Rendlesham Forest…, A Christmas Story from 1980 - Can We ‘Let it Be’?

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: Jayceedove

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One other thing I'd like to know is why so many of the witnesses mention "Heathrow Tower" as signalling something was tracked over Bentwaters on the first night of events in a number of different TV and radio interviews. Did you ever hear anything yourself and whether the CAA were involved?

I suspect this is because of the reports made by the crew of an aircraft on the night of 25 December 1980 to the ATC about seeing something that was likely the Cosmos burn up. At least it was consistent in time with that event and so earlier than the RF sightings but on the same night.

Though, as we know, the Cosmos event is not itself exactly straightforward.

This was reported by the media in the days afterwards because many on the ground in Kent and Sussex and Essex saw the blazing debris pass from south west to north east over that area.

The aircraft related event would have gone to the MoD via the usual channels from the CAA at West Drayton. The aircraft had taken off from Stanstead in Essex and reported the object eastwards towards Felixstowe as a large explosion of light in the sky. I have been unable to find any follow up report on this.

The media alleged that Heathrow ATC also detected an anomalous target coincident with these things that was heading east broadly along the Thames but could not identify it.

But again this is only anecdotal data and no record has been found of these claims to my knowledge.

The media at the time just assumed all of this related to the 'fireball' meteor that was what was first assumed to be the cause. So nobody really pursued it at the time. BUFORA had a few eye witness accounts sent to them for that night, but they were never pursued once this was quickly revealed to likely be the Cosmos burn up, which should probably not have been low enough to get tracked on Heathrow radar - however - I would suspect.

Had the RF case been a case at that point these events might have attracted more interest but even I did not know there was a case until February when the early data came together and was not aware of the date matching the supposed Cosmos burn up for even longer. In fact I was not very sure that the first sighting occurred the same night as the Cosmos burn up until the police memo release in November 1983 and even then - because it contradicted the then just released Halt memo - not really 100% until 1989 when I met John Burroughs in Arizona and he confirmed that date was right and the Halt memo was wrong.

Then again - remember - the witnesses at Paco De Arcos claim it churned up the sea as it passed over which it certainly was not low enough to do (especially as it then cleared a high mountain range inland). So I had another anomaly that made me ask questions about the official cause of the sightings on 25/26 December. But one that was years away from us really being able to unravel due to way the witnesses were still not talking whilst in the USAF and via the non release of any of the files documenting the official data (the MoD ones not appearing until just four or five years ago and the ATC data still not out).

There was also the reference made to me by the radar operator at Watton about how their contacts up chain had referenced the prior tracking at Heathrow AND also by radar at Ash in Kent.

Once again there is no data on the Ash incident that has been released in public afaik.

So there are multiple independent sources to something here that may - or may not - be down to the Cosmos burn up.

This has all got subsumed into the RF case and we do not know to what extent it really was involved in this case - or if was all just coincidence.

Also remember that in their original (early 1981) report into the mass sightings on 25/26 December 1980 attributed to the Cosmos burn up the BAA (British Astronomical Association) first admitted their puzzlement because there were two contradictory sets of data seeming to suggest TWO objects and not just one at the point of the burn up.

But they were not in the same flight pattern - though they seem to have had a common point somewhere between the coast around Orford and Belgium. So out over the North Sea towards Europe somewhere.

They at first tried to explain these multiple sightings as one object but failed and in their later report drew conclusions only from those that matched the expected parameters of Cosmos. The rest they simply ignored as a possible second fireball event over Belgium that by chance was coincident and had just confused the data.

They had no knowledge of the report I had from Portugal, of course, which confuses things even further.

Remember that these things are all on the same night (but before) the sighting by Burroughs/Cabansag/Penniston - and that there was at least one other bright fireball seen that night.

During our investigation in the early days Brenda, Dot and I were told over and over that this event occurred during a night full of 'comets' and one of the first things John Burroughs talked to me about was the comet like events that occurred on the same night as his sighting which he believed were somehow important.

That certainly matches what the BAA found - but did not really ever pursue. Partly because they were just trying to make their data match a burn up from a rocket (that had been launched much earlier from Plesetsk) which was their main interest. And because the other stuff was also easily dismissed as either misreports, UFO hysteria or irrelevant to their calculations.

