Wednesday, December 23, 2015

The Funding of Terror


Can Anything Be Done?


ISIS is believed to be taking in an estimated $3 Million a day in illicit proceeds to fund its cause; an annual total of well over a Billion US Dollars ($1,095,000,000).


Just so you’ll know, the acronym “ISIS” is often translated: The “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” and alternatively: The “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) . . . Just a little reminder, Levant is a geographical term that refers to the large area in Southwest Asia depicted on the map on the left.





They are known to generate funds in several of ways:

Donations . . .                        

In its infancy, ISIS relied heavily on cash donations from sympathizers.   A considerable amount of such donations were from wealthy Arabs in the Persian Gulf area who believed in the group’s ideology. The majority of those funds came from the country of Qatar (pronounced ˈkɑːtɑr).   After Saudi Arabia, Qatar is one of the most conservative societies in the region as most Qataris adhere to the strict “Wahhabi” interpretation of Islam which is a branch of Sunni Islam—often described as “orthodox” and “ultraconservative”.  Add the fact that the Qatari government does not strictly enforce laws regarding the flow of currency beyond its borders, whereas neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates do, “fertile ground” you might say, for financing radical and terrorist groups is common-place.  

ISIS started out by hiring a few skill fundraisers to seek out financing. These people would meet with wealthy individuals throughout the Persian Gulf region seeking sponsors for their cause. Furthermore, (then and now), ISIS found that social media sites such as Facebook & Twitter were ideal methods for displaying propaganda that would reach a broader audience and solicit more funds. Using social media has not only helped raise funds for the extremist group’s cause, but it also consistently aids it in its recruitment efforts.


Why, you might ask did geographically small Qatar become such a huge tool in the early development of ISIS?  Well, beyond its traditional views of the Islamic faith, Qatar is an influential player in the Arab world.  The country has a high income economy backed by the world’s third largest oil and natural gas reserve.  It has the highest per capita income in the world, and has the second highest standard of living in the Middle East.

               



Recruitment . . .  

Such efforts include western youth who are proficient with the Internet and social media. These recruiters are located throughout the Middle East, Europe and the Western world. They are looking for jihadi supporters in mostly non-Muslim regions such as France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Generally speaking these young western recruits, both men & women, head to join the fight in countries like Syria; however some are strategically positioned to help raise money for the cause through criminal activity.



Kidnapping and Ransom . . .  

While wealthy supporters still provide generous donations, the “West” has done a pretty good job at making it rather difficult.   Banks do pay especially close attention to sanctions, the financing of terrorist, and money laundering activities. As a result, ISIS is happy to compete with al-Qaida and use ransom demands from kidnappings as another source of revenue. You see, kidnapping and demanding ransom is a low-cost way for such terror groups to rake in thousands to millions of Dollars. By far, the majority of the kidnapped victims are from European and Western countries who are generally employees of large corporations, many of whom discretely pay the ransom to secure the release of their employees.

Many European countries pay millions of dollars in ransom every year.  A limited few: The United States, the United Kingdom, and Poland have government policies that do not allow nor support paying ransoms in order to obtain an abducted individual’s freedom.  Failure to pay a ransom often results in the victims or hostages from such areas to be made a spectacle of before being executed; a procedure intended to enhance the terror group’s political agenda.  On the other hand, when ransoms are paid, it encourages the terrorists to kidnap more people and demand more money.

 Human trafficking . . .  

Recently, evidence shows that female British ISIS recruits have established a militia known as “al-
Khanssaa”—it’s an all-female group which serves as an ultra-religious police force. The mission of this group is to punish any un-Islamic behavior displayed by females in ISIS-controlled territories.

As a form of punishment, al-Khanssaa is known to force such females into sexual slavery. Women and young girls of all ages are taken from their villages where ISIS militants gained control. They are brought to areas where ISIS has large populations, usually in and around northern Iraq; upon arrival in an ISIS controlled city, some of the girls are offered to ISIS fighters as gifts, otherwise they are either put into ISIS-run brothels or sold at slave auctions. Bidding for these girls usually begins around $10 to $25 but can go as high as $150.


Extortion, taxes and checkpoints . . .   


