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Except of course Halt wasn't at the fuel pumps in Woodbridge on the night of the UFO, he was out in the forest. Doesn't sound like the same incident, if it happened at all.
And here we enter another aspect of confusion, because I know exactly what you mean.

However....

Going back over this old case documentation, there's certainly a significant, overall clarification in the following two lectures given by Halt.

If these extracts might help:

Quest International Conference
Leeds, 31 July, 1994

(Start)
Lieutenant Englund came in, about 8 o'clock...

He said, ‘Somebody saw some lights at the East Gate again and he went out to take a look.’ He took several lightalls out. Lightalls are motor generators, on trailers. They’re small gasoline engines, something a little larger than a lawn mower engine, directly coupled to a generator, with two big adjustable lights on top. You can bathe an area with light from them. We use them for security; we use them for maintenance people to work at night, any time we need a lot of illumination, we use them.

The Security Police had about a dozen assigned directly to them. They’re almost foolproof. If there’s a problem, someone would go out and put the fuel in, normally petrol. He said, ‘The lightalls wouldn't work. We got starlight scopes out.'

Starlight scopes are first generation image intensifiers. They would magnify available light by 25 or 30 thousand times. Now if there was some problem and we had to have some type of available light, you couldn't use them in total darkness. Just starlight or moonlight was enough to use them. And you looked through like a telescope. They would tell us a bearing with a ...[unclear]... , a yellow green light. You could clearly see an outline, you could clearly see people and you could differentiate things. We used them on the flightlines in sensitive areas whenever the power went off. They gave us time until the generators came on. We had many of these, they were useful, for watching an area. He said they looked into the forest to the area where this incident was supposed to have took place, or it crashed or supposedly landed. You could see a dull glow'.

(...)

We hopped in the Jeep, we drove across Bentwaters base and out the Back Gate of Bentwaters towards the base at Woodbridge, onto the forest service road. We cut down the forest service road, and I could see a lot of activity down there in the forest. I could see some vehicles, I could see there were some people.

We turned in and went down there. They were still playing with some lightalls. They couldn't get the lightalls to work, and they were arguing whether they did or didn’t have fuel, so I verified, yes they had fuel. So I said, it’s simple, send back get another lightall, and we waited there a couple of minutes and got a little bit bored.

In the meantime, Lt. Englund said to me, ‘Take a look through the starlight scope. Look right out there.’ So I looked out into the starlight scope and saw there was a dull glow. It was brighter in that area than it was anywhere else. I don’t know if it was significant or not. Anyhow we took a look though the starlight scope for several minutes. We all took turns to look through it. We decided one of the four of us should walk toward it. We were getting cold and tired, waiting around for ... [unclear, possibly ‘ten, twelve’]... minutes. So I ask Sgt. Nevels to take a reading with the ANP-27, and he says normal background radiation. He pokes around a little bit. It has a long wire with a probe on it, some thick wire this with a headset.

We drove halfway into the supposed area and I help take a couple more readings, nothing of great significance. We did ...[unclear]... Lt. Englund said, ‘There’s the stake that marks the spot.’, so we didn’t walk all over it. And fine we go and take a look see these indentations".
(...)

Now this time frame started around 10:30, 11 o'clock at night and went on until alter 4 o'clock in the morning. The object was still in the sky at 4 o'clock in the morning. We were exhausted, we had been up all day - I had been up since 9 o'clock in the morning - through a great deal of emotional stress.

Tired, hungry, we were wet ...[unclear]... we were still upset about the whole thing that happened that evening. So we went back up towards where the lightalls were. They were still playing with the lightalls. I said, ‘Pack it in, and gather them up, let’s take everything back to the base.’.
(End)


Seminar at St George’s Community College, August 1997

(Start)
What’s back, Bruce?’ He said ‘The UFO’s back.’.

I said ‘How do you know that?’. He said ‘I’ve seen something.’

I said ‘Where?’ and he said ‘Outside the East Gate in the woods.’.

So what are you doing out in the woods in the East Gate? Keep in mind in England, that is a foreign country as far as we’re concerned. We’re guests there, and our mission was not to patrol the woods, it was to maintain the perimeter of the Base.

He said ‘We saw, some of the guys saw something out there so we sent a patrol out there. We took some light-alls out.’.

Light-alls, the NF2 light-alls were motor-generators. They were nothing but a small, I think a five horsepower Briggs and Stratton engine with a couple of big mercury vapor lights on top, and a gas tank, and a lot of sheet metal.

‘The lights wouldn’t work. The radios were acting up. And when we looked in the woods with a starlight scope we saw some strange things.’.

‘What did you see?’.

‘Well, we saw a glow, and some red lights.’.

(...)

Then we bundled into the jeep, drove across the flight line. The two bases are about a mile and a half apart. A little closer if you drive right across the flight line and in the back gate.

We unlocked the back gate and drove across, and got over to what, what’s known as the East Gate at Woodbridge. And lo and behold, there’s a crowd out there. Well, I was quite concerned.

So I said to ‘em ‘Let’s keep all these people back. We don’t need the publicity. We, we’re kind of trespassin’ if you will. This is the Queen’s forest – sort of like a National Forest here. And there’s a lot of private property around here. We don’t want to cause a lot of concern. We don’t want to get people upset. They’re going to wonder what we’re doing stomping around out here in the woods. So he said ‘OK’.

Probably 30 or 40 people, total. Three or four light-alls. The light-alls were acting up. They wouldn’t run right. They were flickering off and on. I could here comments ‘He didn’t refuel them’ and somebody else said ‘Yes, I did refuel them. I took them down to the motor pool before we brought them out.’.

So. Bruce says ‘Let’s look into the woods there.’. And he had a first generation starlight scope. We looked into the woods, and sure enough in one area there was a, a dull glow. When you look through a starlight scope you don’t see things as you normally would. It’s a greenish-yellow tinge to them. It’s a different spectrum, or different, uh, frequency.

And there was something I could see in there, but I wasn’t really sure what it was. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. And I’m not sure it’s of great significance, but there was something.
(End)
 
The key issue one must resolve in evaluating this claim concerns where Halt was located when he observed these beams and whether it's credible that he could discern them intersecting the ground at the Weapons Storage Area on RAF Woodbridge.
Does this help; it was a response from Senior Airman Kenneth Greene, primary 'D' Flight SPCDS operator at RAF Bentwaters:

Regarding your request for my analysis of LTC Halt's observations:

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 rudimentally 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."
(End)

Unless I am reading this incorrectly, is there an error when he states:

"I believe that he was referring to the B/W WSA...".

Did he not mean to write:

"I believe that he was referring to the Woodbridge WSA..."?
 
Chris Armold

This might be of interest.

It's a compilation of information provided by Chris Armold, MSgt, USAF (Ret), during our correspondence in 2000.

Some was published with permission, other details have never been and just rediscovered from an old email backup disk.

There's certainly a fundamental question here about the location and size of that pivotal forest clearing and whether the well known photo of the, 'landing site' taken next morning is in fact erroneous.

(Start)
James,

Howdy sir, good to hear from you. Regarding your specific questions;

Question: "In some ways Chris Armold can be regarded as one of the significant figures in this case, since he was the one who called the local police.

However, it's not clear from what he says \whether the local police were with him and Burroughs when they went into the forest. The police log timed the incoming call (which they said was from Bentwaters) at 4.11 am and the officers went out immediately".

