• By now, almost everyone has heard of the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident in Suffolk, England in late December 1980. Two USAF airmen, Staff Sgt Jim Penniston and Airman John Burroughs, stationed at the twin NATO bases RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters nearby, saw strange lights and got close enough to a mysterious triangular UFO craft that they could touch it. Colonel Charles Halt then led a military team into the forest to investigate the sightings. Halt and his team also saw strange lights and a red orb with a black center “winking” back at them, and claimed a UFO fired a beam of light near their feet.
• Now, a local resident has come forward claiming that he was poaching animals in the Rendlesham Forest in December of 1980, and saw Colonel Halt and his men in the woods. “Now bear this in mind,” says the poacher, “before this encounter I saw and heard a lot of strange things in that forest. I could tell you stories that would bend your bones, so every time I went poaching, I always took my camera always hoping to capture some evidence.”
• On this night, he got his black and white photos. “I saw a basketball sized red orb. It had a black center like a pupil and looked just like an eye winking at you, just like Halt explained it. It was zig zagging between the trees, strange. Freaked me out, weird… I saw it before Halt. It passed me first. Halt and his team were about 200 meters away, I could hear all the noise. Later I saw another UFO – it was firing beams of light down to the ground, definitely looking for something, God knows what.”
• The poacher submitted his photos and story anonymously through the UFO Casebook website, which collects information about UFO sightings from around the world. “I’ve sat on this information for over 40 years and it feels good to get it out and show the truth,” said the anonymous poacher. “I tell you, what I witnessed was simply incredible, definitely extra-terrestrial. No two ways about it.” “After this thing happened, I was followed for weeks, I had my phone tapped – scary time.” “You can read books and watch TV shows about it, but I’m telling you, you had to be there to really understand and appreciate just how incredible this thing was, changed my life forever.”
• British UFO sleuth Philip Mantle, a former director of investigations for the British UFO Research Association, questions the digital format of the proffered photos. “With today’s digital technology I have become very wary of any alleged UFO photographs, even more so when the photographer is anonymous as he is here with these pictures. Before I could come to any conclusions, I would have to know a lot more detail about the type of camera, the film, the exposure and so on,” said Mantle. “Remember, if these photos are authentic and taken in 1980, they would be on film and not digital.”
• There have been various theories to explain the Rendlesham incident including a lighthouse, a Russian satellite re-entry, and a stolen truck of manure set on fire. Brit researcher Nick Redfern put forward an explanation tying the sighting to scientists from the UK’s top-secret laboratory, Porton Down in Wiltshire, that carried out mind control experiments. He claims that soldiers from the base were tripping on LSD while the scientists set up advanced holograms to create images of UFOs.
poacher photo
THESE spooky black and white photos allegedly show the UFO at the centre of
poacher photo
Britain’s biggest ever case for the first time.
They were supposedly taken in Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk by a poacher who claims he saw the same UFO being hunted by a military team from a nearby US airbase.
The alleged witness claims he was 200ft away from Colonel Charles Halt, deputy base commander of RAF Bentwaters, and his men, when he spotted the
poacher ‘beam of light’ photo
glowing orb – in an unsolved case often dubbed the British Roswell after the infamous US UFO crash.
poacher photo
He said: “When I was younger, I was a poacher. I lived very close to Rendlesham Forest and frequently went poaching there. So back in 1980, 28 December, I was in the forest poaching.
“Now bear this in mind, before this encounter I saw and heard a lot of strange things in that forest. I could tell you stories that would bend your bones, so every time I went poaching, I always took my camera always hoping to capture some evidence.”
poacher photo
The case involved military witnesses from the twin NATO bases RAF Woodbridge and
Jim Penniston and John Burroughs
RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk who saw strange lights in late December 1980.
Two airmen, Staff Sgt Jim Penniston and Airman John Burroughs, claim they got so close to a triangular craft they actually touched it.
Colonel Halt then led a military team into the forest to investigate the sightings.
They also saw strange lights and a red orb with a black centre “winking” back at them and claimed a UFO fired a beam of light near their feet.
depiction of Rendlesham UFO
Halt later wrote a memo to the MOD describing the freakish incident but it was filed away by defence chiefs.
The poacher said: “I saw a basketball sized red orb, it had a black centre like a pupil
Charles Halt
and looked just like an eye winking at you, just like Halt explained it.
“It was zig zagging between the trees, strange, freaked me out, weird, proper not right, I saw it before Halt.
