlesham story only sticks in some way because of what's being added to it and specluated about after the fact. Halt's memo doesn't add anything mysterious to it, because after all (like anyone else reporting something 'strange') he could simply have been misidentifying something mundane. The military could just trun round and say that there was nothing mysterious going on, and things would go on as normal and Halt would've kept his job. Same thing's happened when military personnel have reported UFO sightings elsewhere for decades now.
 
Filthy le Dog sez..

As seems to happen with these things, everybody sticks their oar in (this Conde bloke, Emrys' mate, that bloke who nobody believes who wrote "Left at East Gate" - Larry Warren was it?, Brenda Butler with her "windows", usw) and before you know it, the whole story looks a complete mess.

I couldn't agree more. I make no claims whatsoever for the accuracy of Mark's story. I worked with him for 6 months in 1995. I know for a fact that he was in the RAF, because I saw pictures of him in uniform, but that's it. He may have made the whole story up, or he may have garnished a true story with fictional detail.

The older stories like Roswell & Rendleshem get, the more people embellish it with fictional detail, and the more the conspiracy theorists spin the whole story into knots.
 
Sorry Emrys - it may have looked like I was dissing you or your mate.
It wasn't intended as such.
What I meant was everybody has a different story to tell, some of them more valid than others.

Actually your mate's V-TOL story may have some credence.
Does anybody remember a few years ago, the fuss that NASA/USAF were making over a V-TOL craft that was able to hover, but didn't look like a conventional aircraft?
It was/is cone shaped and had/has rockets at the bottom.

Compare that with the Rendlesham eye-witness reports...

They refer to a triangular craft that hovered and shifted through the trees, iirc.:eek:
 
No offence presumed or taken old bean - I take all such stories with a pinch of salt unless there is supporting evidence.

Apart from the military releasing UFO stories to cover up tests of prototype vehicles (some of which do look a bit Sci-Fi), it wouldn't surprise me if they did it for pure entertainment value.

Imagine the scene - Friday afternoon, Spook "K" and Spook "F" have had a couple of pints at the Men-In-Black Arms, and can't be bothered with their paperwork.

"Hey K, let's throw the UFO nut a few bones - see what happens."

"Good idea F. What about Wigan ? We haven't had a aliens landing there yet...."
 
Link on the front page breaks but this is the story:

Cameras to roll on Suffolk UFOs

April 5, 2004 05:52

By Rebecca Sheppard

A FILM about the mysterious sighting of UFOs at an East Anglian air base is a step closer to being made after a funding body pledged to support it.

Despite not reaching the finals of the Landmark East competition, the feature film has been given a strong thumbs up from the East of England Development Agency.

Joanna Carrick, who is creative director of the Ipswich-based film and theatre company Red Rose Chain, said she was looking forward to developing the project with the help of the agency.

She said: "Although they were really into our project they didn't think it was right for the landmark competition. It was not that they thought it was any less good than those ones that were chosen.

"Our work is about social inclusion and involving the community and I think they were really interested in that aspect.

"We are really glad that we entered the competition in our maverick and different way. I think they found it impossible to pull it in with the other projects, which were mainly architectural."

The project first came into fruition four years ago when the company performed their newly written play in Rendlesham Forest, which was inspired by the UFO sightings at RAF Bentwaters, near Woodbridge.

The base was being used by the American air force in 1980 when personnel claim they witnessed some unusual lights on two nights after Christmas. The case has excited worldwide interest since.

However Ms Carrick, who will be directing Eastgate next year, said it would be more than East Anglia's answer to X-Files.

She said: "It captures the imaginations of people but it is also a human story about people falling in love and about families."

The exact amount of money that will be given to the company has yet to be stipulated.

Ms Carrick, who was given the news on Wednesday as the four finalists in the landmark competition were announced, said the company would need a "substantial amount" to support the ambitious project.

But she admitted it would find a way to make the film whatever funding it receives.

