Ian was right

[puddlepirate]

The BBC (now VT Communications) aerial masts located to the north of Orford Ness at approx 6 miles from the field, are over 90m high. If it's possible to see a 28m high light from a field 5.5 miles away then as sure as heck it must be possible to see the lights on top of the masts.

[stephan]

I just want to make a short reply to a post by Ian in another thread which I don't want to revive as the main topic is a different one there.

I cannot unfortunately recreate the 3 am fireball which in my opinion started off the whole event (and which you tell me was actually seen by Bud Steffens and not you).

I've been skimming through the witness statements Admin has provided the link for and I found a passage in Cabansag's statement (underlined, bold) where the fireball may have actually been mentioned:

While we walked, each one of us would see the lights. Blue, red, white, and yellow. The beckon light turned out to be the yellow light. We would see them periodically, but not In a specific pattern. As we approached, the lights would seem to be at the edge of the forret. We were about 100 meters from the edge of the forrest when I saw a quick movement, it look visible for a moment. It look like it spun XXgXX left a quarter of a turn, then it was gone. .

source

IF this was the 2:50 am fireball mentioned by Ian then this passage would allow us to identify what happened first and what happened next. So again IF this was the fireball then the blue, red, white lights (which had already been spotted by John) and the yellow one (which was presumably the lighthouse) were seen first, i.e. before the fireball. However, it may also have been a falling star (or whatever) but those are usually VERY quick. He obviously did not look directly at it, I think it was more like peripheral vision. So I tend to think it was the fireball.

sidenote: the XXgXX probably means 'right', so he probably first thought it was right and then he remembered it was the other direction.

[AdrianF]

The BBC (now VT Communications) aerial masts located to the north of Orford Ness at approx 6 miles from the field, are over 90m high. If it's possible to see a 28m high light from a field 5.5 miles away then as sure as heck it must be possible to see the lights on top of the masts.

Well looking at the BBC clip does make you think. I haven't seen the radio masts from the forest edge, but they do become visible when you reach the far side of the second field, which I believe went up as far as the farm buildings which border the back road.

[puddlepirate]

The other thing about the masts (there's 11 in total) is that the grey (ish) lattice work - aluminium perhaps? = doesn't exactly stand out, especially against light blue or white/grey sky. I would hazard a guess that at night the lights would look like lights in the sky rather than lights attached to something, particularly if you weren't aware of them previously or if the vis wasn't especially good.

Although I believe they were, I cannot positively confirm they were there in 1980 - perhaps someone local to Orford can confirm that?

As I stated previously, even the lights on the masts would not resolve everything Halt saw nor would they come anywhere close to what JB and JP witnessed - but they could be part of the puzzle of what was seen on the second night.

[stephan]

Don't know if this is of any relevance but it might have had some influence on what was going on - not sure how exactly but it might

This is what the weather was doing:

T = Temp deg C; W = wind speed Km/h; WM = Max wind speed; WG = wind gusts

26th Dec: T = 3.1; W = 23.9; WM = 23.9; WG = 36.7
27th Dec: T = 2.1: W = 13.9; WM = 20.2; WG = -
28th Dec: T = 2.9; W = 14.6; WM = 23.7; WG = -
29th Dec: T = 8.3; W = 22.8; WM = 40.7; WG = 51.9
30th Dec: T = 8.7; W = 23.5; WM = 33.2; WG = 64.3

puddle, where did you obtain the data ? I only found a list for the weather stations in Cambridge, Lowestoft and Manston (see here). The min. temp. there for december was +2.7, +2.1 resp. +2.6 °C. As RF lies in between I would think that the temperature wasn't below zero, too. In that I case I wonder if the ground could have been frozen as Jim said:

Penniston affirms this, "the road was pretty hard [too] because everything was frozen.

source: http://rendlesham-incident.co.uk/old/25-26-december.php

perhaps because the weather stations are located in major cities where it is usually warmer than in rural areas ?

