2008 Atlantic Coast UFO Conference - Peter on Rendlesham

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The Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident: Facts, Observations and Reflections
For Atlantic Coast UFO Conference, Feb. 15-17, 2008, Atlantic City, NJ
By Peter Robbins

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Exactly twenty years ago today, my co-author Larry Warren and I arrived in England to begin researching this story on location. Numerous other visits would follow but this was our first. I like coincidences like this..

Pic 1: Capel Green3 12-02
On three successive nights in late December 1980, England’s rural Suffolk, East Anglia was the setting for what is now regarded as the most significant and now best documented UFO incident, military or otherwise. Buried in secrecy from the start, the true nature of these events were suppressed and confounded under the American National Security Act of 1947 and Her Majesty’s Official Secrets Act. The story was soon relegated to the colorful realm of East Anglian folklore where it remained until October 2, 1983. On that Sunday the story literally exploded in the British press, thanks to the fact that one of the eyewitnesses, former USAF Airman First Class Larry Warren, had gone public and become the case’s whistleblower. The incident has remained in the public eye ever since.

Pic 2: O’Mara flier
When Left At East Gate: A First-Hand Account of the Bentwaters/ Woodbridge UFO Incident, Its Cover-Up and Investigation first appeared in US and UK bookstores, our intention was threefold. It gave Larry an opportunity to put his personal account of the events, and their very personal aftermath, on the public record, to make public the case we’d built and the evidence we’d assembled, and to encourage others who had been involved to come forward. Case-related information has continued to emerge since we first published and a lot of it has a real bearing on what we know about the incident as a whole, and on Larry Warren’s involvement in particular. Additionally, some of the material that did not make it into print – letters, emails, personal accounts and interviews with involved parties, were every bit as significant as the entries that did. What I’d like to do today is give you an overview of the case, and an update on what actually happened in those woods that night, and other nights, to some of the key witnesses. But first you need to have a sense of the sweep of the incidents which constitute the event, then some of the information which we learned since Left At East Gate was first published.

Pic 3: Nuke bunkers
To begin with, the Bentwaters incident had two chilling Cold War ‘back stories, neither of which had to do with UFOs.’ At the time of the 1980 events, the US military maintained a stockpile of something like three hundred and fifty thousand kilotons of nuclear ordinance in Suffolk. This was in full violation of our treaty with the United Kingdom at the time. While secret, this fact was well known to personnel like Warren who possessed Secret security clearances and had been specially trained to work around the nukes. The other variable was rooted in Warsaw Pact concerns over the pro-democracy movement then taking hold in the shipyards of Gadansk, Poland.

Pic 4: Alert condition sign
In response to the pro-democracy movement then centered in the Gadansk shipyards, the Soviet Union had quietly massed more than one hundred thousand troops along the Polish border and NATO bases all over Europe and the UK had gone to red alert. Red is one level below black and black is war.

Pic 5: UK map
Discuss location..
On the first night of the incident, UFOs were observed in the skies above the twin bases and the Rendlesham Forest that connects them. Airmen in the Bentwaters (nuclear) Weapons Storage Area first saw the unknowns from their observation tower as well as on radar.

Pic 6: Coast map
Also that night, Law Enforcement Police (LEs) at the East Gate of RAF Woodbridge observed unidentified lights in a wooded area outside the base’s East Gate.

Pic 7: East Gate 94
Although there was no indication of a crash – no sound or vibration or fire, the lights could not be accounted for and the LEs radioed in for permission to leave their post to investigate. Permission was granted and the four men headed off base and into the woods.

Pic 8: Rendlesham Forest
As they entered the area of concern their Motorola radios began having transmission problems and then ceased functioning. The men were out of communication with the base for the next few hours. They soon came upon a machine of unknown origin. It was triangular in shape, had a black glass-like surface, measured approximately two meters (seven feet) on each side. It was maneuvering slowly through the trees at about chest height. Law Enforcement cop Jim Penniston got close enough to see unknown symbols or letter forms on the craft’s surface. Airman John Burrows got even closer and pulled his sidearm on it. He told Larry that he then impulsively jumped on it; the machine moved about thirty feet through the woods before he released his grip on it. Three of the four men involved returned to base hours later with incomplete memories of their time in the forest. The forth man did not return with the others and remained missing for some days after.

Pic 9: Nuke bunkers, aerial
On the second night, UFOs were again seen, this time moving in a seemingly organized grid-type pattern over the area. Evidence of landing sights were found in the surrounding countryside in the form of circular depressions in the soil that were triangular in pattern. Beta and gamma radiation readings in the depressions registered in excess of ten times the norm for the area. Similar readings were recorded where tree bark had been ripped off of trees in the landing zones.

Pic 10: color map
Events culminated on the third night. With UFO sightings continuing, Deputy Base Commander Charles I. Halt used a microcassette recorder to capture his and his men’s reactions as the unknowns flew overhead, irregularly shooting down laser-like beams of light into their immediate area. They also documented a landing zone and made plaster casts of the circular impressions in the ground, casts that, to the best of my knowledge, are still in the personal possession of Mr. Halt.

Pic 11: Capel Green map
But even more significant was what occurred on the third night in a farmer’s field less than a mile from the perimeter of RAF Woodbridge. This was the event that involved my co-author Larry Warren.

Pic 12: LW 3-81
Larry had been on guard duty that night and listened in on his Motorola as other airmen described the UFOs they were seeing several miles down the line. He was soon ordered to close down his perimeter post and wait for a vehicle that was being sent to pick him up. That truck was soon joining other vehicles converging on the base motor pool. Military light alls – the military equivalent of the large klieg lights we associated with Hollywood premiers –had their gas tanks topped off and were hooked up to trailer mounts.

