Psychology of cover-ups

[daveclarke]

>Several of those guys out in the forest said that the atmosphere was 'electric', their hair >stood up and bristled

Of course a very similar physiological effect is reported by witnesses to ghosts and apparitions, indeed the anecdote of 'the hair on the back of my head stood on end' is so common in those types of experiences as to become a standard ghost motif.

Which suggests to me that we're dealing here with a natural human reaction to something that is *perceived* as unknown, in an unfamiliar situation, something that the brain thinks is uncanny, or potentially dangerous. It's a reaction that possibly goes back to the basic instincts we all retain from prehistoric times when we were programmed to respond to the presence of predatory animals in the dark.

Note I'm not making any judgement calls on the nature of the perceived unknown; just the point that merely the perception that something odd was in the forest (whatever that was) might produce the same sort of physical reaction reported by witnesses to ghosts and apparitions.

[robert]

Hi David,
Congrats on your appearance the other night. A lot younger looking than that other Professional Investigator with the Specs!

Just a small point re your above views.

John B also felt as though time slowed down. In view of the fact that you brought up the Ghostly aspect, have you any experience of any witness of Ghosts also having a feeling of time slowing down as well as this prickly feeling on the back of ones neck?


Cheers

Robert

[daveclarke]

Hi Robert

Strangely enough quite a few people have commented that I appear to look a lot younger on TV than I do in reality, but I'm sure there must be a rational explanation!!

As for 'time slowing down', yes this again is a very common sensation reported by experiencers both of 'UFOs', particularly close encounter experiences, and those reporting more traditional supernatural events. Indeed, Jenny Randles even gave the sensation a name, 'the Oz Factor', simply because it was so common in narratives about such events.

I can think of some dozen or so accounts reported to me alone where the witness says something like, 'you know it was really strange, while we were watching this thing in the sky/while the ghost was present everything seemed to go quiet, there were no cars around, even the birds stopped singing etc etc'; then after it had departed everything returned to normal.

There are a number of ways of interpreting such stories. The most unlikely, in my view, is that time did actually slow down, or that we are dealing with some bizarre time-slip created by the presence of ETs or time-travellers, yada yada yada.

Once we have removed the improbable and downright daft, we're left with the more likely explanations from psychology. I think it more likely that when people see what they believe is something 'supernatural' (be it UFO, ghost, sasquatch, whatever) they enter a a kind of transfixed mindset where all their perception is focussed on what they are observing, excluding all other stimuli (hence the feeling of time slowing down). Even the fact that two or more people seemingly report the same thing is not remarkable in the literature, indeed there is even a psychiatric syndrome known as Folie a Deux where one person can transmit or share an experience with another.

I have seen evidence of this in my folklore work in the Peak District. We have a recurrent story in one part of the hills concerning ghostly Roman legionnaires who are seen marching, carrying lighted torches, along a ridge which follows the route of an old roman road. Although it's just 'a legend', during the past 30 years the local mountain rescue team have received genuine call-outs to deal with people who claim to have 'seen' the legionnaires, often during hiking expeditions in the darkness of the Peak hills. On one occasion the team were called out to treat a group of hikers who reported this type of experience, one of whom required hospital treatment as a result of the 'shock' he experienced. The account was interesting because this was a vision experienced by one man in a group of five, who appeared to have transmitted his terror (but not the vision) to the other four.

Similar stories from the region - both involving ghosts and 'mysterious lights' - also involve strange sensations of hair raising on end, time appearing to slow down etc.

So Rendlesham is nothing unique at all and people who write and speculate about it really should do some reading outside of the 'UFO literature'.

[Observer]

So its quite possible that the lights seen by Halt and the rest in that situation of a dark woods at night with a ghostly red glow of a 'torch' at a distance amongst the trees frightened them. It would me.
Obs

[larry warren]

Hi john,
Halt told PR and me the same thing, he said ( are you awear that JB grabed a smaller craft that apeared in
the parking area, and it moved 10 meters withhim still holding on to it!
he also said that you stayed out in the woods for two weeks, and people had to bring out stuff for you to
survive on, ie food etc,we were not aware of any of that, and i wondered how you pulled that off because i
saw yousoon after the events on patrol on bentwaters base.
also our friend that i put you in touch with, tells how the both of you were on patrol soon after.
as for climbing on the craft, as far out as it sounded, nothing would supprise me when it comes to Bentwaters!
i just thought that guys got balls of steel.
we never talked about or published that, as it if true, was for only you to tell.
i have herd it mentioned over the years though.
I can top that one, Halt used to tell people i got chucked out of the AF because i was a homosexual
im just glad he dident say i got bumed by the critters! hey, it could happen!
cheers

[John Burroughs]

Hi Larry
When did Halt tell you this? And why did it come up? Because this is what Brubaker and everybody else was going after so hard in the early days. He got me in touch with Bustina who was running with me as we got closer to what ever it was. That is when Bustina and I talked about you. Bustina told me that as we were running towards the object and i say object for no better word he fell down which I remember well he stated he did not fall but was pushed and then was held down. After that he stated what ever it was completly covered me up in other words it went over me and I disapeared. Well I can remember getting close to it and then all of a sudden i was standing in the field not knowing what had happened. That is why Brubaker had me go under Hypnois and well I wont say what came out except to say what ever it was had a effect on me. For those who want to know why well to this day people wont beleive what we saw so they will never beleive what came out.

