The Rendlesham Forest UFO - What really Happened?

reply to post by FireMoon


A very interesting bit of footage, Firemoon. When you see Gordon Levett (who actually lived in Orford and was a game warden in the area) explaining how it couldnt possibly have been the lighthouse, after Ridpath has said that it 'lights up the trees', (at 1:53-1:54) Levett is actually standing in view of the lighthouse- much closer than Halt was, and you can see it feebly blinking in the background. It flashes for less than a second- hardly enough time to 'imagine' it 'dripping molten metal like substance' or 'appearing like an eye' or 'exploding into many pieces'. No-one in their right mind could imagine it to be anything other than what it is- the back of a lighthouse- never mind it flying through the sky, through the trees, changing colour, sending beams down etc etc

Anyone who still thinks it was a lighthouse, please watch this footage, and you will see how ridiculous that claim is.

Originally posted by Thunda
It flashes for less than a second- hardly enough time to 'imagine' it 'dripping molten metal like substance' or 'appearing like an eye' or 'exploding into many pieces'. No-one in their right mind could imagine it to be anything other than what it is- the back of a lighthouse- never mind it flying through the sky, through the trees, changing colour, sending beams down etc etc

Anyone who still thinks it was a lighthouse, please watch this footage, and you will see how ridiculous that claim is.

Actually what you present as evidence of it not being the lighthouse, confirms that's what it actually was. I watched the footage.

The lighthouse uses a catadioptric lens and 'appearing like an eye' is a characteristic of catadioptric lenses as seen here where some "eye-like" effects are visible due to the nature of such lenses:

An example of 'iris blur' or bokeh produced by a catadioptric lens, behind an in-focus light.

Regarding 'dripping molten metal like substance' or 'exploding into many pieces', you don't appreciate that the recording Halt made is the best evidence we have. He embellished his story later, and even changed it to make it seem like he wasn't looking at the lighthouse.

Had there been something as dramatic as "exploding into many pieces" recorded on his audio tape I could see your point, but since it's not on the tape, people who believe the embellished version of events are naive.

I also wondered when watching that footage if the starscope image intensifier he was looking through is capable of producing any artifacts. If so this could explain things which might appear like molten metal or beams shooting to the ground which Halt saw, but some others did NOT see. (maybe because they weren't looking through the image intensifier). I'm not familiar with the model of image intensifier Halt used, however I have seen other image intensifiers and I have seen them produce artifacts, especially when viewing a bright light.

Also, an important fact you don't seem to be aware of is that the light in the lighthouse was much brighter at the time Halt made his recording, and was subsequently replaced with a dimmer light.

'Wondering' 'possibly' 'if'- seems to be a lot of that in your theory. Personally, I think that although Halts tape is interesting, it isnt the be all and end all of this case- you certainly cannot say 'the abscence of something is evidence' like you seem to be claiming, as in 'it wasnt on the tape, therefore doesnt exist'. You could take the tape out altogether and you would still have all the other statements from the many other Military witnesses, the physical evidence, the radiation readings and the testimony of local people.

Also, why would they remove the lighthouse bulb and replace it with a dimmer one? Even if they said they did, it just doesnt make sense. The whole idea of a lighthouse is to provide a visual marker of the coastline and to warn of danger in poor visiblity- why would you fit a lower power bulb? And even if they had, the light would still be a brief flash, and just not visible long enough to attach all these other phenomena to it.

You seem to be happy in yourself that you have a theory that fits the facts in your eyes. Thats great, but Im afraid I do not subscribe to it.



Just to add, I grew up close to a lighthouse on the East Coast of England, and Im familiar with how they look- I have never seen any of these strange effects that people are claiming the lighthouse at Orfordness gave out to poor unsuspecting US military personnel. They must look very different in the USA?

Originally posted by Thunda
You could take the tape out altogether and you would still have all the other statements from the many other Military witnesses,

Like this one?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Once we reached the farmer's house we could see a beacon going around, so we went toward it. We followed it for about 2 miles before we could see it was coming from a lighthouse.