The East of England Development Agency has also expressed an interest in Red Rose Chain's annual Rendlesham Forest production, raising the possibility of developing it into a drama festival.

Source
 
From the above article
"It captures the imaginations of people but it is also a human story about people falling in love and about families."

Eugh!! :cross eye
 
This topic having come to prominence, I noted preceding
remarks on issues which I may be able to illuminate:

On 10/7/03, Tim Finger wrote:

>If this case was indeed a prank why did they see fit to
>cut down all the trees in the general area?
>
>Secondly any prank involving american military personel
>who were likly to be armed being lead through a forest
>in the dark while being fooled into beliving there own
>safety may be at risk would be very foolish indeed.

Kevin Conde's stunt had nothing whatsoever to do with
security police being led into the forest.

It's a fundamental, to be expected, misunderstanding;
there were separate incidents which encompass our pivotal
'UFO' case... Britain's 'Roswell'.

Incidentally, that forest area at the end of east gate
road was already earmarked for/subject to active logging
- IIRC, three logging companies were working in
Rendlesham forest.


>any prankster would need to leave something obvious to
>be found later on to show that it was a prank or as in
>this case the joke is compleatly lost on there
>pray,making it no prank at all no matter how you look at
>it.

Surely the most enduring hoaxes are those in which the
perpetrators have no intention of ever confessing!

Aside from which, as we shall see, Kevin had zero idea,
until more recently, how glorious his practical joke had
perhaps proven to be.


On 11/7/03, Desperado wrote:

>I don't beleive either were caused by alien visitation,
>but to give any credence to Mr Conde's evidence in the
>light of the facts in simply absurd.

Which facts are those...?


>The likelihood that the Rendlesham incident was faked by
>a piss-pot helmeted cop flashing his headlights is about
>as likely as Roswell being the result of a discarded
>cigarette butt.
>
>I don't doubt for a moment that he did flash his
>headlights through the forest....

Kevin, in fact, never claimed any such thing.


>...(these rent-a-cop types need something to fill their
>time - they do f#ck all else) but what makes him for a
>moment assume that anybody took any notice of him?

Perhaps because I consequently highlighted significant,
supportive, evidence?


>Hey, Mr Conde, if you're out there, why not log onto the
>board and explain to us all how you managed it all. We'd
>all love to hear it.

If I had been a FT message board subscriber at that time.
it wouldn't have been a problem; Kevin readily made
himself available and at my invitation subscribed to the
'UFO Research List' [UFORL], where he answered any
related questions.

Then again, perhaps not so inviting on the FT forum if
you're already depicted as a 'piss-pot helmeted rent-a-
cop'!


On 16/7/03, Taras wrote:

>Personally I'd go with the "it wasn't a UFO, but this
>guy is just out for his 15 minutes" theory.

It's not remotely a credible theory given that:

- Kevin's story was first confided to myself on 5 April,
2001.

- During July, 2001, Tracy Williams, Director of the
regional BBC East, 'Inside Out', local news series, asked
if I could assist with a feasible 'Rendlesham forest UFO'
documentary.

- It was in early 2003 - some 2 years after my first
contacts with Kevin and Tracy - that I was satisfied,
from our discussions, why Kevin's testimony had evidently
resolved key aspects and _only then_ did I agree to act
as a consultant to the program's producer, Clive Dunn,
see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/east/series3/rendlesham_uf
os.shtml

[This URL will 'wrap around']


To recap and summarise the overall, factual, background
[extracting from my own, various, publications]:

_The First Incident _

At around 3:00 a.m. on Friday 26 December, 1980, three
members of the 81st SPS, Staff-Sergeant Jim Penniston,
Airman First Class John Burroughs and Airman Ed Cabansag,
noticed some unfamiliar lights in the forest, due east of
the 'east gate', or 'back door' entrance to RAF
Woodbridge.

They received permission to investigate, off-base.

