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Woensdag 25 oktober 2023
The Rendlesham Forest
In the final days of December 1980 multiple, strange encounters and wild incidents occurred in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England. And across a period of three nights, no less. Based upon their personal encounters, many of those who were present believed that something almost unbelievable came down in the near-pitch-black woods on the night of December 26. Lives were altered forever – and for the most part not for the better, I need to stress. Many of those who were present on those fantastic nights found their minds dazzled, tossed and turned – and incredibly quickly, too. Those incidents involved American military personnel who, at the time it all happened, were stationed in the United Kingdom. Their primary role was to provide significant support in the event that the Soviets decided to flex their muscles just a little bit too much – or, worse still, planned on hitting the proverbial red button and ending civilization in hours. Maybe, even in minutes.
Reportedly, those U.S. personnel who were in the area and helped to protect the U.K., came face to face with something much stranger than the likes of a crashed Soviet satellite, a secret Stealth-type plane that malfunctioned and went off-course, or something similar to today’s drones – all of which have been suggested as potential candidates for the whatever-it-was that landed four decades ago. Some, though, are absolutely certain that unearthly entities were encountered: aliens from another world. Confusion was all around. With that in mind, here's the original document that started everything:
"1. Early in the morning of 27 Dec 80 (approximately 0300L) two USAF security police patrolmen saw unusual lights outside the back gate at RAF Woodbridge. Thinking an aircraft might have crashed or been forced down, they called for permission to go outside the gate to investigate. The on-duty flight chief responded and allowed three patrolmen to proceed on foot. The individuals reported seeing a strange glowing object in the forest. The object was described as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two meters high. It illuminated the entire forest with a white light. The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank(s) of blue lights underneath. The object was hovering or on legs. As the patrolmen approached the object, it maneuvered through the trees and disappeared. At this time the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy. The object was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near the back gate.
"2. The next day, three depressions 1.5 inches deep and 7 inches in diameter were found where the object had been sighted on the ground. The following night (29 Dec 80) the area was checked for radiation. Beta/gamma readings of 0.1 milliroentgens were recorded with peak readings in the three depressions and near the center of the triangle formed by the depressions. A nearby tree had moderate (0.05–0.07) readings on the side of the tree toward the depressions.
"3. Later in the night a red sun-like light was seen through the trees. It moved about and pulsed. At one point it appeared to throw off glowing particles and then broke into five separate white objects and then disappeared. Immediately thereafter, three star-like objects were noticed in the sky, two objects to the north and one to the south, all of which were about 10 degrees off the horizon. The objects moved rapidly in sharp, angular movements and displayed red, green and blue lights. The objects to the north appeared to be elliptical through an 8-12 power lens. They then turned to full circles. The objects to the north remained in the sky for an hour or more. The object to the south was visible for two or three hours and beamed down a stream of light from time to time. Numerous individuals, including the undersigned, witnessed the activities in paragraphs 2 and 3.
"Charles I. Halt, Lt Col, USAF, Deputy Base Commander"
It’s fair to say that when it comes to UFOs, Rendlesham Forest is right up there with the Roswell “UFO crash” of July 1947. It’s no wonder at all that the case has become known as “Britain’s Roswell.” Not because anything actually crashed in the forest – it was described as being much more like a touch-down – but because of the widespread visibility and notoriety that surrounds the case. The December 1980 encounters have been the subjects of countless prime-time television documentaries on both sides of the pond, and of more than a few books, too. Mostly, the authors behind those same books take the view that extraterrestrials really did come down in picturesque Suffolk – and not on just one occasion. More than a few of the military personnel involved have come forward to tell their stories of what happened. Some of them are sure they had encounters with extraterrestrials. For them, no other answer can be considered. What if, however, there are other explanations for what happened decades ago? And what if that explanation, if revealed, would prove to be even more controversial than the notion that extraterrestrials really manifested within our very midst? The ramifications for the field of Ufology could be – and likely will be - immense. The fact is that Rendlesham is downright weird. As you'll see.