ISIS routinely uses scare tactics to acquire capital from local businesses and civilians in the cities or territories it has successfully gained control. Before entering the cities, people are stopped at checkpoints so as to ensure they are following Muslim laws and rules.   When an individual is determined “rebellious”, he or she undergoes beatings, fines, “education sessions” or worse.

ISIS collects taxes on most anything it considers to be of value, including businesses, commercial vehicles, cell phone towers, etc.   Of those unfortunates determined to be non-Muslim, payment of an “Infidel Tax” ensures their safety until they convert or dieThe penalty for refusing to pay is greeted with violence, destruction of property, kidnapping and even murder.

                      
Control of natural resources . . .

As ISIS has conquered territories in Iraq and set up strongholds, the terror group has been able to gain control of portions of the most fertile farmlands that are responsible for producing as much as 40% of Iraqi wheat.

The revolutionaries have also stolen somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 tons of grain from government-owned silos, which they milled into flour and subsequently sold. This has caused instability of the region from a lack of food which in turn has significantly driven up the price of food.  This in-turn is inevitably increasing ISIS’s wheat profit margins.

Just when you start to believe the ISIS movement is in perfect harmony and the militants are doing everything right to gain control of Iraq and beyond a hind of failure creeps onto the scene . . .  Case-in-point: They were ever so briefly able to take control one of Iraq’s largest dams, the Mosul Dam, in the city of Mosul, the aim was to generate funds through hydroelectric power and the water supply; they have since attempted to take control of the Haditha Dam but failed in that endeavor as well.

Why you might ask was these failures so significant?  Well, the Mosul Dam is located on the Tigris River, and the Haditha Dam is located on the Euphrates River. Indicators show that 95% of Iraq’s water comes from these two rivers.  In other words if ISIS were to take control these two dams, it would could easily cripple the country’s water supply, putting the entire region in peril.

Robbery . . .   

ISIS has also been generating funds by way of selling stolen goods. Militants are known to rob banks, civilian homes, stores, and even loot areas for priceless antiques and artifacts. Historically, such fundraising methods are typical of terror groups.   Al-Qaida is especially fond of this method but ISIS claims this funding method all their own.

Both Iraq and Syria were once a large part of Mesopotamia universally referred to as the “cradle of civilization.” The entire area is rich with ancient artifacts, many of which date back thousands of years.   ISIS considers this an opportunity for stealing and selling the works of art on the black market.



Oil smuggling . . .  

The lion’s share of ISISs’ funding is through the black-market sale of oil from the
oil fields the militants have seized in eastern Iraq and Syria. ISIS produces between 25,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil every day.   ISIS now supports several black-market oil refineries along the Syrian border and eastern Iraq.  Not only do these refineries produce gasoline, they also produce heating oil..

The smuggling networks that ISIS has created to export crude oil are elaborate. They mostly follow a path into Turkey however the group has been smuggling crude oil as far as Afghanistan and Armenia. Yes, middlemen are paid to assist the group in smuggling the oil, resulting in millions of Dollars generated for the fighters.

ISIS also takes oil directly from pipelines and storage tanks. Militants then load the oil onto trucks and sell the barrels on the black market for $25 to $60 per barrel—that’s as much as 74% below market. In any event, the over-all earnings estimate for the sale of oil is expansive: From $1 million to $2 million per day.


As was mentioned above, Iraq and Syria were once a part of Mesopotamia.  It is commonly referred to as the “cradle of civilization” because the region was first among human kind to determine that life could be better if they could just get thing organized; this occurred sometime around 3,000 BC following hundreds of years of migrating in “hunter gatherer” groups that originated on the continent of Africa.  Point being, the leaders of ISIS have an excellent gene pool to draw from as is evidenced by the complex system of criminal activities they have developed to made it the best-funded terrorist group in all of history. The amassing of its ample wealth has permitted the group to increase its operational scope, attain weapons & resources and recruit local and foreign fighters.

Only when countries in the Middle East strengthen their money-laundering policies and police black-market trade more effectively can they begin to put a small dent in ISIS’s efforts to amass its fortune and continue to terrorize the Middle East and the Western world.

On a related front, why has the “West” (particularly the United States, the United Kingdom, and France), become so deeply gripped in this quagmire of unrest?  Some say it stems only from the west’s addiction to oil, however the first oil well wasn’t drilled in the Middle East until 1908 in Persia (now Iran) and not until the 1950’s was oil a significant commodity in the Middle East.  The fact is there was an abundance of “crude” available to those countries that had developed the need for oil in locations beyond the Middle East.    