[robert]

Hi Larry
When did Halt tell you this? And why did it come up? Because this is what Brubaker and everybody else was going after so hard in the early days. He got me in touch with Bustina who was running with me as we got closer to what ever it was. That is when Bustina and I talked about you. Bustina told me that as we were running towards the object and i say object for no better word he fell down which I remember well he stated he did not fall but was pushed and then was held down. After that he stated what ever it was completly covered me up in other words it went over me and I disapeared. Well I can remember getting close to it and then all of a sudden i was standing in the field not knowing what had happened. That is why Brubaker had me go under Hypnois and well I wont say what came out except to say what ever it was had a effect on me. For those who want to know why well to this day people wont beleive what we saw so they will never beleive what came out.

Come on JB you can't leave it at that!

And if you can, PM me. I promise I won't tell

Robert

[larry warren]

hi john, all.
Wow! im proud as shit of john!!!!!
this takes guts. John Halt told us that in DC, back in 92 or 93 ie you on a craft.
Robert, obs dave clark, all, im with you, the effects you describe happrned to me as well, along withall the Mk ultra
i could eat! i have no dought about it , i have been used with a big U!!!
it is true that i have had more than one strange experiance in my life , and i know that alone would cancel most peoples
credability with this stuff, i think that i was used because i had been predisposed to the subject.
in my next post i will tell you about somthing that happened in texas, that i now beleive was conected to RFI.
no im not making stuff up, and my co author has known about it for years. that said ,let me check some facts, dates
etc and i will write it down for you guys, it just might blow your minds!
but now its starting to add a few things up for me , it is not in the book, caus it dident fit into my beleif system at that time.
John, all of the Effects with rad exp, and retnal burns, nightmares, to this day ie, related to rfi ect
that thing you asked me John, you can count me in brother!!!!!!we all will and do have alot of support!
this site and the interactions on it has unlocked a few things for me that i dident want to face, a wild ride for all
cause Bentwaters run deep!
cheers

[robert]

Glad to see it's coming together for you a bit more LW.

Pity you can't talk to Jim Penniston. Help him out a bit.

Seems to me to be still restling with his encounter.

May be some of this info might help him out a bit,you never know.

Robert

[Observer]

Larry
I've wondered for some time and i even mentioned it last year that all that stuff/lights etc going on in the forest was to lure you guys out there so 'they' could test some thing on you. Who's they????????????
The BT RC was shut down for Christmas, Orfordness would have been shut down for Christmas and only RAF Bawdsey would be operational as part of the radar defence but the staff in the experimental/research side of Bawdsey would be home for Christmas as they were not RAF.
So who does that leave us with who could carry out such a BLACK OP and if they did they would be running a huge risk of involving inocent local Brits as it was off base?? This must be considered if we are to persue this as a theory.
Obs

[John Burroughs]

Thats the best time to do it nobody is around but the people conducting the test and I beleive somthing went wrong and most of the test was ment to be out at sea not on land. They in know way wanted us out there or involved!!!

[Observer]

John
That's good and it opens up the idea that it was an accident or a misplaced test that should not have involved you guys. We now need to think who did it, why did they do it and where was it supposed to take place? Was it a long distance 'shot' either aimed to drop on orfordness or the base but missed the mark?
Or, was a Black op spy mission? I don't think it was intentional that it ended up in the forest, so what was the target?
Obs

[robert]

The Russians still hadn't finished with Poland. They were contemplating another invasion of Poland in May 1981 so they had just put it on the backburners after the intial 5th to 12th December episode.

They could have been used electronic warfare on the eastcoast to try and knock out radar cover from long range or by via a Satellite based system. The DEW and EM weapons that were sending a blanket of plasma over long distances to disrupt radar could have been used .The Russians may have been more advanced than we were with that technology.

Alternatively it could have been NATO trialling the same thing as a prelude to announcing SDI and cocked it up. Or just the Sea Air and Land based EM weapons could achieve the same thing.

Any combination. Could have been a two or three night electronic warfare fight the Guys were in the middle of!

The land based system I think would have been Army. Maybe it was a combined excersise. Triangulation from land and Sea based transmitters targeting dummy missiles or a Russian spy plane.

That month Russian Subs several times had been going into Swedish terratorial waters 5 miles,then 10 miles inside and NATO was getting a bit nervous about it. There would have been a lot of Naval movement out there and a lot of sabre rattling and use of radar jamming devices in the North Sea.

