Posted on 12/12/2003 5:37:54 PM PST by Momaw Nadon
About the Rendlesham Incident
In late December 1980, in Rendlesham Forest, England, numerous U.S. military personnel witnessed what has come to be regarded as the most significant military-UFO incident in the history of Great Britain.
The servicemen were posted to the RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge facilities — which together constitute one of the largest NATO bases in rural Suffolk, East Anglia — when, on December 27, they noticed unusual lights and activity near the base's back gate. A trio of security patrolmen led by Jim Penniston, thinking a military aircraft might be down or in distress, ventured into Rendlesham Forest to investigate. There they observed a variety of unearthly phenomena that none of them could explain, as well as an airborne object obscured by its own blinding light.
The next day, December 28, they returned to the forest and found three radioactive depressions in the ground where the object had been sighted. That night, other witnesses in surrounding areas saw an intense red light pulsating and moving through the trees.
Soon afterward, several of the men involved, including Airman Larry Warren, were debriefed by U.S. and British officers and ordered to sign documents contradicting their firsthand accounts. Furthermore, they were told to remain silent and were warned by U.S. military intelligence personnel that, if they didn't, "Bullets are cheap."
Two weeks after these incidents, Lt. Colonel Charles Halt (who retired years later following his promotion to colonel) wrote a memo detailing everything that the patrolmen had seen and sent the document to his superiors at the Pentagon — and the most comprehensive cover-up in the history of Britain began.
But the truth has refused to remain hidden. In December 2002, the British Ministry of Defense released a file on the Rendlesham incident that comprised 180 pages of previously classified memos, letters, reports and correspondence. But despite the British government's admission that a UFO-related incident took place near the Bentwaters and Woodbridge airfields in 1980, the U.S. government still refuses to release its own files about the encounter.
Now SCI FI brings you this shocking exposé, complete with documentation, new physical evidence and firsthand accounts by both military and civilian witnesses — including Penniston and Halt, who have jeopardized their reputations and military pensions in order to seek out the truth. Join host Bryant Gumbel as SCI FI presents its exclusive investigation of one of the most important UFO incidents of the 20th century.
So you believe that they were all kidnapped and injected with drugs by mysterious men?
They're just looney and out to make a buck selling books.
Additionally, how could it be the lighthouse when the incident began because someone saw flashing, colored lights that indicated that perhaps something had crashed in the woods? IN THE WOODS, seen from OUTSIDE THE WOODS.
Are you claiming that some never-before-seen and never-again-seen weather phenomena was at work on TWO CONSECUTIVE NIGHTS to make the lighthouse appear to be an aircraft of impossible capabilities to dozens of observers from different angles?
Who's really grasping at straws and trying to fit square pegs in round holes now?
I don't know what happened at Rendelsham, and I'm quite aware of the possibility for lying, embellishing, and just plain mis-remembering after the fact by the witnesses.
I just don't see a huge airbase being sent into a tizzy by the same lighthouse they'd lived with for years ON A CLEAR NIGHT.
The initial sighting was by the gate guards looking eastward directly through the woods towards the lighthouse.
When they went towards the lights, the lights "receded". When they moved crosswise through the forest, the light moved with them (as the light from a distant lighthouse would do).
The most important evidence (the tape recording) shows their sightings match up precisely with the rotation of the lighthouse beam. Whenever the lighthouse beams sweeps over them, they shout "there it is again!"
The direction they claim to have seen stuff is precisely in line with both the Orfordness Lighthouse and the Shipwash Lightship.
They are embellishing their stories whenever someone pokes a hole in it.
And so forth.
I'm not a big sci-fi nut. I haven't put on that channel for years. But I'm glad I caught that show tonight, though it started off a bit like an MTV video (quick edits, cheesy graphics).
Try to get your hands on an old Unsolved Mysteries segment on triangular UFOs over Belgium, which included radar tapes and interviews with the Belgian Air Force personnel who scrambled to intercept. By far the most compelling piece I've seen on UFOs.
And you still haven't addressed the one-time nature of the events, on a normal weather night. Why never before? Why never again?
Yeah, true, doesn't make much sense.
My personal wish is that aliens are not here, as my incination is to be scared of them. Not to mention what public knowledge of such a thing could do to the stock market :-D
But seriesly, they could be around. I am not confident that what we consider to be the laws of physics are the final word on the subject.
There are, on average, a few hundred sightings reported each month in the United States alone. Does that qualify as "common?"
Can a lighthouse leave identical depressions on the ground in a triangular pattern where the craft/object was seen?
Do lighthouses show up on radar?
Do lighthouses cause elevated levels of radiation at the reported landing site?
And on December 26th, there will be millions of children reporting that they saw Santa Claus the night before. And that is on just one night.
What impressed me most was the Sgt's saying that he walked around the object and touched it. He said it was smooth like glass and warm. This has nothing to do with a lighthouse, he either saw what he said, or he didn't.
On the 'point five scale', it's obviously impossible to obtain a reading greater than 0.5 mR/h. This has been substantiated. That could only have occurred if the AN/PDR-27 setting was 'X10 between 0-5 milliroentgens', or higher. However, Halt confirms they were utilising, as we would expect, the most sensitive setting.Background radiation. Which might have been slightly elevated because Bentwaters was a nuclear weapons storage base.
Consequently, the 'minor clicks' and levels of 'up to seven clicks' etc. which were being observed on the 'point five scale' must have been between 0.05 and 0.07 mR/h.
Yes, I have looked through night vision devices, and have no idea how someone could mistake a sweeping lighthouse beam for a stationary object on fire.
You know what? The Sci-Fi people should have waited until nightfall, shot some footage of the lighthouse beam playing through the woods (if it's still operable) and let the viewer decide if grown men with serious military responsibilities would have thought they were within a few feet of an unprecedented air craft based upon what we see.
My guess is no.
If the lighthouse is inoperable, they (SciFi) should have paid to fire it up.
Col. Halt also (in his initial memo) assigned dimensions to the craft he saw, and said that it went back and forth. Not consistent with a sweeping beam.
Why do you ignore the factor of many witnesses from different angles seeing inexplicable phenomena (all of whom were familiar with the lighthouse and its location)? Or the fact that the phenomena was not repeated, though the lighthouse was still in operation, and the base patrolled in the same manner?
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