“It passed me first. Halt and his team were about 200 meters away, I could hear all the noise. Later I saw another UFO – it was firing beams of light down to the ground, definitely looking for something, God knows what.
“I tell you, what I witnessed was simply incredible, definitely extra-terrestrial. No two ways about it.
“You can read books and watch TV shows about it, but I’m telling you, you had to be there to really understand and appreciate just how incredible this thing was, changed my life forever.
“I’ve sat on this information for over 40 years and it feels good to get it out and show the truth.
“After this thing happened, I was followed for weeks, I had my phone tapped – scary time.”
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Article by Jane Clinton April 10, 2021 (inews.co.uk)
• Among the late Prince Philip’s varied interests, the Duke of Edinburgh (pictured above) was said to be fascinated with UFOs and amassed a sizeable library of books on the subject. It is believed his interest was sparked by his uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, who wrote an official report about an unidentified craft landing at his Broadlands estate in Romsey, Hampshire.
• Prince Philip spent the summer of 2019 reading The Halt Perspective which explores the Rendlesham Forest Incident. Dubbed “Britain’s Roswell”, US Air Force security personnel stationed at nearby RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk reported seeing strange lights on December 26th and 28th 1980 in the surrounding forest. US servicemen claim to have gotten within touching distance of a “craft of unknown origin”.
• The Halt Perspective was co-written by retired US Air Force Col Charles Halt, who was the base deputy commander at the time, along with retired West Midlands detective, John Hanson. In a letter to Mr. Hanson, Prince Philip’s private secretary Brigadier Archie Miller-Bakewell wrote: “I am certain it will be read with close interest over the summer.” Upon Prince Phillip receiving another book by Mr. Hanson, Haunted Skies: The Encyclopedia of British UFOs, Miller-Bakewell again replied: “His Royal Highness will add this copy to his collection.” It is believed the duke spent decades collecting such titles on extra-terrestrial activity.
• John Hanson’s ex-father-in-law Chief Petty Officer Edward West served in the Royal Navy with Lord Mountbatten on the HMS Kelly. West said that the Duke had twelve of Hanson’s UFO/extraterrestrial books on his shelf. “I’m quite proud of Prince Philip,” said Hanson. “[W]hy shouldn’t he have been interested in UFOs, because for goodness sake, that is something that we should treat seriously rather than flippantly. It is a phenomenon that has baffled mankind for millennia.” Hanson adds, “Even Prince Charles is interested in it and Prince William”
• Derek Dempster, a former RAF pilot who went on to become a reporter for the Daily Express and then founding editor of Flying Saucer Review, spoke of “allies” in the likes of “Sir Peter Horsley, who had been Station Commander at North Weald, and was then equerry to Prince Philip”. “We received collaboration from Henry Chinnery, who was Horsley’s successor,” said Dempster. “Both men had a keen interest in keeping the Palace posted on ‘flying saucers’ and we used to exchange files with them.”
• Dempster, who died in 2012, went on: “There was also a shorthand writer for Lord Mountbatten, named Dan Lloyd, who was an ex-Royal Navy man. He was also very interested in ‘flying saucer’ matters and shared this interest and new research material with Mountbatten. It was said, at the time, that Mountbatten kept lever files of UFO photographs to show visitors on the bridge of the warships when he was at sea.”
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Among his vast and varied interests, the Duke of Edinburgh was said to have had an enduring fascination with UFOs and amassed a sizeable library of titles on the subject.
It is believed his interest was sparked by his uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, who wrote an official report about an unidentified craft landing at his Broadlands estate in Romsey, Hampshire.
Prince Philip reportedly spent the summer of 2019 reading The Halt Perspective which explores the Rendlesham Forest Incident which has been dubbed “Britain’s Roswell”.
United States Air Force (USAF) security personnel stationed at nearby RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk, reported seeing strange lights on 26 and 28 December 1980 in the surrounding forest.
Lord Louis Mountbatten
Servicemen went to investigate with one even claiming they got to within touching distance of a “craft of unknown origin”.
Charles Halt with John Hanson
The Halt Perspective was co-written by retired US Air Force Col Charles Halt, who was the base deputy commander at the time, and retired West Midlands detective, John Hanson.
In a letter to Mr Hanson, Philip’s then private secretary Brigadier Archie Miller-Bakewell wrote: “I am certain it will be read with close interest over the summer.”
