Charles Halt, Press release.

[Deep Purple]

IF it was Have Blue or Successor I dont think it had a big/ total crash--- but it could be that they Landed it caused damage to a landing light, and recovered by Galaxy later on. It could be that one landed and safely took off and a sort of mock up was put in the woods and receovered to confuse people--- they are smart these people.

What I do think is significant about this thread is that the Brit Officer confirms that those on the ground were panicky. As he is unlikely to have either been bought or ordered to say this its likely it is a genuine statement, and confirms something did happen.
JB would have a good idea whether or not these guys were easily sppoked--- any thoughts JB? Cheers
Deep Purple

[John Burroughs]

I beleive the aircraft you were talking about was somthing I had posted last year. It looks alot like what Jim first saw. It was operated by NASA. There was alot of comming traffic off the base to include the C-5 comming in and General Gabrial afterwards from calls going out on what happened. I know for a fact there was somthing on radar on the first night. I have just spoken to Lt Buren and he again has stated they CSC was in touch with eatern radar which confirmed there was a object that disapeared on radar over the base as we first went out there. They didnot say it was ailien just a object that disaperaed over the base. They would not have put another object in the woods if they got the first one out! People calling home would not be calling about seeing a light house or stars. From the start with Steve Roberts then Larry Warren and now Col Halt it has been pushed as some kind of ailien contact! I feel it started as somthing else some kind of test gone wrong and from there who knows! The aircraft I'm talking about was manned could go almost into space and was the protype of the space shuttle.

[John Burroughs]

I beleive the aircraft you were talking about was somthing I had posted last year. It looks alot like what Jim first saw. It was operated by NASA. There was alot of comming traffic off the base to include the C-5 comming in and General Gabrial afterwards from calls going out on what happened. I know for a fact there was somthing on radar on the first night. I have just spoken to Lt Buren and he again has stated they CSC was in touch with eatern radar which confirmed there was a object that disapeared on radar over the base as we first went out there. They didnot say it was ailien just a object that disaperaed over the base. They would not have put another object in the woods if they got the first one out! People calling home would not be calling about seeing a light house or stars. From the start with Steve Roberts then Larry Warren and now Col Halt it has been pushed as some kind of ailien contact! I feel it started as somthing else some kind of test gone wrong and from there who knows! The aircraft I'm talking about was manned could go almost into space and was the protype of the space shuttle.

[puddlepirate]

Thanks DP/JB

As DP says, the following is also very interesting:

GN: What was the tone of the phone calls that came through [from Bentwaters]?

DC: They were very jumpy and quite panicky. In fact the first call I remember initially was just to scrutinise the radar and was there any unusual return in the area. However subsequently it went on a bit and they went on to be a bit panicky as if to imply that there should be something, that we should be seeing something, and really not wanting to take no for an answer. But in the end it sort of calmed down, but there was a bit of jumpiness about the whole situation on the telephone.

Does anyone know the dates that this refers to? I suspect it would be Halt's night, the second night. The GN/DC interview gives a pretty clear indication that something happened which triggered the search in the forest by a substantial number of USAF personnel, whilst others were checking with RAF Watton. This strongly suggests the USAF - those in command at least - were in the know and that whatever it was, was of US origin.

The insistence that the object should have appeared on radar rules out a F117a or other stealth aircraft. If something should have appeared on radar but had somehow either come down in the forest or bits of it did, then why would they need to check the radar? Whatever was in the forest would be there for all to see, there would be no need to check radar. To me it suggests they were puzzled. They had been expecting something, perhaps to intercept it but missed it and were trying to figure out why that was. Maybe they were checking Watton's radar return against a radar return at a different location.

So what was it that was of US origin that someone at the twin bases had been expecting but had missed? And because it was missed it started a panic to find it? Sounds like something fairly small but very, very important. Something incoming on the night of the 26/27 or 27/28 Dec. It must have been airborne and perhaps dropped by parachute - perhaps crashing through the trees and perhaps also radioactive. Probably didn't have a homing device fitted to it or it would have been easily tracked and recovered. Something that needed floodlights in order to find it or to examine it before it was removed.....