It was claimed/rumoured they had seen a 'UFO'.


_The Second Night's Events_

On the night of Saturday 27 December 1980, there was a
belated officer's Christmas party, during which the
Deputy Base Commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Halt,
was alerted to yet another 'UFO' sighting in the same
forest vicinity.

As he recalled in a 1997 interview, "...it had been, how
shall I say, the centre of a lot of activity and
controversy within the police squadron and they seemed to
be more focused on UFO activity than their primary duty".

Halt decided he would, "put the whole thing to rest" and
assembled a team of five other officers. He also took
along his microcassette recorder, to make any necessary
notes.

They entered the forest near east gate and in due course
one of the officers noticed a distant flashing light.
Using a 'starlight scope', or 'starscope', night-image
intensifier, Halt documented on his tape recorder:

"It looks like an eye winking at you. Still moving from
side to side. And when you put the Starscope on it, it
sorta has a hollow centre, a dark centre, it's like a
pupil of an eye looking at you, winking. And it flashes
so bright to the Starscope that it almost burns your
eye".

Looking back towards east gate, Halt then described some
puzzling 'beams of light', seemingly being directed
downwards from unidentified aerial craft; "Now we're
observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the
ground".

The light beams were visible for an astonishing 45
minutes, from 3:15 a.m. until 4:00 a.m., with Halt
finally recording, "0400 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".

These were the events subsequently reported by Halt in a
memo to the Ministry of Defence.

When the 'Halt memo' become public knowledge, its
contents catapulted both the UFO story and its inherent
witnesses to celebrity status.


_The First Incident [Analysis]_

Penniston has been the only source of an alleged
encounter with a small, triangular-shaped, craft.

It's a story demonstrably grown with the telling and
factually challenged when I uncovered the original
witnesses statements written by Burroughs, Cabansag and
Penniston, at Halt's request.

As I revealed in a related article:

A remarkable tale and one which appeared to defy
rationalisation.

And so it might have remained, however, the discovery of
formerly undisclosed and critical documentary evidence
now seems to cast considerable doubt on these claims.

Set in context for the first time are the unpublished,
original witness statements written by Burroughs,
Cabansag, Penniston and Chandler.

These prove the nearby lighthouse played a much more
significant role than was ever realised, for despite
Halt's protestations that the base personnel would never
be fooled by this landmark, Burroughs, Cabansag and
Chandler's testimonies confirm the patrolmen chased a
'strange light' through the forest for two miles, before
recognising they had been following the light from its
beacon.

In his formal statement, submitted to Halt, Burroughs
wrote, "We got up to a fence that separated the trees
from the open field and you could see the lights down by
a farmers house. We climbed over the fence and started
heading towards the red and blue lights and they just
disappeared. Once we reached the farmer's house we could
see a beacon going around so we went towards it. We
followed it for about 2 miles before we could see it was
coming from a lighthouse".

Cabansag concurs: "We stopped the Security Police vehicle
about 100 meters from the gate. Due to the terrain we had
to go on by foot. We kept in constant contact with CSC.
While we walked, each one of us could see the lights.
Blue, red, white and yellow. The beacon light turned out
to be the yellow light".

"As we entered the forest, the blue and red lights were
not visible anymore. Only the beacon light was still
blinking. We figured the lights were coming from past the
forest, since nothing was visible as we passed through
the woody forest. We could see a glowing near the beacon
light, but as we got closer we found it to be a lit-up
farmhouse. After we had passed through the forest, we
thought it had to be an aircraft accident. So did CSC
[Central Security Control - James] as well. But we ran
and walked a good 2 miles past our vehicle, until we got
to a vantage point where we could determine that what we
were chasing was only a beacon light off in the distance.
Our route through the forest and field was a direct one,
straight towards the light".

