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All open to interpretation, obviously.

Indeed.

If it's the truth you're seeking on this one. You won't find it. And that's a not criticism of you or your researching skills.

The truth is now a miasma. And has been spreading since it was first reported. And spreading and spreading.
 
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Additionally, I'd like to know how high the forest foliage stood at the time and how many individual spottings of lights occurred through the trees rather than above the trees.
'tis the very thing I have been pondering also.

I can help with this to some extent; the following contemporary photographs, taken at RAF Bentwaters, were kindly provided by Randy Smith.

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The simplest way of doing so, is uploading a Microsoft Word document.

Many moons ago, or half-moons turning into full circles way back, I would publish a newsletter of recent research developments, etc. in relation to various UFO cases.

This was one of them and features Randy Smith's detailed account.

www.forteanmedia.com/Randy.doc

My belief the objects were probably scintillating stars, was borne of having seen such an occurrence and it resembled what is described in Randy's recollections.

That said... (have I mentioned there's eternally a, 'however')... I had quite forgotten about Gerry Harris' story re the 'abnormal lights' he recollects witnessing.

Is this yet another example of autokinesis?

How many is that now... Halt, Ball, Englund, Harris and also Randy plus others in the control tower...

As always, you must reach your own conclusions.

So, enough of this conundrum for now and I'm going to have first coffee of the morning... well, third actually... whilst endeavouring to complete today's Times newspaper cryptic crossword blindfolded.

These are two photographs provided by Randy, of the view from within the control tower

View attachment 37492

View attachment 37493

Additionally, for your delectation, is, I believe a World Exclusive, as I can't remember ever publishing this before.

It's Randy's sketch of our Rendlesham UFO, attached as a 'spoiler'.

I mean, is the world really ready for this...

I think you have enough material in your files now to write the first really comprehensive book on the Rendlesham case. Mistaken observations of stars? No way. All of the evidence now points to this being a genuine UFO incident. Clearly what happened was important enough to warrant the attention of the covert investigators in the white outfits. I wonder what they found? From this account they were all over the area. A very interesting point about his sudden trip home with no memory of the intervening time -- something had definitely been done to him, mind control or something. On the other hand, this kind of lapse is also characteristic of some glitch stories.
I can't help thinking that the idea that this was some kind of British secret project is purely disinformation. Would the UK seriously fly a secret experimental craft around a major military base at the height of the Cold War?
 
Re. the trees.

If you are familiar with farmed pine forests here in the UK you will know how tightly packed they are. I always thought that the oft-quoted sightings of lights seen through the trees ruled out any possiblity of craft emanating lights from within the forest. How would they get in? How would they be able to move around once in there? You couldn't fly a small drone in there let alone a craft.
 
Mistaken observations of stars? No way. All of the evidence now points to this being a genuine UFO incident.
If all those second night's events have a mundane explanation, essentially Halt's observation of stars via a Starlight scope and others experiencing autokinetic effects viewing same, then would this be the scenario?...

There participents - Halt, Ball and Englund(?) having a comparative optical aberration at the same time.

Two of those - Halt and Ball - are so significantly affected similarly, that both believe the unidentified aerial objects are moving around the sky as if embarking on a grid-like search.

Halt mistakenly believes one of the objects is emitting downward beams of light and a one point, a pencil-thin beam reaches the ground in extremely close proximity.

Halt further mistakenly believes the object is directing beams downwards in other locations on base.

Halt also recalls hearing radio communications confirming this, when no such radio traffic ever existed.

The enigmatic blue lights which John Burroughs describes as also flying around during events, are no more than an imaginary memory, or suchlike.

Anything I've missed?
 
If all those second night's events have a mundane explanation, essentially Halt's observation of stars via a Starlight scope and others experiencing autokinetic effects viewing same, then would this be the scenario?...

Can we say though that this now down to a mundane v UFO visitiation dichotomy. though? I definitely don't think so.

Or ever a Halt was lying/mistaken v Halt was accurate and telling the truth dichotomy?


