my theory

[Observer]

John
I'm just reporting what one family told me, but if you are resorting to sarcasm then what's the point in holding discussions at all.
All we have heard from are witnesses that have allegedly seen some thing, i just reported some people who have not seen anything. What's wrong with that?
Obs

[John Burroughs]

Fair enough for now Observer! But if you go back and look at your post I think you will see a pattern of you comming off on thats what happened to us from your one witness friend who won't even come on the forum because he fears for his saftey and then when you get a responce back you state you know there is somthing to it from the reaction of my post! There has been allot of good conversation going on about what could have caused the effects we experienced and I find it strange you would pop in and say somthing about that when you said you were finished with this forum!! My Bad......

[puddlepirate]

Hmm. I agree. It was late - early hours of the morning but on the second night the (sic) barnyard animals were making a heck of a racket. That alone would have awakened anyone living nearby, certainly the farmer whose house was (still is) in the field and probably also the people living in the houses on the far side of the field, bordering the road.

I don't mean to be pedantic but after I left the motor industry my first job in sales was to sell display advertising for local newspaper publisher. They published several paid for (as opposed to freebie) titles. It was the editor's job to ensure his staff captured stories of local interest and, hopefully, scoop Fleet St with a big local exclusive. People bought the paper because of the quality of the editorial and advertisers paid for space because people bought the paper. Thus the editor's job was a difficult one. He could not afford to miss a big local story because if he did and a competitor got it, circulation would go down and advertising revenues would go to the competition. Thus, had he got even a sniff of a UFO landing in the local area, he would have sent someone to check it out. To inteview anyone and everyone who might have seen something - and he would certainly have called the base press office. It would have been more than his job was worth not to do that. So, given all editors are the same, why did that not happen at Rendlesham?

This was supposedly the biggest UFO event since Roswell. At Roswell the local paper, local radio station and anyone who had even the remotest connection with the ranch wanted their fifteen minutes of fame. When Buncefield blew up, people as far away as Italy were claiming they either heard the bang or felt the earth move. In other words they all wanted 'in' on the big story. But not at Rendlesham. That is most odd.

.

[John Burroughs]

Puddle
There were reports to include I beleive the guy who worked for the forrest commision stating there were people from the British government who came out and asked questions in the days after the incident! I also beleive one of the local papers ran a small article about lights seen in the sky and a interview with someone from the local area. The Air Force kept a low profile on this until Halts memo was released. And they did state they stood by Halt's memo!! The only one who said it was ailiens was a guy talking to Dot Street. There was no offical Air Force release stating UFO had landed. There have been people come forword and talk about what they saw. So now let me guess since you and Observer feel that nobody from the area saw anything nothing happened!! Thats what I have to read into it!!

[puddlepirate]

I do appreciate that it was the in the early hours and it was Christmas. Farmers tend not to take very kindly to people disturbing their animals so perhaps the noise was not made by farm animals but by animals in the forest, disturbed by USAF personnel as they made their way through the trees. The locals might not have been bothered because they were used to it. A bit like living close to an airport or a railway line - after a while you tend not to hear the noise of aircraft or trains.

I did wonder if there was a D Notice slapped on the press to prevent them publishing anything but the NoW made no mention of that. Someone else mentioned that the USAF assigned one of their top PR men to the case so perhaps he was able to convince the press there was no story. And of course, there was the COSMOS re-entry to explain away any lights in the sky.

I am not suggesting that nothing at all happened. Far from it. I am pretty sure something big happened and that whatever that was it had the potential to seriously embarrass the USAF, perhaps also the US govt and possibly also HMG - or why assign a top USAF PR man to field any queries? What I am questioning is whether what happened was on such a grand scale. I know I'll be shot down in flames for saying it but personally I think there was a very serious incident but it was being contained and dealt with by a small team. Everything was being kept quiet until, by pure chance, JB and his colleagues saw something from east gate that they were not supposed to see. Once the CSC had authorised them to go off base to investigate, that's when things got difficult.

CSC probably acted independently and within their remit but were completely unaware that something of importance was going on off base. Had the CSC placed a call to the base commander (or whichever senior officer was OC at the time) they might have been told the situation was under control and there was no need for further involvement. As it was, JB, P and C went off base and that landed someone with a major problem because it meant that their activities were no longer secret.

Nothing to back any of that up of course but a much smaller operation would certainly explain why almost no-one saw anything and why the local press and local UFO groups weren't interested or were easily persuaded that it was a non-event.