Robert

[Observer]

Good scenarios, Puddle [ex RN] knows quite a bit about Naval movements in the North sea over that Christmas.
If he is reading this perhaps he can remind us.
Obs

[puddlepirate]

Hi

The only naval movements that I know to be correct are related to the Standing Naval Force Atlantic (STANAVFORLANT). This is / was a standing naval force comprising five ships of the NATO alliance. The ships of the force rotate but in Dec 80 they comprised one Canadian, one Danish, one German, one British and one American ship. Because of the situation in Poland, instead of returning to their home ports for Christmas, the Canadian and US ships remained alongside at Portsmouth as did the British ship. The Danish and German ships returned home but as their home ports were in northern European waters they could be recalled immediately should things kick off.

The only other ships that might have been in the area of the North Sea would have been fishery protection vessels such as 'Ton' class minesweepers or smaller ships such as the Leeds Castle. The North Sea is fairly shallow so Soviet boats would not usually (other then their well publicised excursions into Swedish waters, e.g. the vodka on the rocks malarky) transit the North Sea (to do so would have meant a risky passage through the Dover Strait where they would have been pinged almost instantly), instead they would exit into the Atlantic via the Greenland - Iceland - Faroes - UK gap and laid along the seabed across the gap was SOSUS (SOund SUveillance System), a passive listening system.

Therefore, it is highly unlikely that a Soviet boat would have been operating in the North Sea, especially in the sandbanks off the 'ness. Not impossible of course but unlikely. Also there used to be a joke that NATO stood for Not After Two O'clock....everyone apart from duty personnel cleared off on weekend leave around midday on Friday not to return until Monday morning. It was pretty much understood the Soviets did the same (or if they were smart they'd have invaded around 3pm on a Friday....). That said, it could be possible that if something was going on then one of our boats might have been involved.

If there was some kind of ELF / EM weapon engaged over Rendlesham which affected atmospherics or the personnel in the forest then it would surely have similarly affected the locals yet nobody has ever mentioned being so affected so I would be inclined to discount that option. Not sure about a 'black' op as such, I'd put my money on a problem with an experiment that involved high powered radars and a classified weapon or an unexpected aircraft from somewhere else that was armed with a tactial nuke that happened to stray into the area at the time of the experiments and as a consequence suffered a malfunction of some kind. The malfunction didn't bring the aircraft down but caused it to lose power and thus altitude, forcing it to make an emergency landing (damaged landing lights?). To reduce weight and land safely the pilot had to jettison the weapon. He'd probably intended to drop it into the sea but simply miscalculated or mistook the tree tops of the dense (and very dark) forest for the sea. Purely hypothetical of course.

[Observer]

I think puddles last paragraph with it's suggestions warrants further investigation.
Obs

[Robert McLean]

I'd like to say here that I do think something strange ('supernatural'?) happened at Rendlesham; after being fascinated by the case since - as a teenager - I saw the News of the World headline 'UFO lands in Suffolk', I've watched the various claims and counter-claims unfold over the years. I have to say that - after watching a dozen silly US-made documentaries - I find Charles Halt and Jim Penniston's stories unconvincing and riddled with contradictions. The more they sell out to showbiz, the less credible their stories become.

On the other hand, I find John Burrough's story the most convincing of all, and I'm happy to accept he and others saw something very unusual (though I have a few ideas about what it could have been). But I've yet to see a full, detailed account, organised in chronological order with names, dates and places, that might allow some sense to be made out of this mess, from John's point of view.

This is exactly my opinion, too. I don't know what it was that BP&C saw out there - except that it must have been very unusual and that it couldn't have been the lighthouse. Although they did at points see and later identify the lighthouse, this could not have been what they came across in the forest.

There has been confusion and lack of evidence right from the start over really basic matters, like exactly where the events took place out there in the forest and fields, and who was with whom. Until we have a better idea of the who, what, where and when, the arguments will just continue to go around in circles.

John's input is invaluable here, and greatly appreciated.

[John Burroughs]

I want to say I beleive there were locals that stated they had problems with there cars saw strange lights durning the time frame of what happened to us......

[John Burroughs]

And that is why I would love to have someone follow up in the local area to see what the locals have to say. Did redsocks not say he talked to someone close by who changed his opion on Bentwaters!!!

[robert]

John,

All of these were on the BBC 2004 documentary. ,IE; saw lights or craft

Witnesses;
Ann Hopton Scott. Julia Abbott. Gerry Harris.

Gary Collins,'Triangle Shape. Port holes underneath.'

May be more in the RFI archives.

I think the only one I have heard of change his mind was on one of the Rendlesham Documentaries where Halt and Penniston revisited Rendlesham.

At this time JP and H after walking to 'site' realised that they were both talking about different sites. They were accompanied by the famous Gamekeeper of the time who suggested apparently a Lighthouse or agreed that it was a lighthouse.

When JP and H realised they were then talking about different 'sites' they took the game keeper to the second one. He obviously had no idea about a second site either and he realised that after seeing the second sight that this changed his whole perspective on the incident and realised the lighthouse theory didn't hold water any more.

I think that was possibly the guy Redsocks may have been referring to.

Cheers

Robert