I think 90% of people are telling the truth about the weird things they say they see. When I hear someone telling how they saw Bigfoot, I believe they believe they saw Bigfoot. When I hear someone telling me how they saw a UFO, I believe they believe they saw a UFO. I very, very rarely think they're lying (what's the point anymore? Gone are the days when you could make a bit of cash of celebrity out of it.), but I can never know what they saw.
 
How so? Genuine question :)
Obviously we don't know what UFOs really are, but from the accumulated evidence some patterns have emerged, and the Rendlesham case seems to fit in to the pattern. Multiple witnesses (I had always visualised Halt and his men as a handful of people so was amazed to hear how many might have been out there with him). Halt and many of the others whose evidence has been cited here seem to me to be excellent witnesses. I'm sure they could tell the difference between autokinetic movements of stars (which are typically very small) and the lights that were moving about and even firing narrow beams down at their feet. I'm sure they could also have seen the difference between a large light moving in and out of the trees and the midnight Tilley lamp cyclist that has been hypothesised. After having regarded the case with some doubt for many years I am amazed at all the evidence that is now emerging and forced to admit that I was wrong. But as we now know some of the witnesses may have been processed by the AFOSI using drugs, so we still can't rule out a mind control angle.
 
Obviously we don't know what UFOs really are, but from the accumulated evidence some patterns have emerged, and the Rendlesham case seems to fit in to the pattern. Multiple witnesses (I had always visualised Halt and his men as a handful of people so was amazed to hear how many might have been out there with him). Halt and many of the others whose evidence has been cited here seem to me to be excellent witnesses. I'm sure they could tell the difference between autokinetic movements of stars (which are typically very small) and the lights that were moving about and even firing narrow beams down at their feet. I'm sure they could also have seen the difference between a large light moving in and out of the trees and the midnight Tilley lamp cyclist that has been hypothesised. After having regarded the case with some doubt for many years I am amazed at all the evidence that is now emerging and forced to admit that I was wrong. But as we now know some of the witnesses may have been processed by the AFOSI using drugs, so we still can't rule out a mind control angle.

Thank for your genuine and thoughtful answer.

I can never know what happened.
 
Something that's always bugged me about the observations ... The bright lights reported on the second night (2 north; 1 south) were claimed to have been at an estimated elevation of 10 degrees above the horizon. Ten degrees is a damned low angle of elevation / altitude.
I'm not sure if this helps, or confuses matters further.

However, I have come across the following, which was included in a newsletter I published back in 1999:

I asked Senior Airman Kenneth Green for an opinion on the overall issues and he commented:

"I will say that when I first read the account of the incident as reported by the personnel in the B/W WSA I immediately thought that whatever they were looking at had to be quite high in the sky to be seen from that location. This was primarily due to the height of the trees in the forest and the distance between the two areas.

However, I am now a bit confused. LTC Halt states that '04:00 hours - one object still hovering over the Woodbridge base at about five to ten degrees off the horizon, still moving erratic and similar lights and beaming down as earlier.'

I am also a former Air National Guard reserve SP and was trained by the reserves to estimate the height of aircraft. Take your hand and hold it at arms length in front of your face with the thumb resting on the horizon. You can now rudimentarily measure height in degrees. One finger covers approximately 2 degrees, one hand (palm and thumb) covers approximately 10 degrees.

With this reference in mind, the object observed and reported by LTC Halt would not have been high enough in the sky to be observed by the personnel at B/W.

Secondly, imagine the face of a clock. The B/W WSA would have been at the one o'clock position, the W/B WSA at the seven o'clock position, and LTC Halt and crew at about three o'clock most likely facing the nine o'clock position. I can not see him confusing the location between the areas as they were almost opposite of each other and separated by the forest and W/B runway.

I believe that he was referring to the B/W WSA when he states '...continued to send down beams of light, at one point near the weapons storage facility'."
 
If it's the truth you're seeking on this one. You won't find it.
Just a case of proverbially going over the evidence in the hope something new and possibly significant might come up!