My Answer: No, the British Police did not accompany us into the forest. If I remember correctly, and this is hazy so forgive me, I belive we (Burroughs and I) met up with two constables who drove up in a small marked vehicle on the main road that connects to the East Gate access. I have to belive the conversation we had with them was of little consequence as I don't recall re-entering the woods with them or spending much time chit-chatting about the issue. Remember, I called specifically to inquire about any aircraft incidents or crashes, not to report or ask about any supossed UFO activity.

... because from what I observed there was nothing to it and that is clearly what I would have passed on to my civilian collegues.

Question: As your call was apparently logged after 4.00 a.m., this must have been subsequent to Burroughs having any 'close encounter'. In Flight (Shift) Commander Fred Buran's statement, he wrote: "At approximately 0354 hours, I terminated the investigation and ordered all units back to their normal duties". [End] According to this timeline, you must have driven to see Burroughs after he had returned to duty and was back at 'east gate'.

My Answer: Yes, I remember the call was rather late in the shift and I'm certain the decision to call the local constabulary was one that was made late in the morning and with hesitation. You see no one was particulary eager to call the local police and ask silly questions about UFO's

However one also must cover all the bases so we made the decisions to call and ask if they had any reports of aircraft accidents or similar phenomon. I'm quite certain the word UFO wasn't a part of the conversation. It was after that time that I scooted out to RAF Woodbridge and met up with Burroughs and yes, we did indeed stomp around the forest a bit more.

Question: Significantly, you also mentioned there were 'some strange lights' in the distance, whose origin could not be determined. Can you recall what those lights looked like - indeed, anything about them at all - colour, size, whether they were flashing or moved, etc.

My Answer: Yes, there were what we initially interpreted as "strange lights" and in my opinion and contrary to what some people assert, at the time almost none of us knew there was a lighthouse at Orford Ness. (Remember, the vast majority of folks involved were young people, 19, 20, 25 years old. Consequently it wasn't something most of the troops were cognizent of). I personally can not remember if I knew the lighthouse was there or not.

That's one reason the lights appeared interesting or out of the ordinary to some people. After it was discovered that a lighthouse was out there the "strangeness" of the lights evaporated. The lights were primarily white and were very small, far off in the distance. Occasionally one would see a shade of blue or red but I attribute that to refraction from stained glass windows in a local church in addition to the fog and weather at the time.

The lights did not move in erratic fashions nor did they move towards us or act in any manner which violated the laws of known physics. The lighthouse could not have generated the "strange lights."

Regarding this question: When you had met up with Burroughs that first night, went back to the logging/access road with him and observed those unfamiliar red and blue lights in the distance, can we refute any suggestions these might have been connected to the local police who had been called out? For example, could the read and blue lights have been from the police car (where was it parked?), or torches they were using (were the police out in the forest at this time?)?

James, the lights were not from police cars, nor torches, nor alien space ships.
(End)


Howdy sir, as ever I'll do my best to answer your questions. First, regarding the photo. The "clearing" where this incident took place isn't a clearing as that in the photo. It was more like a break in the trees in a copse of trees. It wasn't a field or meadow, just a small opening in a little area of tree growth. This photo isn't similar to the clearing in question.

Tthe indentations were maybe 6 feet from each other. While I don't know the scale of this photos, based on the size of the trees, these indentations look to be about 60 feet apart and each indentation 6 feet accross.

Question: Who suggested that you go back to the logging road? If it was Burroughs, did he still think that 'weird lights' were visible?

Answer: I'm quite certain it was a mutual thing, I cruised out to Woodbridge after my Flight Chief said it would be okay to check it out. I suppose he wanted a rational opinion or something. In any case, Burroughs showed me the three depressions in the ground (which to me could have been made by someone with a coffee can or something) but no, we saw no evidence of lights, ships... He had no idea what he saw. He related he saw lights but that was it. Period.

As for a rep from Environmental or Disaster Preparedness being on the site and checking the indentations, yes I do remember that. However I am not certain if they were actually from one of these agencies. Hell, for all I know any DP rep from any unit might have had access to the small geiger counter used. In any case I remember a young troop simply wearing his fatigue uniform, nothing special. Were there people wandering around in protective garb? Absolutely not and no part of the forest was cordoned off.

Question: Can you recall what Burroughs told you about their pursuit of these lights through Rendlesham forest? How did he rationalise that the red and blue lights - which in truth they couldn't locate the source of - were still there?

My Answer: Now remember, I was with Burroughs and Bustinza out in the woods the second night. I too saw the lights but while interesting initially, we never thought much about them. (Once I realized there was a lighthouse at Orford Ness things became a bit clearer). As for rationalizing the lights, it never was an issue.

Regarding some of your questions: First about Adrian, yes, I'm disappointed that he would make any assertations about seeing some kind of space craft, aliens or whatever. It simply didn't happen.
(End)


Okay you, wrote "Bustinza states that two helicopters were scrambled from 'Pararescue squadron', on the orders of Major Zickler. Greg Battrom also says helicopters were airborne".
hahahahahahahahhahahhaahhahahah, that is so fucking funny, please excuse my language but that is hilarious! No way, absolutely no way. First of all Major Zicker couldn't order an airman from the motor pool to fill up his car with gas let alone scrable a couple helicopters! In addition, the 67th AARS guys were essentially on holiday, I doubt there was anyone around to scramble in addition to the fact that they didn't have "alert" choppers.! A major in a Security Police squadron does not have the authority to do that.

As for the AFOSI there was an OSI detatchment stationed on RAF Bentwaters so OSI guys are no big deal nor nothing new. That civilians would come and go at at major USAF installation such as RAF Bentwaters is no big deal nor unusual. Contractors, politicians, many different people have an interest in the base for one reason or another.

As for "exercises" during the Christmas period, of course there were exercises. Each "flight" both Law Enforcement and Security were pretty much required to pull flight level exercises during each tour of duty. Exercise in the WSA were very, very common so that's no big deal at all.
(End)
 
Thank you. Those quotes from Armold in particular are very instructive. He was clearly unimpressed by the whole show.
Of course we are asking people to reconstruct a complex sequence of events well after the fact, and I don't think any of us could do that reliably. Some recollections may well be out of order, even those that were written down shortly afterwards, as were the witness statements.
Halt's comments on the radiation readings are interesting, too, in the light of what has been said since.
 
And here we enter another aspect of confusion, because I know exactly what you mean.

However....

Going back over this old case documentation, there's certainly a significant, overall clarification in the following two lectures given by Halt.

If these extracts might help:

Quest International Conference
Leeds, 31 July, 1994

(Start)
Lieutenant Englund came in, about 8 o'clock...

He said, ‘Somebody saw some lights at the East Gate again and he went out to take a look.’ He took several lightalls out. Lightalls are motor generators, on trailers. They’re small gasoline engines, something a little larger than a lawn mower engine, directly coupled to a generator, with two big adjustable lights on top. You can bathe an area with light from them. We use them for security; we use them for maintenance people to work at night, any time we need a lot of illumination, we use them.

The Security Police had about a dozen assigned directly to them. They’re almost foolproof. If there’s a problem, someone would go out and put the fuel in, normally petrol. He said, ‘The lightalls wouldn't work. We got starlight scopes out.'

