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

originally posted by: data5091
a reply to: mirageman

I don't think its a mystery at all. Its clear that an object, unidentified and extraterrestrial in nature, came down in a very sensitive military area, which was most likely spying/observing the weapons systems as lots of ufo's seem to do, and was seen by many, high ranking officers from within the Air Force. It continued to come back at least two more times. It had physical and mental effects on at least the 2 A.F. Officers who came into close contact with it.

If you've read through the thread and any other sources and came to that conclusion then that's fine. I personally don' t think it's absolutely clear (especially that something extra-terrestrial landed) even whether anything landed at all. I do think something out of the ordinary happened though. However the evidence and witness testimony has to be believed or dismissed depending on our own evaluations.

Let us all know what you think of the book once you've read it through.

a reply to: mirageman
Agree that there is no hard evidence that anything landed at all. Only the myths that have built up since the event suggest that.

I used to be quite intrigued by this case (partly through reading Pope's book in the 1990s) but it now seems to me that it was just a lighthouse beam, and possibly a fireball sighting too.

a reply to: Rob48

Yes, a fireball and a moving lighthouse that someone, it now transpires from the British security services, thought it was worth asking people in the local area about, before Halt had even written his report. Happens every day of the week that does, I'm sure. Unless of course, Thurkettle is lying, only that poses the problem, if he is lying and given it was he not Ridpath who originated the whole lighthouse hypothesis, then that surely brings into question his whole part in this story and nothing he has said can be taken as truthful?

a reply to: FireMoon
Yes Thurkettle can't keep his story straight, you're right about that, and Penniston is even worse about that.

Penniston's story grows faster than the old fisherman whose fish gets bigger each time he re-tells the story. First he says he didn't get very close to the craft, then later he's touching it, then this notebook appears, then he's got codes that make no sense; it's a pretty transparent "fish-tale" to anybody who looks at it objectively to see how the story has changed.

Even Halt changed his story when he realized it was the lighthouse, according to the direction he gave in his earlier version of the story. So now his latest version of the story makes the direction NOT the lighthouse, but unfortunately for him his earlier statements are on record which he can't change, and they indicate it was the lighthouse.

So yeah, pleanty of inconsistencies to go around in this case.

Ridpath seems fairly consistent to me though

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Yes Ridpath seems very consistent, apart from lying about being an astronomer and consistently aligning himself with a known and proven purveyor of disinformation.

a reply to: FireMoon
Where did he say he was an astronomer? Here's what his bio page says:

www.ianridpath.com...

I have been a full-time writer, editor, broadcaster, and lecturer on astronomy and space since 1972.

www.ianridpath.com...

I have investigated a number of UFO cases that have attracted my interest, most notably the celebrated Rendlesham Forest UFO case of 1980, sometimes known as the “British Roswell”. I produced the first full explanation of all the major aspects of this case. As an amateur astronomer, my main interest has been the way in which astronomical phenomena can give rise to UFO reports.

Calling yourself an amateur astronomer is a pretty hard thing to lie about since all you have to do is buy a telescope and look at some stars through it to call yourself that, but he's obviously much more accomplished than that in the field of astronomy if you read about his other accomplishments.

Also, I have no idea who you are talking about that he's aligned himself with, but maybe you're attacking his friends since you can't attack the facts about the Rendlesham Forest case on his website?

a reply to: Arbitrageur

In every interview he's given in any documentary Ridpath is introduced as "The Astronomer" Ian Ridpath. In a documentary I watched only the other night. "Astronomer Ian Ridpath, the man who first claimed ,It was nothing but the lighthouse". He's spent 30 years misleading people about his credentials so why should anything on his website be taken as in anyway unbiased and factual? Sorry, you can't slag the likes of Lazar off and then support Ridpath when at least Lazar can prove some of what he claims.

Neither can one take the word of any person who closely aligns them self with a person who was proven to have flat out lied about a witness statement in the "Sheffield Incident" and whose closest colleague had admitted to being a hoaxer.

Ridpath also was either being a complete idiot or he was flat out lying about the "Boston Stump Incident". A genuine professional astronomer had already said on camera. "Given the time of the original lighting there was no chance it could have been Venus that was being reported" and his usual disinformation colleague trotted out how "it was the Boston Stump showing as a Radar reflection" despite a professional meteorologist having said on camera. "The problem with the idea of a radar reflection caused by a temperature inversion was that, the conditions that night were the exact opposite of those that cause temperature inversions"

So, Ridpath, either a complete fool or, quite deliberately misleading people with his analysis.

a reply to: mirageman

I will do that. I must say, so far its quite interesting. I have read additional information about the experiences that I was not aware of before, specifically related to the initial encounters with the ufo and light beams, and light alls that did not function and what not....

a reply to: FireMoon
I don't think the professional meteoroligist has much credibility making a statement like that which shows extreme ignorance about inversions. There are multiple conditions that result in thermal inversions so the statement "exact opposite of those that cause temperature inversions" shows ignorance by ignoring that there are multiple causes of such inversions, so you can have conditions that are opposite needed for one type of inversion, but can still get the inversion from other causes.

