Well, here's a surprise...
It's the primary extract from an email sent to Alan Cohen former member of the 81st Security Police Squadron and colleague of both John Burroughs and Kevin Conde.
In this, I include the transcript of a talk given by Halt in 1994.
I had no recollection such a transcript existed and can't even remember how I obtained my copy.
However, it is by far the most detailed account, explaining the genesis of what is now the second most famous UFO case and which once held such high hopes of integrity:
Alan,
I did ask Burroughs if he recalled an ‘Alan Cohen’ and he does remember you as “desk Sgt for the flight”, noting that Sgt McCabe was on duty during the night of 25/26 December.
Halt has spoken in detail about Sgt ‘Crash’ McCabe. This is an extract from a rare transcript I recently acquired - as yet unpublished - from a lecture Halt gave at a UK ‘UFO Magazine’ conference in 1994:
As I walked into the Desk area, control center, Sergeant ‘Crash’ McCabe was on duty – a very intelligent, very sharp witted young man. Very enjoyable to deal with. And he wasn’t above playing a joke on some of his contemporaries.
As I walked in he started to laugh, and I thought I had walked into another prank. Keep in mind this is holiday season and a little levity may be in order. And he started laughing, and I thought I’m the brunt of the joke, or something. And I said, ‘What’s so funny, Crash?’. He said, ‘Colonel, you’re not going to believe this.’ I said, ‘Not going to believe what? Try me.’ And he said, ‘Well, last night Burroughs and Penniston and Cabansag were out in the woods chasing a UFO!’. And I looked at him and said, ‘What’s the rest of the joke? What’s the punch line?’ And be said, ‘No, I’m serious’. ‘I don’t believe it’, he said, ‘But something happened last night. And the Lieutenant. . .’ (the police officer on duty on every shift, who is over both the security side and the law enforcement side) ‘. . . said, ‘Don’t put it in the police blotter.’ In other words, don’t make it a matter of record.
And I said to Sgt. McCabe, ‘Well, what happened? What do you know?’. He said, ‘Well, somewhere around midnight...’ (he did tell me the exact time, but I don’t remember now) ‘...around midnight, Burroughs...’...
On that particular night we had two patrol cars, Police 4 and Police 5, because of a problem with the other vehicle both Police 4 and Police 5 were riding in the same vehicle. Sgt. Burroughs was driving and Staff Sgt. Bud Steffens was riding alongside. Steffens, I understand, was suffering from having been up a long time, and from having a very good Christmas Day ...[unclear].
Because the base was pretty much closed down we had the Back Gate and East Gate closed, we normally lock it after dark and open it in the morning. We didn’t have the manpower to keep a patrolman on it all night long without keeping two people for two shifts every night. But for once some type of activity would operate at the gate, a simple combination padlock. Although it wasn’t uncommon for some of the maintenance people to work on the flightline, and they liked to take short cuts to Bentwaters or vice versa, because to drive the long way round was five or six miles. Between the two back gates was about three miles, And from time to time they would get the combination to the gate from the Security Police and figure out how to get the lock open.
So what we did was put a check on the Back Gate, entered in the log, and into the checklist of the patrolman on duty who had to go out every hour or every two hours to check the security of the Back Gate, to be sure that somebody hadn’t left it open, so that strangers couldn’t just wander into the base.
Burroughs had done this, Sgt. Burroughs had done this for probably about a year and a half or two years, and was familiar with the procedures. So was Sgt. Steffens. You ride down the East Gate Road, you check the gate, you rattle the gate, just like a bobby does when he walks down a street to make sure it’s closed. Then you make an entry in the log and go on.
Well, that night he rode down the road to the gate, and he asked Sgt. Burroughs to get out of the car. He’d noticed something in the forest, off the end of the runway. Giving him a nudge, his partner was half asleep, he said to him, ‘Bud, there’s something strange out there.’
So they both sat up to look, and as Burroughs described it, it looked like a helicopter or an aircraft had gone down. But it didn’t look like any aircraft or helicopter we knew, which was strange.