Starlight scopes are first generation image intensifiers. They would magnify available light by 25 or 30 thousand times. Now if there was some problem and we had to have some type of available light, you couldn't use them in total darkness. Just starlight or moonlight was enough to use them. And you looked through like a telescope. They would tell us a bearing with a ...[unclear]... , a yellow green light. You could clearly see an outline, you could clearly see people and you could differentiate things. We used them on the flightlines in sensitive areas whenever the power went off. They gave us time until the generators came on. We had many of these, they were useful, for watching an area. He said they looked into the forest to the area where this incident was supposed to have took place, or it crashed or supposedly landed. You could see a dull glow'.

(...)

We hopped in the Jeep, we drove across Bentwaters base and out the Back Gate of Bentwaters towards the base at Woodbridge, onto the forest service road. We cut down the forest service road, and I could see a lot of activity down there in the forest. I could see some vehicles, I could see there were some people.

We turned in and went down there. They were still playing with some lightalls. They couldn't get the lightalls to work, and they were arguing whether they did or didn’t have fuel, so I verified, yes they had fuel. So I said, it’s simple, send back get another lightall, and we waited there a couple of minutes and got a little bit bored.

In the meantime, Lt. Englund said to me, ‘Take a look through the starlight scope. Look right out there.’ So I looked out into the starlight scope and saw there was a dull glow. It was brighter in that area than it was anywhere else. I don’t know if it was significant or not. Anyhow we took a look though the starlight scope for several minutes. We all took turns to look through it. We decided one of the four of us should walk toward it. We were getting cold and tired, waiting around for ... [unclear, possibly ‘ten, twelve’]... minutes. So I ask Sgt. Nevels to take a reading with the ANP-27, and he says normal background radiation. He pokes around a little bit. It has a long wire with a probe on it, some thick wire this with a headset.

We drove halfway into the supposed area and I help take a couple more readings, nothing of great significance. We did ...[unclear]... Lt. Englund said, ‘There’s the stake that marks the spot.’, so we didn’t walk all over it. And fine we go and take a look see these indentations".
(...)

Now this time frame started around 10:30, 11 o'clock at night and went on until alter 4 o'clock in the morning. The object was still in the sky at 4 o'clock in the morning. We were exhausted, we had been up all day - I had been up since 9 o'clock in the morning - through a great deal of emotional stress.

Tired, hungry, we were wet ...[unclear]... we were still upset about the whole thing that happened that evening. So we went back up towards where the lightalls were. They were still playing with the lightalls. I said, ‘Pack it in, and gather them up, let’s take everything back to the base.’.
(End)


Seminar at St George’s Community College, August 1997

(Start)
What’s back, Bruce?’ He said ‘The UFO’s back.’.

I said ‘How do you know that?’. He said ‘I’ve seen something.’

I said ‘Where?’ and he said ‘Outside the East Gate in the woods.’.

So what are you doing out in the woods in the East Gate? Keep in mind in England, that is a foreign country as far as we’re concerned. We’re guests there, and our mission was not to patrol the woods, it was to maintain the perimeter of the Base.

He said ‘We saw, some of the guys saw something out there so we sent a patrol out there. We took some light-alls out.’.

Light-alls, the NF2 light-alls were motor-generators. They were nothing but a small, I think a five horsepower Briggs and Stratton engine with a couple of big mercury vapor lights on top, and a gas tank, and a lot of sheet metal.

‘The lights wouldn’t work. The radios were acting up. And when we looked in the woods with a starlight scope we saw some strange things.’.

‘What did you see?’.

‘Well, we saw a glow, and some red lights.’.

(...)

Then we bundled into the jeep, drove across the flight line. The two bases are about a mile and a half apart. A little closer if you drive right across the flight line and in the back gate.

We unlocked the back gate and drove across, and got over to what, what’s known as the East Gate at Woodbridge. And lo and behold, there’s a crowd out there. Well, I was quite concerned.

So I said to ‘em ‘Let’s keep all these people back. We don’t need the publicity. We, we’re kind of trespassin’ if you will. This is the Queen’s forest – sort of like a National Forest here. And there’s a lot of private property around here. We don’t want to cause a lot of concern. We don’t want to get people upset. They’re going to wonder what we’re doing stomping around out here in the woods. So he said ‘OK’.

Probably 30 or 40 people, total. Three or four light-alls. The light-alls were acting up. They wouldn’t run right. They were flickering off and on. I could here comments ‘He didn’t refuel them’ and somebody else said ‘Yes, I did refuel them. I took them down to the motor pool before we brought them out.’.

So. Bruce says ‘Let’s look into the woods there.’. And he had a first generation starlight scope. We looked into the woods, and sure enough in one area there was a, a dull glow. When you look through a starlight scope you don’t see things as you normally would. It’s a greenish-yellow tinge to them. It’s a different spectrum, or different, uh, frequency.

And there was something I could see in there, but I wasn’t really sure what it was. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. And I’m not sure it’s of great significance, but there was something.
(End)
Fascinating. This makes it clear that the lightalls were not out of fuel and that nobody (it seems) ever found out why none of them were working. Englund then hands out the starlight scopes, presumably to everybody, not just Halt. Thus making it impossible now to disentangle the sources of whatever lights they could see through them. I can't help my suspicion that that was the intention all along..
 
I've put a picture of a 1980-vintage tractor next to it to suggest what may have been the culprit.
Twenty years now, I've been searching for that photograph.

When all is said and done, this is equally what I have to come back to.

Extracted from my newsletter:

Voyager Newsletter No. 20

It was in fact first testified that the enigmatic lights simply travelled back through a field, before ending up near the farmhouse beyond.

To recap from Burroughs' official statement:

"...whatever it was started moving back towards the open field and after a min or 2 we got up and moved into the open field. 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".

I first highlighted this scenario in 'Voyager Newsletter No. 9', where I surmised:

From the drawing which accompanies Burroughs' testimony, he shows not an object, but lights and in summary describes them as:

[top light]
red and orange
- this would move back and forth, up and down
- when it was sitting in one place, beam would be red and orange
- a white light would come out below the beam in the trees
- blue lights would come out of the beam and the white light
below
- blue lights would blink on and off.

Compared with Penniston's claim that, 'the object was producing red and blue light. The blue light was steady and projecting under the object. It was lighting up the area directly under extending a meter or two out", there are now identifiable clues these must have been the same lights both witnessed

However, were the blue lights steady or blinking?

In either event, we can surely say they observed 'something' which had a red light on top, with a blue light beneath and the blue light illuminated the surrounding ground area with a blue, white or blueish-white light.


Everything seems to have been centred on the location of nearby Capel Green/Green farm.

It was due east of east gate road, just beyond the forest trees where the lights were first noticed.

It an almost straight line due east, there was east gate road - then part of the forest - then that open field - then the farm. In the distance, was Orfordness lighthouse.

What if the source of our mysterious lights came from the farm itself and was a slow moving vehicle?

In the black of that forest, its lights could have been noticeable from east gate and if so, would likely have appeared to be in the forest, when actually just beyond.

As BC&P advanced towards the open field and farm, where those lights seemed to be, a brightly-lit, moving vehicle could explain the source's illusory nature. No vehicle could easily, if feasibly, move through those dense, forest trees anyway.


Around a month ago, I witnessed something which was strikingly similar. It was at night and I noticed a number of lights which seemed to be moving through a small wood about half a mile distant. Intermittently, the trees were lit by a beam of white light.