Pic 13: East Gate Rd
Sometime after midnight the caravan rolled out into the night, its destination a remote logging road about six miles from RAF Bentwaters and one hundred or so yards beyond RAF Woodbridge’s East Gate Road. Upon disembarking the men were disarmed and broken up into three man groups. Each group was issued a Motorola radio, then ordered deeper into the woods to “investigate a disturbance.”

Pic 14: Capel Green
With their flashlights and radios failing, the airmen made their way into a farmer’s field named Capel Green. Here they encountered a strange glowing ground fog which they were ordered to surround.

Pic 15: LW Ground fog painting
Lightalls that had been brought into the field refused to function. Air Force personnel then observed a bright, small an unidentified red light which slowly came in over the field from the direction of the North Sea. As it descended from above, it ‘exploded’ without a sound, but with such brightness that it burned the retinas of Warren’s and very likely others eyes.

Pic 16: Capel Green magic marker drawing
It took several seconds for the men’s vision to adjust to the tremendous flash, but when they did, a large machine unlike anything they had seen now stood in the center of the area they’d been ordered to surround.

Pic 17: CG Drawing
Some men fled into the woods but the majority stood their ground, even when three small, glowing life forms appeared next to the craft.

Pic 17A: CG Drawing close-up
Soon a senior officer who we maintain was Wing Commander Gordon Williams, stepped through the circle of men and ‘faced off’ with the beings. This occurred with no words or violence: just a human being looking at three non-human beings and them looking back at him. The event went on until the small hours of the night.

Pic 18: Capel Green craft painting
The witnesses were ordered not to speak to anyone about what they’d seen, but at the next day’s debriefing hey were told that the craft and beings were not of this earth. They were also threatened, in so many words, that if they broke security they would regret it.

Pic 19A: Underground1
The next day, involved personnel were debriefed by a uniformed Naval officer and two civilians, later identified to be with a field arm of the National Security Agency. That night Airman Warren and other eyewitnesses were chemically subdued and taken, very much against their will, to a huge facility below the base where they were held and subjected to a series of mind-altering efforts. These drawings were made by Larry Warren from memory in late 1987.

Pic 19B 19C, 19D

Pic 20: Honorable discharge
Larry Warren left the Air Force with an honorable discharge five months later and went on to become the first man to go on record with what he knew about the incident. Chances are this story would never have broken without the information he supplied to investigators.

Pic 21: LAEG cover
This has been the briefest of treatments of the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident. Left At East Gate is more than five hundred pages long with a good part of the text focusing on the impact that going through such an experience can have on an individual’s life after the fact.

Pic 22: Woodbridge perimeter
What makes the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident so significant among UFO cases? Almost everything. Ground to air sightings confirmed by radar; illegal nuclear weaponry; documented physiological changes to organic material in landing zones; burns on the retinas of my co-author’s eyes confirmed in his Air Force medical records; beams of light been shot from the craft to the ground - within the Weapons Storage Area and the surrounding area; evidence of abduction among some of the men involved; military documents, letters and paper trail; extraordinary media coverage; opened letters and monitored phone calls; the testimony of many military and civilian witnesses; memorable, multiple animal reactions to the UFOs; photographic and historic evidence; long term physical and psychological impact on the men individuals involved; suicide; and the fact that Suffolk, East Anglia, has a long history of weapons development, testing and intelligence activity. The area is also rich in myth, legend and alleged paranormal activity, and finally, the fact that a pattern of cover-up and evasion parallels the entire affair. So, let’s take a look at some examples of these allegations.

Ground to air sightings confirmed by radar:
Pic 23: Nov 83 Haseltine letter
Secretary for Defence Michael Hazeltine to a (then) current member of Parliament. Quoting: “I can assure you that there is not a grain of truth in the allegation that there has been a “cover-up” about alleged UFO sightings.” … “…there was in fact no question of any contact with “alien beings”, nor was any unidentified object seen on radar.”

Pic 24: RAF Watton letter
This is a letter from Squadron Leader Webster, Eastern Radar Division in Norfolk, in response to an inquiry from investigator Nick Redfern. In it Webster writes: “Our log book for the period does indeed say that a UFO was reported to us by RAF Bentwaters at 0325 GMT on 28 December 1980 but that is all the information we have. All radio and radar recordings from that time have long since been disposed of.”

Pic 25: Beings drawing
Abduction:
First night witness Jim Penniston was part of the National Press Club’s recent UFO related press conference and a guest on The Larry King Show this past November. He also appeared, along with Larry and me, on The SCI FI Channel’s 2003 documentary, UFO Invasion at Rendlesham. But Penniston was one of a team of four Air Force personnel in the forest on that first, chilling night. Ed Cavanasac, a former 81st Security Police Specialist was right there with him and witnessed the same events. To this day Cavanasac has never come forward to make a public statement. But after reading Left At East Gate, he wrote a letter to Larry Warren and it has a direct bearing on the possibility of abduction. Quoting:

“I was out in the forest with Burroughs, Penniston and____ on the first night. I worked C Flight and remember you from shift changes. I liked your book and learned some things about the base that I only suspected. We got debriefed for hours also! And I know we got injections … I think now more than ever we were not supposed to remember certain things. … ____ was missing, but … we didn’t know until later that he was lost or taken. I think they got him back, snapped him out and sent him home, like a lot of other guys. We were … scared, Burroughs drew his weapon on it (the triangular shaped craft they encountered) and we went blank. Someone was inside that damned thing, you could feel it. The UFO did come back the next two nights so you must have been on D Flight. Rumors? Bullshit. No one was talking. … But it was not from Earth.”