Perhaps it shouldn't have come down in the forest at all. Perhaps it should have come down in the sea, just off the coast but the track was wrong or someone, somewhere misread the radar track, miscalculated the landing zone and that caught everyone out.....?

[AdrianF]

Does anyone know the dates that this refers to? I suspect it would be Halt's night, the second night. The GN/DC interview gives a pretty clear indication that something happened which triggered the search in the forest by a substantial number of USAF personnel, whilst others were checking with RAF Watton. This strongly suggests the USAF - those in command at least - were in the know and that whatever it was, was of US origin.

PP, according to Dave Clarkes transcript

DC: I was on duty on the night when this incident was alleged to have happened [27/28 December 1980] and I remember phone calls coming through to Eastern Radar and RAF Watton from the Bentwaters radar facility asking us to scrutinise our radars asking us to scrutinise our returns to see if we had anything unusual in the Bentwaters or Woodbridge area.

On the men in black, it could be equally likely that they were local CID casually following up on the police reports, before hitting the greasy spoon.

Ask yourself if CID knocked on your door, what would be the first thing they would say to you? Perhaps, "Hello we're from the CID" (quick badge flash).

Yeah probably. I think it's possible that the news of the police being called out did the rounds amongst the Ipswich police and perhaps a couple of plain clothes officers decided to have a look for themselves what had gone on, just out of curiosity, but that is pure speculation.

[puddlepirate]

I have a copy of a report entitled:

History of the SAC Reconnaissance Operation: 1978, 1979 and 1980. Historical Study 187 (U). 1 June 1982.

This document was origninally classified secret but was declassified circa 2001 as the result of the FOIA. It is now unclas. The originator was HQ SAC and the document comes from the Office of the Historian HQ SAC.

On page132 of this report it states that:

"...special SR-71 deployment occurred in March 1979, when the JCS directed SAC to send the supersonic aircraft to RAF Mildenhall to fly what turned out to be a single photo mission.

(U) S/NOFORN And in December 1980, anticipating possible Warsaw Pact intervention into strike torn Poland, the JCS instructed SAC to deploy an SR-71 to RAF Mildenhall

The report describes the SR-71 deployment as round-robin RADINT, ELINT and imagery collection missions. The photographic images were forwarded to the 497th Reconnaissance Technical Group at Shierstein, West Germany for processing.....

++++

After reading the report it occured to me, although I'm not absolutely sure of the level of secrecy around SR-71 in 1980, that if most people on the ground at the twin bases had never seen or heard of SR-71 then if one had to make an emergency landing at either base then the personnel at those bases might not have any idea as to what it was. To all intents and purposes it would be - and it certainly looked like - an alien craft. And this could be the key bit... they didn't see it on radar. They knew something was there because they'd seen it with their own eyes but it was not shown on radar... nor was it on Watton's radar. And they could not understand that. For it not to be on radar had to be impossible.. hence their insistance with RAF Watton that it had to be there. Of the two bases, Woodbridge was the quieter and had long been designated (by the RAF at least) as an emergency landing field. If the SR-71 had a snag it could drop into Woody virtually unnoticed. Park up and await covert recovery or repair. Given its tasking then perhaps it had been pinged over Soviet bloc territory - perhaps weather conditions were poor so it had to go lower than was usual in order to take some important phots and took a hit from enemy fire? Maybe the reason it was not seen on radar was because (a) it had a low profile that returned a poor radar image and/or (b) it was so low it was flying under the radar, just above the tree tops.

Trying to think this through....