Then after receiving another book on the topic by Mr Hanson, Haunted Skies: The Encyclopedia of British UFOs Brigadier Miller-Bakewell again replied: “His Royal Highness will add this copy to his collection.”
Archie Miller-Bakewell Derek Dempster
John Hanson, whose ex-father-in-law, Chief Petty Officer Edward West, known as Ted, was on HMS Kelly with Lord Mountbatten, told i that the Duke had 12 of his books on the extraterrestrial.
Mr Hanson said: “I’ve got about 12 letters from the Duke’s private secretary that say the prince found the subject interesting.
“I’m quite proud of Prince Philip, why shouldn’t he have been interested in UFOs, because for goodness sake, that is something that we should treat seriously rather than flippantly. It is a phenomenon that has baffled mankind for millennia.”
He added: “Even Prince Charles is interested in it and Prince William”
It is believed the duke spent decades collecting such titles on extra-terrestrial activity.
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Article by Nick Pope December 25, 2020 (thescottishsun.co.uk)
• Forty years ago, in the early hours of December 26, 1980, that three men from the US Air Force security police based at RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk, England saw the strange flashing lights deep in the adjacent Rendlesham Forest. They figured that an aircraft might have crashed, so they drove out to investigate and help. As the track of road narrowed, they were forced to continue on foot. Two of the men, John Burroughs and Jim Penniston, advanced into a small clearing, brightly lit by the strange lights. As they got closer, they realized it was not a crashed aircraft but a landed UFO.
• The object was triangular, ten feet wide at the base, resting on three legs. It looked like a cross between a small stealth fighter and a lunar landing module. And the only way into the clearing was from above. Penniston was trained in aircraft recognition and this was like nothing he had ever seen. Symbols on the side looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs. The photos that Penniston took “did not come out”. But his drawings of the craft and his accompanying notes have survived (see below). The craft took off vertically and he noted: “Speed — impossible.”
• Two nights later on December 28, 1980, the UFO returned. The witnesses on this night included the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt who led a team into the forest to investigate. Halt recorded his observations on a cassette tape. On tape, Halt is heard remarking about the UFO ahead: “It’s definitely coming this way . . . pieces of it are shooting off . . . this is weird.” The UFO appeared overhead and fired a thin beam of light in front of them. Halt later asked himself: “Was this a weapon, was this a warning, was this communication?” Burroughs and Penniston later reported health issues, which they attributed to the UFO sighting.
• Later it was claimed that the UFO was seen firing light beams into a storage area where nuclear weapons were kept. In 2015, Colonel Halt acquired statements from two military radar operators, Ike Barker and Jim Carey. They confirmed that the UFO was tracked on radar, traveling at thousands of miles an hour then stopping over the base. “It wasn’t like any radar target I have seen,” Barker said. (see previous ExoArticle on the radar operator’s story) Radioactivity at the site was also said to be “significantly higher than the average background”. Halt concluded that the craft was clearly under intelligent control.
• British and American defense chiefs conspired to keep the incident secret. But in 1983, Lord Hill-Norton, formerly Britain’s most senior military officer, asked a series of questions about the Rendlesham Forest incident in Parliament. Hill-Norton stated that either the deputy commander of an operational, nuclear-armed NATO base was hallucinating – or there had been an actual UFO landing.
• In 1997, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was at a charity function with the socialite Georgina Bruni. When Bruni asked Thatcher about UFOs and the Rendlesham Forest incident, Thatcher replied: “You must have the facts, (but) you can’t tell the people.” Bruni believed that Thatcher had been spooked by secret intelligence regarding UFOs.
• In 2006, the MoD declassified a top-secret assessment of the overall UFO phenomenon, code-named ‘Project Condign’. In the final report, it stated that “several observers were probably exposed to UAP radiation for longer than normal UAP-sighting periods”. This information was passed along to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and a confidential claim settlement was reached with at least one of the US Air Force personnel at Rendlesham.
John Burroughs and Jim Penniston
It was in the early hours of December 26, 1980, that three men from the US Air Force security police
Charles Halt
based at RAF Woodbridge, Suffolk, saw the strange flashing lights.
Coming from beyond the perimeter fence, in Rendlesham Forest, they figured an aircraft might have crashed. They drove out to investigate and help.
As the track narrowed, they continued on foot.
They were walking into history.
