Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

General discussion about the Rendlesham forest incident

Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Observer » Sun Nov 16, 2008 11:06 pm

Redsocks

I'm not sure if you know what these exit/entry points were for such as East Gate. All RAF airfields usually had at least two small entry points, one at each end of the base that connected to the public road system.
We ran exercises some times with the local fire brigade and orders were, rendezvous point, crash gate No 2.
London Heathrow is the same.
They were known in the RAF as crash gates, and were access points for emergency services to enter the airfield for whatever reason.

East Gate was one of these crash gates. which became a manned post for exit/entry, but this was not what it was initially for as i explained. If you ask Graham Haynes who is ex RAF like myself he will tell you the same. I believe both bases had at least one or two more exit/entry gates around the airfield.
The brick built guard post was a later addition and before that it may have been a wooden shed or even less than that. As for dates, no idea when the brick post was built.
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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Wolf » Sun Nov 16, 2008 11:13 pm

The brick gate house was built sometime after 1986. Before that there was a shed/telephone box looking building about 50 yards inside the gate. It must have been pretty cold pulling a shift there in the middle of winter.

Back in 2000 I spoke to a serving USAF member, who during the incident got a call to go and refuel some 'emergency vehicles' on Woodbridge. He had pulled a shift on BW that night. Nice guy, great choice in pickups too.....

V/R

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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby redsocks » Mon Nov 17, 2008 12:04 am

Thanks for that guys,strange that BTDT was sent out what at the time would have been as stated a crash gate and past the incident,why would the gate be open and how come the guy who sent him that way knew the gate was open?
By the way turn right towards Butly as BTDT would have done and carrying on to Leiston route has no petrol stations,again not sure about that back then.

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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby pupil88 » Mon Nov 17, 2008 12:26 am

Hi BTDT,

On the night of Dec 27 and AM of the 28th, you wrote that you were working at Woodbridge.

" I was cleared to go thru East Gate and turn left towards Friday Street."

" All I could see was military vehicles, SP trucks and the Cadillac Gauge armored vehicle, one blue staff car I think it had a white roof, and lots of lite-alls facing the road blinding any trying to see into the forest. The SPs were standing in several groups not really in a spaced formation. They were talking and several were smoking."

On the night of Dec.28th and the AM of the 29th, L. Warren said this occured:

" the convoy's blue lights (were) flashing." two trucks had lite-alls in tow.

"Some SPs were placing red flares - half blocking the road."

" I thought we were in a readiness exercise."

From L. Warren's book - describing a phone conversation between L. Fawcett and G. Bartram ( a friend of Warren's)

GB " We had an alert over there for exercises and things about once or twice a month. And during those times, all the back-office people would go on a security post, additionally posting and stuff out there. So, the night we saw the UFO, we were out there on duty, on one of those exercises, and it was nightime. Nothing going on but we all still had to be there, and we were driving around Woodbridge base on a perimeter patrol..."

BTDT, Have you participated in base alert exercises? What action did you take in them?

"Were there blue lights flashing from trucks going by?

Were any of the trucks pulling lite-alls?

Did you see any flares on the road?

Did you remember the date as the night you were working or as a reference to UFO activiity?

Did you know that there was a confusion of dates of the UFO sightings that lasted over 20 years?

Area 51's existence wasn't officially known until July 14, 2003. (Wikipedia)

You described an idyllic scene of deer grazing outside of the fence. This is a marked contrast to the scene of animals fleeing the forest in Warren's account..

I'm trying to determine whether there was one or two base alerts on consecutive nights?
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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Beentheredonethat » Mon Nov 17, 2008 1:12 am