Whereas from our perspective the other stuff makes the known stuff even more intriguing. Suggesting something interesting was going on in the skies over Anglia over a several hour period that first night. Easily written off as space junk and fireball meteors and crackpot UFO sightings. Possibly all just linked together in time by chance.

Or possibly not.

a reply to: Jayceedove

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I'm rather dissapointed that there isn't another book coming. You're one of my favourite authors and my absolute favourite for all things Fortean and unexplained / unsolved!

I'd love to know more about Cobra Mist and Cold Witness. I've struggled to find anything about the latter at all, or anything about the former relating to it being anything more than an OTH radar system.

You said in an earlier post that the site that interfered with it was the launch point for some of the Cosmos vehicles. I'd always assumed that the interference was the woodpecker signal from Duga 'steel works'?

Whereas in your post it seems to be Plesetsk cosmodrome and work facility there?

For a little light relief before we plough on and Brits favourite topic of conversation.

There was a huge waterspout that developed off the Suffolk coast at the weekend. See : BBC News


photo courtesy - Michelle Fairweather

a reply to: SkywatcherUK

Graham Birdsall's UFO Magazine interviewed radar operators and did two detailed reports in the November/December 2001 and February 2002 issues

Sadly Graham is no longer with us and I don't know the status of whether copies are available anymore. However there is an interview with former RAF Watton radar operator - Nigel Kerr. He appears at 10:45 in the video below.



I know that Youtube videos can disappear fast so he basically says it was midnight when they got a call from Bentwaters (the exact date is not specified but later on it confirms that Halt went out two nights later). The command post said they'd seen bright lights around 500-1000 ft. in the air. Bentwaters wanted to know if Watton could correlate it. Kerr could see nothing unusual on standard radar. However he could also access the National Air Defence Region radar at Neatishead. It picked up an unidentified object for two sweeps, it disappeared on the third sweep, returned for a fourth and then vanished off the screen.

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a reply to: ctj83


"Brown Bears" - strange that the clandestine satellite recovery story has vanished from the narrative. I always associated the "Bear" as being a Soviet/Russian bomber not a satellite. I wonder.........

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a reply to: Jayceedove

Jenny it's been great to see you have had time to add so much of your own insight to this enormous thread. Especially as you are now a full time carer.The term 'veteran' was meant as a compliment to your vast experience in the field. None of us are getting any younger alas! I also enjoyed listening to you on John Burrough's radio show a while back.

I actually think we've reached a point where some of the more 'controversial' elements of the RFI story can be put to one side due to recent exposure. But the real truth is still eluding us because there are still so many loose ends.


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a reply to: infomaniachousewife

Sacha, all I can say is welcome back. I trust you are still in one piece and your throat and spine are where they always were located on your anatomy?

I realize some of this is a lot more personal to you than many others. I know I've been sarcastic and poked fun a lot in this thread as well. But putting that all to one side, Larry's story evaporates with every passing day to all but the blind. Trying to see it all from a more detached viewpoint I am wondering whether we can give him some credit for drawing attention to the case on one hand whilst considering how much damage he has done to it in these past 36 years?

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See you all again sooner or later

Very interesting video, Mirageman.

In the video, at 15:08 Halt states:

”When we arrived there were about 20 to 30 men milling around, they could see a bright area where this alleged landing had taken place.”

‘This alleged landing’ must have been the sighting by Battram, not the one of the first night. Why else re-investigate a site in the pitch dark that has already been there for two days? And why so curious about the radiation levels when approaching it:

“LT COLONEL HALT: OK, we're now approaching an area within about twenty five, thirty feet. What kind of readings are we getting, anything?
SGT NEVELS: Just minor clicks.
LT. COLONEL HALT: Minor clicks?”

It supports the timeline (starting at ‘----Night of 27/28 December:---‘):

- Battram and his men see strange lights in the sky and somewhat later they see the lights ‘like a fire’ in the forest.
- They notify Bustinza, ask for permission to investigate and go into the forest.

- In the meantime, Bustinza collects Ball and Englund to head that way, too.

- Battram and his men see “a series of lights in a clearing surrounded by like a ground fog”.
- They run back out because of the static electricity and run into Englund’s patrol.

- Halt is called and is rushed to the site (according to Conrad, Halt ‘went back to the forest early morning’).
- There, at around 01:00 (not exactly dinner time..) Halt starts to investigate the site where Battram saw the lights.