John Burroughs and Jim Penniston advanced into a small clearing, brightly lit by the strange lights. As they got closer, they realised it was not a crashed aircraft — it was a landed UFO.
sculpture of UFO craft
The object was triangular, ten feet wide at the base, looked like a cross between a small stealth fighter and a lunar landing module, and was resting on three legs.
The only way into the clearing for a vehicle was from above.
Penniston was trained in aircraft recognition and this was like nothing he had ever seen. Symbols on the side looked like Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Jim Penniston’s drawing of the craft
He took photos but was later told they did not come out. But he sketched the craft too, and his drawing has survived. He also took notes. The craft took off vertically and he wrote: “Speed — impossible.”
Two nights later the UFO returned and the witnesses then included the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt. A sceptic, he led a team into the forest when he was told the UFO had come back.
Lord Hill-Norton
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
He recorded his observations on a cassette. It makes eerie listening as Halt catches sight of the UFO and says: “It’s definitely coming this way . . . pieces of it are shooting off . . . this is weird.”
Then the UFO appeared overhead and fired a thin beam of light in front of them.
Margaret Thatcher
Shocked Halt later asked himself: “Was this a weapon, was this a warning, was this communication?”
Later the UFO was seen firing light beams into a storage area, where many claim — though this was never confirmed — that nuclear weapons were kept.
In 2015, Colonel Halt, who has pursued the case, acquired statements from two military radar operators, Ike Barker and Jim Carey.
They confirmed the UFO was tracked, travelling at thousands of miles an hour then stopping over the base.
Georgina Bruni
“It wasn’t like any radar target I have seen,” Barker said.
Halt concluded that the craft, “was clearly under intelligent control”.
Radioactivity at the site was said to be, “significantly higher than the average background”.
article’s writer, Nick Pope
Defence chiefs conspired to keep the incident secret.
But in 1983 the News of The World printed details.
Then Lord Hill-Norton, formerly Britain’s most senior military officer, asked a series of questions about the incident in Parliament.
He stated that either the deputy commander of an operational, nuclear-armed Nato base was hallucinating — or there had been a UFO landing.
The second establishment figure to break ranks was former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She was at a charity function in 1997 with the socialite Georgina Bruni, who had a long-standing interest in UFOs.
Bruni asked Baroness Thatcher about UFOs and Rendlesham and she replied: “You must have the facts and you can’t tell the people.” Bruni believed Thatcher had been spooked by a secret about UFOs.
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Article by B.B. Wagner October 7, 2020 (ancient-origins.net)
• The Rendlesham Forest UFO incident at the joint British-American air base RAF Woodbridge/RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk, England is one of the most famous UFO sightings ever recorded. It has created a wide range of first-hand sightings, audio recordings, multiple reports, and continuous testimony – sometimes contradictory. With so many angles and perspectives to this story, which are actually correct and what happened exactly?
• On December 26, 1980, at the east gate of the RAF Woodbridge base, US Air Force security patrol Budd Stevens and Sergeant Jim Penniston saw strange, intensely bright fiery-red lights gleaming through the trees of the nearby Rendlesham Forest . They reported their sightings to their commanding officer. At 3:00 am, Penniston was ordered to investigate while Stevens stayed at his post.
• Penniston was accompanied in a jeep by John Burroughs to where the “bogie” reportedly landed. It was here that Burroughs and Penniston saw a mysterious glowing but silent craft whose movement and rapid speed defied the laws of physics. In his statement, Penniston said: “[T]he craft was three meters tall, and about three meters wide at the base… No landing gear was apparent, but it seemed like she was on fixed legs… I moved a little closer… I walked around the craft, and finally, I walked right up to the craft. I noticed the fabric of the shell was more like a smooth, opaque, black glass…” Suddenly, the craft took off at full speed, heading towards a barn where its bright lights disturbed the farm animals and wildlife. Burroughs and Penniston raced after it, climbed over a fence, and watched as the red and blue lights shining from the craft vanished as it passed the barn.
• When Penniston and Burroughs returned to the base, they both decided to downplay what they had seen in their incident report. They simply stated: “[S]aw a mechanical object with red, blue and white lights, but the craft disappeared before we could get a better look…” They were both ordered to keep silent about what they saw.
• The next day, Penniston returned to the landing site and discovered circular impressions on the ground made by a heavy object, spaced three meters apart. He made plaster cast impressions of the landing marks. There was also burn damage and broken branches at the site. Other USAF servicemen on the base became interested in the encounter and the Rendlesham Forest site became a curious hot spot.