That pretty much demolishes the claims that everybody knew where the lighthouse was. It clearly says they followed it for two miles before they finally realized it was the lighthouse.

Why were they following the lighthouse for two miles? The only reason I can think of is because they didn't know it was a lighthouse.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Im sorry, Ive tried wading through that enormous thread to see whose witness statement that is. Can you be more specific? However, I think that what I have read so far, far from 'demolishing' any theory that everyone knew where the lighthouse was, it supports it- they just call it a 'beacon light' rather than a lighthouse, but they dont claim that the 'beacon light' is the unusual (red and blue) lights they are chasing, rather, that it is additional to what they are observing.

reply to post by Thunda

So, you talk as if the other witness statements support your claim, but you really aren't familiar with them? That's from John Burroughs. And no, at the time they were following the lighthouse for two miles, that's all there was in his statement, just the lighthouse. It was always the lighthouse...they were moving in that direction the whole time. The part about the light disappearing...the lighthouse of course did not physically disappear, only their view of the light from it was temporarily obscured by the terrain.

By the way, Burroughs statement also disproves this claim of yours that the shield prevented them from seeing the lighthouse, doesn't it?

Originally posted by Thunda

Originally posted by xpoq47
I don't know if it has been mentioned here, but do you guys know that the lighthouse has a metal shield to prevent its light from shining into the forest? I think it was in one of the History Channel documentaries that they not only showed the shield but had a local person on hand who explained the shield's purpose and said that it had been in place before the lighthouse even started operation.

Exactly- you can see it in the photograph. Its common to land based lighthouses so their light doesnt spill across the countryside- another reason it cannot be the lighthouse.

I think you are finally revealing the reason you think it wasn't the lighthouse is due to your unfamiliarity with the case. They all tried to say later it wasn't the lighthouse, and they all changed their stories from their original statements, but all the evidence contemporaneous with the case points to the lighthouse being at least one thing involved in the case, like Halt's recording and the witness statements.

In any investigation, the more time has passed between the event and the witness statements, the less we can rely on them. Even the statements immediately after the event are almost never 100% correct perceptions, which is why the audio recording is so valuable...it's live so there's no opportunity to mis-remember anything. Statements get less accurate over time, even if the witness is trying to tell the truth. But we can see that Halt has been caught in an attempt to cover up the truth many years after the fact, so that makes his later statements even less reliable. And of course some of the other witnesses have huge credibility problems with their subsequent stories even greater than Halt, such as Penniston in particular. Burroughs has practically called Penniston a liar.

reply to post by Thunda


Arby basically just regurgitates what Ridpath claims and Ridpath is at best a fool, at worst a flat out liar.

reply to post by FireMoon


Right, thanks for that, Firemoon. Seems like this guy really has an axe to grind. Ask for a bit of clarification as to who he's talking about, and look what you get!

FireMoon, great video, thanks.

But in relation to Arb, don't attack the messenger instead of the message, I don't think you are being objective if you don't consider the very real problems with this case.
Also, I'd like to remind you of the NASA 'tether-incident' which was shown to be reflections from the aperture itself. Yet people refuse to accept the explanation. Perhaps they get too caught up, and too disappointed, or emotionally attached to the idea. So, stay cool, or it'll be too hard to pull out, if necessary

Instead of attacking a well-informed messenger, people should come up with something to counter the gravity of the facts that Arbitrageur is laying before us. If we choose to ignore the 6 second interval, we are not looking at this with a clear head. Some 'coincidences' are not coincidences.. However, like I said, it could be a bit of both: If they were agitated and stressed, any light would have caught their attention. Their attention could have moved from one thing to another.

So, if we want to counter Arbitrageur, let's find some questions for him, shall we, after giving him credit for summing up some pretty important points, fair enough?

What do we have that comes before any lighthouse discussion, and thus an awareness from Halt that he may have been fooled by a lighthouse, perhaps luring him to change stories ever so slightly?

- Indentations in the ground that showed increased radioation levels. If these have not been 'debunked', the whole story would have to be a deliberate hoax, or there must be something more to it, after all, no?

- Marks on branches, even heightened levels of radiation measured on trees.