What's different at the moment, is that I am highlighting and we are revisiting a trove of early evidence gathered, some of which has rarely, if ever been seen and even then, not for over 20 years.

I believe there has actually been a development of note today.

We asked the question; was Penniston's testimony in the December 1994, 'Strange But True'? documentary, prior to his first, 'hypnotic regression', which he told Salley Rayl took place in September, 1994.

Yes, apparently it was.

That potentially makes a massive difference as his account in the documentary could not therefore have been compromised by same.

More on this later.
 
If all those second night's events have a mundane explanation, essentially Halt's observation of stars via a Starlight scope and others experiencing autokinetic effects viewing same, then would this be the scenario?...
Three participents - Halt, Ball and Englund(?) having a comparative optical aberration at the same time.
Two of those - Halt and Ball - are so significantly affected similarly, that both believe the unidentified aerial objects are moving around the sky as if embarking on a grid-like search.
I don't know what Englund saw, or claimed to see. Nevels saw at least one object 'moving out fast', and so did Halt. Since these objects were still there several minutes later, this 'movement away' was probably an illusion . You can't 'move out fast' and still be there minutes later.

Ball saw the objects moving in grid-like patterns, and Halt also remembers seeing this as well, and (although this may not be a true memory on his part) there is no reason that Halt and Ball could not have had the same illusion. Autokinesis is a remarkably powerful phenomenon, and I've seen it myself on several occasions. Because these stars were quite low, they would have occasionally hidden by trees, and almost certainly twinkling; these phenomena were not observed with respect to Jupiter and Saturn, which were higher in the sky and partially hidden by moonlight.

Memory is a remarkably fallible tool; because Ball described a grid-like pattern, Halt and others may have remembered this, without actually seeing it for themselves. Because only one person was using the starscope at any one time, the others had to rely on their audible description of the phenomena as they were using it - they could not all see through the scope at the same time, but I suspect they all remember it as if they could. So they imagined they saw the beams and distorted shapes when the one with the scope described them. Judging by the tape, Halt had possession of the scope most of the time. There may have been a second magnifying instrument available as well, but no-one mentions it on the tape, so this may also have been a false memory.
 
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These events appear to have become 'flashbulb memories' in the minds of at least some of the observers, and in general flashbulb memories are considered very reliable by the people concerned - much more reliable than normal memories. Recent research shows that the accuracy of flashbulb memories goes down to about 57% after three years, and are comparable in reliability to other memories.

For instance - most people have very clear memories of of the events of 9-11, and quite a large proportion of people who managed to see the TV coverage on that day remember seeing the second plane hit the tower on live TV as it happened. In fact this footage was not broadcast until many hours after the event, probably on the following day.
Perhaps the most important event in recent times is associated with mistaken recollections; this happens all the time.
 
I don't know what Englund saw, or claimed to see. Nevels saw at least one object 'moving out fast', and so did Halt. Since these objects were still there several minutes later, this 'movement away' was probably an illusion . You can't 'move out fast' and still be there minutes later.

Ball saw the objects moving in grid-like patterns, and Halt also remembers seeing this as well, and (although this may not be a true memory on his part) there is no reason that Halt and Ball could not have had the same illusion. Autokinesis is a remarkably powerful phenomenon, and I've seen it myself on several occasions. Because these stars were quite low, they would have occasionally hidden by trees, and almost certainly twinking; these phenomena were not observed with respect to Jupiter and Saturn, which were higher in the sky and partially hidden by moonlight.

Memory is a remarkably fallible tool; because Ball described a grid-like pattern, Halt and others may have remembered this, without actually seeing it for themselves. Because only one person was using the starscope at any one time, the others had to rely on their audible description of the phenomena as they were using it - they could not all see through the scope at the same time, but I suspect they all remember it as if they could. So they imagined they saw the beams and distorted shapes when the one with the scope described them. Judging by the tape, Halt had possession of the scope most of the time. There may have been a second magnifying instrument available as well, but no-one mentions it on the tape, so this may also have been a false memory.
There is, however, a limit to how much distortion autokinesis can create. I don't think there is any way it can account for a light flying overhead, stopping, and sending down beams to the witnesses' feet.
 