Whilst Penniston's initial, cursory, account doesn't
mention the beacon light episode, a more significant
anomaly is that opposed to his later description of
circling the object at close range, touching it,
photographing it and documenting this all in such detail,
in his typed statement he confirmed, "we got within a 50
meter distance... this is the closest point that I was
near the object at any point".
[END OF EXTRACT]

Halt confirms why, because of the holiday period, he did
not ask for those statements until early January, 1981.

Alas, by that time he had already become embroiled in the
'UFO' sightings, sans any knowledge that Orford Ness
[Orfordness] lighthouse had so deceived Burroughs, et al.

Can we, correspondingly, rationalise his 'UFO'....


_The Second Night's Events [Analysis]_

Again extracting from my previous articles:

Halt was asked about the assertion he had been deceived
by Orford Ness lighthouse and replied:

"First, the lighthouse was visible the whole time. It was
readily apparent, and it was 30 to 40 degrees off to our
right. If you were standing in the forest where we stood,
at the supposed landing site or whatever you want to call
it, you could see the farmer's house directly in front of
us. The lighthouse was 30 to 35 degrees off to the right,
and the object was close to the farmer's house and moving
from there to the left, through the trees".

Here, as never before, Halt provides specific details of
the perspective he believed to be accurate. When he
states, "If you were standing in the forest where we
stood, at the supposed landing site or whatever you want
to call it, you could see the farmer's house directly in
front of us", that's correct and the Orford Ness
lighthouse is in a direct line of sight, east, towards
the coast.

However, when he claims, "The lighthouse was 30 to 35
degrees off to the right", that seems to be
consequentially incorrect; the Shipwash lightship was
"off to the right", the lighthouse was straight ahead,
where Halt observed the 'unidentified light' to be.

His comment that "the object was close to the farmer's
house", again places the light source in the line of
sight to Orford Ness lighthouse, whereas he believed the
lighthouse to be much further south.
[END OF EXTRACT]


Anyone can still verify that, from Halt's documented
location, the 'lighthouse' which was "30 to 35 degrees
off to the right" [Shipwash lightship having since been
decommissioned] has now spookily disappeared...

Equally prominent, is that there remains a 'strange
flashing object', precisely where Halt's principal 'UFO'
could be seen over twenty years ago.

It's called Orford Ness lighthouse.


Kevin's sole participation relates exclusively to a prank
staged at east gate and which, astoundingly, seems to
coincide with Halt's tape-recorded observation - from
within Rendlesham forest - of those mystifying 'beams of
light'.

This is the raw evidence for Kevin Conde's first
realisation of his possible involvement with the late
December, 1980 infamous 'Rendlesham forest UFO' incidents
and contact with myself:

Dear Mr. Easton,

I'm a retired USAF SMSgt. Last night I had some time on
my hands, and was surfing the net looking for Web sites
on airbases that I had served on during my USAF career.
One of those bases was RAF Bentwaters. I was amazed to
find a couple of Web sites describing a UFO incident at
Bentwaters during my tour. Shocked actually, when you
consider what I know about these so-called incidents! One
of the web sites had an article by you.

I was a Security Policeman at RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge
from mid 1978 to mid 1981. I arrived at Bentwaters as a
SSgt, and departed as a TSgt. I was a law enforcement
specialist. While there I worked as a patrolman, desk
sergeant, assistant flight chief, flight chief, training
NCO, and QA evaluator.

During the time that of incident I will recount occurred,
1st Lt. Bruce Englund was my Flight Commander. He figures
into one of the accounts you investigated. I also
remember a Lt Col who was a bit of a cop buff, and used
to ride along with the law enforcement patrols on a
regular basis. As I remember he was either the Vice Wing
Commander, or worked for the Wing Commander. He must be
the Lt Col Halt mentioned.

I can provide copies of my APR's (Airman's Performance
Reports) if asked, to validate the dates and positions in
which I served at RAF Bentwaters.

[...]

There were two incidents that I was personally involved
in.