So he got out of the car, walked up to the gate, took a look. And what they saw was an object in the forest through the trees, that had red, white and blue lights, and they seemed to be pulsing. They beard no noise, nothing out of the ordinary, as far as sound.
They looked at it, for they were convinced it was something strange. And they didn’t think it was an aircraft crash, but they couldn’t rule that out. So they immediately went back up to the gate shack, rather than use their radio (they had hand-held radio). They got on the land line. Now we normally did this because an awful lot of people have scanners and liked to listen to our conversations. And sometimes it’s embarrassing. People say things on the air they shouldn’t. So, anytime there is any incident and they got a land line nearby, they always use the telephone.
They went up to the gate shack, picked up the telephone and Burroughs called Sgt. McCabe. He said, ‘There’s something in the woods, with funny lights on it. I don’t know what it is.’.
Well, McCabe thought it may be an airplane crash. Keep in mind this is restricted airspace. The area from RAF Woodbridge to RAF Bentwaters went from Bawdsey to the south up through Orford Ness, or the restricted site your government uses nuclear at Sizewell, uh, Sizewell nuclear plant, up the coast are all restricted. You can’t fly in that area unless you had business to, and prior approval. However, it’s still a possibility ...[unclear]...
However, Burroughs calls Sgt. McCabe on the Desk, he describes what he sees, and McCabe right away thinks this is a Christmas joke. He tells him, ‘All right, Burroughs, you pulled my leg good enough, you got me.’ He says, ‘No, I’m serious.’.
Well, McCabe still doesn’t believe him, so McCabe calls the other control center - the control center for security - Central Security Control, and talks to the controller there. And the two of them discuss it. And Sgt. McCabe thought when he said he was going to call Central Security Control, because they were more businesslike, more formal, a little stiffer, that would be the end of the joke. But Burroughs didn’t back off, so he knew there must be something out there.
Sgt. Coffey, the Controller in Central Security Control, called the Bentwaters Control tower, which they keep open 24 hrs a day in case there is an emergency and they have to use the field. Keep in mind, RAF Woodbridge had one of the largest airfields in Britain, if not the largest - over 300 feet wide. It was designed during World War II as a crash recovery base, the idea being you can crash two or three airplanes, and you can still keep the airfield open if you had to.
Sgt. Coffey called Bentwaters control tower and be also called Heathrow, London, and he asked them if they had any activity in the area, and if they had any problems in the area they knew about ...[unclear]... The word came back from them they were tracking something off the coast, both of them, east of that part of Woodbridge, and disappeared off the scope about 15 miles out. Well, this caused us great concern. Here’s the potential for something, unbeknownst, had maybe crashed back in the woods. They relayed that back to Burroughs.
In the meantime, Central Security Control despatched to Security 6, to Sgt. Tansing [not certain this is correct] Sgt. Penniston and the rider. Sgt. Penniston and the rider go Code 2. That means as fast as you can safely get here but no sirens and no lights. They race down to East Gate and join the two that are there, and they see the same thing.
Well, they can’t believe what they’re seeing. So they get back on the telephone again. They call Sgt. Coffey back. They say, ‘Look there’s definitely something out there. We got a problem here.’
They’re in a quandary. They don’t know what to do, because they don’t normally deal with this sort at thing. They don’t normally go off the installation.
Central Security Control sends a Master Sergeant down. The senior NCO on duty, Sgt. Chandler, comes down. He takes a look. He’s convinced there’s something out there. So he decides somebody should go out and take a good look at this, whatever it is. Sgt. Chandler says to Sgt. Steffens, who’s the next senior man, ‘I want you to take two people and go out into the forest.’, and Sgt. Steffens says ‘Oh no! Not me!! There’s something funny out there. I don’t want to go out there at all.’
So he turns to Sgt. Penniston, who works for him directly, and says, ‘Jim, I want you to take two people and go out there and take a look, and see what it is.’
So Sgt. Penniston and Airman Burroughs and Airman Cabansag were selected. They were somewhat unwilling to be involved in this but they had very little say in the matter.