- We have the game warden, the interview with him on CNN was impressive, it supports the non-lighthouse explanation.

Arbitrageur, what do think of the above issues?

And did I forget any?

Originally posted by ScientificUAPer
Instead of attacking a well-informed messenger, people should come up with something to counter the gravity of the facts that Arbitrageur is laying before us.

Hi ScientificUAPer,

I haven't had much time to post on ATS recently, but wanted to pop on here for a moment to applaud the sentiment in your post above.

All too often within ufology (particularly, for some reason, in discussions of the Rendlesham UFO incident/incidents) people resort to ad hominem dismissal of the comments made by someone without addressing the meat of the argument or even seeking to identify precisely the points which are in dispute and then finding out if information is available on those disputed points.

Discussions of Rendlesham abound with basic factual errors and assertions made without regard to the available evidence.

My one caveat is that I'd suggest starting by outlining the available existing sources of debate and information on an incident before getting into discussions of specific points. Reinvention of the wheel within ufology is a pet peeve of mine.

All the best,

Isaac

reply to post by ScientificUAPer


Arbitrageur simply copying and linking to one site run by a man with an agenda who has, several times proven to be "economical with the truth" does not constitute research. Fine, you want to believe an "astronomer" as Ridpath calls himself, who thinks you can see Venus 30 degrees above the horizon at 2 am in late October in Britain, then you are going to receive exactly what you deserve, half cocked biased tosh.

Ridpath started his "investigation" with an intellectual lie and has just gone downhill ever since. He claimed the sighting was originally, "Space Junk" re-entering the Earth's atmosphere and that was "case solved". When it was pointed out that, the "Space Junk crashed hours before the reported sightings and hours before he claimed it did he simply jumped on the Thurkettle bandwagon and despite clear and concise evidence from third parties contradicting his explanation he refuses to even admit it exists.

Now we find, in actual fact his whole basis of his case was founded on inaccurate information and that Thurkettle has withdrawn his explanation for the Halt sighting yet, Ridpath, because he is motivated solely by agenda, not by facts, carries on as if it's never happened and the same people with his agenda keep quoting him on here as if it's fact and it isn't fact at all.

So, so far.. what do we have from Ridpath

"It's space junk, and a completely wrong time-scale for the entry of the space junk that was anyway, hours away from the sighting"

!it's a meteor" again, intellectual dishonesty from a so called astronomer, the bright meteor was some time after the events began and he knows that, to even introduce it shows clearly his motivations are not to be trusted.

Then he ignores a prime witness as that witness's testimony shoots a huge hole in his argument

If this was Greer we were talking about a good deal of the people willing to swallow whatever bilge Ridpath spouts would be all over the thread dismissing his evidence outright

So please, don't talk about "good research" when it is anything bar that.

One other "lie" I forgot to add from the Ridpath site. "Penniston was a recent arrival" Penniston was transferred to Bentwaters in June 1980, by the time of the incident he'd been serving there for 6 months, you really think anyone charged with base security hadn't availed themselves of the topography of the local area by then?

Originally posted by FireMoon
reply to post by mirageman

 

Then again , shortly before the incident a popular pilot from the squadron based at Bentwaters suddenly committed suicide and several ground crew refused, point blank, to work in one of the hangers at night when alone. There were also more than a couple civilian sightings of UFOs in the weeks leading up to the incident and these, to the best of my knowledge, carried on into February after the incident. The area around Bentwaters has been a "hotspot" for weird stuff going back hundreds, if not thousands of years. As someone else pointed out, the locals with a long family history tend to take it in their stride, however from "Black Shuck" to modern day UFOs, the area is steeped in high strangeness.

As for Ridpath and his meteors and space debris. These events took place around midnight all his events how no more to do with the timeline than the British setting fire to the sea nearby to Bentwaters to practise anti invasion tactics in 1940, I'm sure Ridpath would manage to shoehorn that in as well though. given half a chance. Ridpath claims to be this expert in astronomy and yet, he seems very reticent to tell the truth. On any clear night you will see several meteors at least and usually one pretty damn bright one, then again, admitting that, shoots a huge hole in his evidence, I leave it to people to work out quite why he doesn't mention it.