Both occurred on the back gate of Woodbridge. This gate
was open during the day, and for brief periods during the
night for shift change. Woodbridge was mostly housing,
and we would open the gate during shift change so folks
could come and go between home and job during shift
change.

The gate sits out at the end of the runway at Woodbridge.
It is isolated, dark, surrounded by woods, and a little
lonely.

[...]

Cops have a tendency towards practical jokes. Practical
jokes are a tradition in the Security Police that at
times approaches the status of high art.

It was during an exercise, so I was not alone, as was
normal for the Woodbridge Law Enforcement patrol. As I
remember there were three of us.

Like I said, the back gate at Woodbridge is out all by
itself at the end of the runway. Just before you got to
the gate there were a couple of revetments surrounded by
high dirt berms. These berms would hide anything in them
from the gate guard's view.

It was dark, and a little foggy. I shut off my headlights
and drove my patrol car into one of those revetments. We
stuck several military issue flashlights out of the
windows, pointing upwards. We simply pointed the
flashlights upwards and rolled up the windows to hold
them in position. These military flashlights come with
several different color lenses in a screw on compartment
on the end of the light. These lenses come in red, amber,
blue, green and a white opaque color. Most of us carried
spare flashlights with us, so we could stick several
flashlights out the windows with different colored
lenses.

Leaving my headlights off I turned on the overheads
lights, which on American cop cars are red and blue. We
then proceeded to drive the car in slow circles while
making weird noises over the PA system. Remember, there
was a light fog, which was the key to the joke's success,
as each light appeared in the fog as a moving beam of
light.

[...]

This incident occurred right after Christmas.

This happened more than 20 years a go. I don't remember
the specific date, but it would have been right about
then.

I went back to Flight duty about 6 months before I left
Bentwaters. I left sometime in the summer of 1981. My
Shift Commander was Lt Englund, and the Security Flight
Chief at the time was MSgt Bobbie Ball (Bobbie was known
for how shiny his boots were, even in the mud and rain).
If I left QA six months before I left Bentwaters in the
summer of 1981, and my Shift Commander was Lt Englund,
and the Security Flight Chief was MSgt Ball, then my
incident is right in the ball park.

The Time. I had someone with me on patrol - that was
unusual on Woodbridge - not exactly a hotbed of crime.
The only time we had multiple folks in an LE patrol was
during alerts - exercises.

The joke would have had to have happened late - after all
the initial patrol duties like relieving the main gate
for chow, and getting the first round of building checks
done, and before things began to pick up again, and we
got bored and started looking for a way to cause trouble.

I can not say for sure, but I would guess between 1:00
and 4:00 AM.

Were there other UFO hoaxes? I don't know of any, but it
is entirely possible. It was a good stunt. Someone else
could have repeated it. In fact, most good cop practical
jokes did get repeated. We had some classics - sending
someone out for 100 feet of flight line to rope off an
area. Sending someone out for a gallon of prop wash to
clean patrol car windows with, sending someone to the
emergency room for a box of fallopian tubes for the
breathalyzer, etc.

We used at least three flashlights pointing upwards
rolled up in the windows of the patrol car. These lights
were red, blue, green, and possibly amber. The patrol car
itself had the American style square red and blue
emergency rack on top with revolving high intensity red
and blue lights. It also had bright white alley lights -
these are lights that point to the side in order to light
up buildings as you drive past them at night. It also had
a bright white spotlight that I pointed as close to
straight up as I could. I had everything except my
headlights on.

The flashlights, which were green, and maybe amber, where
nowhere as bright as the red, blue and white emergency
lights, which really lit up the night.

I don't know if I'm helping clear this up or just adding
to the stew, but I'll do all I can to help.

The only UFO incidents that occurred during my tour were
ones I participated in. The only alien that landed was
Mrs. Conde's little boy, Kevin.