The argument has been made that the constant “meddling” into the internal affairs of the various governments and factions by multiple Western Governments throughout the Middle Eastern Region is the real cause.  You need only bring to mind Great Britain’s favorite boast — “the sun never sets on the empire”—to recognize the legitimacy of this way of thinking.   It is often reasoned that such intrusive action by the west began as early as the Crusades in 1095, when armies of Christians from Western Europe responded to Pope Urban II’s plea to go to war against Muslim forces in the “Holy Land”.

Others simply charge that deep religious divides primarily between radicalized Muslims and moderate Jews and Christians are just too great to overcome. 


In any event, the current “head-man” at ISIS is a fellow that goes by the name of Bakr al-Baghdadi and he’s no stranger to the west.  Al-Baghdadi was arrested on February 2nd by US Forces-Iraq in 2004 and was detained at Camp Bucca.   Now closed, Camp Bucca was an isolated desert prison that was once the largest lockup in all of Iraq. He was held there until December of 2004.   When he was released, he was classified as a “low level prisoner”.  Surprised, fact is several “future” ISIS lower level leaders were imprisoned and released from Camp Bucca.

Regardless it didn’t take long for “Al-Baghdadi” to demonstrate just how wrong the Americans were:  On May 16, 2010 he was pronounced leader of The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI)—also known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

Following the death of founder and head of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, on May 2nd of 2011, al-Baghdadi released a statement praising bin Laden and threatening violent retaliation for his death.  

Al-Baghdadi remained leader of the ISI until its formal expansion into Syria in 2013 when, in a statement in early April, he announced the formation of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

In late June of 2014, ISIS / ISIL announced the establishment of a “worldwide caliphate; naming Al-Baghdadi as caliph—the person considered to be a political and religious successor to the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, and a leader of the entire Muslim community.

A worldwide caliphate is the concept of a single theocratic one-world government, a scenario proposed by many extremist Muslims, in particular Bakr al-Baghdadi.  In 2014, Baghdadi even claimed to have succeeded in the creation of a worldwide caliphate.

In early July of 2014 The Huffington Post reported that al-Baghdadi announced via audio-taped message, that ISIL (ISIS) would march on “Rome” (Rome is generally interpreted to mean the West) in its quest to establish an Islamic State from the Middle East, extending  across Europe. He went on to say that he (meaning ISIS) would conquer both Rome and Spain in this endeavor and urged Muslims across the world to immigrate to the new Islamic State.

Perhaps it is long overdue for the west to simply remove it’s self from Middle Eastern affairs and apply all that wasted effort on ridding themselves of their never-ending thirst for oil and the “need” for political control of far off lands.

Some say this simply can’t be done, for example the United States (the most despised western country by radical Islam) consumed about 19.11 million barrels of oil every day in 2014.  More than 95% of which was dedicated to transportation; oil powers nearly every mile driven in America.   The bad news:  The US drives a lot of miles—three trillion annually.   The good news: Only 16% comes from the Persian Gulf region. 


Never the less, it is reasonably possible for the US to reduce its need for oil by adopting clean vehicle and fuel technologies that dramatically lower oil consumption—such as bio-fuel and electric cars. The truth is America’s projected oil use can be cut in half within the next 20 years by following this path.

But some say its long been too late for the West (the US included) to withdraw from the Middle East, and expect terrorist groups like ISIS to suddenly decide to abandon their goal of “one-world government”— naturally with their caliph playing the role of Supreme Leader.

The world may never know.
 


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Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Anubis Crouching . . . The Great Sphinx of Gaza?



   

“The Great Sphinx” is the largest, oldest, and probably the most famous monumental statue in the world; yet basic facts about it are still a topic of heated debate, such as who built it, when it was constructed, and for what purpose.   The current universally accepted name was given to it about 2000 years after the date of its believed erection. Though there has been contradictory evidence and many theories over the years, the view held by modern Egyptology, by and large, is that the structure we know as the Great Sphinx was constructed in approximately 2500 BC by the 4th Dynasty Pharaoh Khafre (2575—2465 BC); however that doesn’t quite add up because . . . 