Hi Firemoon,

I just read my post back from yesterday and it sounds like I'm being ultra-sceptical and supporting Ridpath's case. I think some of his explanations fit and others don't.

My own investigation however did uncover this report. I have copied the clipping from the New Scientist of Jan 1981 which confirms that there were various shooting stars and also a Russian rocket burning up in the atmosphere over Southern England at around 2.45 am which is around the time of the confirmed sightings in JD Chandler ,the senior officer's, report below. If these were visible from the base then I can see how a UFO incident was triggered.



However I was trying to point out some of the contradictions of the Rendlesham case. Mainly that a good number of the witnesses can't even agree with each other. The more you delve into the case the deeper the contradictions get.

There is some real evidence available like the original witness statements and the Halt Memo (even that is inaccurate in dating the event(s) as the 27th Dec 1980), when it was in fact the night & mornings of the 25th/26th and 27th/28th). There is also the tape recording made out in the forest. More recently the MoD released it's files on the case as well. There is no documented radar evidence. Possibly because Halt recorded the date wrong.
The radiation readings are a matter of record on Halt's memo. Various people have argued whether they were of significance although they were certainly not harmful levels.

The more dubious evidence comes from the high profile witnesses.

Warren's stories of aliens and underground bases have been out there since the late 1980s not backed up by any of the others.

Penniston has added from his initial statement that he saw a mechanical object with coloured lights in his original statement. By 1994 he had seen a triangular craft, a decade later he revealed his notebook showing glyph like symbols. And by 2010 he revealed pages of binary code that he received telepathically when he touched the craft.

Halt has tweaked his story in places and maintains that he saw something unreal and that beams of light struck the nuclear weapons storage area on his night. On his tape he is heard saying "... observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground! " and later "3.30: And the objects are still in the sky, although the one to the south looks like it's losing a little bit of altitude. We're turning around and heading back toward the base. The object to the...the object to the south is still beaming down lights to the ground. "

To my knowledge though there was no red alert at the base. His boss Ted Conrad was monitoring the reports over the radio and saw nothing. Link to his statement here

John Burroughs meanwhile seems to stick the story that he saw strange lights and doesn't know what he saw. He was the only witness present in the forest on both nights.

You rightly point out that a lot more things were going on at the base and have been going on for centuries in East Anglia. Now the BBC film Top Gear there. It's a great story but the truth seems elusive.

reply to post by mirageman


I don't think we will ever know what actually happened those nights save, something weird did occur and it wasn't a lighthouse, meteor or space junk that triggered it. That's along way from "aliens"however, as per usual in these "celebrity" cases the waters have been muddied by both sides, some times accidentally, at other times, quite deliberately. If you want to question Penniston's evidence what about Halt's superior who one day says on camera,. "Something strange happened without doubt" and then later changes that totally?

What we don't have are the following

Anyone coming out from the USAF personnel serving there at the time and saying... "There weren't loads of people involved, only the people who have gone public".

No inquiry into how "A bunch of well paid highly trained and pretty well educated people nearly caused an international incident by mistaking a lighthouse for a UFO". Not even the rumours of one.

Then we come to the "debriefing". Now, even those involved, whose testimony seems to diverge, agree that the "debriefing" was not a "pleasant experience" and Halt himself has expressed some concern over what went on and who actually carried out the "debriefing". The fact that Halt himself, was not "debriefed" in a similar manner is highly suspicious on several levels as it does lend serious credence to the idea that the "grunts" were given psychotropic drugs whilst they knew they could not afford to do that Halt. Then again, it could mean that Halt was "in on it" from the word go and that he was the "head" of some psycho-evaluation test carried out that Christmas, that went, publicity wise, horribly wrong.

There were tales in the British mess at Woodbridge, immediately following the incident that, they were seeking to "weed out" sic, several members of the base personnel who were suspected of dabbling in drugs, only they managed to screw over the wrong guys. It's even been suggested in British RAF circles that, it was better to have the UFO nuts have their day, than admit they'd fouled up big time on internal base security. That could well be, in my opinion, partly why Hill-Norton said what he said about "security implications".