The USAF knew something was there
They were puzzled why it wasn't showing on radar
Something fell off whatever it was and landed in the forest
Mildenhall aware of pilot's intentions
Flash override telephone traffic by amazed / puzzled / very concerned personnel at the twin bases who had seen whatever it was but had no idea what the effing heck it was or what was going on
Immediate recovery initiated and forest searched as a matter of utmost urgency
Mildenhall send specialiast team to guard, hide, then recover aircraft
Film removed from aircraft and flown to Germany

And so it begins. It looked like a UFO so therefore it was a UFO, especially if part of it was missing having fallen into the forest. Nobody need think anything else and steps were taken to ensure that was so - and remained so. Personnel were interrogated to check what they saw and how much they knew then if anyone decided not to play ball it was made very, very clear as to what would happen to them. As LW said...bullets were cheap.

[puddlepirate]

A bit more info... the SR-71 had a four types of detachable nose....

http://www.spyflight.co.uk/sr71.htm

One carried an optical bar camera, one was empty and used for training/ferry flights. one was fitted with Goodyear or Loral ground mapping radar and the last one was fitted with Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar.

We know that in Dec 80 the SR-71 was flying photo reconnaissance missions out of Mildenhall and it is believed that a film was flown to Germany (by Gen Williams?) from Bentwaters so let's stay with the nose fitted with an optical bar camera. The nose is detachable. Go here for a drawing that shows the shape of the nose and details of the OB camera: http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/sr_sensors_pg1.htm

An image of the nose can be found here: http://img35.imageshack.us/i/pic0014e.jpg/ (on actual aircraft) and here: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_nAt52SFwKrU/SCDz8 ... re+138.jpg

This is not a particularly good image in that it only shows the rear of the nose cone when detached from the aircraft but it gives an indication of scale: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42801767@N00/55351731

[AdrianF]

I was sure as a kid growing up in the 70s, that I had a small metal Blackbird toy, so I googled and found this article by an SR71 pilot, Major Schul

"As inconceivable as it may sound, I once discarded the plane. Literally. My first encounter with the SR-71 came when I was 10 years old in the form of molded black plastic in a Revell kit. Cementing together the long fuselage parts proved tricky, and my finished product looked less than menacing. Glue,oozing from the seams, discolored the black plastic. It seemed ungainly alongside the fighter planes in my collection, and I threw it away.
Twenty-nine years later, I stood awe-struck in a Beale Air Force Base hangar, staring at the very real SR-71 before me. I had applied to fly the world's fastest jet and was receiving my first walk-around of our nation's most prestigious aircraft."
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/7821-Major-Brian-Shul-I-loved-that-jet.html

So I think that rules out that the air base personnel would have misidentified the plane.

[puddlepirate]

Absolutely. Forget misidentification. I made a mistake there. The thing was in service from 1966 and pictures of it were in the press in the 1970s... the world and it's dog would know what it looked like and security in that respect was irrelevant. However, if it landed minus the detachable nose, unexpectedly, in the middle of the night when the airbase(s) were closed and unlit and hardly anyone was around, then its sudden appearance might have taken anyone who was about by surprise. And if it had suffered either a power loss (or had run out of fuel just before it landed) it might have come down quite quietly.

It was not what it looked like that was classified but what it was doing.

Also, given that the SP/LE were not aircraft maintainers if they came across the nose off an SR-71 in the middle of a forest in the middle of the night, just after Christmas, then it is hardly surprising they didn't recognise it for what it was. Penniston's sketches are pretty damned accurate given they were made in the dark and under stressful circumstances.

Of course, this does not satisfy questions about lasers, lights, radiation and so forth but sometimes if it smells like pizza, looks like pizza and tastes like pizza then it's pretty certain it is pizza (or whatever the saying is).

[John Burroughs]

The other problem is it went back up into the sky and departed the area. Unless that where Zickler and company came in to make us see things...

[Deep Purple]

The points I would raise are that back in the early 80's no one would have seen an f117a or its prototype. The SR71 was a much different animal and had been seen by that time, also no one comments on the noise of an overflight by an SR71--- this must have been similar to at least concorde--- probaly a lot louder and so noticable. SO they wouldnt know what an F117a or its protoype looked like.