Although I presumed this must be a vehicle, it was difficult to understand why there were so many lights, some appearing to be higher than others.

As I knew the landscape well, I had also deduced these lights must be from a farmer's field, used for cattle, behind the trees. If I hadn't known this, it would have been much more puzzling, as I recognised would surely be the case for anyone unaccustomed to the area.

In time, it became clear this was indeed a vehicle moving through the field, however, it was still unusual and looked to be surprisingly large as there were five lights on the front alone.

That was also an illusion.

It turned out to be nothing more than a tractor with a JCB 'digger' type of front scoop, being used to carry bails of hay for the cattle. The tractor had two lower front lights, two at the height of the cabin and also a rotating 'warning light' on top. There were also two lights on the back, all of which in the darkness could only be perceived as a collection of moving lights, with occasionally a white beam 'lighting up' some of the surrounding area. I didn't detect any noise until the vehicle was quite close.


Could the Capel Green farm owners possibly have been feeding their cattle, with a tractor which had a red warning light and a blue light? In the pitch darkness, a rotating red top-light would probably have produced a red 'beam'.

Interestingly, Penniston's original depiction of the 'object', which he confirmed never have been closer than 50 meters to, shows a box-shaped object, more like a tractor with raised cabin than a triangle-shaped 'craft'.
[End of Extract]


I had set out the theory... and former Senior Airman Kenneth Greene, stationed at RAF Bentwaters, has provided some significant evidence which supports it.

He recently spoke about the 'UFO' which was encountered by a fellow servicemen and himself in 1978:

"One thing I remembered after talking to you last was an incident that occurred on my way to Bentwaters one night for the Midnight shift. I was living off base at the time in a small town called Darsham near Saxmundham, Suffolk. My room mate and I were on a small country road and as we came round a curve there was a small triangular object, about 8 feet in height, stopped in middle of the road.

This object had a small flashing orange beacon on top and bright white lights emanating from it at various points. Our immediate thought was that it was a UFO...".

Incredible... here was another 'UFO', in the vicinity of BC&P's 1980 sighting and which exhibited distinctive, similar
characteristics - triangular 'shaped'/lighting, approximately the same size, with a rotating orange light and a bank of other beams below.

Are there any other correlations?

Yes, the 'country road' UFO had an orange beacon on top. BC&P's object had a top light which Burroughs' sketch of the 'light triangle', as noted above, shows to be "red and orange".

Note also that an orange light was apparently reported by Penniston. According to Flight Commander Fred Buran's statement:

"...SSgt Penniston said that he had never seen lights of this color or nature in the area before. He described them as red, blue, white and orange".

A typical vehicle warning beacon would be amber coloured, which is close to "red and orange".

What was the 'triangular UFO' that Senior Airman Greene and his room mate came across in 1978...

"Our immediate thought was that it was a UFO, but it turned out to be a very small farm tractor".

"The top width was shorter than the bottom width and the two sides slightly angled up toward the top. This shape was actually the operator's compartment.

However, viewing this at night when the white lights were on created an initial impression of a 'triangle.' It wasn't until the operator extinguished some of the lights and moved off the road that we realized it was a tractor".

(...)

Consider Burroughs' statement, which is the most informative:

"I was watching the lights and the white light started coming down the road that led into the forest. We got to the gate and called it in.

The whole time I could see the lights and the white light was almost at he edge of the road and the blue and red lights were still out in the woods".

This implies the white light was a beam, like a vehicle's headlights.

He continues:

"A security unit was sent down to the gate and when they got there they could see it too. We asked permission to go and see what it was and they told us we could. We took the truck down the road that led into the forest. As we went down the east gate road and the road that led into the forest the lights were moving back and they appeared to stop in amongst a bunch of trees. We stopped the truck where the road stopped and went on foot.

We crossed a small open field that led into the trees where the lights were coming from and as we were coming into the trees there were strange noises, like a woman was screaming. Also the woods lit up and you could hear the farm animals making a lot of noise and there was a lot of movement in the woods. All three of us hit the ground and whatever it was started moving back towards the open field and after a min or 2 we got up and moved into the open field".

This "min or 2" is absolutely vital to the hypothesis. Neither Cabansag or Penniston's statements mention how they all 'hit the dirt', clearly spooked [Burroughs confirms "All three of us hit the ground"].

The woods 'lit up' because of the tractor's headlights and it then "started moving back towards the open field" when it turned around, heading back towards the farmhouse.

A couple of minutes later, BC&P followed in pursuit, as Burroughs describes:

"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".

The lights were next seen "down by a farmers house" because that's where the tractor now was, a couple of minutes later.

It's still utterly dark and if the vehicle had been driven behind a house, shed, barn or other visual impediment, then its lights would indeed have apparently 'disappeared'.

And that, basically, was that.

They then spotted a coastal beacon and chased it instead, for two miles:

"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".

Bottom line; not only does the tractor explanation concur with a great deal of that _original_ evidence, we now have an earlier, local 'close encounter' with a remarkably alike 'UFO' which turned out to be a tractor.

(...)

This pivotal 'sighting' was the foundation and catalyst for all other Rendlesham forest 'UFO' reports which ensued, yet it's abundantly obvious from those original testimonies there was no 'radar tracking' and no indication an object was seen to be airborne, or reported as such to Central Security Control. We've since learned that Burroughs never witnessed a definite 'craft' at all.

It's a tale of lights moving through farmland in the dead of night and eventually found to be "down by a farmers house".

Perhaps now, we also know why.

O0O~O0O~O0O~O0O

(c) James Easton
August, 2001
 
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Englund then hands out the starlight scopes, presumably to everybody, not just Halt. Thus making it impossible now to disentangle the sources of whatever lights they could see through them...
'Step right up folks, see a guaranteed UFO for free...'.!
 
Twenty years now, I've been searching for that photograph.

When all is said and done, this is equally what I have to come back to.

Extracted from my newsletter:

Voyager Newsletter No. 20

It was in fact first testified that the enigmatic lights simply travelled back through a field, before ending up near the farmhouse beyond.

To recap from Burroughs' official statement:

"...whatever it was started moving back towards the open field and after a min or 2 we got up and moved into the open field. 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".

I first highlighted this scenario in 'Voyager Newsletter No. 9', where I surmised:

From the drawing which accompanies Burroughs' testimony, he shows not an object, but lights and in summary describes them as:

[top light]
red and orange
- this would move back and forth, up and down
- when it was sitting in one place, beam would be red and orange
- a white light would come out below the beam in the trees
- blue lights would come out of the beam and the white light
below
- blue lights would blink on and off.

Compared with Penniston's claim that, 'the object was producing red and blue light. The blue light was steady and projecting under the object. It was lighting up the area directly under extending a meter or two out", there are now identifiable clues these must have been the same lights both witnessed

However, were the blue lights steady or blinking?

In either event, we can surely say they observed 'something' which had a red light on top, with a blue light beneath and the blue light illuminated the surrounding ground area with a blue, white or blueish-white light.


Everything seems to have been centred on the location of nearby Capel Green/Green farm.

It was due east of east gate road, just beyond the forest trees where the lights were first noticed.

It an almost straight line due east, there was east gate road - then part of the forest - then that open field - then the farm. In the distance, was Orfordness lighthouse.

What if the source of our mysterious lights came from the farm itself and was a slow moving vehicle?