My very first thread on here was to give this report... www.unexplained-mysteries.com...

Now, I have my suspicions at the whole Rendlesham case however, given the guy who told me that, face to face, risked his very job to do so, does make me a tad more willing to accept that the Rendlesham case was maybe not some "exercise" that went awry

What if, that episode of the "X Files" I always tell people is, for me personally, the most accurate, was based loosely on Rendlesham? Now that would be the ultimate head screw and actually, sublimely funny. If you're wondering which episode, it's one of the "comedy" episodes and involves an abduction that goes "wrong".

" hardly enough time to 'imagine' it 'dripping molten metal like substance' or 'appearing like an eye' or 'exploding into many pieces'"
this was when looking through a very early starscope illuminator , not with his bare eyes.

Looking at a bright object on a dark background through an early starscope , (which he was not full versed in using) would/could give this effect when the light overpowers the sensor array...

the reflector on the lighthouse was also changed in position to stop light leaching over the land at a later date , at the same time the light itself was dimmed...after the incident ...coincidence?

reply to post by Thunda



" And even if they had, the light would still be a brief flash,"

lighthouses rotate the light they dont flash , the apparent flash is from the size and placement of the reflector(see above) the lights brightness was reduced as the house itself became less important , also see the red lit antenna poles nearby at orford ness atomic research station

Originally posted by Thunda
reply to post by FireMoon

 

Right, thanks for that, Firemoon. Seems like this guy really has an axe to grind. Ask for a bit of clarification as to who he's talking about, and look what you get!

ehh? He gave you an answer which was it was from a prime witness to the event?
why not trust this part of what he said but rely on other parts of what he said?

"Penniston was transferred to Bentwaters in June 1980, by the time of the incident he'd been serving there for 6 months, you really think anyone charged with base security hadn't availed themselves of the topography of the local area by then? "#

wasnt penniston based on the sister base south of bwaters? even though both bases his responsibility, Doesnt he say he had never had reason to go out into the woods?so was unfamiliar with them?I seeem to recall he did.





"No inquiry into how "A bunch of well paid highly trained and pretty well educated people nearly caused an international incident by mistaking a lighthouse for a UFO". Not even the rumours of one. "

And

"It's even been suggested in British RAF circles that, it was better to have the UFO nuts have their day, than admit they'd fouled up big time on internal base security. That could well be, in my opinion, partly why Hill-Norton said what he said about "security implications".

yep I can see how the mod would get upset that a group of proffesionals ,in charge of the safe keeping of a large nuclear stockpile would be so amateur in the "investigatrion" as to not even alert the base seal/marine protection team as to a possible russian infiltration of a nuclear supply base at the heights of the cold war...

I just got Out of the Blue DVD which had this incident. The official explanation, it was a light house light is ridiculous.

reply to post by gambon


Political point however a salient one. I doubt anyone at the MOD, save for the very top echelon, had any idea there were nuclear warheads at Bentwaters as "officially" and for treaty purposes there weren't any. In a sense that is true as they weren't actual "nuclear weapons" they were the warheads which, without their delivery system renders them a non "weapon". Semantics yes, however in diplomatic terms an important one. To that extent the mandarins at the MOD therefore, had to sit on their hands and let the minions on the "help desk" blithely trot out the line "No nuclear weapon here, so no real reason to panic".

You will note that the part about "armed troops being deployed outside the base" contained in the 1984 CNN report has varnished, almost totally, in the ensuing years. If that is true, to send "armed" troops onto British sovereign territory suggests that, there was something happened, that was being taken very seriously at the time.

Then there's the whole question of. "Sir shall I call out the marines?" and Halt thinking..."Damn no, that's the last thing I want happening now, I have a career I'd like to keep it thank you".

That could be the key to this incident. If you spend 30 years marginalising people and calling them "loonies" whilst knowing, privately, there are UFOs, when something does occur like Rendlesham, you're stuck between a rock and hard place as your own troops are inclined to "simply not want to get involved" whilst, at the same time. Any public "rational" explanation, makes your own troops look like a bunch of dimwits.