This is the truth, the details are the best I can
remember after more than 20 years, and I'll take a
polygraph on that.
[END OF KEVIN'S COMMENTS]


From my previously published comments:

Science writer, Ian Ridpath, has a copy of the base
weather report for the night of Halt's excursion and it
does record low-lying fog.

In 'UFO Crash Landing?', Jenny Randles documents a
witness, Sarah Richardson (only 12 at the time), who
reportedly watched enigmatic 'light beams', when Halt was
making a similar observation.

If it correlates with Kevin's east gate hoax, directly
adjacent to the runway, then we should find the witness
observed at least three multicoloured 'beams of light' in
that location.

Jenny writes:

At the time, she was at her mother's home in Woodbridge.
It was between 1 and 3 am into Sunday, 28 December.

"From (Mum's) house you could see the river and the
forests and the bases. You could hear the revving of the
engines. You became familiar with all the spotlights and
other activity.

This night was different. Three bands of light appeared
over the woods to the side of the runway".

"They were star-like and they were bright, coloured red,
blue and yellow".

[...]

"...the oddest thing was the colour changes. Blue, green,
yellow and so on".

She claims they were present for two hours, until well
after 3 or 4 a.m. Then they just 'shot straight off'.
[END OF EXTRACT FROM JENNY'S BOOK]

Or perhaps were just switched straight off...


Jenny also notes that on the same night, local garage
owner, Gerry Harris, claimed to have observed near east
gate and apparently emanating from within the forest,
"three separate lights" which sometimes "moved around in
circles".

My personal conclusion about Kevin's prank remains
unaltered; if his hoax, or a copycat exercise, wasn't
responsible for those 'beams of light', it would be an
exceptional coincidence.

Perhaps we should keep in mind that accompanying 'UFO'
sightings are now evidenced as easily explicable and not
likely ETs would coincidentally be taking a blatant
interest in the mundane east gate/runway area.
[END OF EXTRACT]


I have since verified that the base was categorically on
'Alert Status', as Kevin recollects, when his ruse
purportedly took place.


It's also two years now - April 2002 - since I was first
contacted by John Burroughs.

Although John's inclusive story has yet to be publicised,
I can say he has confirmed:

"As far as the part about Penniston saying he examined it
[the 'craft' - James] at his leisure, I believe that came
out when he went under hypnotic regression".

"As far as the lighthouse goes, the statements that
everybody made such a big deal about were first made
available by Col Halt during the filming of 'Unsolved
Mysteries'."

"One thing I can say from what I have pulled off of the
internet about Halt and Penniston is that their story's
sure changed a lot since 'Strange but True?'. Also I feel
some of Penniston story is being influenced by him going
under hypnosis".

"Anyway I have went over many of the articles that you
have written from talking to witness over the years.
First of all everybody makes a big deal about the
lighthouse, including you, how it was being held back.
Well if you read my statement I described seeing several
things before coming to a Farmers House then seeing a
beacon, mind you a beacon, not the lights we saw before.
We followed it for 2 miles and could see it was coming
from a Lighthouse".


In short; yes, Burroughs, Cabansag and Penniston did
notice 'alien' lights, as seen by them from the east gate
sentry point that morning, they did investigate and could
never resolve what they were, ultimately trekking two
miles through the Suffolk countryside before
discovering...

Note my FT [152] article, online at:

forteantimes.com/articles/152_rendlesham.shtml
Link is dead. See (much) later post for how to access the MIA article.



Hopefully further setting our essential 'UFO' tale in
context; Penniston claimed that both Burroughs and
himself had resultantly been given six days authorised
leave:

"I could have been out of the loop. If it was within six
days after the first night, there's a very good chance I
was out of the loop because we were given six days off...
we were pretty shook up".

"After the debriefing, Airman Burroughs and I were put on
authorized break for six days, so we drove home to
Ipswich. I dropped Airman Burroughs off, then went home,
changed clothes, and drove back to Woodbridge".