I received this by way of PM form an undisclosed source:-

By the 3rd night, word had got round both bases about the UFO. Many off duty airmen and some from Cindy McFadden's party at Folly house gate crashed Halt's search party wanting a bit of Christmas excitement and a piece of the action.
I don't know how many but i suspect the numbers i have read about is exaggerated. Halt does not tell this because he was powerless to stop it on British soil, so he keeps quiet. He got in hot water over this.
How come none of these masses have come forward to tell their story?
None of us were ordered by Halt or any other Officer to go help any search in the woods. Most of the troops were on leave or stood down. We had about 10 mobile security on patrol at Woody and the same at the Creek.

We had SP's and canine units on fixed post at the WSA, guard rooms and the other EMS exits. They would not be allowed to come off post.

I think you guys are losing some perspective here.

[puddlepirate]

DP... The comment about losing perspective is absolutely right. Spot on. Consequently I decided to go back and re-read the original statements made by Burroughs, Penniston, Cabansag and Chandler. The first thing I noticed was that PB, P, C and M/Sgt Ch were in the forest in the early hours of the 26th December.. i.e the night of 25/26th Dec, the early hours of Boxing Day (in the UK, the day immediately following Christmas Day). The second thing was that P and C came within 50 metres of the object and no closer. The third observation was that as they approached the lights, the lights kept moving away from them. JB reported hearing a noise 'like a woman screaming'. Lastly, each man recognised they were also seeing a 'beacon light' but clearly state that was NOT the lights they had originally seen.

In summary, what was seen was a red light above a blue light and white light that illuminated a large area of forest. There was also a yellow glow in the distance. According to JB the white light was moving independently of the red and blue lights.. at one point the red/blue lights are still out in the forest but the white light has now moved closer to the edge of the forest, apparently nearer to east gate. Then, as the group went out into the forest, the lights retreated.. as the group advanced, so the lights moved back.

I should have re-read the original statements because to be absolutely honest, having now re-read them I don't think they have any relevance to what happened on the subsequent nights. Quite frankly, other than the fact the red light was above the blue light rather than next to it, what was described could be a USAF police car driving along a logging road with the 'screaming noise' coming from a slipping fanbelt!!

What remains of great interest though is why, on a following night, did the USAF send a number personnel into the forest with floodlights and why did investigators want to see the Watton radar tapes? Surely this had to be connected with a totally separate incident. The night of 25/26th seems to be a bit of a red herring and serves only to confuse.

[John Burroughs]

I want to take the time to thank the people who want to help me and others keep this under perspective. The fact that I and others have received so much fame and fortune from this incident. That if we don't talk about what happened were covering somthing up and if we do we don't know what we saw or what happened to us. The fact that there were 2 incidents in 1980 involving WSA and beams of lights comming down and both bases had special ops at them. That there is a tape that has a object flying around in the sky beaming lights down from it but it was only stars or the lighthouse. The fact that the USAF has stated somthing happened to us and they stand by the Halt memo and General Williams has gone on the record saying somthing happened and were good men doing are job. That Maj Zickler went on to handle such important jobs in the USAF and GE Aeorsapce in special OPS and deception unit means nothing. That there was a NSA unit working at the nest Cobra mist scientist working at Bentawters and Marconi scientist at the BT who worked on UAV and Star Wars means nothing. Its so nice to know that and so i have been told we were out spending are time chasing a light house and looking at the stars and the moon. and we even had people who were partying join in. That Col halt career was destroyed moving on to a front line base in Korea in a war zone with nukes getiing promoted to Col and then working at the Pentagon for Dick Chaney

[John Burroughs]