In the black of that forest, its lights could have been noticeable from east gate and if so, would likely have appeared to be in the forest, when actually just beyond.

As BC&P advanced towards the open field and farm, where those lights seemed to be, a brightly-lit, moving vehicle could explain the source's illusory nature. No vehicle could easily, if feasibly, move through those dense, forest trees anyway.


Around a month ago, I witnessed something which was strikingly similar. It was at night and I noticed a number of lights which seemed to be moving through a small wood about half a mile distant. Intermittently, the trees were lit by a beam of white light.

Although I presumed this must be a vehicle, it was difficult to understand why there were so many lights, some appearing to be higher than others.

As I knew the landscape well, I had also deduced these lights must be from a farmer's field, used for cattle, behind the trees. If I hadn't known this, it would have been much more puzzling, as I recognised would surely be the case for anyone unaccustomed to the area.

In time, it became clear this was indeed a vehicle moving through the field, however, it was still unusual and looked to be surprisingly large as there were five lights on the front alone.

That was also an illusion.

It turned out to be nothing more than a tractor with a JCB 'digger' type of front scoop, being used to carry bails of hay for the cattle. The tractor had two lower front lights, two at the height of the cabin and also a rotating 'warning light' on top. There were also two lights on the back, all of which in the darkness could only be perceived as a collection of moving lights, with occasionally a white beam 'lighting up' some of the surrounding area. I didn't detect any noise until the vehicle was quite close.


Could the Capel Green farm owners possibly have been feeding their cattle, with a tractor which had a red warning light and a blue light? In the pitch darkness, a rotating red top-light would probably have produced a red 'beam'.

Interestingly, Penniston's original depiction of the 'object', which he confirmed never have been closer than 50 meters to, shows a box-shaped object, more like a tractor with raised cabin than a triangle-shaped 'craft'.
[End of Extract]


I had set out the theory... and former Senior Airman Kenneth Greene, stationed at RAF Bentwaters, has provided some significant evidence which supports it.

He recently spoke about the 'UFO' which was encountered by a fellow servicemen and himself in 1978:

"One thing I remembered after talking to you last was an incident that occurred on my way to Bentwaters one night for the Midnight shift. I was living off base at the time in a small town called Darsham near Saxmundham, Suffolk. My room mate and I were on a small country road and as we came round a curve there was a small triangular object, about 8 feet in height, stopped in middle of the road.

This object had a small flashing orange beacon on top and bright white lights emanating from it at various points. Our immediate thought was that it was a UFO...".

Incredible... here was another 'UFO', in the vicinity of BC&P's 1980 sighting and which exhibited distinctive, similar
characteristics - triangular 'shaped'/lighting, approximately the same size, with a rotating orange light and a bank of other beams below.

Are there any other correlations?

Yes, the 'country road' UFO had an orange beacon on top. BC&P's object had a top light which Burroughs' sketch of the 'light triangle', as noted above, shows to be "red and orange".

Note also that an orange light was apparently reported by Penniston. According to Flight Commander Fred Buran's statement:

"...SSgt Penniston said that he had never seen lights of this color or nature in the area before. He described them as red, blue, white and orange".

A typical vehicle warning beacon would be amber coloured, which is close to "red and orange".

What was the 'triangular UFO' that Senior Airman Greene and his room mate came across in 1978...

"Our immediate thought was that it was a UFO, but it turned out to be a very small farm tractor".

"The top width was shorter than the bottom width and the two sides slightly angled up toward the top. This shape was actually the operator's compartment.

However, viewing this at night when the white lights were on created an initial impression of a 'triangle.' It wasn't until the operator extinguished some of the lights and moved off the road that we realized it was a tractor".

(...)

Consider Burroughs' statement, which is the most informative:

"I was watching the lights and the white light started coming down the road that led into the forest. We got to the gate and called it in.

The whole time I could see the lights and the white light was almost at he edge of the road and the blue and red lights were still out in the woods".

This implies the white light was a beam, like a vehicle's headlights.

He continues:

"A security unit was sent down to the gate and when they got there they could see it too. We asked permission to go and see what it was and they told us we could. We took the truck down the road that led into the forest. As we went down the east gate road and the road that led into the forest the lights were moving back and they appeared to stop in amongst a bunch of trees. We stopped the truck where the road stopped and went on foot.

We crossed a small open field that led into the trees where the lights were coming from and as we were coming into the trees there were strange noises, like a woman was screaming. Also the woods lit up and you could hear the farm animals making a lot of noise and there was a lot of movement in the woods. All three of us hit the ground and whatever it was started moving back towards the open field and after a min or 2 we got up and moved into the open field".

This "min or 2" is absolutely vital to the hypothesis. Neither Cabansag or Penniston's statements mention how they all 'hit the dirt', clearly spooked [Burroughs confirms "All three of us hit the ground"].

The woods 'lit up' because of the tractor's headlights and it then "started moving back towards the open field" when it turned around, heading back towards the farmhouse.

A couple of minutes later, BC&P followed in pursuit, as Burroughs describes:

"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".

The lights were next seen "down by a farmers house" because that's where the tractor now was, a couple of minutes later.

It's still utterly dark and if the vehicle had been driven behind a house, shed, barn or other visual impediment, then its lights would indeed have apparently 'disappeared'.

And that, basically, was that.

They then spotted a coastal beacon and chased it instead, for two miles:

"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".

Bottom line; not only does the tractor explanation concur with a great deal of that _original_ evidence, we now have an earlier, local 'close encounter' with a remarkably alike 'UFO' which turned out to be a tractor.

(...)

This pivotal 'sighting' was the foundation and catalyst for all other Rendlesham forest 'UFO' reports which ensued, yet it's abundantly obvious from those original testimonies there was no 'radar tracking' and no indication an object was seen to be airborne, or reported as such to Central Security Control. We've since learned that Burroughs never witnessed a definite 'craft' at all.

It's a tale of lights moving through farmland in the dead of night and eventually found to be "down by a farmers house".

Perhaps now, we also know why.

O0O~O0O~O0O~O0O

(c) James Easton
August, 2001
It might have explained many of the subsequent sightings of lights, but the tractor theory won't explain the first sighting of all, Gary Collins' account of a black triangle, 60ft altitude, dripping fluid before falling into the forest, at Capel Green around 11.30 on Christmas night. If Boast (and maybe his daughter, and the unnamed local woman) also saw that, you can be certain that none of them would be unfamiliar with tractor activity that was a regular feature in that location. I am certain that the later "sightings" and claims represent both genuine errors and the effects of very effective disinformation operations aimed at focusing attention on aliens and spaceships. The confusion that persists is not just researchers getting things wrong but the product of a totally intentional campaign of deception. That's my preferred theory at the moment, anyway!
 
The confusion that persists is not just researchers getting things wrong but the product of a totally intentional campaign of deception.
Noting your conclusion and whilst I can't see it being related...not in the slightest...one other thing, from correspondence with someone in a senior position on base at the time (no names!):

"Also, nothing was mentioned that the people that lived in the area were devil worshippers, and were out after dark all the time doing their thing.

I had opportunities because of running late to work to use the back gate at Bentwaters. Even though it was locked I knew how to get in. There were times that after hours we would use the back gates between the bases to save time. Several times I ran into the devil worshippers between the
bases. Scared me to death".

Well, it just doesn't seem fair to leave them out...!
 