There may be another aspect of the Rendlesham Forest legend that prompted the people behind the experiments to choose that particular area of woods for their tests. Rendlesham Forest has a long history of ghostly encounters. Witchcraft and occult-based rites and rituals have been performed late at night in those dark woods. So-called “Alien Big Cats,” or “black panthers,” as they are mostly named, have been seen roaming through the woods on more than a few times. One of the earliest, credible cases on record is that of Jimmy Freeman, whose close encounter with a big cat occurred while driving past Rendlesham Forest late one night in the mid-1970s. While the precise date has been lost to the inevitable fog of time, the details are as fresh in the mind of Freeman today as they were on the night the incident occurred.
Given the fact that the encounter had occurred around 11:15 to 11:30 on what was a dark, cloudy and slightly misty night, Freeman was driving slowly and had his lights on full-beam as he negotiated the dark and winding roads. As a result, when something large and shadowy charged across the road in front of him, Freeman could not fail to see the creature for what it was. Long, sleek and black in color, Freeman is in no doubt that for a split second or two he had a brief sighting of a huge cat. Today, he says firmly: “If I live to be a hundred, I will tell the same: Rendlesham Forest has big cats.” On a cold winter’s afternoon in 1983, the then-soon-to-be-married Paul and Jane Jennings were blissfully strolling through those woods when they were terrified by the sudden manifestation in front of them of what Jane would describe succinctly as “a big black dog.” She elaborated that the pair had been walking along a pathway when, on rounding a bend, they came face to face with the phantom beast – something that prompted Jane to intriguingly add: “It was almost like it was waiting for us.” Far more shocking, however, was what happened next. Suddenly, the beast began to flicker on and off for four or five times, then finally vanished, literally, before the Jennings’ eyes amid an overwhelming smell that reminded the pair of burning metal. Not surprisingly, the terrified couple fled for the safety of their car and fled the area. The U.K.’s “phantom black dogs,” as they are popularly known, prompted none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – the creator of Sherlock Holmes – to write his classic novel, The Hound of the Baskerevilles.
Rendlesham Forest, as well as the Suffolk locales of West Wratting and Balsham, is reportedly home to an even more diabolical beast than the phantom black dog. It is a creature that has come to be known locally as the Shug-Monkey. Described as being a bizarre combination of giant dog and large ape, the creature is said to strike deep terror into the hearts of those souls unfortunate enough to cross its path. And you thought that UFOs were the strangest things to be found in Rendlesham Forest, right? Wrong. It’s a magnet for strange phenomena – and it has been for a long, long time. It is, however, Rendlesham Forest’s UFO connection that has made those woods world-famous. In many respects, it doesn’t really matter if you are a believer or a disbeliever in supernatural phenomena, such as large and mysterious cats, ghostly hounds and a weird ape-like beast. The important thing to note is this: Rendlesham Forest has a reputation of being distinctly creepy for reasons that go far beyond UFOs and aliens, as you have just seen. If you wanted to run a secret project in an area of English woodland, then what better place could there be than Rendlesham Forest? The answer is simple: there is no better location. Here’s why: Those who do believe in the paranormal will likely say that tales of mysterious creatures seen in the woods only serve to reinforce the idea that aliens landed at Rendlesham – which is almost certainly what the people that concocted the experiments were counting on.
After all, the renowned expert on all-things supernatural, John Keel – noted most of all for his 1975 book, The Mothman Prophecies - came to believe that Bigfoot, UFOs, aliens, the Djinn, the Loch Ness Monster and more mysterious entities were all inter-connected. Using an area of woods – for nefarious reasons - that already had a reputation for being drenched in unearthly phenomena, would amount to perfect planning. When the “UFOs” put in their appearances at Christmas 1980, it was just another addition to the already-bulging collection of tales of the unknown that came from within Rendlesham Forest. And, because of the eerie reputation that the woods had (and still have), no-one was thinking about secret experiments of government agencies. It was in January 2001 that the then-retired - and now late - British Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Hill-Norton, decided to get into the Rendlesham Forest controversy. Having had an interest in UFOs for decades, he used his considerable clout to try and figure out what occurred in 1980. It was hardly an easy task for Hill-Norton to achieve. Of specific interest to Hill-Norton were the claims of a connection to the activities of the Porton Down staff. He wanted to know “whether personnel from Porton Down visited Rendlesham Forest or the area surrounding RAF Watton in December 1980 or January 1981; and whether they are aware of any tests carried out in either of those two areas aimed at assessing any nuclear, biological or chemical hazard.”