The 'interruption at a Christmas dinner' story just doesn't fit the start time of the Halt tape. As analysed in the timeline, this interruption was not an interruption at all – it was Englund and Nevels who reported back from a top secret investigation in the forest ordered by Conrad, as Nevels told in an interview.

originally posted by: ctj83
a reply to: Jayceedove

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I'm rather dissapointed that there isn't another book coming. You're one of my favourite authors and my absolute favourite for all things Fortean and unexplained / unsolved!

I'd love to know more about Cobra Mist and Cold Witness. I've struggled to find anything about the latter at all, or anything about the former relating to it being anything more than an OTH radar system.

You said in an earlier post that the site that interfered with it was the launch point for some of the Cosmos vehicles. I'd always assumed that the interference was the woodpecker signal from Duga 'steel works'?

Whereas in your post it seems to be Plesetsk cosmodrome and work facility there?

Cannot recall the exact source but in one of the papers on the demise of Cobra Mist there was reference to suspicions that the interference was being engineered from (or by) Plesetsk because they were afraid of the array being able to track launches too well. But I do not think the origin point of the interference was ever really identified.

As for book writing. Thank you for your kind words. I do miss writing as between 1976 and 2004 I published 50 books and was under contract for a couple of more that I had to repay the advances when it became impossible to go ahead.

But my priorities changed in 2003 when my mum had a massive stroke, was in a coma for several weeks and in hospital for nine months. I was no longer with my ex (who sadly then died). So I arranged for her to come and live with me when she was released from hospital in early 2004. Since then my day has revolved pretty much around looking after her and I do not regret it for one moment. But it has meant I can no longer get around anywhere to do lectures (which I used to do often and freely), any media stuff, book tours and the like.

So I have not travelled any distance at all now in the past 12 years. I did a three day tour for my book about the Isle of Man whilst mum was in hospital in November 2003. But I could not go to the states to promote my book about time machines when it appeared in 2004. I was persuaded to do something for Channel 5 after they pestered and arranged a nurse to look after mum whilst agreeing to film close to my house. But they overran considerably and mum got very distressed as the nurse was panicking to get to another job. So I decided there and then that would be the last.

I have not been on a plane or left the UK since 1999 or gone anywhere in the UK really since 2003.

I look on it positively - though - because I was rather churning books out and finding it more difficult not to repeat myself. So I think the break has been helpful. I am glad I have had the opportunity to do my regular pierces for FT and I also contributed material to an encyclopedia a few years ago. I have written a couple of forewords to books as well.

My regular co author Peter Hough and I have considered self publishing something that we started to work on back in 2003, but he has developed his career in other directions and mostly now writes and self publishes horror fiction - which was always one of his loves. But we might get around to this when he has the time as Peter could always then do any PR necessary.

As mentioned in another post over the past six months I have been working with a witness to help him tell the story of his own close encounter - something he really wanted to get down for his family but that may yet appear as a proper book.

So I have inched my way back into writing and may do another book if the chance arises. Never say never. Despite being a 'veteran' at 64 I do not yet feel like one! Oh - and don't worry - I was not offended being called this. It sort of sneaks up on us all, it would seem.

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: SkywatcherUK

Graham Birdsall's UFO Magazine interviewed radar operators and did two detailed reports in the November/December 2001 and February 2002 issues

Sadly Graham is no longer with us and I don't know the status of whether copies are available anymore. However there is an interview with former RAF Watton radar operator - Nigel Kerr. He appears at 10:45 in the video below.

Just to clarify this is NOT the same ATC at Watton that I spoke with about RF in 1981 and contacted again more recently. He is referring to the events on 25/26 December - whereas the person I spoke with was on duty on the night of the Halt encounters. But did describe the incident on the first night as relayed to him by others working that night.

The experience of the ATC that I spoke with was similar - as in no radar contacts matching what Bentwaters tower were seeing and then using the better definition radar at Neatishead that was operated from Watton to look closer. But this time seeing nothing to back up what Bentwaters tower was reporting.





a reply to: Jayceedove

Jenny it's been great to see you have had time to add so much of your own insight to this enormous thread. Especially as you are now a full time carer.The term 'veteran' was meant as a compliment to your vast experience in the field. None of us are getting any younger alas! I also enjoyed listening to you on John Burrough's radio show a while back.