Sgt. Chandler placed their weapons, parked them in the front of the car - you do not go off an installation with weapons - our policy, and your law. I guess, they take their radios, their flashlights, and Sgt. Penniston takes, the, uh, 35 mm camera. We kept cameras in front of some of the vehicles so we can record if there were an incident. Somebody runs to a vehicle when an airplane or some recruits climb over a fence. We take pictures. It’s always handy to have that facility so that we can reconstruct for a thorough investigation.
Well, Penniston puts the camera over his shoulder, and then drives down the East Gate road, then intersects the service road, paved road and the, uh, caravan site or something at the far end of it. Goes out the back l50 or 200 feet, turns down into the forest, watching this object all the time, and go about as tar as they can get without the vehicle, without risk of getting stuck.
At that point, they’re having terrible difficulties with the radios, the radios don’t always reach back to the Control Centers, and this is quite unusual because they are very powerful radios, at 5 Watts. They are in line of sight ...[unclear]... both their antennas are up extremely high. We do know there are a few dead spots, a few places around the base where you don’t get good communications but this place isn’t one of them. They had a great problem, so they throw Cabansag out of the truck when they stop, and say ‘You stay here and relay our conversations.’
Now Penniston and Burroughs were on two different radio nets. However, the radios have little switches to flip the channels back and forth. Then Cabansag gets out of the vehicle and the other two proceed on foot, Penniston and Burroughs. They go into the forest...
(End of extract)
Re: “I remember Kevin Conde. Good hard working man. As I recall my flight chief for a short period of time. How is he?”.
Surfing the ‘net, Conde had come across my related web site and recognised a striking similarity between some aspects of the UFO incidents and a hoax he perpetrated, “just after Christmas”, in 1980. Conde elucidated:
“I was a Security Policeman at RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge from mid 1978 to mid 1981. I arrived at Bentwaters as a Staff-Sergeant and departed as a Tech-Sergeant. 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”.
“My Shift Commander was Lieutenant Englund, and the Security Flight Chief at the time was Master-Sergeant Bobbie Ball. If I left QA six months before I left Bentwaters in the summer of 1981, and my Shift Commander was Lieutenant Englund... then my incident is right in the ball park”.
(...)
“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”.
“One of the lights directed upwards was the patrol car’s spotlight. It is a very bright light that throws a beam a long way”.
“We then proceeded to drive the car in slow circles while making weird noises over the PA system.
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.
(...)
“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 a.m.”.
“The night I did it I remember it as slightly foggy, probably low lying fog. The lights lit the fog quite nicely, I should think making a nice halo effect. The fog was, in fact, critical for my prank, as you could see the light beams. Try shining a bright spotlight in fog - you get the light sabre effect”.
“This was one of the more successful and hysterical practical jokes I participated in during my eleven years as a cop. One thing; I frankly don’t remember if we ever told the guy what really happened”.
Ian Ridpath has copies of contemporary base weather records which record ground fog on the night of 27 December.
In ‘UFO Crash Landing?’, Jenny Randles documents a witness, Sarah Richardson (only 12 at the time), who reportedly watched enigmatic bands of light, at the same time Halt was making a similar observation.
If it correlates with Conde’s east gate hoax, directly adjacent to the runway, we should find the witness observed at least three multicoloured and ever- changing beams of light in that location. Sarah remembers, “Three bands of light appeared over the woods to the side of the runway”.
She adds, “But the oddest thing was the colour changes, blue, green, yellow and so on”.
Jenny also notes that on the same night, local garage owner, Gerry Harris, reportedly observed, near east gate, “three separate lights” which sometimes “moved around in circles”.
(...)
The BBC East feature was broadcast on 30 June, 2003.
It had an impact, with newspaper coverage including a full page in the ‘Daily Mail’, entitled, ‘UFO-OLED!’.
I was BBC East’s consultant for that documentary and they agreed to fly Kevin back ‘home’. It was wonderful to meet him and somewhat fitting we had a memorable day’s filming in glorious Suffolk, summer weather.
How is he?
He’s a star:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/east/series3/rendlesham_ufos.shtml
Best wishes,
James Easton.
[END]
That link still works!
