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No this isn’t an outdated recap of an event that took place back in the 40’s; but a succession of unexplained sightings of an unidentified crafts, at least one of which landed and was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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