I actually think we've reached a point where some of the more 'controversial' elements of the RFI story can be put to one side due to recent exposure. But the real truth is still eluding us because there are still so many loose ends. ]]

I would not disagree with these comments.

I only agreed to do the radio show because John asked. I am convinced he has been giving an honest account of what they saw from the start and when I met him in Phoenix in 1989 he had been 'warned off' reading Sky Crash by others as they said it was all rubbish. I told him it was only partly rubbish and some of it was true. He would know the difference.

He read the book that night and said he was surprised that there was more that was on the money in there and he could easily tell what parts had been fed out to us by people uninvolved or simply passing on base gossip.

Of course, he also saw, as we by then did, that we had carried testimony from Jim Penniston in Sky Crash - well before he went public. We had used the pseudonym Archer for him in the book as he was very wary of being identified in 1983. But having his account on record so early was very important to correlate with his accounts later when he went public as a number of the things that sceptics suggest are confabulations were in his account at the start. His basic story was consistent and stands out a mile from some of the other accounts in the book.

Halt had also been quite forthcoming at times - partly because he was very surprised that we got hold of his memo in Summer 1983 (as he said he had been assured by the MoD this would not be released). Also, I think, because he was personally very torn between wanting to talk about his experiences with someone who understood the subject and yet being pretty well tied down by his position and unable to do so in any way on the record.

Added to the UK witnesses we had talked to there was a kernel of truth in Sky Crash surrounded by a lot of tosh. I knew that very well when I met John and he saw it right away.

When we talked - from the measured way he explained his story, his obvious conviction, lack of desire to speculate wildly and yet very easy to detect bafflement about the whole experience told me all that I needed to know. This was not all a case of misperception.

There may well have been a lot of misperception going on and there was certainly a lot of BS around. But John made me believe that a real UFO encounter had occurred at the heart of this case - whatever one of those was!

By 1989 I still had no clear idea of even basic facts such as the dates - but he confirmed everything I needed to know in very matter of fact non exaggerated terms and most of it matched my best guesses at that point. Notably the dates, which he confirmed that Halt had screwed up on the memo to the MoD.

This error, of course, mislead the MoD in their search for data as they spent weeks chasing records on the wrong nights.

By the time I met John I was starting to become very sceptical about the case. Being in the forest at night back before it was destroyed had shown me how odd the lighthouse and the lightship could look through trees. Whilst I still had a hard time making it fit in with the story I could certainly see how it might have compromised some of the witnesses who had flocked to the woods and possibly never been out there at night before.

John changed all that. So I was not going to say no for his sake like I had done to many others asking me to do things over the past decade.

edit on 8-3-2016 by Springer because: (no reason given)

a reply to: Guest101

If there really was an object of some sort that was flying around the forest of three nights then I think it would be fair to assume that there might be more than one landing site.

Halt's Christmas dinner awards party story about Lt. Englund turning up 'white as a sheet' stating the UFO's back is also contradicted in some ways by Colonel Ted Conrad's statements.

Here is how Dr. David Clarke summarized events after speaking to Colonel Ted Conrad in 2009.


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Friday Dec 26 1980

0300 GMT Lights seen in Rendlesham forest
0310 Penniston, Burroughs, Cabansag sent to investigate
0411 Amn Armold, CSA calls Suffolk police
0430 Approx termination of forest sojourn
0700 SP shift ended
1900 Suffolk police revisit 'landing site’ (unimpressed)
2130 SPs arrive at party, ‘they’re back’; Lt Col Halt commences ride along with shift leader

Saturday Dec 27 1980

0230 Halt returns home after seeing nothing unusual
0730 Col Conrad and Major Zickler talk about previous day’s events, blotter entries etc
0930 Sgt Penniston gives narrative of events on 26 December, interviewed by Col Conrad
1100 Team identified, briefed on investigative efforts, including Lt Col Halt ,SPinvestigators, SSgt Nevels as Geiger counter and Starlight scope operators and photographer
1330 Col Conrad visits ‘landing site’
2200 Personnel still in place, including Lt Col Halt

Sunday, Dec 28 1980

0200 Halt begins reporting by radio 2nd set of sightings. No lights or objects seen by Woodbridge residents who were outside looking. Alerted SP’s at Bentwaters, but they saw nothing unusual.