I don't know much of the details of this case but I found this article:
drdavidclarke.co.uk...

PC Leyland and his colleagues decided their UFO was a star or a planet, an identification that was later confirmed by astronomers at the Royal Greenwich Observatory. In their report to the RAF, the observatory said that Venus, the source of many previous UFO reports, had been shining with exceptional brilliance in the early morning sky to the east, probably explained the light on the video. Astronomer Ian Ridpath identified the other colourful flashing object seen from Skegness earlier as the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, low on the horizon to the southeast. Another bright star, Vega, explained the lights seen in the opposite direction by the tanker crew. He explained that impression of rotating colours as a well known optical phenomenon resulting from light from stars distorted by the atmosphere.

That says Ridpath identified Sirius. Well anybody should be able to look at Stellarium on that date and see if Ridpath was right. I don't see where his opinion on that was even challenged (though apparently the Venus explanation attributed to others was challenged by the same caliber of people who think Rendlesham forest was not a lighthouse when even the original witness reports make it obvious that the lighthouse was involved because they said they followed the light and ended up at a lighhouse):

the RAF ordered a full investigation that occupied a senior Air Defence officer full time for eight working days. He took the unusual of step of interviewing key witnesses for his 23 page report, completed in November 1996. This concluded the RAF’s low key reaction was fully justified. Although not all the light phenomena could be fully explained “research has not revealed evidence that alarming or extraordinary events were being witnessed” and there was no justification to order the scramble of RAF assets to intercept any UFOs.

The idea that Boston Stump, the planet Venus and assorted stars could have been responsible for the UFO scare was dismissed as absurd by many who saw these explanations as further evidence of a cover-up.

One East Anglian resident, in a letter to his local newspaper, drew parallels between the Boston Stump and the Orfordness lighthouse which had been used to explain the sightings in RAF Woodbridge 15 years earlier.

Well that tells me a lot, deniers of the Rendlesham lighthouse connection also want to deny the more prosaic explanations for the Boston Stump incident.

And what's the big deal about Boston stump with this ho-hum capture of the video that actually does look like a star or planet:

It doesn't look like much to get excited about, and at least the lighthouse in Rendlesham Forest was flashing, so a little more exciting than stars or planets.

By the way, very few people understand the science of temperature inversions, and even professional meteorologists often don't understand the optical and other effects, but this guy's website explains a lot of what the meteorologists don't know:

mintaka.sdsu.edu...
For example, even if conditions are opposite those for inferior mirages you can still have superior mirages, as explained in the link. Also thermal inversions of one cause or another are far more common than most people realize.

I was looking ahead the other day to some of the many appealing sounding chapters in this interesting read, and found myself looking at the last page and this was a copy of a letter sent to President Obama a year ago this month, which is signed by 6 former members of the U.S. Congress in an appeal for both Penniston and Mr. Burroughs to get a copy of their medical records from the Dept. of Veteran affairs. I find the silence speaks volumes about this case. Both Penniston and Burroughs suffer today still from their encounter with the ufo back in 1980.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Why do you insist of quoting third hand rubbish and posting it as if it's the genuine article? The facts remains, whether you or any number of people who weren't there claim, the original sighting was shortly after 2 am on an October morning and Venus cannot be seen at that time in the morning and can certainly not be seen some 30 degrees above the horizon. Do you actually understand that? That is a cold hard scientific fact and no amount of quoting utterly irrelevant sources to justify your claims will change that unassailable fact.

Secondly, the old "experts are only experts when they agree with the sceptics who use third hand knowledge and often completely false data to draw their conclusions", argument. I understand enough about meteorology to know that, squally, windy, intermittent showers and clear periods are not the conditions temperature inversions appear under and no amount of quoting sources you don't actually truly understand will change that either.

A local news crew followed up the story the day after and interviewed a Professional astronomer and Professional Meteorologist and you come back with the usual blather about people who weren't there and were given false data. I posted the video on here some years ago now and still you refuse to accept the facts instead of Clark and Ridpath's misinformation.

Clarke is proven purveyor of misinformation, between he Roberts and the other joker, whose name escapes me right now, they have managed to turn BUFORA into an absolute laughing stock whose talks and presentations are now lamentably badly attended as no-one in the field trusts a word they say any more.

a reply to: FireMoon

I am no expert with Stellarium and so I may have made an error and am willing to be corrected.