The C-5 and Unfamiliar Helicopters

As always, trying to make some sense of it, this is a summary of the extracts from correspondence with John Burroughs:

"Yes there were people brought in and they were out in the forest for days.

I was even posted on the east gate for 3 days from 1500-2300 while helicopters and personnel were out in the area. I was told not to call anything in no matter what I saw. The reason I was put out there was because I had been involved in the incident".

"I was on the east gate 29-31 that when I told you stuff was going on out in the woods after dark 7:00-11:00pm. I was posted out there because I was involved in what had been going on out there. And I was told no matter what I saw do not call it in!! That the people who needed to know new there would be activity going on in the woods. and like I said all I saw was choopers flying around the area".
(End)


Follow up Q&A:

Can you recall when this occurred?

To recap the timeline:

26 December, circa 0300 - events involving Cabansag, Penniston and yourself

27/28 December, circa 2200-0600 - events involving Halt and assembled 'team of specialists'.

1. Where does your stint at east gate fit into the timeline - during that period, or was it later?

2. Why station yourself, or indeed anyone, at east gate after it had closed and for 8 hours on three consecutive
[_were_ they consecutive?] days/nights? Was that explained to you - what was your remit?

3. Where were the helicopters from?

4. What was "the area" you refer to?

5. What were the personnel reportedly doing in that area; why were they working in darkness and why were helicopters required?

6. Who ordered that that you 'report nothing', no matter what was observed?

"Dec 29, 30 and 31st. The forest where the incident happened... it looked like they were doing a search of the area. It looked like they were searching the area from the air.

I was given that order by the Shift Commander and Flight Chief they stated there was no reason to say anything because they the base allready knew what was going on".

"The Plane in question was not a C-130 that I saw come in on Sunday night but a C-5".


Follow up Q&A:

If those helicopters didn't come from the base, then could they have arrived on that C-5?

I needed to confirm whether helicopters were seen before hthe C-5. From what you say, it wasn't until the day after.

Are you aware of any reason this scenario - the helicopters being brought in on that C-5 - wouldn't work?

When you say "single rotor", what size were the helicopters in comparison to an HH-53 'Super Jolly Green Giant', as used by the 67th ARRS.

Same size, or smaller?

The HH-53 has six blades; can you remember how many these helicopters had?

I realise it was a long time ago, however, can you remember if the C-5 departed once those helicopter flights stopped?

"Yes they could have come from the C-5. They did not come from the base..single rotor. Can't remember the size HH-53. Yes the C-5 departed the base".

Single blades and it was a C-5 and it came on Sun and the Helos were Mon-WED".
(End)


Whether related, or otherwise, this was correspondence with Peter Tomaszewski:

"I did serve in the US Air Force during the time the sightings occurred at RAF Woodbridge. I was a Staff Sergeant assigned to the 81st Equipment Maintenance Squadron, Missile Shop located in the weapons storage area.

So here goes my story, I'm not sure if you'll believe this but I assure you its what I heard from security personnel and a Air Force investigator.

A friend of mine, another Staff Sergeant was taking a night class on base and a fellow classmate from the security squadron told him about the incident outside RAF Woodbridge. This was only 2 or 3 days after the sighting took place. The next day David told me what was said and of course I didn't believe a word he said. We were close friends and always pulling each others legs so I just laughed it off, but he assured me it was true.

Since working in the bomb dump and knowing many of the security guards there I called a friend in the security squadron and asked if he knew anything. I felt like a fool for asking but by this time I was very curious about all of this. He transferred my call to his supervisor and he asked who I was and what squadron I was assigned to. Since I did work in the munitions storage area and made the call sound official he then again transferred me to the.. as he put it "UFO investigator".

I'm surprised he was so open about the investigation but he told me alot of information and he is what I remember. There was a landing as he put it outside the base in Rendlesham Forest. Lights were seen by the back gate security guard one evening and a security alert team " SAT" was dispatched to the back gate. American personnel cannot leave the base with loaded weapons so the team left their M16's and M60 with the gate guard. After driving into the forest for just a short distance they returned to the base and reported the sighting. At no time did the control tower personnel see anything by sight or radar. Knowing them they were asleep!!

I'm not sure when the assistant base commander got involved but a landing site was found or what appeared to be a landing sight. An area of a clearing was slightly burnt, or should be said the ferns that are common in the forest looked to be wilted by a heat source. Three triangular marks were found that looked like landing gear. They were 114 inches apart but I can't remember if he told me the size of the imprints. Since we did have nu*le*r bombs ( I didn't say that ) located on the base we did have Geiger counters. There was a slight reading of radiation found but nothing that would be harmful.

Soon after all of this within days of hearing the British Home Office was notified the investigators were gone and everyone involved denied any of the rumors. It seemed to us not to be a alien craft but a British experimental of some sort. Why else would the Brits shut us up so quick?

That's all I know and can remember. Hope I was of some help.
(End)


Follow up Q&A:

1. Was this someone normally stationed on the base?

At the time of my phone conversation I did not know if the investagator was local or from off base. A few days later when I inquired the talk was that " the team" departed the base. I assumed that there was more than one investagtor and they were not assigned to the 81TFW.

2. Do you recall which unit/department he worked for?

This I have no idea about, all I know is that he was working out of the base security squadron building.

3. When you say the investigators later departed, was there more than one of them?

See above.

4. Were you aware what these investigations involved and whether personnel were interviewed about the incidents?

Not sure on this one. What the investagator told me I told you. I assume he had to do interviews to gain this information.

You note that, "At no time did the control tower personnel see anyyhing by sight or radar".

This information was not supplied by the investagator. Second hand from my friend and his buddy in the security squadron. It could be just rumor.

The investagator seemed too open about giving me information till the British were involved.
(End)


John Burroughs was aware of the above and wrote:

"I believe the investigators had to do with the plane and Helicopters that came in".
(End)

If conceivably hinting at another scenario, what that might be is... I guess, 'speculative'...
 
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Never understand the weight given to radar reports in UFO cases. If us Earthlings can produce craft almost invisible to radar then surely extraterrestrials who can cover light years or travel between dimensions would be able to evade radar totally. Quite frankly, any UFO cases that include corroborating radar evidence are much more likely to have a conventional explanation.
 
Never understand the weight given to radar reports in UFO cases. If us Earthlings can produce craft almost invisible to radar then surely extraterrestrials who can cover light years or travel between dimensions would be able to evade radar totally. Quite frankly, any UFO cases that include corroborating radar evidence are much more likely to have a conventional explanation.
So the less hard evidence you can get of a "UFO" the more likely it is to be extraterrestial!
 
The C-5 and Unfamiliar Helicopters

As always, trying to make some sense of it, this is a summary of the extracts from correspondence with John Burroughs:

"Yes there were people brought in and they were out in the forest for days.

I was even posted on the east gate for 3 days from 1500-2300 while helicopters and personnel were out in the area. I was told not to call anything in no matter what I saw. The reason I was put out there was because I had been involved in the incident".

"I was on the east gate 29-31 that when I told you stuff was going on out in the woods after dark 7:00-11:00pm. I was posted out there because I was involved in what had been going on out there. And I was told no matter what I saw do not call it in!! That the people who needed to know new there would be activity going on in the woods. and like I said all I saw was choopers flying around the area".
(End)


Follow up Q&A:

Can you recall when this occurred?