Source : drdavidclarke.co.uk...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conrad's timeline shifts things around a little ;

1) It has Halt as being called out on the Friday night (the 26th - Boxing Day) from the awards party. This is supposedly the night Bonnie Tamplin was traumatized by a blue sphere/orb/light flying through the windscreen of her patrol vehicle. Yet he claims to have not heard about it until 2009/10.

2) Penniston was interviewed by Conrad on the 27th . The same date he wrote in his notebook. Was he actually on duty still? Or was he specially called in by Conrad to give a statement?

I probably need to try and summarize and recollect where we are up to soon. But we're over 2000 posts in this thread now.

a reply to: Jayceedove

Thanks Jenny. I think by 1989 I had almost forgotten about the RFI case. I remember the NOTW Headline because I was delivering the newspapers that autumn morning in 1983. It wasn't until 'Unsolved Mysteries' aired on Sky 1 and then 'Strange But True' on ITV in the first half of the 1990s that my interest was piqued once again.

I've always found it interesting that John B was involved on both main nights of this case. I don't know if that is a very important part of the whole story or just a coincidence?

But it was also John who first made me aware (via a Paracast radio show) that there was in fact a middle night of the 26th/27th December when a female shift commander Lt. Bonnie Tamplin ventured off base.

Here is what John said (slightly paraphrased by me) :

"This it how it played out on the second night...when I got home I callled my parents and told them what I saw. Then my dad, he'd been in the military, told me the best thing I could do was not talk about it. Because if you can't explain what you saw you are better off not talking about it. So I went home stayed up a little bit and then I went to sleep. It was later than normal when we got home as we were out in the woods checking the area. So it was early afternoon.

I slept basically from then until early morning, 2 or 3am in the morning. All of a sudden I woke and I felt like something had just happened or happened again. Whatever it was it seemed to come back. So I got up, got cleaned up, I didn't have a car but in England you could hitch. So I got up, I went out. I lived by a roundabout and hitched up to the base. I got to the base probably a little after 6 in the morning, went up to the desk and sure enough when I saw the desk Sergeant he gave a little crack about 'Whatever you saw last night was back tonight!'. He went into a little story about how again they'd seen lights out in the forest.

They sent the shift commander out. She went out into the woods to see what the lights were again and her vehicle stalled out. It quit running. Whatever it was some kind of blue light flew through her vehicle. She totally lost her composure as it had upset her a lot and they sent her home for the evening. At that point I decided I was going to go back out that night and see what went on....I hung out with some guys at the dorm. At that time we had no idea there was going to be another incident."

I believe it was on this particular show : Link Paracast 21st June 2009 and John's comments above are just after 22 min into the broadcast. John is also mildly critical of Colonel Halt's jumbling things up in his memo.


So if I can indulge you further in this conversation, do you have any knowledge of this little known about night?

Did John ever mention it to you?

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: Guest101

Halt's Christmas dinner awards party story about Lt. Englund turning up 'white as a sheet' stating the UFO's back is also contradicted in some ways by Colonel Ted Conrad's statements.

Here is how Dr. David Clarke summarized events after speaking to Colonel Ted Conrad in 2009.
[...]

This timeline is more complete and more precise because it is based on lots of sources (including Conrad), not just Conrad’s memories. I think the times in the ‘precise timeline’ from Conrad must be taken with a grain of salt, as Conrad himself said: “It is based on Halt’s letter and my own rather tenuous recollections of those days.”

1100 Team identified, briefed on investigative efforts, including Lt Col Halt ,SPinvestigators, SSgt Nevels as Geiger counter and Starlight scope operators and photographer

This investigation on the 27th was carried out by Nevels, as he told in this recorded interview. (Note that the title of the interview mentions the events took place on the 26th, but in the interview itself the 27th is given as the correct date.)
Nevels was accompanied by Englund and remembers it started at around 16:00, not 11:00.