Redsocks, Wolf, Obs, Silvertop, Puddlepirate, Deep Purple, J.B.
Btdt here,
The S.P. Capt did try to contact any available Aerospace Ground Equipment, (AGE) personnel, they maintain and refuel the Lightalls etc, for a top off of fuel for me but no one answered his radio calls. Now I Know why, I guess he was busy getting the light-alls positioned or trying to keep them running. I considered getting a small amount of the A-10 winshield wash concentrate as this is 100% alcohol. But, I was confronted with the dispensing location in the Aircraft Area was locked down(Closed), and I remembered it is cut with water and is not 100% alcohol at the point of being dispensed. The possibility of the Woody or B.W. Gas (Petrol) station was closed and on holiday schedule I think at that time their hours were from 0630-1800 hours and was never a 24 hour service, although the price was tax free and a good deal. The gas stations were never open at that time of night on my route to Leiston ever. I know I should never let my gas get that low but at that time my shift and the holiday hours of the stations put me in a bind. My GT-6 was my hobby and was very much modified for power. The engine was balanced and blueprinted and had been professionally prepared by Holbay Motors, Martelsham Heath. The final gear ratio was not tuned for mileage but for get up and go. This car was a pocket rocket and I loved the adrenalin rush it gave me, although I did have to wrench on it a hell of a lot, hell it was a Triumph. Gas Mileage, Ha Ha Yeah O.K. But, I could buy petrol with my gas ration coupons for a thrifty price at the base. The Back gate (East Gate) was open between the twin bases for those who had the propper credentials for mission convienence, official duty of course. Nobody cared if you abused this short cut. But on this night, the gate and it's guard was locked down and being guarded closed (Manned Closed Gate Closed), not just closed and abondoned. My passage authorization was radioed via the S.P. Capt with some hesitation I might suggest to the guard on the East Gate. If there are recordings of the radio traffic it will be on the recording of radio traffic on the air and my licence plate given and description will state brown sports car, male Airman, Reg JLX821K approaching give passage, has I.D. and Line Badge, verify this comm or something like similar to this.
Sincerely,
BTDT
Last edited by Beentheredonethat on Mon Nov 17, 2008 8:22 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Beentheredonethat » Mon Nov 17, 2008 2:09 am

Silver top,
Thanks! I have often wondered about my car. Wow, I know I put a lot of blood sweat and tears into that machine with the same care and attention to detail that I put into my aircraft maintenance. I rebuilt almost every thing on that car to new spec with modifications for a wow factor. The paint was Imron that was the best paint I could get at the time, hell it was the equivalent of our aircraft paint. My father in law Alec Trumpeter built the sills and lower repair panels out of galvanized steel something not done untill the late 80s. All of the suspension was painted in the B.W. aircraft paint booth with aircraft paint. Shotters' Garage of Leiston painted the Body of the car. Wow, I purchased it in 1977 for 1,200 Quid and I had to sell it when I departed England due to not being able to afford the bond, taxes, and EPA alterations upon U.S. entry. I sold it to a young G.I. who complained when I asked him for 1,200 Quid to purchase it, he did not have a clue what he was getting. Wow, thats fantastic it has lasted for 30 plus years and now it's also a survivor of the famous East Gate incident. I hope it becomes one of the select few survivors due to it's unique brittish herritage.
Who would have known
Sincerely,
BTDT
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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Beentheredonethat » Mon Nov 17, 2008 2:59 am

Hi pupil88,
BTDT here,
Yes, I was working that night. Yes I got my fill of exercises, but I was not a Auggie Doggie as we called them. Those G.I.s assigned Augmentee duties were not directly tied to the mission of Arm, Launch, Fly, Fuel, Recover, Fix, Aircraft people who were being exercised. In my early days as an airman I was assigned to report to the Tank Farm to build external drop tanks. This was the additional duty I was assigned, as part of our mission during exercises. Latter, I was trained and assigned to a team who repaired Aircraft Battle Damage or A.B.D.R. My specialty back then was Structural Repair but in the A.B.D.R. concept I would help with what ever specialty was needed, hydraulics, fuel, or electrical repairs. The wing would have Auggie Doggie's assigned to report to the S.P.s at the onset of an exercise. They were S.P. Augmentees. I was used as mission essential, and was busy preparing aircraft to be readied for an immediate launch. The wing would time our progress and post the amount of aircraft ready for launch at say plus 1 hour, 2 hours etc.. No. I don't remember seeing flares when I passed thru the area. Nor I did not see any flashing lights on my ride thru the area, the vehicles I saw were all parked. Although, the light-alls were already in place and running, projecting light in your face. The night I was evacuated from my duties was to the best of my knowledge the 27th at 0130-0200 when I drove thru the area. I do not remember if there were any aircraft flying or what if any of the 67th AARS were flying. You have to understand when you work out in that environment every night, for years, you don't hear the background noise any more. It all runs together cause you are so used to hearing it. But, no I don't rember hearing anything in particular that night. We were busy in the Tad Vee working. If you ever had the wonderful opportunity to work in one of those hardened shelters or HASs' you would experiance echoes, echoes, echoes, and it's cold and damp. Confusion of the dates yea, hell it was how many years ago? A lot of us have not talked of this for 20 or so years for fear of ridicule. Yea, I'm not sure if on my night since it crossed from 2400 -0100 to what date do I remember it being "exactly". The best I can do is ascertain the first night of the incident with the night of my shift and when we were evacuated. Remember, in my line of business we often heard many things about test and research vehicles and assignments and knew people who knew. Area 51's existance per (wikipedia), please, remember they are printing what they know when they know it and it's verified. We were sneaking F-117's over and into Sacramento, the capitol of California at night to bring them in for depot level maintenance and modifications at McClellan AFB in the 1983-85 time frame as I remember because I was assigned with the 2951st CLSS there and that was one of our weapon systems to maintain. No one knew for years that this was going on. The F-117 was developed, tested, mission ready before that, at guess where. I used the deer eyes example that night as an example of spookyness sorry if I misled you. The exact number of base exercises or responces to this incident, RFI, I'm not exactly shure and you should ask the experts, JB Etc. My experiance was on that one night. I hope this helps you.
Sincerely,
BTDT
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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby redsocks » Mon Nov 17, 2008 9:40 am