• Two days later, on December 28, 1980, deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt was informed that the UFO had returned near the original site. Lt Colonel Halt assemble a team of personnel armed with floodlights, night scopes, audio recording devices, and radiation detectors, and set out for the UFO site. He ordered floodlights to be set up around the perimeter of the site. But the floodlights malfunctioned, so the men used their night vision scopes. The scopes revealed abrasions on surrounding trees. The Geiger counters recorded high radiation. Then the UFO appeared again, approaching from the south. It flew by at an incredible speed, pulsing a vibrant red light through the branches of the trees. In Lt Colonel Halt’s audio recording, he is heard to say, “(The UFO) looks like an eye winking at you…Here he comes from the south, he’s coming towards us now…now we’re observing what happens to be a beam coming down to the ground. This is unreal…” The lights continued to hover and beam over the forest and the field, but as the craft moved it seemed to fall apart.
• When Lt Colonel Halt shared his story with the Office of Special Investigations, he too was told to keep quiet about the experience to protect his own reputation and, more importantly, the reputation of the US Air Force. Boroughs and Penniston were sworn to secrecy. Lt Colonel Halt was allowed to write a memo to the British Ministry of Defense about the events that had occurred. Thanks to the US Information act of 1983, Lt Colonel Halt’s memo is on public record, for anyone to read.
• On January 25, 1985, The Guardian published an article on the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident. But a mysterious U.S. airman named Larry Warren, using the alias “Art Wallace”, had been giving interviews about the incident to local newspapers and television shows. Warren claimed to be an eye-witness, alongside Burroughs, Penniston, and Halt. However, in Warren’s version, he claimed that Lt Colonel Halt and a few other officers at the landing site actually introduced themselves to the tiny aliens that emerged from the spacecraft. This account wildly contradicted the other USAF officers’ accounts. Warren claimed that the USAF Office of Special Investigations had brainwashed him by injecting him with truth serum while forcing him to watch films about UFOs, in order to frame him as a mentally disturbed individual. Lt Colonel Halt, Burroughs, and Penniston avoided Warren.
• In June 2010, the now retired Lt Colonel Halt committed his memories of the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident to a two-page affidavit. But Halt’s recollection of the numbers of objects, the lights’ direction, and the positions of the landing marks were imprecise and only cast more confusion and doubt on the story. So in 2015, to re-establish his reputation, the elderly Lt Colonel Halt obtained written statements from the RAF Brentwater radar operators working on the nights in question.
• The radar operators admitted to tracking the objects on the 26th and 28th of December 1980, but they wanted to put off discussing the matter until after they too had retired from the military. They did say that they saw lights that traveled 60 miles in three seconds, rotate and come to a sudden stop by a water tower, and return again to the forest where Lt Colonel Halt’s team were on the ground investigating. Other witnesses also came forward to confirm the servicemen’s accounts as they retired from the military, sometime with contradictory details.
• Skeptics have seized on the contradictions, claiming that the lights seen by USAF personnel was due to an intensely bright meteor shower over southern England. Others claim that the servicemen had caught glimpses of light from the Orfordness Lighthouse, considered to be ‘the brightest lighthouse in the U.K.’
• But according to an anonymous source of UFO researcher Dr. David Clark, the entire Rendlesham Forest UFO incident was nothing but a “revenge hoax” by the British Special Air Service (SAS) on the US Air Force personnel stationed at RAF Woodbridge/ RAF Bentwaters. Knowing that the American servicemen might be influenced by recent revelations of the Roswell UFO incident in 1947, several SAS personnel allegedly parachuted onto the base to simulate an alien invasion as a joke. The US servicemen, however, captured the SAS soldiers; abused, beat, and humiliated them; and identified them as “unidentifiable aliens”. The SAS were angry at the treatment of their men and decided to plot their revenge by staging a real “alien invasion.” The SAS devised multi-colored flares rigged to go off at certain times in the forest while certain SAS personnel remote-controlled dark-colored helium balloons along with gliders and controlled kites to mimic a single moving craft.
• In spite of the first-hand accounts recorded by US military personnel, and discussions of these events by senior officers, the UK Ministry of Defense accepted the explanation that the Americans only saw glimpses of light from the Orfordness Lighthouse. The Brits deemed the incident as insignificant, posing no threat to national security, and therefore requiring no further investigation.