This never made sense. They had reported seeing some
unidentifiable lights, not even on base, ended up chasing
a coastal light and that justified being given almost a
week off duty?

"You saw scary lights in the woods!? Oh you poor dears,
that must have been frightful... take some time off and
come back when you're not so traumatised...".

Like Penniston's proclaimed, circa twenty minute,
examination of a landed craft, it evidently just never
happened.

At least not according to Burroughs, who states that
Penniston was already scheduled to take post-Christmas
leave.

Burroughs also confirms that on 29 December, after a
mandatory three-day break, he was back on duty, as
scheduled.

It's a fact now definitely endorsed by others, especially
Sergeant Alan Cohen, who was the Law Enforcement Desk
Sergeant at that time.

During 2003, he wrote to myself: "I remember Kevin Conde.
Good hard working man. As I recall, my flight chief for a
short period of time. When you found Kevin, you found a
gold mine. He was sharper and smarter than everyone. He,
in my opinion, rated right there with two other flight
chiefs that I worked for, TSgt Dale Combs and TSgt Dan
Koehler".

As for 'UFO' hoaxes, Cohen confirms, "Of everything I
have read I would believe Sgt Kevin Conde. I was not
aware of this practical joke, but I can tell you that we
did this kind of stuff all the time".

Perhaps more significantly, he verifies the alert status
which was a backdrop to Kevin Conde's hoax:

"The base was under alert at the time. This meant that we
were on 12 or more hour shifts".

About the first thing Cohen said was how he remembered
John Burroughs frequently being posted to east gate
during that late December period, adding:

"I don't believe we were on alert until after Christmas.
We don't do boxing day. The alert probably started on the
26th. I would have to say it lasted until the 30th or
31st. If you remember there was many things going on in
and around Europe at the time. There was the Poland
thing, the Iranian hostage crisis was coming to the end
and the IRA were bombing heavily".


And so it goes...

Any related questions, I would be pleased to address as
time permits.


James Easton.
E-mail: [email protected]
 
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As the 25th Anniversary approaches (see also the recent articles in FT):

UFO enthusiasts gather in forest

More than 100 people are expected to gather in a Suffolk forest on Tuesday night to mark 25 years since a famous UFO sighting.

During the nights of 26 and 27 December 1980, US servicemen at RAF Woodbridge and Bentwaters reported mysterious lights in Rendlesham Forest.

The strange lights included a glowing metallic triangle and a hovering object with red and blue lights.

UFO enthusiasts are hoping there might be more sightings during the night.

Brenda Butler, a local resident who has written about the events of 1980, believes the sightings of 25 years ago were real.

Patrol car lights

"People who were coming up the Butley Road and who were in Woodbridge, Melton, Leiston and all around the area saw structured craft," she said.

"And that's not the first time - we can go way back to the 1600s and we've had lights in the sky and in the forest."

In 2003, Kevin Conde, a former US security policeman said he had been responsible for the lights in the forest.

He said he and another airman shined patrol car lights through the trees and made noises on a loudspeaker as a prank.

"We just drove through the forest flashing the lights through the fog," he said.

Despite Mr Conde's claim, some witnesses do not believe they saw patrol car lights in Rendlesham Forest.

US Air Force Sergeant John Burroughs said: "The blue lights coming down from the sky...I still have never heard of any technology capable of doing what I saw happening."

-----------------
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/u ... 562298.stm

Published: 2005/12/27 13:32:53 GMT

© BBC MMV
 
"This incident [hoax] occurred right after Christmas. For reasons that are hard to explain it is my impression that I pulled my stunt during an exercise. We would not have had an exercise during the Christmas holiday. That is a strong indication that my stunt is not the source of this specific incident."
-- Kevin Conde

link to source
 
"Yawn"

Even if there was "stuff" going on there , i think time would be better spent on the people who continually come into contact ( in the forest) with "visitors" , "black eyes" ,entities and weird creatures.

The real story is still in that forest , and no one seems motivated enough to report it.
 