Englund picked up Nevels at his home around that time, and told him the following things:

- ‘I’m here because I was sent by the Base Commander Col. Ted Conrad.’
- ‘what I’m about to say is TOP SECRET.’
- ‘the London tower on December 25 to 26, when all this started, contacted the tower at Woodbridge base and asked them to identify the object that was above them because it was on their radar and they could not determine what it was.’
- ‘one of the airmen had been taken aboard the spacecraft’
- ‘it’s my orders – they are down at the Woodbridge Officer’s Club and they are having a party down there. And when we get through on our investigation, Col. Conrad will be waiting for us and we have to go back and you report to him what you saw.’

Nevels also tells what happened during their investigation of the landing site in the forest, which lasted until early evening of the 27th:

- ‘When we got back in the jeep and slowly headed back towards the East Gate, on the way I looked over to my left and saw the bright light in the forest.’
- ‘What the light would do is sit there pulsating.’
- ‘When I got out [of the jeep], the lights got brighter. It was just like they knew I was there.’
- ‘By that time, I had electrostatic charge all over my head and arms and everything. I knew something was wrong.’
- ‘I got scared, too, because I didn’t know what I was looking at.’
- ‘Finally I just said, 'OK, now we can go.' And we went back to the Woodbridge Officer's Club.’

Englund and Nevels reported back at the Woodbridge Officer's Club and this started the investigation with Halt in charge. Logically, they would report that ‘the UFO is back’; maybe something similar was reported the evening before, as Conrad remembers.

Conrad fails to mention why Halt went back at around 01:00. This must have been because of the sighting mentioned by Battram as well as Bustinza.

Conrad also fails to mention why he ordered a top secret investigation on the 27th and called Penniston to his office that day. After all, the events of 25/26 had already been investigated the day before, even involving the Suffolk police who were called to the site at 10:30 (not 19:00).

Something new must have happened to trigger a subsequent top secret investigation by Nevels. Logically, the events on the night of 26/27, involving Bonnie Tamplin, must have been the reason for this more thorough investigation. These events took place at night, possibly after Halt had left the forest (if he was there at all on the evening of the 26th).

Some of the stories about lights passing through vehicles (and a tree trunk at one point) were circulating around the base in the first months after the case - before it was in the public domain at all. Which I think would be my brief note in FSR (Flying Saucer Review) in March 1981, promising a fuller account - which I provided early in 1982 - and a reference to the case that I gave in an interview with the London Evening Standard in May 1981.

But that there were such stories around before even these modest first steps of public awareness beyond the base is worth noting.

As for John Burroughs being involved in both nights. We knew that early too, as Halt told us about someone who had been 'lured' into the woods because of a sense that the UFO was going to return and how hard it was to get his head back round because of this. We put this in Sky Crash before John ever talked - though at that stage we did not know who Halt was talking about.

During those early days I believe John talked to Adrian Bustinza and I know that Ray Boeche and Scot Colborne did a lot of work phoning Adrian in 1984 trying to get accounts out of him. HIs story seemed to slot somewhere in between the two main sightings and John being out there although the time line was never that clear and he was then reluctant to talk.

But what he did say had echoes of what John was saying - in particular about the amorphous nature of the object, the curtains of light, energy beams and the EM field that created physiological effects on those in close proximity.

Here is what I said over 20 years ago from what John said.

'John Burroughs was not finding it quite so easy to forget. After being up all night thanks to his encounter he slept soundly but awoke with a curious feeling. (Quote: "I got this funny feeling that something might have come back. I could not get it out of my mind. It bothered me and was almost like a presentiment. I went back to the forest but the feeling intensified."

It was around then that Adrian Bustinza seems to have seen things and when the civilian witness Sarah Richardson (then only 12) told us what she saw from the bedroom window of her mum's house on the edge of the forest.

She saw what at first she thought were fireworks. Then put her head out of the open window to watch closer. She was very used to the lighthouses and searchlights used from time to time and seeing helicopters, trucks and other things used on exercises. That night was very different. She said the light from these things in the sky was 'very intense but kind of unreal'. They were three bands of star like light penetrating the sky from just beyond the Woodbridge runway end.

"They were solid. No moon was shining on them but (the lights) were kind of metallic. But the oddest thing was the colour changes - blue, green, yellow and so on."

She says they were present between around 1 and 3 am and then 'just shot straight off and disappeared'.

Having locals like this testify to the oddity of the events going on that weekend was important but I know some people have argued that she just saw the alleged hoax claimed to have been set up using lights by Conde.