Hill-Norton got a response from the government he had dutifully worked for. It was not, however, the reply that he hoped for. The reply came from Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean. She spoke on behalf of the MoD, who provided nothing but a concise comment that didn’t really advance the investigation into the case at all. The baroness said: “The staff at the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) Chemic and Biological Defense (CBD) laboratories at Porton Down have made a thorough search of their archives and have found no record of any such visits.” It has to be said that government agencies – and their fawning lackeys – can be extremely careful about what they say and how they say it. It should be noted that Baroness Symons never said that there was no Rendlesham-Porton link. What she said was that no evidence of such a connection had been found. That’s a very different thing, altogether. Playing things carefully and tactfully provides government personnel with a perfect “get out clause,” in the event that additional information might later surface that shows the earlier claims to have been erroneous.
One of those who had a fascination for the Rendlesham Forest mystery was the Admiral of the Fleet Peter John Hill-Norton, Baron Hill-Norton. From 1971 to 1973 he held the position of Chief of the Defense Staff. Having heard of the curious rumors revolving around HM Prison Highpoint North, Hill-Norton was determined to get to the heart of the matter. Unfortunately, Hill-Norton’s attempts to pry open the can of worms failed miserably. It was on October 23, 1997 that Hill-Norton brought up the issue in the U.K. government’s House of Lords. The response he got was this: “Lord Hill-Norton asked Her Majesty’s Government whether staff at Highpoint Prison in Suffolk received instructions to prepare for a possible evacuation of the prison at some time between 25 and 30 December 1980, and, if so why these instructions were issued.” Lord Williams of Mostyn provided a response that only served to muddy the waters even more: “I regret to advise the noble Lord that I am unable to answer his question, as records for Highpoint Prison relating to the period concerned are no longer available. The governor’s journal is the record in which a written note is made of significant events concerning the establishment on a daily basis. It has not proved possible to locate that journal.”
As I’ve stressed, government personnel are very careful when it comes to making statements on sensitive topics. Lord Williams did not deny the story that a major evacuation was almost initiated in late 1980. Instead, he simply said that the logbook for that particular period could not be found. And that was the end of it. Hill-Norton was deeply frustrated by the take-it-or-leave-it response that was dished out to him. You might wonder why someone like Hill-Norton – who was the Chief of the Defense Staff for two years – would not be told the full, true story. The answer is actually quite simple: Hill-Norton retired in 1977, three years before the Rendlesham Forest incident even occurred. And it was two decades after his retirement that he demanded answers concerning HM Prison Highpoint North. Hill-Norton – despite his influential and powerful standing in the government and the military in the 1970s – was long out of the loop by the time George Wild had got the ball rolling in the 1980s. By then, Hill-Norton no longer possessed what is known in government as a “need to know.” Or, in Hill-Norton’s position, a lack of a need to know.
Now, to more bizarre activity at Rendlesham Forest: our story moves on from HM Prison Highpoint North to another strand of this curious part of Rendlesham. It’s a story that Georgina Bruni found herself involved in. Bruni confided in me that she had a source of information on the prison connections and who held a significant position in the U.K.’s Special Branch – which, in 2005, was merged into the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13). Counter Terrorism Command now performs the roles that Special Branch previously performed. According to what Georgina was told, one of the other prisons primed for evacuation was HM Prison Blundeston, which is located thirty-nine miles from Woodbridge. Opened in the early 1960s, it once housed around five hundred prisoners. In 2013, an announcement was made by the Home Office that the jail was to be closed no later than 2014. Bruni’s Special Branch whistleblower informed her that the other jail was HM Prison Hollesley Bay. The U.K. government’s HM Prison & Probation Service says of the facility: “Hollesley Bay opened on this site as a Borstal in 1938. From that year and until 2006, the prison managed an 1800 acre farm on which the care of both crops and livestock, delivered employment for the prisoners. Today the establishment is an outward looking modern institution which holds sentenced adult males from 18 years and upwards without limit. The farm has gone, and a focus on resettlement and reducing re-offending is at the heart of our agenda. The establishment has developed a strong reputation in successfully preparing life sentenced prisoners for their final release.” It should be noted that HM Prison Hollesley is barely eight miles from the village of Woodbridge.