There are no writings on the Sphinx or on any of the temples connected to it suggesting that Khafre had anything to do with its construction. On the other hand, the so-called “Inventory Stele” (discovered on the Giza plateau in the 19th century) tells that the Pharaoh Khufu (2589-2566 BC), father and predecessor in title to Khafre - ordered a temple to be built alongside the Sphinx, meaning of course that the Sphinx was already there, which consequently demonstrates the it could not have been built by Khafre.

Most of the Great Sphinx’s body was sculpted from a single block of the same soft, natural limestone used to build the neighboring Pyramids and temples located in its “back yard”; only the forepaws were made separately from nearby blocks of limestone.


Perhaps the biggest oddity about the sculpture is that the head’s size is out of proportion to its body.       The possibility certainly exists that the head was re-shaped several times by succeeding Pharaohs after the first face was carved.   Some historians believe the original head was that of a ram or hawk and was re-cut into a human shape sometime later. Such explanations could easily account for the small size of the head in relation to the body, especially if the Sphinx is older than is traditionally believed.

On a related issue, the body of the Sphinx is not the body of a lion, as you have undoubtedly been taught, and it never was!  You’ve been told it was a lion primarily because of the legend deriving from a Greek mythological beast which had a lion’s body, a woman’s head, and the wings of an eagle but anyone can see that the Sphinx has no wings and if it was originally graced with the head of a female Pharaoh (there were at least 7 after all), it’s unlikely a latter day male Pharaoh would have the audacity to “deface” it.  To a lesser degree the argument can be made that the Egyptian lion-god Aker is forever at work in the sculptured depiction.

Then too, Egypt is in Africa, and you can be assured that the original sculptures were aware that a crouching lion was apt to display a sloping back.   Loins were relatively few in ancient Egypt but they did live on the edges of the desert and interestingly it was the lion-god Aker who guarded the gateway to the Egyptian underworld.    So yes, the lion was associated with death and rebirth.

However a crouching dog or Jackal denoted Anubis; in early Egypt, he was none other than the god of the dead; Anubis was often depicted as a black jackal or a black dog but he was most often portrayed as a man with the head of a jackal with “alert” ears.  Anubis supervised the embalming of bodies, received mummies into the tomb, and directed the soul to “Eternal Paradise” or “the Field of Celestial Offerings”, but most importantly he protected the dead from deception they might encounter from “netherworld” beings along the way; deception, of course, could lead to eternal death while in route to “Paradise” . . .

 . . . And since Egypts pharaohs expected to become gods in the afterlife they prepared
for the next world by erecting massive pyramid tombs for themselves, and since they had been such “privileged” individuals while among the living, they desperately needed Anubis close by to help them along the way via his many talents.  To simply be “guarded” by the lion-god Aker couldn’t have possibly fulfilled their needs; after all, the recently deceased pharaohs had plans to proceed to the Field of Celestial Offerings in short order, sooo, why bother with a guard?


Okay, but what about those pesky weathering patterns on the Sphinx that is consistent with water erosion rather than wind and sand erosion?   These patterns seemed peculiar to the Sphinx and are not found on other structures on the Giza plateau.  Trouble is, Egypt is arid today but around 10,000 years ago the land was wet and rainy.

The best answer so as to make all the puzzle pieces to this theory fit into place is provided by Non-fiction novelists and amateur Egyptologists Robert Temple who has provided photographic evidence of ancient channel gates in close proximity to the Sphinx, demonstrating that, during the Old Kingdom, the Sphinx AKA the Anubis sat surrounded by a moat filled with water; in those days it was called Jackal Lake and is referenced in the ancient Pyramid Texts (discovered in 1881)—some Egyptologist’s say the texts were composed sometime between 3100 and 3000 BC, making them the oldest sacred texts in the world — but then if the Sphinx was really sculpted 500 or more years later, it’s likely they were too.  

Temple goes even further in his observations / conclusions—in part:  “The three main pyramids and the Sphinx were part of an integral complex all designed at once. The pyramids were not built through the successive whims of a series of pharaohs, but were all designed at the same time, and the precise size and general shape of the Sphinx as Anubis was specified in relation to the three pyramids.”

Armed with this information you might think the massive sculpture we call the “Great Sphinx” was probably called the “Great Anubis” of Giza by his builders.


Sources . . .