Budd Hopkins has done more than anyone to build and advance the field of scrupulous, scientific, alien abduction research and the debt that we in the UFO research community owe him is incalculable. He and Larry first met at a MUFON conference in June 1983. Both were scheduled to speak, Larry for the first time. Budd’s presentation on the missing time phenomenon bothered Larry a great deal, and that afternoon he told Budd about a very unusual experience he had had with his mother in upstate New York almost ten years earlier. He also gave Budd his mother’s phone number should he ever wish to speak with her about it. In December 1984 Budd spoke at length with Joann Warren about her seeming abduction related memories.

Eleven years later, in July of 1995, I received a very non standard call from Larry. He had continued to be troubled by partial memories of the time he had spent in the underground facility, so much so that he asked me to find out if Budd might be able to schedule a hypnotic regression with him, and the sooner the better. A session was arranged for July 15, during which I sat and watched in silence as Budd brought Larry back to the night following his involvement in Capel Green. While there did not seem to be any aliens in the underground facility, Larry did encounter some of the men who had also been witness to the previous nights’ events, including Jim Penniston. It was a session I will never forget. The transcript is included in Left At East Gate.

Pic 26: (N)WSA, aerial
Illegal nuclear weaponry on base:
Before retiring from active military service, the late Admiral Lord Peter Hill-Norton served as both Admiral of the Fleet (highest ranking officer in the British Navy), and as MoD Chief of Staff, the equivalent of our Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He then went on to become a MP, or Member of Parliament. Following his retirement from the military he assumed the role of the UK’s highest ranking critic of excessive UFO secrecy, especially with regard to the Bentwaters/Woodbridge UFO incident.

Pic 27: EYE view 12-02
In 1994 Timothy Good arranged an introduction for Larry and me with Lord Hill-Norton, who was already familiar with the case and encouraged us by in our efforts by both phone and letter, and requested that we send him a proof copy of the book when it was completed. During the October 28 1997 session of Parliament, Hill-Norton took the floor of the floor of the House of Lords, our book in hand, and faced off with Lord Gilbert, the-then Secretary for Defence, bluntly asking him four questions drawn directly from Left At East Gate. One of them was whether our allegation that nuclear weapons were stored at RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge in violation of UK/US treaty obligations was true.

Pic 28: Alert sign close-up
Lord Gilbert’s circumspect response was, “It has always been the policy of this and previous governments neither to confirm nor to deny where nuclear weapons are located either in the UK or elsewhere.” Hill-Norton was later able to confirm that the weapons had indeed been stored there and said as much in several documentaries including The SCI FI Channel’s documentary, UFO Invasion At Rendlesham.

Documented physiological changes to organic material in landing zones and photographic evidence. Give particulars established in soil analysis:
Pic 29: Capel Green Aerial shot - Pic 30: Capel Green 2-88
Pic 31: Soil samples - Pic 32: Capel Green composite

Burns on the retinas of my co-author’s eyes confirmed in his Air Force medical records. Give particulars:

Pic 33: AF Form 490- Pic
34: Form 490 close-up
Beams of light been shot from the craft to the ground, within the (Nuclear) Weapons Storage Area and the surroundings:

Pic 35: 1-81 Halt doc
In the sixteen minute excerpt made public from the recording Charles Halt made during his team’s UFO incident, there are direct references to beams of light shining down from the unknowns to within a few feet of the of Halt and his men. He also refers to them in his January 13, 1981 memo: “The object to the south was visible for two or three hours and beamed down a stream of light from time to time.”

Military documents, letters and paper trail:
Hold Halt doc
Refer to particulars and mention that copies of other related military documents are included in LAEG.
Pic 36: 12-80 Inprocessing sheet
Pic 37: 12-80 close-up

Numerous, multiple animal reactions to the UFOs:
Pic 38: W Yorks cows
Relate deer (jumping perimeter fence and fleeing the forest for the village square) and small animal accounts, Halt doc 1st night ref, and our
Feb 88 experience:
“…The object was hovering or on legs. As the patrolman approached the object, it maneuvered through the trees and disappeared. At this time the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy.”

Historic evidence:
Pic 39: Suffolk castle view
In 1956, a major UFO incident occurred over RAF Bentwaters and neighboring RAF Lakenheath. The unknown aerial objects were sighted from the ground on both bases, from the air by military pilots and the sightings confirmed on radar. A report on these events was generated by the NSA and is reproduced in Left At East Gate. The UFOs observed from Bentwaters were clocked at speeds of 4,000 to 6,000 mph and more. The Lakenheath UFOs were moving at 5,000 to 9,000 mph.

America’s most advanced spy planes – the U-2, the SR-71 and our Stealth aircraft were being deployed from RAF Bentwaters even before we knew about them in the States. While researching the Rendlesham Forest incident in February 1988, a sonic boom hit the bed and breakfast were staying at as a Stealth aircraft overflew the house. These entries from the notebook I was keeping at the time documented the event. This plane was most likely a Stealth F-117A. Its existence had as yet to be revealed to the American public.

Pic 40 & 41: 2-88 PR stealth notebook entry 1&2
Long term physical and emotional impact on the men individuals involved: Pic 42: LW in Capel Green
Many of the men involved, at least on the first and third nights, and very likely the second night, …………………..
Lord Hill-Norton: What information they have on the medical problems experienced by various United States Air Force personnel based at RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge, which stemmed from their involved in the so-called Rendlesham Forest incident, in December 1980.
Lord Gilbert: Information on medical matters relating to US personnel is a matter for the US Air Force. …”

Suicide: In our book, Larry discusses at length his friend Alabama, the young man who had so much difficulty adjusting to what they had witnessed together in Capel Green. How he went AWOL and flew to Chicage, was returned to the base and put back on guard duty with a loaded weapon, the weapon he used to blow his brains out. Lord Hill-Norton had him in mind when he asked the Secretary for Defence “What information they have on the suicide of the United States Security Policeman from the 81St Security Police Squadron who took his life at RAF Bentwaters in January 1981, and whether they will detail the involvement of the British Police, Coroner’s office, and also other authorities concerned.” Lord Gilbert’s response was that the, quote “MoD has no information concerning the alleged suicide. Investigations into such occurrences are carried out by the US Air Force.”