The year 2000 was when Georgina Bruni’s important discoveries about Porton Down and Rendlesham Forest appeared publicly - in her book You Can’t tell the People. I know from speaking to Georgina on many occasions, though, that she had been working on her book for several years prior to its publication. Did someone in government (who knew that Georgina’s revelations would ultimately surface, even if it was still a couple of years down the line) decide that certain action had to be done to try and diffuse what Georgina had unearthed about the Rendlesham Forest-Porton Down connection? Was a plan initiated to encourage the idea, via the media and the world of on-screen entertainment, that there were real ties between Porton Down and aliens? That would have been much more preferable than having an enterprising journalist discover that the real story of UFOs and Porton Down was actually driven by classified tests designed to determine just how much fucking the human mind could take. Or, in some cases, couldn’t. The people behind the operations may have come up with something very much like a scenario I have conjured up: “If we can’t hide the truth of Porton Down’s secret experiments in Rendlesham Forest, and we can’t stop the publication of Georgina Bruni’s book, then let’s swamp and distort the truth with incredible tales, whistleblowers, TV shows, and novels.”
On top of all that, there's Jim Penniston: The year 2000 was when Georgina Bruni’s important discoveries about Porton Down and Rendlesham Forest appeared publicly - in her book You Can’t tell the People. I know from speaking to Georgina on many occasions, though, that she had been working on her book for several years prior to its publication. Did someone in government (who knew that Georgina’s revelations would ultimately surface, even if it was still a couple of years down the line) decide that certain action had to be done to try and diffuse what Georgina had unearthed about the Rendlesham Forest-Porton Down connection? Was a plan initiated to encourage the idea, via the media and the world of on-screen entertainment, that there were real ties between Porton Down and aliens? That would have been much more preferable than having an enterprising journalist discover that the real story of UFOs and Porton Down was actually driven by classified tests designed to determine just how much fucking the human mind could take. Or, in some cases, couldn’t. The people behind the operations may have come up with something very much like a scenario I have conjured up: “If we can’t hide the truth of Porton Down’s secret experiments in Rendlesham Forest, and we can’t stop the publication of Georgina Bruni’s book, then let’s swamp and distort the truth with incredible tales, whistleblowers, TV shows, and novels.”
Now, in the final part of this articlle, it's time to jump back and show people who found the truth of the Rendlesham affair. On the issue of how Ufology learned of the story, there’s no doubt at all that it was the team of Brenda Butler, Dot Street and Jenny Randles that got the ball rolling. They were the authors of the very first book on the mystery, Sky Crash, which was published in 1984. There is also no doubt that without their combined investigations, our knowledge of the incidents would be nowhere compared to where we are today. Possibly, even, without those three persistent investigators the truth behind those incidents would have remained hidden and locked away. Forever? I would not bet against it. That gives you some idea of the depth and determination of Dot, Jenny and Brenda to get the answers.
A bit of background for you on how the story began to surface: Brenda lived not at all far from the forest and had more than a few contacts in the region. Notably, that included friends who were employees of the U.S. military. It wasn’t one hundred percent inevitable that Brenda would hear tales of something strange having taken place just outside the confines of RAF Woodbridge. It was, however, highly likely that such a thing would eventually occur. And as the history books have shown, such a thing did occur. Dot and Brenda were friends and decided to take a deep and careful look at the story. Jenny Randles joined their team soon after, in early 1981. The three were soon hot on the trail of the story – and barely a month after Lieutenant Colonel Halt had put his memo together for the U.K.’s Ministry of Defense. And, the three never looked back. It was a story that suggested, just maybe, a spacecraft from a faraway world had come down in the woods. In the world of Ufology, this was a development that could not have been envisaged just a short period earlier. One of the key sources for the story who the three women relied on - and whose unforgettable words galvanized the trio to look ever deeper into the story - was the pseudonymous “Steve Roberts.” Such was the sensitivity surrounding the man and his story, he was careful to mask his real name. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since the very early part of 1981, however. Today, we know so much more. That includes the real name of that prime, early source.