Sarah did tell us that

"I know for a fact that there are more people who have seen things but they will not come forward because they are scared."

originally posted by: Jayceedove

But what he did say had echoes of what John was saying - in particular about the amorphous nature of the object, the curtains of light, energy beams and the EM field that created physiological effects on those in close proximity.

Well, morphing lights that travel through the air have been proven to exist. They have been filmed by scientists, by their automatic observation station at Hessdalen (see first movie clip below).

But the Big Question is, was there a solid craft?
The landing traces and Halt’s memo seem to suggest this, but the only witnesses who reported a solid craft were Penniston, Warren, and Bustinza (in his phone interview with Fawcett).

Penniston and Warren have been exposed earlier in this thread, and Bustinza told three different stories, his last one did not involve a solid craft at all. So the evidence for anything solid grows thin… or do you have information on this that we missed, Jenny?
And do you think the Rendlesham event and the Hessdalen lights might be related?

Below a few official videos from the Hessdalen scientists that give an impression of the strange phenomena at Hessdalen. All these movie clips can also be found and downloaded on the official Hessdalen site.

a reply to: Guest101

This timeline is more complete and more precise because it is based on lots of sources (including Conrad), not just Conrad’s memories. I think the times in the ‘precise timeline’ from Conrad must be taken with a grain of salt, as Conrad himself said: “It is based on Halt’s letter and my own rather tenuous recollections of those days.”

I agree and even Clarke questions the timeline...

I can only speculate what went on in the SP squadron during the day [that followed, i.e. 26 December]. There must have been some concern over what to do about the sighting in terms of investigation and reporting. I believe the SP’s decided to keep everything low key, this being indicated by a change to the blotter entry concerning that early morning time frame. In any event, no notification or report was made to anyone above Major Malcolm Zickler, SP Squadron Commander, until late that evening.

“Sometime between 2100 and 2200 on [26 December?] members of the Woodbridge SP shift appeared at a Christmas party at the O’Club where Lt Col Halt and myself were in attendance. They reported the events of the previous night and thinking there might be a recurrence, Halt decided to ride along with the shift leader, which he did. Aside from that, nothing unusual happened.

So it's possible his memory is faulty and he got his days mixed up. But his memory of the awards night is that Halt went riding with the shift commander and nothing happened. So was Halt out there on the night of the 26th into the morning of the 27th? The night Lt. Tamplin became highly stressed. Did this trigger further top secret investigations?

Conrad then goes on to say:

“The rest of [27 December 1980] saw Lt Col Halt assemble our meagre assets. These were a Geiger counter, starlight scope (night vision device) and trained SP investigators out at the site in Rendlesham Forest. The investigation lasted until late evening where the site was starlight scoped, after which all went home except Lt Col Halt and some unknown SP’s. This was the night of Halt’s famous audiotape. He also had a two-way communication radio, which allowed me, and the SP’s to monitor his reports.”

Halt's memo is wrong because of his supposedly faulty memory. Conrad (who had 30 years longer in fairness) seems to suffer the same problem. If Conrad is correct then Halt knew full well what must have happened to Lt. Tamplin. If not then it is strange he recalls Halt venturing out with the Shift Commander the night of the 26th (who should have been Tamplin!). There is something that doesn't quite fit there.

It's a piece of minutiae but suggests to me that perhaps that something significant happened on that 2nd night . Something more than we've been told.

a reply to: Jayceedove

If I remember Skycrash correctly, Halt not only says that an airman was returning to the woods each night hoping to see it, but also that one of the airmen climbed the craft.

This is something Burroughs has always denied but isn't it odd that Warren is in video making the same claim?

Also Jenny, did you ever consider the following connections:

- the electrical disturbances in particular with TVs at RFI and also at Ripperston Farm around the time of Broadhaven? It's worth noting that there was a secret sonar net station nearby, not 100% the same as Cobra Mist but a detection system none the less.

- Shag Harbour. An orange sphere, similar in size to Richard D Hall's estimate of the Berwyn sphere was seen just before the incident. Just like the orange sphere seen at RFI. There was an odd yellow ground fog at RFI, a yellow foam at Shag. Again, this was near a US (in Canada) submarine monitoring station.