Extraordinary media coverage; review:
Pic 43: News of the World 10-3-83
Pic 44: It Was a UFO, same date

Opened letters and monitored phone calls, articulate:
Pic 45: LW opened mail
Pic 46: Opened mail flier
UFO activity is not just an integral part of this area’s history, it continues to be an ongoing phenomenon. Discuss the Suffolk Forestry Commission’s capitulation to UFO interest:
Pic 47: Logging road sign
Pic 48: UFO trail sign
Pic 49: Central UFO trail sign
Pic 50: Official UFO walking tour

A pattern of cover-up, evasion and the routinely sloppy reportage long associated with UFO incidents dogged the Rendlesham Forest story from the start. …
Pic 51: Times 12-80
Capel Green witnesses were told to keep silent on what they’d seen even before they’d been removed from the area. Threats made during the debriefing, including “bullets are cheap.” The authors of Sky Crash were misled by their military sources.

Early on, Larry and I decided upon a writing strategy, one aspect of which was that we did not want to use pseudonyms for the names of any of the witnesses.
Pic 52: MoD sign 90
While we did not presume to tell their stories, we did cite specifics of their relevant interactions and conversations with Larry. All known players, participants and witness names were included in print, with the two exceptions. But the decision to ‘name names’ came with substantial risk. Anyone whose account we included was free to say that it was inaccurate or even fabricated, leaving us embarrassed at best or subject to possible libel action. The risk however proved worth taking.

Our publisher began receiving letters for us shortly after the book appeared in stores, some of them from the men we’d identified. I was relieved that not a single one questioned our accuracy, and proud that most confirmed key points of the narrative, even offering information that in some cases was new to us. I’d like to read you excerpts from these some of these letters starting with this from Mark Thompson, a former 81st Security Police Specialist, D Flight, the same Flight Larry had been assigned to:

“Its real, it happened to us, and we will never forget it. Your book brought it all back for me. … (How) Halt can put it all into a little box is beyond me. He should take at least some responsibility for helping to keep the lid on the thing! Oh sure, he talks about what he saw but what about the hell we went through afterward. Thanks for fighting for us Larry, I’m grateful. Now maybe we can all get a good night sleep.”

From Steve LaPlume, another former Security Police Specialist assigned to D Flight:

“Larry, I asked your publishers to forward this to you. 17 years blew by quick – I tried to forget the UFO, but Left At East Gate brought it all back! How can Halt play it down – you were there and so was I. We got debriefed after and some guys like you got f**ked over later for asking too many questions – I remember that Navy guy saying that “Bullets are cheap.” The difference between us I guess is that I believed him. … People died after this for God sake. Maybe they were right when they told us that civilians were not ready for this yet. I will try to get in touch with other witnesses and let them know about East Gate.”

Greg Battram was also an 81st Security Police Specialist assigned to D Flight. He witnessed the craft in Capel Green along with Larry and was with him the next day when Larry was cut off during a call to his mother from a base phone:

“I know you were out in that forest cause I saw you out there, and we were all on duty with full PRP. Col. Halt should review the regs on posting. I just wish I knew why those things landed and what they wanted, isn’t that the most important question? No light houses and theories from people who don’t have a clue. … I remember that call to the States that you made, then you were gone for a few days. Holy shit. I had no idea. …”

From Adrian Bustinza, former C and D Flight Supervisor. Sgt. Adrian stood right next to Larry in the field that night. He is referred to on thirty six pages of Left At East Gate and is also the subject of a separate fifteen page interview:

Pic 53. CG drawing close-up
“No one can give us back what we lost over there. All people will do is rip us off and never understand the truth. … Larry remember “duck and cover” cause your book is gonna set off a lot of powerful people that have a lot to lose if this gets out. I wish I didn’t encourage you to go public, none of us knew what we were getting into, but I guess we never really had a choice. God bless and stay safe.”

Mike Verrano, then Captain assigned to the 81st, is referred to on five pages:

“I was at the motor pool because no O Level was available that night. I was on call, other command people were busy elsewhere, maybe on sight? I remember the malfunctions with the lightalls very well. Do you recall the vehicle malfunctions? I did drive Williams (Major Gordon Williams, RAF Bentwaters Wing Commander) to an F-16 on the Bentwaters tarmac the AM of the 30th. He had two canisters of 35 mm footage with him, bagged in a T.S. satchel. He told me directly that it was actual footage of the UFOs etc on the ground. That film was shot on your night in the forest. … The film went to USAFE, West Germany that day and I never heard its deposition after that.”

“There were definitely three nights of UFO incidents. C Flight shift worked the first two nights, D Flight rotated back on the 28th. The log book for the month and plans and blotters were missing after D Flight’s first night after break, I think because the sightings that night involved far too many people to fully contain. C Flight’s blotter still exists and the incident involving Burroughs, Penniston, Cavanasac and Dule is noted, I’ve seen that log entrance. I saw a lot of out of place civilians after the fact on base but we couldn’t ask anything. I personally think your underground memory was Black Ops and agree with Halt that you and others were meddled with after the fact. Good luck.”

A significant though often sensationalized aspect of Larry Warren’s account is the existence of a huge underground facility located well below the twin base complex. Larry has always maintained that on the evening following his involvement, he was chemically subdued, then forcibly taken from in front of his billet and brought to such a facility were he was held for the next one to two days. During this time, he and other eyewitness were subjected to a series of procedures that seemed geared to confound or confuse their actual memories with purely implanted ones. Given the scale of such a claim, I continued to work the avenues of investigation open to me, even after we’d gone to press. Two breaks came in quick succession toward the end of our 1997 UK book tour.