Thank for your genuine and thoughtful answer.

I can never know what happened.
We can never know for certain about any UFO cases, aside from the ones that are patently explainable or obvious hoaxes. But in terms of any criteria that you can name, this case is one of the best. Multiple, highly trained witnesses; radar return from that location at the time of the UFO's descent; landing imprints in frozen soil indicating an object weighing tons; marks on surrounding trees; unusually high radiation readings; witness descriptions of unusual atmospheric conditions (high static charge, malfunctions of equipment); witness interactions with small craft. All these things in extremely close proximity to an important air base with nuclear weaponry.
No, but false memory can do that.
No, if you take that line you can potentially explain away all witness testimony in every UFO case in the records!
 
Witness testimony is always going to be unreliable. The most likely situation is that all UFO sightings have mundane or celestial explanations, but we can't always get enough evidence to identify the real explanation. In this case we have one very good piece of evidence (the tape) and three good pieces of evidence (the early witness statements). Most of the rest is unreliable, and will get increasingly unreliable as time goes by.

The marks on the ground and on the trees were unassociated with the event, and there were no radar returns.

The 'multiple, highly trained witnesses' didn't know how to read the Geiger counter correctly. Nevels admitted that the readings were not significant. I'm quite sure they were unfamiliar with the Starscope, too.
 
Im not a big folliwer of UFO, but i have been reading this, somewhat circular, discussion as best i can, if im reading correctly, the phenomenen here was view through a starscope, which if that was the case, would exaggerate any small movement.
 
Witness testimony is always going to be unreliable. The most likely situation is that all UFO sightings have mundane or celestial explanations, but we can't always get enough evidence to identify the real explanation. In this case we have one very good piece of evidence (the tape) and three good pieces of evidence (the early witness statements). Most of the rest is unreliable, and will get increasingly unreliable as time goes by.

The marks on the ground and on the trees were unassociated with the event, and there were no radar returns.

The 'multiple, highly trained witnesses' didn't know how to read the Geiger counter correctly. Nevels admitted that the readings were not significant. I'm quite sure they were unfamiliar with the Starscope, too.
If that is really your view, then there is little point in discussing any UFO cases, as you will always have assumptions that justify (in your mind) rejecting all of them!
 
The challenge is finding the solution; it's like a murder mystery. Sometimes it can't be done- not enough information.

And of course one day we might find a real case. The universe is probably full of aliens, and we don't know how far away the nearest aliens are; they may get here any day.
 
The challenge is finding the solution; it's like a murder mystery. Sometimes it can't be done- not enough information.

And of course one day we might find a real case. The universe is probably full of aliens, and we don't know how far away the nearest aliens are; they may get here any day.
Are you assuming that if UFOs did turn out to be "real" by your exacting standards, that they would necessarily be of extraterrestrial origin? And please describe exactly what would be a "real" case, in your view.
 
Witness testimony is always going to be unreliable. The most likely situation is that all UFO sightings have mundane or celestial explanations, but we can't always get enough evidence to identify the real explanation. In this case we have one very good piece of evidence (the tape) and three good pieces of evidence (the early witness statements). Most of the rest is unreliable, and will get increasingly unreliable as time goes by.

The marks on the ground and on the trees were unassociated with the event, and there were no radar returns.

The 'multiple, highly trained witnesses' didn't know how to read the Geiger counter correctly. Nevels admitted that the readings were not significant. I'm quite sure they were unfamiliar with the Starscope, too.

There’s also the SAS revenge prank theory and the security guy who drove around with torches and flashing lights on his patrol vehicle. See the earlier posts in this thread.

I’ve come to the conclusion that to some, a belief in UFOs - of the ET kind - is a belief bordering on religious fervour without much in the way of proof and there is little point in providing a normal, rational explanation of events as it will be disregarded and we’ll be left arguing a shaggy dog story chasing our own tails over and over again.
 