Originally posted by FireMoon
reply to post by gambon

 

Political point however a salient one. I doubt anyone at the MOD, save for the very top echelon, had any idea there were nuclear warheads at Bentwaters as "officially" and for treaty purposes there weren't any. In a sense that is true as they weren't actual "nuclear weapons" they were the warheads which, without their delivery system renders them a non "weapon". Semantics yes, however in diplomatic terms an important one. To that extent the mandarins at the MOD therefore, had to sit on their hands and let the minions on the "help desk" blithely trot out the line "No nuclear weapon here, so no real reason to panic".

You will note that the part about "armed troops being deployed outside the base" contained in the 1984 CNN report has varnished, almost totally, in the ensuing years. If that is true, to send "armed" troops onto British sovereign territory suggests that, there was something happened, that was being taken very seriously at the time.

Then there's the whole question of. "Sir shall I call out the marines?" and Halt thinking..."Damn no, that's the last thing I want happening now, I have a career I'd like to keep it thank you".

That could be the key to this incident. If you spend 30 years marginalising people and calling them "loonies" whilst knowing, privately, there are UFOs, when something does occur like Rendlesham, you're stuck between a rock and hard place as your own troops are inclined to "simply not want to get involved" whilst, at the same time. Any public "rational" explanation, makes your own troops look like a bunch of dimwits.

Where do you get bentwaters wasnt a nuclear base , between it and its sister station it held MOST of the nuclear arsenal of the usaf in the uk.....Everybody and there sister in the area knew that the bases stored nuclear weapons , and also were stopovers for nuclear armed cruise missile convoys.. In fact when halt mentions the rays coming from the sky , he mentions that it was over the nuclear storage area...therby confirming there presence on the base...

Originally posted by Thunda
Right, thanks for that, Firemoon. Seems like this guy really has an axe to grind. Ask for a bit of clarification as to who he's talking about, and look what you get!

Yes I see what I get from you is no response to the question about whether Burrough's statement about seeing the lighthouse and following the lighthouse proves your claim false about the shield blocking their view of the lighthouse.

If you don't really want to know the truth, I don't see any point in further discussion with you.

Originally posted by FireMoon
Arbitrageur simply copying and linking to one site run by a man with an agenda who has, several times proven to be "economical with the truth" does not constitute research. Fine, you want to believe an "astronomer" as Ridpath calls himself, who thinks you can see Venus 30 degrees above the horizon at 2 am in late October in Britain, then you are going to receive exactly what you deserve, half cocked biased tosh.

I did show some photographs from Ridpath's site, as I believe them to show an accurate view of the farmhouse and the lighthouse.

I also linked to Ridpath's site for a transcript of Halt's recording, which as I stated is probably some of the best evidence we have in the case.

I never said anything about Venus. Indeed there may be some conclusions drawn on Ridpath's site which I may not agree with and I think even Ridpath would admit some of the things on his site are more factual in nature and some things are more speculative. The photographs and the transcript I believe are factual in nature.

But since you bring up Ridpath's explantion of Venus and the stars, don't you at least find it interesting that Halt himself called them "starlike objects" in his "Unexplained Lights" memo and describes them as being there for hours? (If they were stars or planets he describes what is known as an autokinesis effect where the object appears to keep the same general location in the sky yet has small movements as a result of imperfections in human perception).

I would also like to know, if this thing was there for hours as Halt says, shooting down beams to the ground, and posed some kind of security threat as later portrayed in documentaries, wouldn't a competent commander have rushed back to the base or radioed the base and requested some aircraft to be scrambled to investigate? But what did Halt do? He basically takes no action, while this thing is shooting beams down to the ground for hours according to him, and two weeks later writes about it in a memo. I can tell you if I was base commander, and I saw something for hours which I thought represented a threat to security, I would have done more than wait two weeks to write a memo. I would have requested more immediate support to investigate the security threat.