The Boston Stump incident was first reported at around 2am in the morning and Venus does not become visible on the horizon until sometime after 3am.

On that particular night it seems to be around 3:15am


click pic above for full screenshot from Stellarium.

There is no way of it being visible at 2:00am from Eastern England when first reports were being made.

Now back to the Rendlesham case.

originally posted by: data5091

I was looking ahead the other day to some of the many appealing sounding chapters in this interesting read, and found myself looking at the last page and this was a copy of a letter sent to President Obama a year ago this month, which is signed by 6 former members of the U.S. Congress in an appeal for both Penniston and Mr. Burroughs to get a copy of their medical records from the Dept. of Veteran affairs. I find the silence speaks volumes about this case. Both Penniston and Burroughs suffer today still from their encounter with the ufo back in 1980.

This is a very odd development in the case. I know Nick Pope speaks a lot about the bureaucratic errors that happen within government and the military. The fact that both Penniston and Burroughs have developed medical problems is not particularly damning evidence that anything happened to them at Bentwaters in 1980.

However the fact that their military medical records are now the subject of so much secrecy and controversy does indeed pose a lot of questions about what may have happened to them.

I'm going to see if there are any references in the Condign report that are cryptically referenced in the book. Although I may be some time on that one!

a reply to: FireMoon

Venus was close to Regulus in Leo and rising at about 3 am. The Boston police, at 5:17 am, gave the object as "40 to 45 degrees up in the sky." So not Venus or Sirius.

very impressed by Popes' book thus far. I am already about halfway through. He has just talked about all the debunking theories, including the obvious ones related to the lighthouse, drinking, drugs, shrooms and what have you. Then he talks about "exotic theories". Like I mentioned before there is some info that I have read about this case that I was not aware of before, and its difficult to stop reading.

a reply to: data5091

Let me know if you come to the same conclusion I did once you've read it through.

That is that Nick Pope is hinting that the 'Condign report' contains something very relevant to what happened at Rendlesham. Even though he doesn't quite spell out what the 'phenomenon' was for some reason. Why I don't know? It can't be Nick Pope hiding behind his 'security oaths' as the documents are all readily and freely available here:

Condign report

a reply to: mirageman

Hi Mirageman,

UFO’s have been related to plasma’s since the 60’s. The Condign report is another report pointing out this relationship.

Basically, plasma is air that glows by supplying some form of energy, such as high velocity particles (the aurora borealis) or strong EM fields (lightning).
The glowing air can have any color, depending on the ‘tuning’ of the supplied energy to specific electron excitations. If a lot of energy is supplied the glow becomes an intense white (lightning).

Basically there are two variations of the “plasma-UFO theory”:

1. The plasma-UFO’s are some sort of poorly understood natural phenomenon that causes self-contained plasma shapes in the atmosphere. This is the line of thought in the Condign report.

2. UFO’s are machines that generate a layer of plasma as a side effect of their propulsion technology; a propulsion technology that is accompanied by strong EM fields and radiation. UFO researchers like Paul R. Hill and James M. McCampbell are proponents of this theory.

The strong ‘static in the air’ reported by several witnesses could point to a cause for plasma forming (strong electric fields).

Look for instance at the clip below showing the aurora borealis (which is an example of atmospheric plasma).
Now imagine an object covered with such plasma, and compare this mental picture to these descriptions given by Bustinza:

But there was also an effect maybe like a prism … with rainbow lights on top, scattered about .. [and] several other colors of light. It was weird.

The colors were constantly changing while I was there. I remember, it was different colors, and they just, like, go on and off or go to a lower shade.

Or look at the example below of artificially generated atmospheric plasma and compare it to the descriptions of a red/orange/yellow glowing sun-like object that shoots off sparks to the ground.


Or compare it to the drawing made by Lori Buoen:

files.abovetopsecret.com...

Larry Fawcett: And did the machine glow at all when it took off? Did the lights change?
Adrian Bustinza: The lights, yes. That’s what it did. It turned, like, into a ball of light. The whole machine. And it was like a glow around it, and it just took off.

So the million dollar question is: Was there actually a machine, or was it just some natural phenomenon ..?

Interesting post. Both Penniston and Burroughs reported a feeling like static electricity in the air when they both confronted the ufo as it had landed. Spot on.

a reply to: data5091

Not just those two:

Battram: “And when we got closer, you began to feel the hair on your arms, and the back of your neck, under your hat even, stand on end. Like there was a real big static charge in the air.”

Bustinza: “We were wearing regulation headgear, but I could see one man’s hair standing up on his head just like it was a wire brush.”

Nevels: “I had static all over my hair and my arms and everything and I knew something was wrong – like you would say ‘static in the air’.”

a reply to: Guest101

indeed. Thanks.