• The truth behind the Rendlesham Forest UFO incidents is not easy to unravel. The accounts from USAF personnel Sargent Jim Penniston, officer John Burroughs, officer Budd Stevens, Lt Colonel Charles Halt and others include descriptions of supernatural lights, triangular spacecraft as dense and as glossy as obsidian, and burned marks in the ground. What the witness reports suggest may be hard to comprehend, but that doesn’t necessarily make them a hoax.
Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. The Rendlesham Forest UFO incident is without question one of
Charles Halt
the strangest tales, defined by considerable evidence and also serious questions. On December 28, 1980, US Air Force deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt received word of bizarre sightings near and around the RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge airbases. These multiple first-hand observations of supernatural lights and craft sightings occurred during the dead of night and the truth behind these facts is by no means easy to unravel. What the Rendlesham Forest UFO incidents suggest are still hard to comprehend but that doesn’t necessarily make them a hoax.
The accounts from airmen personnel Sargent Jim Penniston, officer John Burroughs, officer Budd Stevens and others included vague descriptions of sightings ranging from unusual supernatural lights, triangular spacecraft as dense and as glossy as obsidian and burned marks in the ground. Although Penniston and Burroughs were perfectly clear about what they saw, their commanding officer told them to remain silent and not mention the full story in their report . . . until the sightings happened again. The second time word was sent directly to deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, who was eating in the mess hall. The Lieutenant Colonel had no choice but to put aside his dinner and his doubt, grab his tape recorder, and see what was happening outside for himself.
Jim Penniston
The First Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident: What Was Seen?
The Rendlesham Forest UFO incident is one of the most famous UFO sightings ever recorded, almost as well covered as the Roswell crash of 1947. The Rendlesham incident has created a wide range of first-hand sightings, audio recordings, multiple reports, and continuous testimony. And this has created a popular phenomenon that keeps bringing UFO enthusiasts back to this forested area for more. But with so many angles and perspectives to this story, which are actually correct and what happened exactly? To understand all the evidence related to this extraterrestrial mystery, it is essential to review the key figures, variations to the story, and the primary alternative explanations of other experts. Only then can anyone reach an objective conclusion about what these reports are saying and what, ultimately, lies behind them.
John Burroughs
Of all the accounts that exist, the most notable experiences came from Jim Penniston, John Burroughs, and Colonel Halt. They recounted bright burning multi-colored lights, mimicking a kaleidoscopic collage of red and blue lights, coming from a mysterious aircraft . This event took place on two consecutive days starting on December 26, 1980, for Penniston and Burroughs, and then again on December 28, 1980, for Colonel Halt and his team of soldiers. In both encounters, the mysterious aircraft reflected lights, hovered, landed, took off at alarming speed, and then appeared to “magically” dissolve or fade.
The First Incident: What Penniston And Burroughs Saw
On December 26, 1980, at the east gate of the RAF Woodbridge base, security patrol Budd Stevens and Sargent Jim Penniston saw strange, intensely bright fiery-red lights gleaming through the trees of Rendlesham Forest . When they reported their sightings at the guard shack, their commanding officer confirmed that something was detected descending into a small clearing near the forest’s eastern edge. It was then, at 3:00 am, that Penniston was given the order to investigate what was seen. Though Stevens stayed at his post, Penniston was accompanied by John Burroughs in a jeep to where the “bogie” reportedly landed. It was here that Burroughs and Penniston saw a mysterious glowing craft whose movement and speed defied the laws of physics . Despite its rapid speed hardly any sound was made by the craft. Of the two men, only Penniston provided a report on the sighting. In his statement, he said:
“…The craft was three meters tall, and about three meters wide at the base […] No landing gear was apparent, but it seemed like she was on fixed
Orfordness Lighthouse
legs… I moved a little closer… I walked around the craft, and finally, I walked right up to the craft. I noticed the fabric of the shell was more like a smooth, opaque, black glass…” (Young 2020)
But as they observed the craft it suddenly took off at full speed, heading towards a barn, causing further havoc as its bright lights disturbed the local wildlife and farm animals. Burroughs and Penniston raced after it, climbed over a fence, and then watched as the red and blue lights shining from the craft vanished as it passed the barn.
When both Penniston and Burroughs returned to the base, they were wary of writing their report of the incident for their commanding shift officer. Both decided to write a version that downplayed what they had seen. In their testimonies, they simply stated:
“…Saw a mechanical object with red, blue and white lights, but the craft disappeared before we could get a better look…” (Cutler and Castro 2019).