Hi BTDT,

Just want to say mate you are giving a great insight into time on base all those years ago and its quite clear to me an honest account of what happened that night.Please stay here your contributions for me are incredibly usefull,giving a "carefull" insight into the military does really help with the bigger picture,GT6 eh now theres a car and rarely seen on british roads nowdays but I have seen them race at historic triumph meetings and i'm gonna own up here to owning a TR7 once but dont tell anyone!

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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Observer » Mon Nov 17, 2008 11:57 am

BTDT

Thanks for your very interesting and honest account of your work in the USAF. It has been very helpful and has given us new insight into how things were done and why.

Note on the F-117, it had a British [Bae systems] made fly by wire/computer control system that in the early days was to say the least temperamental. There were a lot of mods needed before it became operational. Also 3-D radar had recently been developed in the UK and i had heard they wanted to test the aircraft's stealth signature against this radar. I will leave the rest up to your imagination.

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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Beentheredonethat » Mon Nov 17, 2008 9:37 pm

Hello all,
I did read the no name witness account and this could be true I guess. I have never heard a wisper of this account in all my time at B.W.& W.B. Wow, I could expect a story like a C-130 with lots of TSEC equip hard mounted was taken by someone not authorized a jet mechanic. He was running engines and decided to take her for a spin cause he was having a problem with the wife back in the U.S. Well, he got off the ground after hitting the runway approach lights and hitting a tree or two. I dont know how he managed to get aloft but his navigation short commings led him to fly toward our neighbors to the east, the wrong way. During his trip east he and the TSEC problem was eliminated by some USAF F-15 jets scrambled out of RAF Lakenheath. This could be just as good of a story as well. As a jokeI would love to wait closer to Christmas and leak this. A fake Santa with Xmas presents was riding in a capsule being delivered via HH-53 for a 67th squadron Xmas party.The squadrons kids were anxiously anticipating Santas arrival. During airlift operations they dropped Santa and the capsule after hitting objects on the East end of the Woody approach while in a holding pattern spilling all the contents and severly hurting Santa, spilling all his gifts. A clean up was initiated. Please dont take this out of context it's only a USAF style Xmas joke without the card.
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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Observer » Mon Nov 17, 2008 11:04 pm

BTDT

Great story for Xmas, this forum does need some lighter moments.

Your scenario did actually happen at Mildenhall a long time ago, a member of the ground staff nicked [stole] a C-130 and took off all by himself. He got as far as just off the Spanish coast before your boys shot him down.

Did you know why it took that long, it was because the USAF didn't suss out it was stolen for several hours and then had an argument with the RAF about who should shoot him down. Real funny, but not for the pilot.

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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Beentheredonethat » Tue Nov 18, 2008 8:25 am

Redsocks, OBs, Silvertop
Thank you for the support.
Red Socks, Silvertop, Yea I'm sorry you didn't have a good time with that sports car thing, falling for an MG was almost as funny as falling for a TR-7, just kidding.! Those steering coloums were a spark of genius. M.G.s and Tr's are having a come back over here I was just looking at all of em on E-Bay. I have been bitten by the bug and afterwards I licked my wounds then I wondered why not.
I try to fill in those empty areas with the facts as they influenced my career and life. Wow, and how the USAF has changed over the last several decades compared to my past. I hope to enlighten and educate without stale boring fact. Sorry if I ramble on.
Obs,
The aerospace electronic inventions and operational hardware that the Brittish Engineers and RAF have created are awsome to say the least. I remember launching an A-10, hooked up to my headset on the ground listening to a couple of pilots chattering and the A-10 voice transmission clarity sounded like it came out of a tin can, the RAF aircraft trans was as clear as a bell, digitally clear.That RAF pilot was ragging the A-10 pilot for his tin can radio kit. The USAF purchases a lot of your electronic technology cause it's better than ours.
I actually did know of that scenario with the C-130, was fishing, but thought it departed from W.B. Heard the A/C was loaded with Tsec goodies. Well goes to show you how stories bend in the middle somehow. Thanks for the refresher.
BTDT
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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Beentheredonethat » Tue Nov 18, 2008 10:59 am