- Orange spheres
- yellow foam or ground mist
- US military installation
- coastal position
- electrical interference (eddy currents? 110v running over portion of national grid ?)

a reply to: mirageman

I think this is where the extended tape Jenny was told about and the it's a m(achine) quote from halt night originate from.

originally posted by: HUMBLEONE ...the answer which popped into my head was "we are anthropologist 's".

"We are anthropologist 's"

That is great!

My cats have telepathy and I am sure we have it too. It's just that the creator gods made it latent when they worked on our prehistoric ancestors.

a reply to: ctj83

Am I wrong in presuming you're thinking that the electromagnetic waves caused by these installations are interfering with our earths atmosphere causing visible phenomena?

Makes me wonder ...

Really enjoying that this topic is back on track after the 'soap-like intermission'.

a reply to: zeroPointOneQ

That's one of the possibilities that I think is most likely, or something very similar.

I'm thinking that near most of these events are stations that pump out vast amounts of electromagnetic radiation to monitor activity. Often, they are near a nuclear power source - which I've never understood why? As a way to boost power? Insurance against the regular power grid going down? The orange balls and yellow mist / foam occur at quite a few events. We are never very far from the coast either?

Speculation

I'd also propose the following - although how it fits in with the above I don't know :

- In the US a network of infiltration was built up in the Urological community. It initially involved Bill Moore feeding Paul Bennewitz part of a disinformation campaign. Moore has claimed three other prominent ufologists were also involved.
This core group added to the crash at Roswell, brought us MJ12 of our DNA being altered, underground bases and ended with Serpo. I'm not saying if any of these have true origins or not, only that we know this group worked on embellishing existing tales. Strong use of Science Fiction tropes (usually TV Sci Fi)

- At the same time, in the UK, a right wing UFO group, APEN emerged. Comprised of some of the top of the field researchers, identities were hidden and intimidation was used to bring ufologists into line. I believe that Jenny Randles was identified as just such a rogue researcher and repeatedly targeted. This group also, apparently had connections with non Republican Irish dissidents and even an attempted coup in the UK! Again, TV SciFi is used. This group is supplanted and destroyed by UK police.


Questions And False Assumptions?

- Why was the rogue soviet space probe angle pushed so heavily? Why has it been so persistent in RFI?
- Why does no one consider that if Moore and THREE other ufologists were 'under control' in the US that it didn't happen in the UK?
- It's clear to me that Jenny Randles was repeatedly targeted with both carrot and stick. Surely this was a failed attempt to create a UK Moore?
- Is it possible that there is a connection between one of the incarnations of APEN and an attempt to control UK ufologists? Who else, other than Randles received packages or threats from APEN?
- I'm not sure it matters who was targeted, but rather what they then introduced in terms of ideas?

Therefore:

- Could whoever or whatever controlled the US community in the 70s and 80s also achieved a similar end in the UK that has never been uncovered?
- Is this why MJ12 documents were pushed to both US and UK researchers, across this network (I'll call it PROSPERO as in inside joke)

PROSPERO - Who & Why?

This 'group' seems to attempt to control ufologists involved in major crash incidents and encounters:

- near coastal areas
- often involving some kind of plasma like lights
- orange spheres
- yellow particles in some sort of agitation or suspension
- near military basis using high powered monitoring devices
- often those bases are near nuclear power plants

The 'Aviary' of the US might be one aspect of this group. Where is the UK control function? Who were the other Moore like characters?

A Proposal No One Will Like

What if Richard Doty (and others), whilst working for the US Air Force, went far above and beyond what they were supposed to do? What if they were controlled and manipulated and the head of the 'PROSPERO' network is not governmental at all? What if it's not people of any power or influence, simply a group of people who are also curious?

a reply to: ctj83

In the US a network of infiltration was built up in the Urological community. It initially involved Bill Moore feeding Paul Bennewitz part of a disinformation campaign.

Now that is taking the p***. Auto-correction?



I'm not sure about the theory of a clandestine group without power or influence trying to control ufology. Firstly if they are 'curious' why would they try to control various UFO stories and put out false information such as MJ12?

Secondly to manipulate AFOSI agents like Doty from inside the machination of the US DoD would require some power and influence. The MJ-12 papers are almost certainly fakes but someone put serious effort into producing them to make them at least look authentic. Someone who must have had access to the whereabouts of people and a lot of 'genuine' documents to crib from.

I think there's the workings of an interesting theory in there but it probably needs some refinement.