To recap the timeline:

26 December, circa 0300 - events involving Cabansag, Penniston and yourself

27/28 December, circa 2200-0600 - events involving Halt and assembled 'team of specialists'.

1. Where does your stint at east gate fit into the timeline - during that period, or was it later?

2. Why station yourself, or indeed anyone, at east gate after it had closed and for 8 hours on three consecutive
[_were_ they consecutive?] days/nights? Was that explained to you - what was your remit?

3. Where were the helicopters from?

4. What was "the area" you refer to?

5. What were the personnel reportedly doing in that area; why were they working in darkness and why were helicopters required?

6. Who ordered that that you 'report nothing', no matter what was observed?

"Dec 29, 30 and 31st. The forest where the incident happened... it looked like they were doing a search of the area. It looked like they were searching the area from the air.

I was given that order by the Shift Commander and Flight Chief they stated there was no reason to say anything because they the base allready knew what was going on".

"The Plane in question was not a C-130 that I saw come in on Sunday night but a C-5".


Follow up Q&A:

If those helicopters didn't come from the base, then could they have arrived on that C-5?

I needed to confirm whether helicopters were seen before hthe C-5. From what you say, it wasn't until the day after.

Are you aware of any reason this scenario - the helicopters being brought in on that C-5 - wouldn't work?

When you say "single rotor", what size were the helicopters in comparison to an HH-53 'Super Jolly Green Giant', as used by the 67th ARRS.

Same size, or smaller?

The HH-53 has six blades; can you remember how many these helicopters had?

I realise it was a long time ago, however, can you remember if the C-5 departed once those helicopter flights stopped?

"Yes they could have come from the C-5. They did not come from the base..single rotor. Can't remember the size HH-53. Yes the C-5 departed the base".

Single blades and it was a C-5 and it came on Sun and the Helos were Mon-WED".
(End)


Whether related, or otherwise, this was correspondence with Peter Tomaszewski:

"I did serve in the US Air Force during the time the sightings occurred at RAF Woodbridge. I was a Staff Sergeant assigned to the 81st Equipment Maintenance Squadron, Missile Shop located in the weapons storage area.

So here goes my story, I'm not sure if you'll believe this but I assure you its what I heard from security personnel and a Air Force investigator.

A friend of mine, another Staff Sergeant was taking a night class on base and a fellow classmate from the security squadron told him about the incident outside RAF Woodbridge. This was only 2 or 3 days after the sighting took place. The next day David told me what was said and of course I didn't believe a word he said. We were close friends and always pulling each others legs so I just laughed it off, but he assured me it was true.

Since working in the bomb dump and knowing many of the security guards there I called a friend in the security squadron and asked if he knew anything. I felt like a fool for asking but by this time I was very curious about all of this. He transferred my call to his supervisor and he asked who I was and what squadron I was assigned to. Since I did work in the munitions storage area and made the call sound official he then again transferred me to the.. as he put it "UFO investigator".

I'm surprised he was so open about the investigation but he told me alot of information and he is what I remember. There was a landing as he put it outside the base in Rendlesham Forest. Lights were seen by the back gate security guard one evening and a security alert team " SAT" was dispatched to the back gate. American personnel cannot leave the base with loaded weapons so the team left their M16's and M60 with the gate guard. After driving into the forest for just a short distance they returned to the base and reported the sighting. At no time did the control tower personnel see anything by sight or radar. Knowing them they were asleep!!

I'm not sure when the assistant base commander got involved but a landing site was found or what appeared to be a landing sight. An area of a clearing was slightly burnt, or should be said the ferns that are common in the forest looked to be wilted by a heat source. Three triangular marks were found that looked like landing gear. They were 114 inches apart but I can't remember if he told me the size of the imprints. Since we did have nu*le*r bombs ( I didn't say that ) located on the base we did have Geiger counters. There was a slight reading of radiation found but nothing that would be harmful.

Soon after all of this within days of hearing the British Home Office was notified the investigators were gone and everyone involved denied any of the rumors. It seemed to us not to be a alien craft but a British experimental of some sort. Why else would the Brits shut us up so quick?

That's all I know and can remember. Hope I was of some help.
(End)


Follow up Q&A:

1. Was this someone normally stationed on the base?

At the time of my phone conversation I did not know if the investagator was local or from off base. A few days later when I inquired the talk was that " the team" departed the base. I assumed that there was more than one investagtor and they were not assigned to the 81TFW.

2. Do you recall which unit/department he worked for?

This I have no idea about, all I know is that he was working out of the base security squadron building.

3. When you say the investigators later departed, was there more than one of them?

See above.

4. Were you aware what these investigations involved and whether personnel were interviewed about the incidents?

Not sure on this one. What the investagator told me I told you. I assume he had to do interviews to gain this information.

You note that, "At no time did the control tower personnel see anyyhing by sight or radar".

This information was not supplied by the investagator. Second hand from my friend and his buddy in the security squadron. It could be just rumor.

The investagator seemed too open about giving me information till the British were involved.
(End)


John Burroughs was aware of the above and wrote:

"I believe the investigators had to do with the plane and Helicopters that came in".
(End)

If conceivably hinting at another scenario, what that might be is... I guess, 'speculative'...
All we can do is speculate, of course, but I don't think there was a search going on on this scale looking for lost aliens! Something missing from a black project retrieval operation, maybe -- some vital element that must never get into enemy hands? The "investigators" were the ones described by Cook, who have to clean up things in such a scenario.
 
The C-5 and Unfamiliar Helicopters
If... and keeping in mind we only have Burroughs story with no corroboration, there were helicopters, not from the base, involved in operations within that exact same vicinity, from 29-31 December, both day and night, could there also have been one in action and responsible for the original incident?

If a single rotor helicopter, as Burroughs describes, it could be small enough to have temporarily landed in a clearing and taken off as Burroughs and co. were approaching.

Burroughs wrote:

"And we did come up on something and it did lift off the ground over the trees and disappeared towards the coast.

That's when we saw the light house beam and followed it.

And please also note the next day there was damage to the trees in the area where the object was to include branches that came off the top of the trees".

Something came to mind, which I have eventually tracked down. It's from an email Jenny Randles sent way back, regarding a conversation she had with local forestry worker, Vince Thurkettle (who identified the 'landing marks' as rabbit scrapings):

"He told me when the forestry commission workers first saw the damage in early/mid Jan they thought a small helicopter was to blame...".

Burroughs recalled:

"...it looked like they were doing a search of the area. It looked like they were searching the area from the air".

If there were one or more off-base helicopters were involved in, 'need to know' night operations during 29-31 December, then presumably they are using searchlights.

Lights in the sky seeming to be carrying out a grid search and beams of light, sound awfully familiar re Halt's adventures on the night/early morning of 27/28th, just shortly prior.

Burroughs remarks are intriguing:

"And I was told no matter what I saw do not call it in!!"...

As in, under no circumstances, let's not have another incident where you mistake this for a 'UFO'...

Certainly sounds like that.
 
Something missing from a black project retrieval operation, maybe -- some vital element that must never get into enemy hands? The "investigators" were the ones described by Cook, who have to clean up...
Why would helicopters be repeatedly searching the same area for days?

What would they hope to locate, even with powerful search lights, at night in a dense forest?

Why would such an, 'investigative team', seemingly be so keen to confirm a, 'UFO' story.