I think I'm right in saying that all was kept under wraps until the NoW broke the story. After that, things got out of hand.

[John Burroughs]

Puddle
Before we went off base we were cleared through are Commander and the Command post to do so. The Command post would have notified Williams not Conrad! Lt Buren and CSC contacted eastern radar and verified somthing was on Radar and then cleared us to go off base. I learned all of this when I spoke to him and one of the people who was working inside CSC. Maj Zickler was kept in the loop the whole time we were off base and so was the command post! The interesting thing is I have learned from the guy in CSC and a couple of other people who were working that night the for a brief period the weapons storage area went on alert! The PR guy was brought in after the Halt memo was released not before!

[larry warren]

Hi guys, and sash!
Its me larry, man i hate to say this and i really dont want any trouble, but once upon a time there was a book called left at east gate? and in it you might find a number of local accounts
by people in the area at the time! even the guy from essex that drove up to the base because he heard somthing was up. jerry harris is only one of many.
hear to help!
larry

[Observer]

No one should have gone off base, the protocol was the British Police should have been called out immediately as it is their job to investigate any unusual things that were occurring on the other side of the fence. Rules were broken and that you cannot argue with. As it happenes, the Brit Police were called out but much later into the incident. They were called out a second time, but declined to attend saying there was nothing worth investigating. Read their records. The Suffolk Police had set procedures and trained with armed response units for off base incidents that were likely or posed a threat to the base. Your base commanders knew this and were aware of the correct procedures. So who decided not to follow the rules??

I agree with puddle, there was an incident that had to be covered up at all cost because it had very embarrassing consequences for the USAF/US Government and/or the British Government. This is probably why the rules were broken by going off base and not calling the British Police immediately. The fewer people to know about this incident the better.

Obs

[puddlepirate]

Hi Larry.. I've read your book and have got copies of Skycrash and You Can't Tell the People plus Above Top Secret, Open Skies - Closed Minds and loads of others - a veritable library of books on the RFI. What I'm struggling to understand is that various authors and others states that many local people came forward but the local press did not take the story. That just does not make any sense. I live near the M25 and when Richard Branson pulled a stunt with a hot air balloon whilst dressed as an alien it stopped the traffic on the motorway and made the front page or our local paper. The same thing happened when several chinese lanterns were let loose - traffic stopped and it made the front page. That's why I cannot understand that an event involving anything between 30 and 70 airmen, officers, vehicles, floodlights, a squad hiking two miles out and two miles back across fields, animals making loud noises, lights in the sky swooping over the farmer's field, an object shining lights onto the WSA - all of that going on at a front line USAFE base at the height of the Cold War, yet not one word in the local paper and local witnesses apart from the two or three known to have made public statements, are reluctant to come forward. This was NOT a couple of drunken airmen pissing about. This was a major excursion onto foreign soil by a foreign power. As Obs says, there were strict protocols in place to restrict this kind of activity. Not just in the UK and not just for US forces but for forces of all nations, worldwide. This almost total lack of interest just does not make any sense at all.

[John Burroughs]

Observer
Where did you get your facts from your AARS buddy. The one who told you Halt got in allot of trouble but went onto a steller career finishing up at the Pentagon working for Dick Cheney. We had a Sofa agreement which allowed us to check our perimenter if necessary. There were no armed police units to respond to off base threats period. Most of the time there was only one or 2 British units available for over 50 miles. I was Law Enforcement and some times it would take hours for them to respond even if we had a hostile British National on base we would have to detain them in our cell and wait for them to respond. The closest Armed British police were in London and they had very few at that! That came straight from the British police we worked with. You have no Idea what are procedure were period. How about you post what are Sofa agreement was! How about you tell everybody what kind of alert status the base would go into? Tell us what kind of alert status the WSA would go into. Who would we notify first if somthing was happening with the WSA . What kind of procedure did we have if the base or WSA was attacked. What was are back up plan if we were being over run? Where would are help come from? How come we had PP post off base that we would man with armed Air Force personal not British police officer. If someone from the base in our command level new somthing was going on they would have been dam sure we didnot go out there. All you have done is throw out a bunch of crap that you have no Idea what your talking about. Your AARS buddy who has floated several stories to you has been wrong on everyone one of them! You sicken me because you have nothing better to do with your self than come on this forum and talk about USAF policy and procedure which you have no Idea what they were. You love to talk about people like Halt saying he got into trouble and did not follow policy! So I'm waiting for you to spell out our Sofa agreement and list all of our policy and procedure also! I will even open up a new posting area where you can list are policy procedure and sofa agreement. Say anything you want about what we did wrong who got in trouble and how we were made to look like fools on it. Throwing around ideas is one thing asking question is another but stateing things that you can't back up or have no Idea what your talking about is just wrong !