Strange But True?' was broadcast in December 1994.

Penniston's 'hynotic regression' seemingly didn't occur until September 1994.

So, was his interview in the documentary before or afterwards?
It would appear we can at least now resolve this.

Crucial in doing so, is the fact that Halt's aforementioned (earlier today) lecture at Leeds, took place on 31 July, whilst in England during the filming of, 'Strange But True'?.

Elsewhere, Halt has spoken of meeting up again with Burroughs and Penniston during filming and indeed they were all staying at the same hotel.

This would imply that the program's interview with Penniston also occured during this time, seemingly before his 'hypnotism' sessions.

Consequently and to my own surprise, Penniston's following claim during that interview does not seem to be a byproduct of, 'hypnotic regression':

"On the upper left side of the craft, was an inscription. It measured six inches high, of symbols. They looked familiar, but I couldn't ascertain why".

This is highlighted simply for the record and any resultant judgement, naturally, open to an individual interpretation.
 
With or without hypnotic regression (or any other procedure) having been conducted with him, Penniston's comment emerged circa 13.5 years after the fact.
 
Well, first we had Nick Pope on a TV program about British UFOs saying that Halt and his bunch were under mind control with Sodium Pentothal.

Now reading Wikipedia, they claim it was a hoax because there was an unspoken war between the British SAS ( special air service ) and the American troops at Woodbridge and Bentwaters.

They would do all kinds of crap to each other.

The theory was the UFO was SAS payback to the “ Yankees” .

This UFO event has a lot of moving parts.
 
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Accordingly, perhaps not surprising there are gaps, such as perhaps Halt not documenting on tape the source of our perceived light beam, having seemingly advanced towards his position, then returning back.

We would, however, expect Halt to remember this and subsequently offer a more detailed explanation.

He has done so on a number of occasions, for example, in discussions with Salley Rayl:

HALT: Well, we stood there in awe and watched and suddenly it was like it was switched off. It just clicked. It was gone.

The object was still in the sky. We also noticed it receded.
This is a more emphatic example of the point I was making.

Again, from an interview with Salley, Halt explaining why the object which approached from the south, was subsequently observed back in its original position.

"A pencil-like beam, six to eight inches in diameter, shot from this thing right down by our feet. Seconds later, the object rose and disappeared".

Nonetheless :).... as you astutely note, we have Halt's recording that what appears to be the same aeriel manifestation is "losing altitude" and 'still beaming down lights'.

If it always was a star, then that's one mother almighty of an autokinetic delusion?

When I read the star explanations from others and your good self, I tend to nod in approval.

When I then verify my same conclusion by reading the evidence just once more, to be sure about this...

I just end up shaking my head...

Might we all agree, the entirety of it, either way - a culmination of misinterpretations, or as yet unresolved activities of manipulated objects - is a classic case study in Fortean phenomena!

I'm just delighted to be able to discuss it here, on the most appropriate forum imaginable and appreciation to those who make this all possible is off the scale.

Thought occurred earlier, what would Charles Fort have to say if he could post here.

Possibly something like, 'Need a UFO case be sane'?
 
Additionally, I'd like to know how high the forest foliage stood at the time and how many individual spottings of lights occurred through the trees rather than above the trees.
I was wondering if it might be possible to identify where exactly Halt's various
recorded sightings took place.

Possibly one clarification here (my emphasis), from an interview with Salley Rayl?:

"Suddenly, it exploded - not a loud bang, just booompf - and broke into five white objects that scattered in the sky. Everything except our radios seemed to return to normal.

We went to the end of the farmer's property to get a different perspective.

(...)

Suddenly, from the south, a different glowing object moved toward us...
 
Here's Penniston's first sketch, before he started imagining hieroglyphs and binary notation. Note he saw it through the trees, and indistinctly. I've put a picture of a 1980-vintage tractor next to it to suggest what may have been the culprit.
1980.png
 
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