Tuesday, May 19, 2015

The Rendlesham Forest Incident – or “Britain's Roswell”

The Halt Memo two-weeks after the incident:

No this isn’t an outdated recap of an event that took place back in the 40’s; but a succession of unexplained sightings of an unidentified crafts, at least one of which landed and was underscored by multiple unexplained lights in Rendlesham Forest on two separate nights in late December of 1980.  This incident occurred just outside a former Royal Air Force (RAF) station located east of Woodbridge (RAF Woodbridge) in the county of Suffolk, England, about 8 miles (13 km) east of the town of Ipswich; the base and it “twin” (Bentwaters) was being used at the time by the U.S. Air Force (until 1993).

The first significant piece of evidence regarding the incident was made available to the public by way of the memorandum displayed above via the Freedom of Information Act in 1983.  It was written by then deputy base commander, Lt. Col. Charles I. Halt, to Great Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD). The Report has since become known as the “Halt Memo”, and (photo copy near top of page) was dated January 13, 1981; the Subject Line was simply titled: “Unexplained Lights”.  

Dr. David Clarke, a consultant to Britain’s National Archives, has since investigated the background of the Halt Memo, including the “lack luster” response to it by the British Ministry of Defense.

He also interviewed the personnel involved in the incident, confirming the brief nature of the investigation performed by the Ministry of Defense, and was unable to find other evidence or reports on the event that could / should have been made by the United States Air Force or the United Kingdom; apparently nothing other than that of the Halt Memo lent credence to the incident.  In other words, both government entities have seemingly learned over the years that by ignoring unexplained events, credible witnesses to such incidents are by default deemed unreliable.

Then Deputy Base Commander of RAF Bentwaters, Lt. Col. Halt, has (he retirement a full Colonel & became Base Commander of Bentwaters) gone on record as saying that he believes he witnessed an extraterrestrial event that was “covered up”.   He served in Vietnam, Japan and Korea, before he was assigned to Bentwaters as Deputy Commander. The Rendlesham Forest incident of late December of 1980 occurred shortly thereafter, and he is the most prominent witness to events on the second night of the unexplained sightings.

In any event, one of the United Kingdom’s most significant Military related UFO incidents occurred in Rendlesham Forest located in Suffolk County on two nights in late December of 1980. 


Here’s a summary of the incident:
 

In the late evening hours of December 26, 1980 an unidentified object was tracked on radar by the “twin RAF bases” of Woodbridge and Bentwaters, on “loan” to the United States Air Force; initially, the two Air force bases were placed on Full Alert but shortly thereafter it was determined that the object, whatever it was, posed no direct threat to the bases so the Full Alert was lowered. Regardless, the “news”, continued to cause intense excitement within both locations because several witnesses had been describing the radar tracked object as having bright revolving lights which was circling in the sky just before it hovered over a nearby pine tree plantation known as Rendlesham Forest.


Dispatched on Patrol near the east gate of RAF Woodbridge that night was US Air Force security patrolmen John Burroughs and Budd Steffens, it was approximately 2:00 AM.   They spotted a strange craft and at first thought that it may be a plane doomed to crash, however they quickly concluded that the craft was slowly descending downwards and appeared to have landed in the nearby woods. They could see within a short distance, a pulsating mass of colored lights they later described as looking like a Christmas tree.

Burroughs hastily phoned the base in alarm; as it was now past 2 AM, so he assumed there should not have been aircraft in the vicinity. Within minutes, security patrol sergeant Jim Penniston was on his way by jeep, driven by Edward Cabansag.

Upon arrival, they too saw the bizarre object with lights flickering through the trees. Penniston, who took command, tried to persuade Burroughs and Steffens that a small plane had crashed and flames were raging out of control. However the two patrolmen were convinced that whatever was out there had landed; not crashed!

Budd Steffens remained at the gate while the others entered the forest on foot. There was some kind of bizarre electrical field permeating the woods and to make matters worse, radio contact with the base began to fail.  As a result, Penniston directed Cabansag to stay back near the road so they could, if necessary, use him to relay messages to base. Penniston and Burroughs then forged deeper into the forest, it was at this point the servicemen later described the air as being “alive” with energy - crackling somewhat like a thunderstorm; their arm hair stood on end, and their skin began to tingle.