Pic 54. Woodbridge perimeter
On June 27 a local friend introduced me to “B,” an independent civilian contractor who had been employed for the Air Force for more than twenty years and still held the appropriate security clearances. He and the crews he supervised had worked all over the Bentwaters complex, and occasionally under it. He agreed to an interview but kept it fairly brief. This interview by the way was being conducted from inside a van parked next to the decommissioned base’s perimeter. Larry and several of our colleagues were actually on the base and we were keeping in touch by walkie talkie.

“B” told me that underground concrete tunnels ring the base just below the surface. He had been down in the tunnels a number of times and thought these tunnels connect to the underground bunkers. At the time RAF Bentwaters maintained the largest bomb dump in all of Europe down there. Huge banks of infrared lights as wide as cars were used to keep the ordinance at precisely 103 degrees Fahrenheit with multiple backup systems to insure the temperature would remain constant. These fixtures were still in place, as were the huge generators which powered them. “B” also told me that on a far corner of there base there were false, though authentic-looking water tanks,’ as he described them. He felt very strongly that they virtually lifted out to reveal a stairway which led to “the underground bunker.”

Following “B’s” instructions, our team behind the wire radioed in to report that the first manhole cover they’d found into the ‘water pipe’ had been welded shut. Also pointed out that there are a series of covered manhole covers which literally ring the base. Once the base had been decommissioned the covers had been sealed, but prior to this he’d been down them repeatedly over the years. If you followed the tunnel you came to an area about fifty yards square, underground with an “undertunnel” coming off it. But as we sat in a van talking by the base perimeter, he said to me: “All for water? Your kidding. That (indicating) goes to a reservoir that’s never been used. (In the tunnels) there’s perfect air. There’s not an air problem. We took an air thing (air quality measuring device) down, you know, we done an air test: perfect air. It don’t makes sense mate. They were put in there for water so why bother?”

Two days later after interviewing “B,” a local friend introduced me to George Nursey, at the time a resident of the nearby town of Woodbridge. Seven or eight years prior, he had been employed by the Property Services Agency (PSA), a now-defunct British governmental organization which looked after the upkeep of military and governmental buildings.” George told me that while working as a quantity surveyor for the PSA, he had a chance to study architect’s plans showing three tunnels which exist between (RAF) Woodbridge and Bentwaters. In his words, “I saw enough space there to house these people, for a year, all of them. Now, we’re talking tremendous amounts of space, underground. … It didn’t give me depths or anything like that. Just three tunnels. … in comparison to the Channel Tunnel, the one that exists between Dover and Calais, we’re talking three tunnels of a similar size. The area around here is pretty flat, it’s a military area and it has been for hundreds and hundreds of years. If you walk, if you go down Friday Street, there’s a part of ground that dips. Now that looks like its subsidence from a tunnel that has been bored, years ago. You know where I’m talking about, and if you look, down a line, you can see a dip, and that’s a man-made dip. It’s as simple as that. And it goes into the base that way, through the fence, you can see it, and that is interesting to me.”

In late January 1998 I was contacted by Lori Rehfeldt, who had recently retired from the Air Force after twenty years service. She’d been stationed at RAF Bentwaters from May 1978 until December 1980. One of only a small handful of women attached to the 81st Security Police at the time, Lori worked as a gate guard at Bentwaters and occasionally drove patrol at both Bentwaters and sister base RAF Woodbridge. She had missed the Bentwaters incident by a matter of weeks but had had her own incident ten months prior. Lori told me that, “In February of 1980, I was on patrol – Police Four, D Flight, with a fellow Security Police member. It was about 0200 hours in the morning when out of a dark sky, we saw a bright light that moved up, then down then right then left. The movements were very deliberate. Then it burst into four pieces and disappeared. The aircraft’s movements were nothing I’d seen, and because it was night the only other strange trait was no sound. I knew the sound of fighter aircraft which was so loud the noise could blow out windows at East Gate.

I reported what I saw over my Motorola radio to police control at Bentwaters, when I was instructed to go to the air tower and check to see if they saw anything. The attitude from the desk sergeant voice over the radio was, “Rehfeldt’s losing her mind, now she’s seeing UFOs.” We went to the tower and the guy in the tower looked like he just woke up He reported nothing. It was now day break, and with the negative attitude from the desk sergeant, well, I didn’t need the added aggravation. Remember, I was trying to survive my time there and didn’t want to be snapped, so I dropped the entire issue. It wasn’t till almost twenty years later I read on the Web about the sighting of December 27-28, 1980.”

In late January 1998 I received a call from Timothy Egercic, another D Flight alumnus. We spoke for about an hour. Two weeks later I received a letter delineating his personal involvement in the incident. Tim had been stationed at RAF Bentwaters from March 1979 until March 1981 as a Security Policeman for the 81st Security Police. He recalled that sometime around Christmas 1980 and D Flight was finishing up their last swing shift (3 p.m. – 11 p.m.) when a Woodbridge Patrol called in a report of strange lights outside of the base. They wrote it up and turned over the report of the strange lights outside of Woodbridge to C Flight after going off duty. In Tim’s words: “For the next three nights, between midnight and 2 a.m., our Woodbridge patrols reported strange lights over Rendlesham Forest. … During the last night of the UFO sightings, a person from Communications was let into the WSA to observe the lights from the tower in the area. I was asked by our area supervisor if I wanted relief to go to the tower also. I declined. The radio transmissions from witnesses were more than the three previous nights so I didn’t want to miss anything. I remember repeating the transmissions from witnesses over the air so our troops at Bentwaters could hear what was being seen by our Woodbridge personnel. The WSA tower operator … He informed me he could see two to three, maybe more lights dancing in the sky atop the treeline towards Woodbridge base. … As the end of our shift neared on that last night of the sightings, so did the radio transmissions reporting lights in the sky.