If on the other hand Halt thought what he called "starlike objects" were a little bit too starlike and might in fact be stars or planets, then he might do just what he did, which was do nothing but stare at them for hours, and take no action to address any perceived security threat (like scramble aircraft). So in light of the fact that Halt calls the objects "starlike" it's actually not the worst leap I've ever seen in UFOlogy to at least pose the possibility that objects the witness describes as starlike might actually be stars. They may not have been stars or planets, but we'd have a better idea about that if Halt had some aircraft investigate them instead of just staring at them for hours.

Originally posted by IsaacKoi
My one caveat is that I'd suggest starting by outlining the available existing sources of debate and information on an incident before getting into discussions of specific points. Reinvention of the wheel within ufology is a pet peeve of mine.

Good point...I suppose there is too much re-inventing the wheel as you put it.

Originally posted by ScientificUAPer
But in relation to Arb, don't attack the messenger instead of the message, I don't think you are being objective if you don't consider the very real problems with this case.

Yes, the witnesses not agreeing with each other is a good point, and I appreciate the reminder to attack the message rather than the messenger. However I often see this as a sign of desperation when the debater has nothing of substance to offer in defending their message, so they attack the messenger. There is basically no defense of the claim the shield blocked the view of the lighthouse as witness statements clearly contradict this, so if you can't attack the message, the messenger is all that's left. I take personal attacks in cases like this as a compliment.

- Indentations in the ground that showed increased radioation levels. If these have not been 'debunked', the whole story would have to be a deliberate hoax, or there must be something more to it, after all, no?

I know hoax theories have been proposed, but I haven't found any need to subscribe to any hoax theory like the one involving the Apollo capsule used for retrieval training. I'd say the original witness statements and especially Halt's recording are good evidence...but as people changed their stories later, I don't think hoax is the most appropriate word for that. In some cases confabulation might apply (possibly with Halt's explosion which is not evidence in the audio and would almost certainly have been recorded given his painstaking efforts to record every other detail on the recording) all the way to outright lying like Penniston's little notebook...OK I guess I'd call Penniston's little notebook a hoax, if you believe Burroughs, who says Penniston is lying about that and several other things like walking around the craft for 45 minutes. Even Penniston's own statement says he never got closer than 50 meters.

But I don't really see a hoax in Penniston's original witness statement. It's the same old story you see over and over again in UFOlogy where someone sees a light at night and can't accurately estimate the distance of it, so they follow it, and yet it's always just a little further. This isn't a hoax, it's due to a perceptual difficulty people have whereby they think they can estimate the distance of an unknown light at night, and they simply can't. So I believe Penniston told the truth when he thought he got within 50 meters of the object, but I'm also convinced that he was never within 50 meters of the object. This type of thing happens over and over and over again in sighing unknown lights at night. It's completely impossible to estimate the distance accurately.

Consistent with IsaacKoi's statement about re-inventing the wheel, I think you should research the existing sources about the radiation debate and the other issues you mentioned, and yes, you missed some issues. Even if you finally conclude that Ridpath is an obsessed person who has no clue of the truth as Firemoon apparently has, you could still start with his site as it does address some issues you missed. However, I will agree with Firemoon it's biased, and to get the other side of the debate you will need to go to other sources, of which there are many.

One example of something Ridpath has documented that is often not brought up, are some facebook statements made by "Skip Buran" claiming he was the the shift commander who sent Penniston and Burroughs out to investigate, who says Cabansag's witness statement gives the best description of the lights. Even though I haven't verified Skip Buran's identity, Cabansag was definitely a key witness and his statement can be seen here:

Cabansag Witness Statement

I don't think the true believers want to believe Cabansag's witness statement, and when you find this statement posted by the OP, it even has somebody's writing on it claiming they think it was cleaned up. It's hard to face the truth when you want to believe and the facts don't support your belief, so I think that explains why it has the "cleaned up" comment in the OP version, though I have no idea who's writing that is.

Halt's commander, Col Conrad, has since spoken out too after many years of silence, but I give Cabansag's statement much more weight consistent with my statement that contemporaneous evidence is the best evidence. However, Conrad does answer questions about radiation levels, why aircraft weren't scrambled, what Penniston told him, etc here:

The Rendlesham Files