Hello all,
Real quick, I have read a version of a senario where an aircraft ejected WMD tipped munitions into the wash before it's emergency landing. Personally, in all honesty I have never ever seen any Tactical WMD's loaded and flown. I have never ever seen any chemical WMD's in use period. Not happening as a senario for me to believe. Our aircrews would never drop a WMD into the wash before landing. They don't fly with em. Sac may have flown with them in the past but the fuses were never attached so if they dropped them they were non op. Stolen DU rounds, Never ever seen DU rounds ever in the NATO theatre during exercises or in prep for a serious contingency. Only time was at Desert Storm/Shield.
All newer aircraft have Depleted Uranium counterweights to static balance the flight control surfaces. This is the industry standard due to the excellant size to weight ratio. There are serious warnings for the D.U. weights, no sanding, grinding on the weights, causes dust that may be injested. Wash hands after handling, or weight and balance adjustments of control surfaces. So D.U. is all around but it has a very low almost negligible back ground signature and when handled correctly means nothing.
BTDT
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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Observer » Tue Nov 18, 2008 1:30 pm

DTDT

Just a bit more about the C-130 that was stolen out of Mildenhall, the USAF spokesman at the time told the media that the guy had been to some party with Brits the evening before and had eaten some British cheese along with other things as you do at parties. They then claimed that certain chemicals in British Cheddar cheese had affected his mind, it gets better, they were going to get it analysed.

There are a few things starting to see the light of day concerning the US stealth and black programs.

It now turns out that the Brits were in at the start of the F-117 program supplying various systems such as the fly by wire and computers to manage it. There were other systems that are still classified today.
Also it was a British guy in charge of F-117 production at the Skunk works. There is one hell of a joint cooperation going on behind closed doors, that's for sure.

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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby redsocks » Tue Nov 18, 2008 9:18 pm

Hi Guys,

The c-130 story is folklaw on RAF Mildenhall I remember a well served airmen telling some younger guys about it,He said that they guy was drunk from the evenings drinking and basically took the aircraft in the early hours to see his lover in the US,apparenty the guy used to do full throttle test so he was almost there anyway most days! Apparently the USAF said he crashed the plane into the sea because he's inability to fly, but it later came out that they shot him down! Bit of a sad tale really.

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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Observer » Tue Nov 18, 2008 9:43 pm

I just quoted the East Anglian Daily Times. Still its way off topic so enough said.

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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Beentheredonethat » Wed Nov 19, 2008 4:43 am

Hello all,
I have a few more comments on the theories of the crash site being contaminated by a dropped WMD, weapon tipped W/ Chemical or Biological. Have never seen or heard of the use of these in any capacity during training exercises or upon alerts or ops. Sorry never saw or heard of it. Although, we did wear NBC suits on every occasion with masks and the appropriate filters, attrophine and combo pack of 2 Pam chloride syringes, in case our advisary used it on us. This was purely for survival reasons. We wore these ensambles every time we exercised, trained or had contingencies, but never did we have the Bio Chem munitions to train or fight with. I mean, I'm telling you the facts on this and I think you are just wasting time with that theory.
BTDT
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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Beentheredonethat » Wed Nov 19, 2008 5:13 am

All,
Has anyone noticed these incidents seem to happen, in/near, nuclear weapons , power, storage etc areas?
BTDT
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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby Observer » Wed Nov 19, 2008 11:28 am

BTDT

This is the theory Robert Hastings has written his book on that all these weird sightings happen around nuclear weapons storage areas. There were other British nuclear bases in the East of England and a Polaris base in Scotland but to my knowledge none had any incidents like Rendlesham Forest. It seems that only US bases had incidents, RAF Lakenheath and RAF Woodbridge. Lakenheath in the 50's and Woodbridge in the 80's. Why so selective.

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Re: Was at east end of Woody the night of the 27th

Postby slipX » Wed Nov 19, 2008 6:16 pm

BTDT what were the rumors on the base just after the incident?.
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