To their dismay, both Penniston and Burroughs were ordered to keep silent about what they saw. However, this command did not stop Penniston from returning to the area the next day to examine the landing site. On the forest floor, Penniston discovered circular impressions made by a heavy object, which were spaced 9.8 feet (3 meters) apart. He immediately made plaster cast impressions of the landing marks. Burroughs and Penniston also revealed that burn damage and broken branches were present near the indentations in the ground. Though their commanding shift officer told them to remain silent, the plaster casts and the tree damage made other servicemen extremely curious, turning the sight into a curiosity hotspot for military personnel.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.
• In December 1980 in Suffolk, England, two US Air Force personnel stationed at the Bentwaters and Woodbridge bases went to investigate a suspected civilian plane crash in a nearby wooded area of Rendlesham forest. They found a craft with strange hieroglyphic symbols. Upon touching the craft, it sped away into the sky only to return two days later.
• In December 2017, a NY Times article broke about a 2007-2012 Pentagon program that studied UFOs. Former British Ministry of Defense expert Nick Pope said: “When the story about the Pentagon’s secret UFO project first broke, there was an intriguing reference to AATIP having a dossier detailing the best UFO cases from around the world… Apart from Roswell, the Rendlesham Forest incident is the best-known UFO case in the world, so it’s logical it would be in AATIP’s dossier, especially as the Rendlesham witnesses were US military personnel.”
• All Freedom of Information requests for details on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) have been rejected on national security grounds, says Pope. “The Special Relationship between the US and the UK remains strong, but there’s been very little intelligence-sharing about UFOs.” “Governments – even allies – are in competition with each other over this, and don’t want to give their game away,” Pope said.
• “We’re not too far from the 40th anniversary of what’s been called Britain’s Roswell,” said Pope. “I hope the Rendlesham witnesses – Charles Halt, John Burroughs, Jim Penniston and others – are finally going to find out what happened to them.” “It would be ironic if the answer to Britain’s most famous UFO mystery was lying in a government file somewhere, not in the MoD, but in the Pentagon.”
So says Nick Pope who investigated the strange phenomenon for the Ministry of Defence.
The massive Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) also explored reports of flying saucers.
Since it was exposed last year, three videos have shown bizarre encounters with pilots and inexplicably-fast aircraft.
And Mr Pope believes AATIP could solve the famous Rendlesham Forest incident on Boxing Day December 1980 in Suffolk.
Two members of the US Air Force (USAF), John Burroughs and Jim Penniston from the nearby Bentwaters and Woodbridge bases, went to investigate a suspected civilian plane crash.
They stumbled upon an unknown craft displaying strange “hieroglyphic symbols”, which accelerated away at high speed after they touched it.
The UFO was briefly tracked on radar and reportedly returned two days later and fired beams at air force crew and a “sensitive area” of the Woodbridge base, according to Mr Pope.
The former MOD expert said: “When the story about the Pentagon’s secret UFO project first broke, there was an intriguing reference to AATIP having a dossier detailing the best UFO cases from around the world.
“Apart from Roswell, the Rendlesham Forest incident is the best-known UFO case in the world, so it’s logical it would be in AATIP’s dossier, especially as the Rendlesham witnesses were US military personnel.”
Mr Pope said that all Freedom of Information requests for details on AATIP’s work have been rejected on national security grounds.
“The Special Relationship between the US and the UK remains strong, but there’s been very little intelligence-sharing about UFOs,” said Mr Pope.
Mr Pope claimed that an MOD assessment talked about what kind of “novel military applications” could come from UFOs.
“Governments – even allies – are in competition with each other over this, and don’t want to give their game away,” he said.
He believes that the X-Files type investigations of the Pentagon project could have answers about mystery radiations associated with flying saucers.
He said: “In a later MoD intelligence assessment of the UFO phenomenon more generally, my colleagues looked again at Rendlesham, and their final report contained the bombshell sentence ‘the well-reported Rendlesham Forest/Bentwaters event is an example where it might be postulated that several observers were probably exposed to UAP [Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon] radiation for longer than normal UAP sighting periods’.
“I’d be intrigued to know what information AATIP has about this, and what they concluded.