When we returned to work from break three days later, we learned no other flights reported any strange lights. It was then I believe, Bob Ball said at guardmount, “I can’t tell you what we saw, but there was definitely something out there.” Rumors quickly circulated about the impressions in the ground that formed a perfect triangle and about someone taking radioactivity readings on these impressions. In October 1997 I read a sixteen page interview in the book with Adrian Bustinza, another former Bentwaters Security Policeman. I tracked him down using the Internet and called him at his home in … . Adrian backed up most of Larry Warren’s claims during our ninety minute conversation including the part of the landing and the surrounding of the craft by himself and other Air Force personnel. He also recounted the debriefing of the witnesses where they were told “bullets are cheap.”

Another Bentwaters veteran emailed me in June 1999. He was stationed there from 1971 to 1974. While requesting that I keep his identity confidential beyond his initials, ‘F.W.S.,’ he provided details of two UFO incidents he’d witnessed while on duty there. They are both included in the revised edition of Left At East Gate and I’d like to relate the first one here:

“The first one occurred while I was working a midnight shift in the fighter alert area. This area had F-4 Phantoms that were loaded with nukes ready to take off at a moments notice. The area was situated near the end of the main runway. At about 3AM I noticed what appeared to be a large landing light hovering over the end of the runway. I thought it was just a plane landing and did not pay that much attention to it. A few minutes later I saw the base fire/rescue trucks respond to the end of the runway with their emergency lights on. When they arrived at the end of the runway they turned their spotlights on the hovering light. The light appeared to be about a hundred feet in diameter and was not moving. That is when I realized it wasn't a plane landing. The object never moved while the emergency crews were shining their spotlights on it. After about 5 minutes the light suddenly vanished like someone pulled a switch. There was no sound except for the emergency trucks engines. The crews continued to shine their spot lights into the darkness for about ten more minutes and then finally returned to their hangar. Nothing was ever said about the incident the next day. This occurred in 1973.” Pic 55: East Gate
The Ministry of Defence’s first major information update on the events of December 1980 occurred in the summer 2000 when they released several dozen documents related to the incident. While these papers did not contain a ‘smoking gun,’ they did generate renewed interest in the case and underscored the official government and military interest that many of us had suspected.

Pic 56: MoD sign
In December 2002 the Ministry released more than one hundred and fifty pages of event-related letters, reports, public inquiries and Parliamentary correspondence. As had been the case two years earlier, none of the paperwork represented a definitive breakthrough on the case, they did however reveal some welcome particulars. One document discussed the increased background radiation now associated with a landing zone, another acknowledged the fact that certain nearby radar stations had switched their systems off when the “unexplained lights” were in the area. We also learned that their logs revealed no entry about the radar anomalies that other stations had recorded, and that both British and American military officers were very interested in getting hold of copies of Colonel Halt’s audio recording.

Pic 57: PR & LW in 94 in CG
With the release of these documents, the then twenty two year old news story became news again and the subject of headlines and coverage all over the UK and beyond. This included a feature article in the New York Times.

The latest development in this story broke just prior to Christmas in Great Britain. It comes from the Ministry of Defence’s intelligence branch DI55, the office charged with the investigation of UFO reports. DI55 works closely with MI5 and MI6, which are the British government’s equivalents of our FBI and CIA. The Ministry will begin a staged release of formerly classified DI55 files on upwards of 7,000 UFO sightings sometime this spring. When completed, act will constitute the largest single release of documents on any subject in Ministry history. The decision to release the files gradually rather than all at once was prompted by fears of a website crash similar to that experienced by the French National Space Agency when it released much of its UFO archive this past March. The problem is that this massive declassification effort is not proceeding on schedule. That had been my understanding in any case until last week when I spoke with friend and colleague Nick Pope in London. As many of you know, Nick worked for the Ministry of Defence for twenty one years, and for several years of his career there, was the person charged with looking into UFO sightings for them. The update is that they are now not sure if they will be able to begin this process in the spring, or this summer, or this autumn, or early next year. Have they had second thoughts? Is a cover-up going into place? In discussing the matter Nick expressed some anger and frustration and feels that this is a first class case of a large bureaucracy having spoken before fully working out the logistics of the task at hand and I tend to agree. One thing is for sure: after going public with their intention then backtracking, they have opened themselves up to a public relations disaster. I’m still confident that this material will be released to the public but their timetable is now unknown. Keep your ears to the ground for further developments.

Larry and I both hope that others who witnessed and were otherwise involved in the events of December 1980 will continue to come forward and put their accounts on the public record. I’m confident that more information will emerge on the Rendlesham Forest incident and underscore its place as absolutely central in UFO studies. Thank you for your time and attention.

[pupil88]

First night: by introducing Cavansac's sensational letter of the first night's event, you deflated Sgt Penniston's account and actions of that night which were significant and, his recounting of the movement of the craft traveling at less than one second per foot, had been verified. Also, Cavansac had never been a major player because his position of observation had never been authenticated. If Warren's account is accepted as fact, then John Burroughs' statements are suspect, especially those where he claimed he only saw lights and not a craft. By extension, this would implicate him in the cover-up. A cover-up of a UFO intrusion. Here duty, honor and commitment to national security concerns meet up with the " whistle blower". It would also make John Burroughs the first human in recorded history to attempt to physically subdue a UFO craft.

Second night: "grid pattern". These are the words of M/Sgt. Ball who accompanied Halt on the third night. There were not three consecutive nights of UFO activity as you described them. However, John Burroughs recounted the following taking place on the second night. shift commander relieved of duty " was freaked out by the beams of light that lit up her vehicle and the blue light that and I quote the report that passed through her vehicle and caused her vehicle to shut down. They also lost radio contact with her for 10 minutes."