I'm doing this in stages because I keep getting logged off! From Col Halts carreer being destroyed he has now gone on to say we were exposed to somthing ET in nature that the goverment has covered it up and that we were worked over by OSI and exposed to radition. That there has been many people who have gone on the record saying they saw somthing flying around in the sky and even beaming lights down some close to the WSA and one saying buzzing the tower has to be the light house beame or stars looking like they were moving around. I love the fact also that some of us are having health problems that started right after the incident which getting worse over the years I know Old Age even know we were asked if we were exposed to radition means nothing. The fact from the beggining it came out as a ailien story which makes most people run for cover and has both sides the one who beleive in ailiens which i have nothing against and have the right to beleive in them what ever ailiens might be and the other side who does not just square off and not really look at the facts. That Jim from the beggining stated it was a craft and drew picture of it in his statement and Puddle and i have found aircarft that look like his drawings means nothing! So as I walk my dogs tonight I will look up at the sky knowing now it was just the stars and moon and when i want to see my friend the light house I will take a quick trip to San Diego. . Most of all to those who like to hide behind other's and make statements which you won't even put you name behind I truley wish you the best. In summary its nice to know it was the stars or ET just calling home! That my Government and the men who were in charge of me have done there best to take care of us.

[John Burroughs]

Oh and one other thing about Col Halts and Maj Zickler career paths. Zickler went on to Eglin AFB which had special ops and had some major UFO activity while he was there. Col Halt was also the Base Commander in Belgium a front line base which was what helped bring the Russian to there knees with those little nuclear missles that could be launched into there country and were also based in England And was over there when they had there UFO incident and was even friends with the pilot who had that interesting encounter..

[IanR]

John, I’m trying to be straight with you; I hope you won’t misinterpret it as rudeness. While I’m sure your health problems are real - they are well documented - in my view you won’t find the answer in the forest. Isn’t it more likely that something happened to you on the base?

[John Burroughs]

Ian
Based on what? You can't except it was anything other than stars and planets! I'm also not trying to be rude You were not there you didnot go through or experiance what we saw! You pick out little bits of what was said and try to make them fit what you beleived happen to us Yet over look everthing else everbody has stated happened to them to include saying only one person said that or its just not possible. I guess you want be to go down on my knees and thank you for solving what happened to us. We were all out chasing stars and planets that were moving but were not it just looked like they were moving. That there were no beams of light comming down from the blue lights in the sky that what Jim and I came up on was just the light house beams and we were fooled by the what ever it was as it went up into the sky and streaked off. You have all but called all of us lyiers because only one of us stated it or that we were all running around the woods like village idiots chasing stars and plantes but you have no proof what so ever that what happened to us. I guess Halts tape was also made while we were all sitting around pounding down a few beers! And when he said this is unreal it was the flavor of the beer he was drinking. You were asked a question about your meeting with Halt and what he had to say about your statements with no responce. Sorry Ian but the fact you will not even look at any other possibity shows just how narrow minded you are and I have always wondered how without you ever being out there on the nights it happened you have become in your mind such a expert on what happened to us?

[pupil88]

R. Bobo: "I think I was the first to report the sighting that night. I was on the tower at Bentwaters; you get a good view from up there. There were several lights and there was this huge ship over the forest."

G. Bruni: "Can you describe the object?"

R. Bobo: 'I'd say it looked circular but, remember, I was over at Bentwaters and this was happening over at Woodbridge. I was instructed to watch it and can tell you that it was up there for about five hours, just hovering. I would say it was quite low in the sky."

G. Bruni: "Were you alone in the tower?"

R. Bobo: "Someone came to the tower and watched it through a scope. I don't know who he was, he was from a different department. I wasn't told anything and I didn't get to look through the scope."

G. Bruni: "Could you hear the radio transmissions from your location in the Bentwaters tower?"

R. Bobo: "I heard some of the radio transmissions, not all of them, you understand, because there were different frequencies. I heard over the radio that London had spotted something on their radar. I heard some of the radio transmissions from some of the men who were out there. They were reporting a light going through the woods, it had bumped into a tree and they were getting radioactive readings from the area. They were discussing three impressions and stuff moving through the woods toward Woodbridge. They kept switching to different frequencies so I couldn't hear everything. I know there was a colonel with them."

Bruni, Georgina. 'You Can't Tell the People.' Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 2000, pp. 243-44.

"When the object first caught my eye, it was already stationary, I didn't see it move to where it was and I didn't see it leave. I never left the tower and I kept a close eye on the object most of the time, you know, trying to figure out what it was and what it might do next."