[Observer]

The simple fact is, you broke the rules going off base and the British Police should have been called immediately. I suggest you ask the Suffolk Police yourself about their contingency plans for incidents near bases. You obviously don't believe me.

Obs

[AdrianF]

I did wonder if there was a D Notice slapped on the press to prevent them publishing anything but the NoW made no mention of that. Someone else mentioned that the USAF assigned one of their top PR men to the case so perhaps he was able to convince the press there was no story. And of course, there was the COSMOS re-entry to explain away any lights in the sky.

Kathy McCollom was the base PR who dealt with all the enquiries up until the story made headlines. She was replaced very shortly after the story broke by Victor Warzinski, who appears to to have had a very good career. Reading some of the reports from this time, it's possible that the USAF didn't like the direction some of the enquiries were going in, given the sensitive nature of the bases at the time, so assigned one of their best minds to the job.

The local papers did carry a small report on the 27th, both in the EADT and the Evening Star. It explained the numerous UFO sightings over the Christmas period were due to the fireball meteorite..so no need to investigate UFO reports over that period, as far as the local papers were concerned. This is a bit odd, because it should be referring to the Cosmos re-entry, which did spark off a load of UFO reports across southern England.

And the Cosmos re-entry is a problem as far as civilian witnesses are concerned, as some of those that have come forward, like Arthur Smekle, probably did see this at the time. There a few interesting ones like Gary Collins who Georgina Bruni spoke to. He was a DJ at Woodys bar and saw an object over head that appeared to be dripping molten metal. He supposedly went to the East Gate and was confronted with a roadblock. Does anybody know this guy? He would be interesting to talk to.

and in it you might find a number of local accounts
by people in the area at the time! even the guy from essex that drove up to the base because he heard somthing was up.

That reminds me I would like to get in touch with this guy. I think he lives or lived near my family in Essex. Will try and look him up next time I'm back there.

Cheers
Adrian

[AdrianF]

The simple fact is, you broke the rules going off base and the British Police should have been called immediately. I suggest you ask the Suffolk Police yourself about their contingency plans for incidents near bases. You obviously don't believe me.

Obs

Obs
I'm not so sure. IMHO one of the reasons that this has become such a big story is because of the paper trail from protocol being followed, at least as far as the British authorities are concerned. I'm sure there must have been some allowance for the security patrols to go off perimeter if there was a perceived threat, as who else would be able to respond as quickly?

Adrian

[Observer]

Adrian

That's very interesting. We have had one or two local residents to the area give us their observations. I also asked a local family who i knew if they had seen any thing unusual and they had not. This is in no way trying to debunk those that saw some thing, it is simply getting a picture of who did and who didn't see anything. It is in effect getting a balanced view from local people. In reality, i suspect that only a tiny minority saw anything but this is probably more to do with being in the right place at the right time.

What I would like to know is, if as we have been told there were many USAF personnel out in the woods, may be over 40+, so why have none of these people come forward to say anything? It would be interesting to hear their reasons for being out there because they were obviously ordered out there by an Officer, to do what?
Obs

[Observer]

Adrian & John

Out side the base perimeter which is British sovereign territory is the responsibility of the British authorities. Inside the base perimeter is the responsibility of the USAF.

Greenham Common is one such example of how this worked.

However, John deer chap, is this going to get us any nearer to you finding out what happened.

I suggest you save your energy in getting nasty with me and pool your resources with us in a common front to crack this mystery. If at any time some one says some thing you don't agree with or doesn't fit in with your thinking, then politely say so in friendly argument.
We are all victims if that's the right word of hearing conflicting stories from the main witnesses. These stories have been changing over time and have been getting more elaborate.
You must agree that this has been very unhelpful because it has obscured a clear path to follow in the investigation. In effect we are suffering here from the Roswell syndrome.