Third night: Your depiction of Halt's team's activities falls far short of what actually took place.If it wasn't for the microcassete recording we wouldn't be talking about RFI. Also, Lt. Englund was with Lt.Col Halt from app. 10:30PM to after 3 AM. A. Bustinza was also with Halt, as a driver, on the radio, in the near proximity and later with J. Burroughs where they had an encounter with some blue lights. How did Englund and Bustinza end up on Capel Green that night? M. Verrano said D flight rotated back on the 28th. Halt never made plaster casts of the impressions in the ground. Sgt. Penniston made them and still has at least one of them. You said the event of a "face off" between Col Williams and the entities" went on until the small hours of the night". Warren was dismissed from his station. Please define " small hours of the night " and the source.

[Robert McLean]

Where has this concept of "Suffolk Forestry Commission’s capitulation to UFO interest" come from? Are we supposed to infer that the Forestry Commission was part of some cover up - part of the government machinery bent on suppressing knowledge of the RFI?

One of the Forestry Commission's remits is to faciltate and ecourage use of Forestry Commission lands for public use and recreation. In my experience, the only thing that makes a Forester happier than seeing members of the public enjoy the forest is cutting the forest down.

The Forestry Commission has been organising "UFO Walks", led by a Forester, in Rendlesham forest for a long time - for at least 10 years, twice yearly, to my knowledge. No doubt, a FOI request would confirm exactly when the Forestry Commission "capitulated" and started down this slippery slope. During these led walks, the Forester takes the assembly from the car park near East Gate to the eastern edge of the forest, while explaining about the trees - the choice of the species and the life cycle of the plantation forest, and a greatly simplified summary of the RFI. Hardly subversive stuff!

[ghaynes]

The Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident: Facts, Observations and Reflections
For Atlantic Coast UFO Conference, Feb. 15-17, 2008, Atlantic City, NJ
By Peter Robbins

While researching the Rendlesham Forest incident in February 1988, a sonic boom hit the bed and breakfast were staying at as a Stealth aircraft overflew the house. These entries from the notebook I was keeping at the time documented the event. This plane was most likely a Stealth F-117A. Its existence had as yet to be revealed to the American public.

Pic 54. Woodbridge perimeter
On June 27 a local friend introduced me to “B,” an independent civilian contractor who had been employed for the Air Force for more than twenty years and still held the appropriate security clearances. He and the crews he supervised had worked all over the Bentwaters complex, and occasionally under it. He agreed to an interview but kept it fairly brief. This interview by the way was being conducted from inside a van parked next to the decommissioned base’s perimeter. Larry and several of our colleagues were actually on the base and we were keeping in touch by walkie talkie.

“B” told me that underground concrete tunnels ring the base just below the surface. He had been down in the tunnels a number of times and thought these tunnels connect to the underground bunkers. At the time RAF Bentwaters maintained the largest bomb dump in all of Europe down there. Huge banks of infrared lights as wide as cars were used to keep the ordinance at precisely 103 degrees Fahrenheit with multiple backup systems to insure the temperature would remain constant. These fixtures were still in place, as were the huge generators which powered them. “B” also told me that on a far corner of there base there were false, though authentic-looking water tanks,’ as he described them. He felt very strongly that they virtually lifted out to reveal a stairway which led to “the underground bunker.”

Is this article for real?
Firstly, the F-117 was not capable of supersonic speeds!
As for the false water tanks at Bentwaters....all a bit Tracy Island isn't it?!!
I really wish some of these people that make these claims about an underground base at Bentwaters, would actually come and show me where they think it is. The water tanks referred to above are definitely NOT false ones!
Regards.

Graham

[Observer]

Graham
Totally agree, here is a few facts and figures concerning the F-117 Nigh Hawk.
As you said, it was not supersonic, reason being that the airframe was not robust enough, it was not powerful enough, It was not 'area ruled' or of a supersonic design. It was in fact limited to small G numbers due to its weak construction. This was the 'trade off' for its very good stealth performance.

There are very few still flying and to my knowledge it has not been replaced with a similar aircraft unless of course the F-22 & F-35 are its replacements. These are of a slightly stealthy nature but no where as effective as the F-117. To cap this the Russians some time ago announced that they could detect stealth aircraft which may be the reason no F-117 replacement has been seen.
New hypersonic 'black' project aircraft are another story and don't need to be stealthy.

Graham, you also need to yet again establish the NW misconceptions that are beginning to get very frustrating.
Obs

[ghaynes]

Graham
Totally agree, here is a few facts and figures concerning the F-117 Nigh Hawk.
As you said, it was not supersonic, reason being that the airframe was not robust enough, it was not powerful enough, It was not 'area ruled' or of a supersonic design. It was in fact limited to small G numbers due to its weak construction. This was the 'trade off' for its very good stealth performance.

There are very few still flying and to my knowledge it has not been replaced with a similar aircraft unless of course the F-22 & F-35 are its replacements. These are of a slightly stealthy nature but no where as effective as the F-117. To cap this the Russians some time ago announced that they could detect stealth aircraft which may be the reason no F-117 replacement has been seen.
New hypersonic 'black' project aircraft are another story and don't need to be stealthy.

Graham, you also need to yet again establish the NW misconceptions that are beginning to get very frustrating.
Obs

Obs,
The F-117A was retired last year.
Think I'm fighting a losing battle with trying to establish the NW misconceptions!

Graham

[ghaynes]

Graham
Totally agree, here is a few facts and figures concerning the F-117 Nigh Hawk.
As you said, it was not supersonic, reason being that the airframe was not robust enough, it was not powerful enough, It was not 'area ruled' or of a supersonic design. It was in fact limited to small G numbers due to its weak construction. This was the 'trade off' for its very good stealth performance.