"No, not beams of light. But after it was hanging there a long while, I saw things shooting off it, really, really fast, like little sparks or something. Maybe four or five of them. Little pieces of light, all leaving within a minute [of one another] like they were getting out of there. I hate to say it, but they looked like little ships, like drones maybe, but I don't know. They were shooting off in all directions, but up into the sky, not down to the ground. Right after that, the big object just disappeared. I was watching it, at least I thought I was, but it was just gone. I don't know what happened to it."

http://www.ufodigest.com/news/1008/bentwaters.html
page7 page8

[IanR]

John, I’ll answer you and then I’ll shut up.

My first point, a self-evident one, is that the forest was and is a public access area. People walk their dogs, jog and ride horses through there every day. Foresters lived there at the time and work there every day. There is a campsite near by. There are farmhouses the other side of the field. There were goodness knows how many people out there UFO spotting in the days after your initial sighting. There hasn’t been any public health problem as far as I am aware, and I’m sure it would have been the talk of the area if there had.

Secondly, if the USAF were running some secret operation over Christmas 1980, why did they risk blowing their cover by asking the Brits to investigate? Why call out the local PCs, twice, at the time of the first sighting? There was even a third callout, on Halt’s night, but the police, according to their own account, regarded it as “a recurrence of an earlier incident which was seen as somewhat frivolous” and they declined to turn up.

People far smarter than me have been combing the UK files for years for evidence of the kind of thing you and others on this Forum have been talking about. History shows that censorship on the scale implied here would inevitably leave its own traces, but in this case there hasn’t been even a sniff.

Oh, I know it’s been argued that Halt's memo with its incorrect dates was a key part of a cover-up. But on the other hand it’s clear that the wing commander never authorized it and was annoyed with Halt for sending it. So was Halt involved in a cover-up or wasn’t he? And if so who was he taking orders from? If the memo was a plant why did the USAF destroy their copy of it and have to borrow the MoD's copy to fulfil the Freedom of Information request from Robert Todd of CAUS? And why were people from the bases allowed out there on UFO hunts for night after night if there was some clandestine activity that the USAF wanted to keep quiet about? You can’t have it all ways.

Thirdly, it’s clear from the Halt tape that the radiation levels at the site were barely registering at the lowest end of the scale. Had the levels been genuinely high, traces could have remained for some years after. The area was checked for radiation at least twice in the 1980s, once by a private UFO group (SCUFORI) and the second time by a USAF major with a high security clearance who was visiting Woodbridge. Nothing unusual was found.

Rather than accusing you of lying, I have always considered you to be the among the most reliable of the witnesses, and I told Halt this when we met. As for what else passed between me and Halt -- I’m sure he wouldn’t expect me to repeat here what was an off-the-record conversation, but he did make the point that the USAF had been “burned” in the past by trying to cover up aircraft crashes and nuclear accidents and that their policy was to be open about it, tell the locals and clear it up. In fact he told me that not long before the Rendlesham incident he had been on a training course which had covered this very point. Unless someone has good evidence that Halt is deliberately lying to put us off the scent, you can forget about aircraft crashes, nuclear accidents or satellite recoveries of any kind.

Yes, I have considered plenty of alternatives, and there have been plenty more that I never thought of aired on this Forum, which is what has made it such an interesting place.

Again, please understand that I am not trying to attack you personally, nor am I trying to diminish the seriousness of your health problems which I am aware are real and very worrying. Your doctors say it could be due to exposure to radiation, and I’m not disputing their judgement, but I in turn am puzzled as to why you wouldn’t consider that the exposure happened somewhere other than in Rendlesham Forest.