With considerable physical effort the patrolmen approached the object they later pronounced as a glowing conical object hovering over a clearing in the trees.   They described it in more detail as a relatively small metallic craft; about three meters across the base and two meters high, on its side were black marks that could have been an unknown form of writing.  It illuminated the entire vicinity with a white light. Just above them a flashing beam sent out a circle of red and blue light which was apparently coming from another craft.  Regardless, the object before them appeared to be suspended in a yellow hazy like mist through which one of the men noticed what he perceived to be the vague outline of triangular shaped landing gear. 

One un-named eye witness at the scene later insisted that there were beings—possibly androids—repairing the craft which appeared to have been damaged, most likely he believed, from its descent through the trees. 

The object seemed to be fully aware of the patrol’s presence because when they began to approach closer to the craft, it began to move away from them through the trees toward a nearby farmhouse which reportedly sent “the animals their into a frenzy”.

A little after 4:00 a.m. local police were called to the scene to assist in the investigation but the police reported that the only lights they could see were those from the Orfordness lighthouse, some eight (8) miles to the east on the coast.

Shortly after daybreak on the morning of December 27th, servicemen returned to the scene of the aforementioned craft’s “landing” site near the eastern edge of the forest and found three small impressions in a triangular pattern; and too, there were burn marks and broken branches on nearby trees; it was then determined the entire site should be subjected to intense an investigation.  

On the morning of the 28th at 1.48 AM at least three soldiers who had ventured into the forest spotted the unknown craft again.  This team included John Burroughs (a member of the first group), Lt. Bruce Englund who reported the new sighting to Base Commander Ted Conrad  shortly thereafter, and Sergeant Adrian Bustinza—who colorfully described how “the glowing light rested on a pillar of yellowish mist and split in the middle like a rainbow produced by a prism”.

In the early morning (before day-break) of December the 28th, deputy base commander Lt Col Charles Halt visited the site (reported as the 29th in his Memo) with investigators—he had been in attendance to an officers’ Combat Support Group awards dinner at RAF Bentwaters when the base commander Ted Conrad told Halt “it” was back as had been reported to him by Lt. Bruce Englund.   Commander Conrad was just about to present an after-dinner speech so he asked his deputy, Lt Col Charles Halt, if he could sort out the matter. Deputy Base Commander Halt (later promoted to Lt Col Halt) gathered a team of skilled men for the foray; with them they took a Geiger counter to measure possible radiation and several other items they anticipated needing for a likely investigation. 

Once into the forest area, the investigating team’s radio contact with the base and each other began to develop static interference, similar to that experienced by the earlier group of investigators and the gas-powered arc lights illuminating their way were repeatedly failing to the point that it became necessary to send back for more.  

Upon reaching the initial landing site radiation readings were taken on the small indentations found in the frozen ground where the landing legs of the “mystery” craft had reportedly stood; they were above normal—it was some years later the radiation readings were determined to have ten times the expected background levels.  In addition, overhead branches and leaves surrounding the site were torn away and parted as if some massive object had rushed through the trees.

Then suddenly as they put it “out of nowhere all hell broke loose”.   Noises could be heard in the background as Halt cut in sharply telling his men to “slow down and take it carefully”.  Yep, the UFO was back!  Halt and his team had spotted the craft, but now the area of light resembled a huge red eye with a dark center. The group of men followed the light through the woods, crossing a farmer's field and stumbling through a small stream.

Halt’s group chased the unknown craft for more than an hour when, suddenly the object shot skywards. Soon after, tired and wet, Halt led his men home. Strange lights continued to appear above the Woodbridge base for the next several days; flashing “laser-like” beams down into the security sections of the base. Hundreds of military personnel witnessed them as did local residents such as Sarah Richardson, whose bedroom overlooked the base; she saw them as well. Richardson later described her sightings as “bands of rippling color.”

You might ask what creatures not from this earth might find so interesting about an “antiquated” (at least to them) air base.  It had long been suspected that nuclear weapons were present at RAF Bentwaters; a suspicion which was always denied by the base and the British government at the time. A little over a decade later, it was admitted that this denial was not true!

A few cynics have suggested several explanations for this remarkable event, including the eight (8) miles distant Orfordness lighthouse being seen from the forest to a sophisticated   experiment to see what the men’s reaction would be to a threat close to a nuclear base. If this is truly the case, how can the radar sightings be explained away?




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