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• New information has surfaced regarding the ‘Rendlesham Forest incident’, where in December 1980, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt Jim Penniston and Airman John Burroughs witnessed a small triangular craft that landed in Rendlesham Forest near the twin NATO airbases of RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk, England. Sgt Penniston got close enough to touch the craft, describing it as “smooth to the touch” and covered with strange symbols similar to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, before it took off.
• It was known that Penniston and Burroughs were out of radio communication with the base’s Central Security Control for several hours.
• In 2010, now retired British police detective Gary Heseltine and his wife walked through the forest with the deputy commander of the base at the time, retired U.S. Air Force colonel Charles Halt, in an effort to retrace Halt’s steps during the third night of UFO activity there for a documentary that was never made.
• While a film crew shot the 2010 interview, Heseltine’s wife made a private video as well. At one point, she video recorded Heseltine walking with Halt in the forest during a break in filming. Heseltine says that he recently watched the private video again, and picked up on an interesting comment made by Halt. In the video, Halt says: “He [Burroughs] may have been abducted. Who knows? You know there is lost time, we know that. They were not on the radio … You’ve got men out in the forest …. unaccounted for hours..”
• “I did some research and realized that this admission [by Halt] had never been made public,” said Heseltine. “It’s one thing to see a UFO… but it’s quite another to suggest one of your men might have been abducted by aliens.”
• Heseltine also says that Halt told him the Suffolk airbase had the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in Europe at the time.
A retired U.S. Air Force colonel has claimed that two airmen involved in Britain’s most infamous UFO case may have been abducted by aliens in secret video footage.
Staff Sgt Jim Penniston and Airman John Burroughs witnessed a small triangular craft which landed in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk – in what has been dubbed the UK’s Roswell.
Sgt Penniston got so close, he even managed to touch the craft, describing it as “smooth to the touch” and covered with strange symbols similar to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs – before it took off.
Now in secret video footage obtained exclusively by Sun Online, the deputy commander of the base at the time, Charles Halt, can be heard stating that Burroughs “may have been abducted” and that the men were “unaccounted for” for hours.
It is believed it is the first time Halt has ever made the bombshell claims – and they did not appear on his official memo of the incident which was sent to the Ministry of Defence.
The mysterious Rendlesham incident took place in December 1980 – at the height of the Cold War – in woods just outside the twin NATO airbases of RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters.
Penniston and Burroughs headed into the woods to investigate some strange flashing lights, which is where they saw the UFO.
Two nights later, the UFO returned, and Halt led a team of military experts into the woods in a bid to “debunk” the claims.
However, the military team were shocked when a beam of light from the UFO hit the ground just a few feet away.
Charles Halt and Gary Heseltine in 2010
Halt, who made an 18-minute audio recording of the incident, went on to write a memo detailing what happened which he sent to the MoD but defence chiefs said the incident was of “no defence significance.”
For years it has been rumoured Penniston and Burroughs, who were security policemen, may have been snatched by the UFO as they were out of radio communication with their Central Security Control (CSC) for several hours – but no one officially involved in the incident has ever publicly stated it.
Now former British police detective Gary Heseltine has released a video clip from 2010 – when he toured the forest with Halt for a documentary that was never made.
The video clip was recorded by Heseltine’s wife during a break in filming and shows Heseltine walking with Halt in the forest in an effort to retrace his steps during the third night of UFO activity during the 1980 incident.
In the video, Halt says: “He [Burroughs] may have been abducted who knows… You know there is LOST TIME, we know that? They were not on the radio … You’ve got men out in the forest that you can’t …. unnaccounted for hours..”
Heseltine, 57, of Scholes, West Yorkshire, told Sun Online: “My wife Lynn took quite a few video clips as we walking around the forest.
“It was only recently while watching them again that I picked up on the admission by Halt that Penniston and Burroughs had been missing off air ‘for several hours’.
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“It passed me first. Halt and his team were about 200 meters away, I could hear all the noise. Later I saw another UFO – it was firing beams of light down to the ground, definitely looking for something, God knows what.
enduring fascination with UFOs and amassed a sizeable library of titles on the subject.
Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. The Rendlesham Forest UFO incident is without question one of
The First Incident: What Penniston And Burroughs Saw
But as they observed the craft it suddenly took off at full speed, heading towards a barn, causing further havoc as its bright lights disturbed the local wildlife and farm animals. Burroughs and Penniston raced after it, climbed over a fence, and then watched as the red and blue lights shining from the craft vanished as it passed the barn.