[puddlepirate]

Key facts (apparently undisputed)

1. Two USAF investigators visit RAF WATTON to inspect radar recordings tapes/film
2. Large number of personnel deployed to forest with Lt Col and at least one other officer (Lt Englund)
3. Floodlights (lightalls) were taken into the forest
4. Radiation readings were taken

Observations from key facts:

1. Apparently, this is standard procedure for incidents involving US aircraft – thus there was almost certainly an incident involving a US aircraft
2. This suggests it was necessary to initiate a search
3. Floodlights were required – this suggests that when the search party found what it was looking for, whatever that was, the 'object' needed to be worked on or checked otherwise the search would only have required powerful handheld torches, not airfield floodlights
4. There was a concern over radiation or radiation readings would not have been taken. The type of Geiger counter used was (apparently) of the type designed for checking nuclear weapons for radhaz. Therefore, this strongly suggests concern over possible damage to a nuclear weapon but as the readings were low, there was no leak. Therefore the weapon and the surrounding area was safe. This is classic 'but the dog didn't bark in the night-time'...it was very important that there was no significant increase in radiation.

From the numbers of personnel, vehicles and floodlights assigned to the forest this was not a secret or covert operation. This was an overt deployment of USAF personnel and equipment for a specific purpose

If the USAF pursued a policy of openess and honesty regarding disclosure of incidents/accidents with aircraft or weapons, why then would they be reticent to reveal the true cause of the RFI?

This was an exceptional case where publicity was probably influenced by two important considerations:

(a) the large numbers of vociferous and possibly influential anti-nuclear campaigners active in the UK at that time
(b) the Soviets threatening to invade Poland in order to support its beleagured communist government

It is my belief that the level of threat posed by these two elements should not be underestimated. Therefore the situation required exceptional measures to prevent the public but more specifically the media, from becoming aware. The reasons for that were:

In Dec 80 there was considerable tension in the UK. Substantial anti-nuclear protests were taking place in London and at Bentwaters. There was huge resistance to placing Cruise in the UK (which Francis Pym had authorised earlier in the year) thus the threat of civil unrest over the retention of US nuclear weapons in the UK was high and growing higher still.

The risk of a super-power confrontation over possible Soviet intervention in Poland was also very high. Retaliatory action in response to a Soviet bloc invasion would come from frontline USAFE bases in Germany and the UK. In readiness for that, the USAF had moved A10s to frontline bases in Germany and brought F16s forward from Beale AFB to an increased state of readiness at Bentwaters. The threat that NATO had stockpiles of and would use, tactical nuclear weapons had to remain unopposed or the position of NATO in response to an invasion of Poland would be very seriously undermined.

If it had been revealed that an F16 stationed at Bentwaters had somehow lost an Mk61 tactical nuclear weapon in Rendlesham forest - and at Christmas no less! -there would have been absolute uproar, both amongst the civilian population and in parliament. The media would have had a field day and the UK government would have been under enormous pressure to close all USAF bases in the UK. Therefore, there was a very high risk that the unauthorised disclosure of any such incident could have caused exceptional grave damage to the responsive capability of NATO in general and the defence responsibilities of the USAF in particular. This could not be allowed to happen. Thus, this incident, contrary to the publicised US policy on ‘Broken Arrow’, ‘Bent Spear’ or similar incidents, was immediately given a very high security classification, almost certainly COSMIC or above, in order to keep it secret.

For information on standard USAF procedures see the following USAF manuals:

Weapons and Explosives Safety Manual – specifically Broken Arrow, Bent Spear and Covered Wagon *
Airforce Operational Reporting Instructions (AFOREPS) – specifically SITREPS, PINNACLE NUCFLASH, PINNACLE EMERGENCY EVACUATION

Both are available if you search on Google. They contain details of various procedures relating to weapons, weapons safety and incident reporting procedures. They also list prosigns to be used in various communications etc etc. When these procedures are read and compared with actions in the forest, it becomes very clear that USAF activity in Rendlesham forest and elsewhere was iaw USAF standing orders, safety procedures and comms procedures for an accident with a nuclear weapon.

The question is 'how did it happen?'.. and this could well be where ELF, EM etc etc come in. In the first manual it refers to the use of electronic trigger mechanisms and the importance of not using any electronic devices within range of various weapons. This is pure speculation but perhaps something happening on the ground triggered the accidental release of a weapon from an overflying aircraft.

*The bit about 'weapons are not to be used for fault finding' was interesting...