by puddlepirate » Mon May 05, 2008 1:49 pm
Fully agree. Not an aircraft accident. With regard to the incident the patches are an irrelevance - but they do reveal some background info which might be useful.
What intrigues me is why were 70-80 USAF personnel and their officers, plus senior officers in the forest at all? Why was a road block set up and who manned it? Why were floodlights needed? Also, I understand from other info on the web that in Dec 1980 the east gate sentry post was more like a single man sentry box than the guardroom seen in later photos.
The more I research the incident and the more I come across comments such as it wasn't this and it wasn't that.....e.g. it wasn't a hoax by the 67th ARRS, it wasn't an exercise involving UK forces, it wasn't the lighthouse, it wasn't an air accident involving an F117 or an A10, it wasn't an accident involving nuclear or classified weapons, it was nothing to do with events in Poland, it was nothing to do with Cruise missiles, it wasn't Cobra Mist or 3D radar....etc etc the more I'm led to believe the incident in the forest was a diversion - and as a diversion to draw security personnel off base, it was spectacularly successful. The only thing that is known and undisputed is that over three nights between 25th and 28th December 1980 a large number of US personnel were searching for something in Rendlesham forest. They used floodlights and senior officers were present. And the incident was of no defence significance.
Thus as far as I can see the only facts supported by hard evidence are:
a. a major search involving substantial numbers of USAF personnel was intitiated
b. UK and US governments knew what was going on because it was of 'no defence significance'
c. Some two weeks after the event, the deputy base commander of RAF Bentwaters sends a CC copy of a memo, not to his own command but to the RAF.
d. In response to an FoI request to the Dept of Defense in Washington, instead of replying with the truthful 'we do not hold that information', the DoD contact the MoD and the Halt memo is revealed.
c. Of all those involved in the activity in the forest and of all those who gave statements to the USAF after the event, only a handful of those witnesses have come forward to make public statements.
This makes me believe the event could be related to:
a. a joke perpertrated by locals looking for a laugh
b. a more serious diversion perpetrated by a group of persons keen to draw security personnel off base for some reason - and that could range from Greehham Common 'wimmin' type protestors seeking to gain admission to the base, to disgruntled USAF personnel out to make the SP/LE look foolish in order to get their own back for some reason.
As far as b goes it would not take many people dressed in dark clothing, running around the forest with red gels over the lenses of their torches, letting off fireworks and CO2 fire extinguishers and so forth to spark off a security alert. Especially at a major NATO base at a time when the Cold War was at its height. That doesn't explain the craft seen by JP or LW but it could explain the lights - and the bulk of the incident is about strange lights.
You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time (Winston Churchill)...causa latet, vis est notissima