Dichotomy

From all the accounts I've read of the Rendlesham Incident, two "facts" stand out most clearly:

1. There was no "alien craft" of any kind and all that the American Air Force officers actually saw was the light from a lighthouse five miles away being filtered through the trees; and,

2. Twenty-five or thirty men stood in a circle around the "alien craft," touching their fingertips together, in an effort to estimate the object's size.

A little common sense (and a little is all it takes) suggests that one or the other of those two stories HAS to be false.
 
....or both are false?

On a related topic, I gave a talk to Strange Phenomena Investigations in London last August, where I told them of the proof that "ghostly" orbs are nothing more than dust particles. Of course, there was a hardcore of believers in the audience who thought they were spooks.

One lady in the audience mentioned that Brenda Butler had taken many orb photos in Rendelsham Forest, which she had concluded were the spirits of German World War 2 PoWs held nearby. I can't remember exactly how many now, but I think it was a 6 figure sum.

And every one had appeared as an orb for Brenda. Lucky Lady!

:roll:
 
Dear Dr. Lee -

Whenever people proudly show me their "wonderful orb" photographs I ask them the following question:

"I assume that this is YOUR idea of Heaven - spending eternity as a little bouncing ball?"
 
Strangeness in Suffolk: Ongoing Phenomena in Rendlesham Forest.
by Peter McCue:

Peter has a longstanding and active interest in psychical research and UFO phenomena.
He worked for many years as a clinical psychologist and his qualifications include a Ph.D from the University of Glasgow, awarded for research on hypnosis. He has written numerous articles on anomalous phenomena and he remains open-minded about their nature.
Peter's article is based on his research of seemingly paranormal events which have taken place in Rendlesham Forest, the location of the U.K.'s most controversial UFO incident.

See:
thewhyfiles.net/rendlesham2.htm
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20081121070618/https://thewhyfiles.net/rendlesham2.htm


Geoff Richardson
www.thewhyfiles.net
 
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Fertiliser or bullshit?

Britain's most celebrated UFO sighting was a 'lorry full of fertiliser'
A lorry driver has claimed that he was at the root of Britain's most famous UFO sighting and not aliens.
By Nick Britten
Published: 2:08PM BST 04 Sep 2009

In December 1980, witnesses claimed to have seen coloured and glowing lights coming from close to an RAF base Rendlesham Forest, near Woodbridge, Suffolk.

Servicemen from the airbase who investigated claimed to have seen lights moving through the trees, as well as a bright light from an unidentified object. Some even claimed to have seen a conical metallic object floating above the trees. Police logged the incident as a UFO sighting.

Sometimes dubbed “Britain’s Roswell”, it sparked worldwide interest and for years researchers, authors and television producers have tried to get to the bottom of what happened.

Now however someone has come forward claiming to hold the key to the mystery.

Peter Turtill, 66, from Ipswich, said the “UFO” was actually a truck full of burning fertiliser which he had set alight.

He claimed he had been on his way home after collecting a truck he had lent to a friend when it broke down near the USAF airbase at Rendlesham in December 1980.

He said: “To my horror it was loaded with stolen fertiliser so we towed it off the road into the forest and set light to it to destroy the evidence of the crime.

“The truck had an aluminium body and the fertiliser and metal made some very unusual coloured flames which flared among the trees.

“Some of the airmen from the base thought it was a multi-coloured cross from out of space, and with the truck tyres popping they were getting a bit edgy.

“They had guns and we didn’t want to get in their way so we towed the burning vehicle onto the road.

"I admit it probably looked spectacular rolling through the forest but it was hardly a spaceship.”

His claim was met with immediate scorn by researchers. Brenda Butler, a UFO investigator, said: “I don’t get what he is saying. There have been so many witnesses who have come forward.

“He would have to come up with an awful lot of proof to call them liars. Why has he waited 29 years to come forward?”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... liser.html
 
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