[puddlepirate]

It's easy enough to find.. simply google 'historical weather data' ..that will bring up several sources. I used a site that listed data for RAF Woodbridge

http://www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/Unit ... om/GB.html

Make sure you select 1980 / Dec - and scroll down to RAF Woodbridge. The data shown on this site is matched by weather data in The Times newspaper for the same period. If you dispute the data then take it up with the site and the publishers of The Times, not with me.

[Admin]

It's easy enough to find.. simply google 'historical weather data' ..that will bring up several sources. I used a site that listed data for RAF Woodbridge

http://www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/Unit ... om/GB.html

Make sure you select 1980 / Dec - and scroll down to RAF Woodbridge. The data shown on this site is matched by weather data in The Times newspaper for the same period. If you dispute the data then take it up with the site and the publishers of The Times, not with me.

Interesting data, PP. Here's a direct link to RAF Woodbridge: http://www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/WOODBRIDGE_RAF/12-1980/35951.htm
It's interesting to note that there was no fog as the witnesses have claimed. Seems that December 26-28 were three particularly cold days compared with the rest of December.

Edit: missed the minimum temperature reading!

[stephan]

puddle, take it up with you ? Not at all! I was just interested in where you got your data from as it indeed could be important. Thx for the link. I've c/p.ed the days in question:



as for the frozen ground Jim was probably right although the temperature was slightly above zero. The ground temperature can be below zero even if the temperature given in the list says it was +2 °C as it is usually measured 2 m above the ground.

edit:



the additional data (if you click on the + sign) contains further interesting information:

the mean visibility was 11.3 km. Thus, the lighthouse (8 km away) would have been visible.

In meteorology, visibility the distance a object or light can be clearly discerned. [...] Visibility affects all forms of traffic: roads, sailing and aviation. Meteorological visibility refers to transparency of air: in dark, meteorological visibility is still the same as in daylight for the same air.

source

[Daniel]

Just a question about these weather results. Are they forecasted data only or actual results? Also I so see no times, only dates, so would this give us accurate weather for say 3am? Still a nice find PP. Just from listening to the Col. Halt's audio tape I wouldn't say it was overly windy at that time.

This is where witness statements are great, so we can understand what was the conditions exactely like at that time.

[stephan]

results, as for the temperature the min. and max. values are exactly that, minimum and maximum values.

[stephan]

just a scenario. It seems that the really inexplicable part of the RFI (I don't say that the other observations have been fully explained though) is John's and Jim's observations (plus a few others who witnessed it from afar). So I thought of a POSSIBLE (ie. it does not have to be THE) explanation. When I was in the military service they once made a very spectacular demonstration with flares and other effects. The sky and the forest were lit up and if you had seen it from a distance and not known what it was you'd have wondered what the heck it was.

So the scenario would be this: some type of military excercise was going on in RF which may have been sparked by the sighting of the fireball mentioned by Ian. With the fireball the atmosphere had become delicate (or UFOish if you will) enough to perform the long planned excercise, perhaps to test the junior staff's reliability. Some officers got into the woods after the first report of the fireball (made perhaps by a security guard at Bentwaters, Richard Bertolino, see here)) and initiated a light and special effect show with flares on the ground, powerful floodlights and all. Perhaps they installed everything in a way that wouldn't allow to tell who was responsible, perhaps they used some type of remote controls.

On the night Halt led his team into the woods they had a starscope with them. So they were sometimes using it when looking at the ''objects''. As I mentioned earlier those ''beams of light'' may have been some kind of lense reflections. Whenever they looked through the starscope they saw them like in this video (you have to click the title to watch it):



if you look at such a flare from a distance through binoculars or through that starscope the way you would describe it would be ''a red light'' with beams coming down to the ground, perhaps also pointing into the sky''. You would even see something that looks like ''molten metal'' dripping off the object (like in the video) with the metal leaving no traces.

To come back to the observations made by John and Jim, here are a few other videos which demonstrate what can be done with artificial but terrestrial means:

a yellow ''light'' that lights up the woods:



another one, again with ''beams of light'':



multiple lights in the sky:



yet another one:



as I said, JUST A SCENARIO ! It probably doesn't explain all the observations made by the witnesses.