Gary Heseltine is a former Royal Air Force Police officer who went on to have a twenty-four-year-long career with the British Transport Police, serving the majority of the time as a detective. Heseltine, who has spent a large amount of time studying what happened in Rendlesham Forest, says: “Surprisingly to this day, many people don’t realize that the mysterious ‘Steve Roberts witness’ has been identified for many years as J. D. Ingles. Ingles was on the base at the time of the incident, a Sergeant in the Reports and Analysis section of the 81st Security Police Squadron.” It was, to a large degree, the words of their source that caught the attention of Street, Butler and Randles. They did a very good, solid job of pursuing the story. It was soon published. Sky Crash makes for fascinating reading. Shadowy characters, Ministry of Defense chicanery, sinister goings-on in the woods, tales of extraterrestrial visitation, and military figures hiding their real names for fear of what might happen to them, were just the start of things. In the weeks and months that followed, the Ministry of Defense proved to be highly close-mouthed when it came to discussing the December incidents with members of the public and the media. No surprise. They were even more cautious about chatting with an energized team of UFO sleuths who weren’t going to give up. That’s Jenny, Dot and Brenda, of course.
In some ways, the MoD was unable to do very much about it, as wild rumors of the startling events were already seeping out. Eventually matters would develop into a chaotic torrent. To demonstrate how incredibly careful and determined the MoD was to try and keep matters under wraps, it was not until April 13, 1983 that an official admission was made to Jenny Randles that a handful of “lights” had been seen in the vicinity of Rendlesham Forest and that remained “unexplained.” That’s right: two years passed before the rumors of something very strange and non-human having been seen in Rendlesham Forest began to unravel in the world of intelligence and the military. Those who were hiding the truth were now in the dangerous position of losing control of the situation. Almost two months later to the day, a copy of Lieutenant Colonel Halt’s memo was declassified in accordance with the laws of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. It was provided to a now-deceased American UFO investigator, Robert Todd. In a June 14, 1983 letter to Todd, Colonel Peter Bent – who, at the time, was the Commander of the 513th Combat Support Group (CSG) – made an amazement statement. He said: “It might interest you to know that the U.S. Air Force had no longer retained a copy of the 13 January 1981 letter written by Lt. Col. Charles I. Halt. The Air Force file copy had been properly disposed of in accordance with Air Force regulations. Fortunately, through diligent inquiry and the gracious consent of Her Majesty’s government, the British Ministry of Defense and the Royal Air Force, the U.S. Air Force was provided with a copy for you.”
It wasn’t long at all before Brenda, Dot and Jenny found themselves in a runaround. Curiously, during the course of an interview with MoD spokeswoman Pam Titchmarsh on August 18, 1983, Randles was told that – contrary to the statement made by Colonel Bent – the Ministry of Defense had not supplied the Americans with a copy of Halt’s memorandum. Notably, Titchmarsh was very wary about discussing the case with Randles, who had made a trip down to London with Street and Butler. “I wouldn’t know,” was Titchmarsh’s uneasy and succinct reply when Randles asked her if the MoD’s “operational staff” had built up their own files on the case. Nevertheless, since a copy of the Halt memo had been released to Robert Todd by U.S. authorities, Titchmarsh was – at the very least - obliged to admit that her department in the MoD (Defense Secretariat 8) did have a copy of Halt’s report on file. Despite that, the Ministry of Defense denied that the events of December 1980 were of any kind of defense significance. It was a stubborn, mule-like stance from which the Ministry of Defense has never, ever wavered. The MoD just loves that mule. Always has, always will.
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