What did they lose which was so vital and had to be covered up.

Someone drop a cache of Element 115? Does that explain the radiation burns?

Did the farmer out on his tractor find it - is that why Halt came across a, 'glowing farmhouse'?

There are enough, 'red herrings' to flummox Mr Holmes himself.

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”

I think he's talking about stars, you know.

However, not many people notice that little question mark at the end...
 
Why would helicopters be repeatedly searching the same area for days?

What would they hope to locate, even with powerful search lights, at night in a dense forest?

Why would such an, 'investigative team', seemingly be so keen to confirm a, 'UFO' story.

What did they lose which was so vital and had to be covered up.

Someone drop a cache of Element 115? Does that explain the radiation burns?

Did the farmer out on his tractor find it - is that why Halt came across a, 'glowing farmhouse'?

There are enough, 'red herrings' to flummox Mr Holmes himself.

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”

I think he's talking about stars, you know.

However, not many people notice that little question mark at the end...
It would be handy to find a medium who could put us in touch with Conan Doyle and get his take on the Rendlesham affair. However, I can answer one of your questions,

"Why would such an, 'investigative team', seemingly be so keen to confirm a, 'UFO' story."

Because, certainly ever since Roswell, when the device was first used, it has been a standard procedure to protect secret and black projects using the extra-terrestrial cover story. Even for such a relatively mundane operation as the U2 spy planes, people who spotted these in flight were encouraged to view them as UFOs. I have argued that the Hills famous kidnapping case was just a cover for a mind control experiment, and pointed to several other well known cases where evidence of such disinformation is clear. As I mentioned a while back I think it may be more than coincidence that Rendlesham happened in the same time frame as the Cash-Landrum incident. Some field propulsion technologies, especially the Biefield-Brown effect, do show variation in effectiveness with seasonal change. Maybe some cosmic event happened to badly influence two such craft around Xmas 1980.
 
If... and keeping in mind we only have Burroughs story with no corroboration, there were helicopters, not from the base, involved in operations within that exact same vicinity, from 29-31 December, both day and night, could there also have been one in action and responsible for the original incident? ...

If there were one or more off-base helicopters were involved in, 'need to know' night operations during 29-31 December, then presumably they are using searchlights. ...
If, as Burroughs indicates:

- the possible copters in the area were lighter-duty single-rotor choppers of a type not stationed on the Twin Bases, and ...
- the only locally-stationed unit using copters (the ARRS) was totally inactive during the period ...

... why does everyone presume any possible copters in the area were USAF craft operating on USAF business?
 
If, as Burroughs indicates:

- the possible copters in the area were lighter-duty single-rotor choppers of a type not stationed on the Twin Bases, and ...
- the only locally-stationed unit using copters (the ARRS) was totally inactive during the period ...

... why does everyone presume any possible copters in the area were USAF craft operating on USAF business?
Good question, I suppose the assumption is that it would be hard to explain who was flying around the bases if not USAF. Especially if they seemed to be co-ordinated with land-based search operations. UK copters? Or US unmarked copters from undercover black project programme? Going back to Cash-Landrum, the helicopters that escorted the stricken craft away raised a similar question. Alexander claimed he could check where all US helicopters of that type were at that time and that none were in that area. OK, he had a high position, but knowing how "need to know" and compartmentalisation rule in the black area I wouldn't be surprised if they were some special unit at work.
 
... Going back to Cash-Landrum, the helicopters that escorted the stricken craft away raised a similar question. ...
Here's the difference ...

In the Cash-Landrum case some if not all the copters were described as heavy tandem-rotor craft (e.g., Chinooks). This pretty much limited the set of possible operators to the military, especially given the number alleged to have been involved.

In the Rendlesham case we have the opposite situation. The apparent and alleged size(s) of any possible copters are smaller than what was known to be available from the Twin Bases. This would expand rather than narrow the range of possible owners / operators.
 
"Mr Easton, You have found the correct person. The discrepancy was mine. Col Halt is correct. What I handed to the A-10 pilot was an audio tape and a document, not a video. At the time, I was not sure what the package was. I never saw a video of the incident. I had heard (hearsay) of someone taking videos but I don't know who it was. At the time I believed I was handing this, probably non-existent video to the pilot. Hope that helps. Cheers, Dr Mike Verano.

To clarify the background, I wrote to Verano:

"I’m aware of your involvement with Chuck DeCaro and the CNN documentary, during which you reportedly confirmed driving the Base Commander, Col Ted Conrad, to a waiting A-10 aircraft heading to Germany with “motion picture film” of the ‘UFO’.

However, the then Deputy Base Commander, Lt. Col. Charles Halt, is adamant that no such film was ever taken.

My simple question is, can you please help to resolve the anomaly"?
(End)

Presumably the destination in Germany was Ramstein AFB, headquarters of ‘United States Air Forces in Europe’ [USAFE].

If... and this remains uncertain, an audio tape, it's unlikely to have been a copy of Halt's microcassette recording.

Halt states he had provided the original to Wing Commander Gordon Williams, who would take this to an already scheduled Third Air Force staff meeting - my records indicate it was held at RAF Mildenhall.

The only other audio tape which would appear relevant is the following, as Halt explained:

"Another interesting thing is that the Command post, the Senior Command post, not the Police
Command post, the one that my radio tied into that only talked to the Commanders and the other
agencies outside of the base, have a 12 hour 12 inch commercial tape and a special recorder which
has a voice activated microphone.

This enabled operators in the Command post to record everything that was said that night. Everything that was said in that Command post, goes on that tape - every shift that came in looked at that tape and turned it over if there was nothing of any great significance" ('Sightings' magazine, volume 2, issue 3).

This is the, 'radio net' Burroughs insists holds critical evidence.

What happened to this, 'audio tape' and whatever was in that memo, shall doubtless remain a mystery.

However, I did seemingly query related matters, as I note from a copy of an email I sent to someone in correspondence, at that time.

"Incidentally, I did submit a FOIA request to Ramstein AFB in Germany, asking for any
documents relating to flights between Ramstein and RAF
Bentwaters / RAF Woodbridge during December 1980 and January 1981.

The reply from USAFE stated they would no longer have any such records and please do not ask them again about the 'UFO' incidents.

I had intentionally not made any reference to the 'UFO' word at all!!".

Nonetheless, there was something case related of seemingly paramount importance and as it's one of the apparently few hard facts we have, I'm holding on to it!

Actually, come to think of it, if I hadn't received clarification from Verano, we would all be persuaded that some film of events existed!

Whatever the tape and memo revealed, were there any consequences?

Don't suppose Burroughs' claims about the C-5 arrival and helicopter activity in the incidents' vicinity was connected in any way...

Or... NO! Just more speculation.

Re the alleged C-5, I note that Burroughs added:

"It landed at Bentwaters and unloaded in a secure area out of view".
 
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Here's the difference ...

In the Cash-Landrum case some if not all the copters were described as heavy tandem-rotor craft (e.g., Chinooks). This pretty much limited the set of possible operators to the military, especially given the number alleged to have been involved.

In the Rendlesham case we have the opposite situation. The apparent and alleged size(s) of any possible copters are smaller than what was known to be available from the Twin Bases. This would expand rather than narrow the range of possible owners / operators.
Agreed, it doesn't help pin down where they came from. Obviously the options for locating and storing (securely) helicopters must be much greater in the US than in the UK.
 
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