Obs

[puddlepirate]

Obs is right about Greenham Common. The 'wimmin' were tearing down the wire and performing outside but the USAF did not go beyond the perimeter of the base. The local police dealt with that. If anyone managed to get inside, then the USAF took care of it. It's the same with the peace camp up at Faslane. Guarded by the Royal Marines, HM Naval Base Clyde has a large peace camp outside the wire. From time to time the protestors try to get in but as soon as any of them does, the RM are on to them like a rash but until that point is reached the local police keep order. It was the same at Northwood. The Royal Marines guarded the base and on one occasion we were called in for training in riot control because word had it that the base was to be the target of peace campaigners - but at no time were we or the RM to go outside the wire. Our job and that of the Royal Marines was internal security. The police were responsible for anything that took place ashore, i.e. outside the base. In Hong Kong in 1986, just after the US bombed Tripoli I was at HMS Tamar. We had been told to expect an attack with grenades being lobbed over the perimeter walls. The Internal Security (IS) platoon was mustered and issued with weapons, throat mikes, radios and cam gear but again, the job was internal security. The Hong Kong police would take charge outside.

That is what is wrong with the RFI. The USAF breached protocol by going off base. Their job was to secure inside the perimeter not the outside. You can even see evidence of this at Bentwaters by the fort like installations at the entrance to the WSA and at the end of the road that runs through the middle of the WSA. They were designed to protect the WSA from anyone who managed to cross the wire. For the USAF to go off base in such number and with that amount of kit means two things. (1) it was of US origin and therefore a problem only the USAF could solve and (2) the USAF had sought and been given authorisation to proceed by HMG. The US are sticklers for adhering to protocol when on the soil of a friendly foreign nation.

Any flying object threatening the bases would have been the responsibility of the RAF. There are many RAF stations in east Anglia so they would have been scrambled in seconds. And let's face it, despite all the jokes about them working Mon-Fri 0900 to 1700 and only then if there is a five star hotel nearby, the crabs are bloody good when it counts. If the bases were being threatened from the air, Biggles and co would have downed their cocktails, put the totty on hold and made damn sure the problem was sorted pdq. It is the fact that the USAF alone dealt with this that gives rise to the suggestion that the cause of the RFI was something the USAF did and which only the USAF could resolve.... and because of that it was of no defence signifigance.

[AdrianF]

I'm not a military man and I don't know exactly what protocol there was, but I would imagine in remote areas like this, the only people that could respond quickly would be the security patrols. So there must be some agreement whereby, if need be, they are allowed to investigate off perimeter as long as the police/authorities are contacted immediately, which is what seems to have happened here.

In reality, i suspect that only a tiny minority saw anything but this is probably more to do with being in the right place at the right time.

That's probably a big factor in why there are so few witnesses locally, though there does seem to be a larger amount of people who have second or third hand information.

I was about to post up a list of local witnesses but see that Admin has already done a pretty good job of detailing a few of them on the main website, including Gary Collins, so I'll just link to that for now.

http://www.rendlesham-incident.co.uk/searching-for-other-witnesses.php

Adrian

[larry warren]

We had a pc on the base named eric berman, i knew him, does any one know what happened to
eric?
also, on the halt tape you can hear the suffolk cops arrive in the forrest, our LE cars had state side sirens, on the tape you can clearly hear the british siren!, so in my view the suffolk cops
were told to deny involvement.
larry

[Observer]

Larry
You old corperal 1st class or was it Major General.

We all know the British Police were called out, but it was not done immediately which it should have been. As you know they were called out a second time, but refused to attend saying there was nothing worth investigating. It is open to conjecture if they were tipped off to stay out of it. That is a puzzle if true. I know Georgina [god bless her] tried asking some of the PC's about this and they did not give much away.
Being cynical for a moment, supposing the Brit Police were tipped off to stay out of it, then that tip off would have come from high up in the British Police command, that then suggests that the British authorities, both military and civil may have known what happened.

We have seen the daily Police record sheets published on this forum some time last year and they give nothing away either, only stating what we already know.
I'm not sure if this line of enquiry is going to produce any new evidence as we tried damned hard in 08 and got no where.

Obs

[John Burroughs]

Adrian Thanks for trying to get Observer to understand what I have been trying to say. Observer is right I'm wasteing my time with him! On the first night the Briitish police were called shortley after the incident started and it took them awhile to get there. And by the time they got there the incident was over. There were only a few of them to cover a very large area and it takes some time for them to get there! I guess we were suppose to just stand there inside our base and wait for a unarmed PC to show up to come to our rescue. We had a Sofa agreement Observer I have asked you to provide information on what it was and you can't. I have asked you to provide what our Policy and Procedure were and you can't. You have proven over and over again you have no Idea what you are talking about! You have put out over and over again false claims about what happened to us provided by your faceless AARS buddy. I have no desire to work with you on anything! This thread had some interesting things being talked about and as you can now see after the expert on USAF and British defense agreements showed up they have stoped talking which is what you wanted in the first place!