There are very few still flying and to my knowledge it has not been replaced with a similar aircraft unless of course the F-22 & F-35 are its replacements. These are of a slightly stealthy nature but no where as effective as the F-117. To cap this the Russians some time ago announced that they could detect stealth aircraft which may be the reason no F-117 replacement has been seen.
New hypersonic 'black' project aircraft are another story and don't need to be stealthy.

Graham, you also need to yet again establish the NW misconceptions that are beginning to get very frustrating.
Obs

Obs,
The F-117A was retired last year.
Think I'm fighting a losing battle with trying to establish the NW misconceptions!

Graham

[Observer]

Don't worry Graham, go and have a pint down the Cherry Tree.
Obs

[John Burroughs]

Peter
There were only 3 of us who went out in the forrest and no one stayed behind. Cavenasac has been interviewed in out of the Blue and never stated anything close to that. 17a Williams had a face off with the ailiens sounds alot like what he said in the CNN piece but thats where he stated he ahd contact with them! And last but not least we were not in alert status we would ahve been in 12 hour shifts and I would have been on duty...... And I never jumped on the craft and went for a ride with Penniston or drew my weapon on it ......

[Observer]

John
This has been one of the biggest problems concerning the RFI, trying to sort out fact from fiction.
Trouble is that when some fairy tale gets told and then snow balls out of all proportion, there are always a few who believe it no matter how ludicrous. I am though fully aware that this whole incident could be some thing quite ludicrous if not stupid and simple! This aspect as many of you know has been one of my suggestions for a long time. My current belief is that someone dropped a clanger, big time.

I and i'm sure most of the members maintain an open mind to the RFI, but if we don't draw a line some where then our investigations are not going to be of much use. Too many tangents comes to mind.
I suggest we keep to the known and established facts and stop trying to fit theories to the evidence.
It's evidence that forms theories which is what we should all be doing.
Obs

[puddlepirate]

Hmmm. Somebody doth protest too much, methinks. Are we starting to flush out some stuff here? I have always believed and have stated many times that the events along the Polish border are in some way instrumental to the RFI.

I'd really like to meet up with the key players and serious RFI researchers. Not the purveyors of soppy nonsense who have a different agenda but those of us who can provide robust, substantiated and properly researched information aligned to the witnesses statements. Let's sort the wheat from the chaff and get this show on the road. And if, after our meeting, we decide to keep what we know to ourselves instead of publishing it on the forum for the world and its dog to see, then so be it.

[puddlepirate]

Graham is right on this one. I'm pretty sure these are regular water tanks. Had they been tanks at ground level then they might have been dummies, covering an entrance of some kind but these are high off the ground. There is no need to be particularly elaborate to hide entrances to secure areas. Gibraltar has (or at least did back in 1985) a major underground complex in the middle of the rock. The entrance is (was) a simple roadway leading into a large tunnel. Not far north of Edinburgh is what looks like a large country house up top but underneath is a major communications centre (or was in 1984). There are many such places up and down the country e.g. the innocuous bungalow in Essex that hid a command centre. There is no need for lifting water towers - an HAS would do just as well.

That said, I've often wondered about the true purpose of Folly House - now that would be an ideal cover for an entrance to an underground complex but as far as I know it is and always has been, a private residence. But what a good location. Right at the end of the Woodbridge runway, dead opposite the odd access shafts that lead along the ride in the forest up towards the farmer's field and, strangely, about the same distance from the first shaft as that shaft is from the next one. If I wanted to build a hidden entrance I'd place it in the cellar of Folly House.

[puddlepirate]

This is the Essex one....

http://www.secretnuclearbunker.com/index2.htm

[Robert McLean]

So, if there is a huge underground complex at Bentwaters, why is it that the current owners (a local privately owned company) don't know about it? http://www.bentwatersparks.com/ For if they did, they would surely be turning a tidy profit from it, renting out the space to others.

Presumably, those who believe in this underground world would have us believe that:

a) The Americans constructed this complex without any local construction companies or residents knowing about it, and possibly without the MOD knowing about it.

b) Or, if the MOD did know about it, they sold Bentwaters to the current owners while keeping this all secret and somehow permanently concealing the entry points and hiding or taking out all the electrical and other services needed to run the complex.

c) This underground complex is somehow so special that it remains secret while all the local Government underground nuclear bunkers left over from the cold war have been turned into tourist attractions.

d) The hundreds or thousands of US servicemen who used this underground complex have all remained quiet about this.

The fact is, there is no underground complex.

[Observer]

Exactly!
Obs

[ghaynes]

Them's your water towers, right next to the lake on Woody:

Hi ST,
Think you mean Bentwaters not Woody.

Graham

[ghaynes]

So, if there is a huge underground complex at Bentwaters, why is it that the current owners (a local privately owned company) don't know about it? http://www.bentwatersparks.com/ For if they did, they would surely be turning a tidy profit from it, renting out the space to others.

Presumably, those who believe in this underground world would have us believe that:

a) The Americans constructed this complex without any local construction companies or residents knowing about it, and possibly without the MOD knowing about it.

b) Or, if the MOD did know about it, they sold Bentwaters to the current owners while keeping this all secret and somehow permanently concealing the entry points and hiding or taking out all the electrical and other services needed to run the complex.

c) This underground complex is somehow so special that it remains secret while all the local Government underground nuclear bunkers left over from the cold war have been turned into tourist attractions.

d) The hundreds or thousands of US servicemen who used this underground complex have all remained quiet about this.

The fact is, there is no underground complex.

Well said Robert. Couldn't have put it better myself....well not in so many words anyway!
Regards.

Graham

[redsocks]

Hmmm naughty naughty, hyping the book sales up with tales of woe