Article by Simon Green June 7, 2021 (dailystar.co.uk)
• In late December 1980, US Air Force Sergeant James Penniston was stationed at RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk, England when the infamous ‘Rendlesham Forest incident’ occurred. The incident involved a series of sightings of unexplained lights descending into the forest adjacent to the base. The British Ministry of Defence said whatever occurred posed no threat to national security and so it was never fully investigated. Skeptics have dismissed it as a series of nocturnal lights or even a fireball.
• Penniston appeared at the Citizen Hearing for UFO Disclosure in 2013 (pictured above) – a mock congressional hearing where 40 UFO witnesses testified to five Congressman and one Senator – to recount his experience. (see Citizen Hearing website here) He claimed that a UFO landed in the forest, and he walked up to it and touched it. “As I came around (the craft) I’ve seen there is an inscription on the front.” Penniston was able to draw the “inscription”, and showed it to the Congressmen. “That’s what I saw.” A copy of his drawing shows what appears to be five discernible objects that don’t bear any similarity to Earth’s languages.
• “It was smooth to touch,” Penniston continued. “I looked down and there was no wing but it was about two feet off the ground. I’m pushing the craft but it doesn’t move. It’s solid as can be. Unbeknownst to me, it was radioactive which is probably why it was warm. Then as I walked around it I realized it definitely wasn’t anything we had. And it sure as hell wasn’t anything the Russians had.” (see below the full 2013 Citizen Hearing on UFO Disclosure video pertaining to the Rendlesham Forest Incident.)
James Penniston
A retired United States Air Force (USAF) sergeant has claimed he touched a UFO and was
drawing of craft by Penniston
even able to draw the “inscription” it had on its side.
Sergeant James Penniston was stationed at RAF Woodbridge when the infamous Rendlesham Forest incident occurred in late December 1980.
Known as “Britain’s Roswell”, the incident involved a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights descending into Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk in late December 1980.
At the time, the Ministry of Defense said whatever occurred posed no threat to national security and it was never investigated
the five objects Penniston saw etched on the side of the UFO craft
fully.
And sceptics have often dismissed it as a series of nocturnal lights or even a fireball.
But, nevertheless, Sgt. Penniston’s account continues to amaze and baffle.
He appeared at Citizen Hearing – a mock congressional hearing where 40 UFO witnesses testified to five congressman and one senator – to recount his experience.
“I got up and composed myself just a little bit,” he said. “As I came around I’ve seen there is an inscription on the front.
“That’s what I saw.” A copy of his drawing shows what appears to be five discernible objects that don’t bear any similarity to Earth’s languages.
1:45:12 video of CHD testimony on the Rendlesham Forest incident (‘Citizen Hearing on UFO Disclosure’ YouTube)
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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 Katy Sandalls July 26, 2019 (eadt.co.uk)
• During the 1980 Christmas party at the twin Royal Air Force bases, RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge, in Suffolk, England, US Air Force servicemen stationed at the base were sent out to investigate strange goings on in the nearby Rendlesham Forest. The American witnesses have since maintained stories of encountering a strange craft in the woods.
• Nick Pope, the UFO desk officer for Britain’s Ministry of Defence between 1991 and 1994, said, “The Rendlesham Forest incident is the most compelling of the approximately 12,000 UFO cases investigated during the lifetime of the MoD’s UFO project, and it remains unexplained to this day.” It has since been nicknamed the ‘UK’s Roswell’.
• Retired US Air Force Sergeant Michael Stacy Smith served in the 81st Airborne Police Squadron at the twin RAF bases in 1980. Smith was 19 years old at the time, and has never spoken publicly about his alien encounter until now. Speaking to website The Analysis, Sgt. Smith spoke of a number of incidents which took place in Suffolk only weeks before the well-known incident in late December of 1980.
• “In November of 1980 I had my first incident. Our base went on alert, I was called out to the barracks,” said Smith. “They assigned me to a post behind the east gate on Woodbridge. So they dropped me off and I got into the bunker.” Then he had to take a pee. “I was standing on the edge of the bunker, peeing, and I looked off in the forest and you could see an orange, glowing light down in the woods.”
• “It was an orange – reddish glowing ball. Bigger than a beach ball, and it had a cats eye in it,” says Smith. “I thought what the hell is that? At first I thought it was someone with a lantern walking through the woods, looking at our planes. It stopped right in front of me. It just stayed there and hovered two feet off the ground.” Smith called for reinforcements who couldn’t believe what they saw. Then the object disappeared. “I was scared to death,” said Smith.
• In a separate incident Sgt. Smith recalled seeing strange shapes in the vicinity of RAF Bentwaters. “You could see coming from the south of Bentwaters… was a triangular shaped craft. It was blueish in the middle and had white around the edges of it. It was just above the tree line of Rendlesham Forest.” “I don’t care what anyone says, it was real.”
• Nick Pope agrees that “These new revelations are fascinating, though difficult to evaluate, especially given that nearly 40 years have passed since these events.” “As this new interview shows, whatever these military witnesses experienced was truly bizarre and had deep and lasting effects – both physical and emotional – on some of the individuals concerned.”
A new account of alien encounters in Rendlesham has been made public for the first time.
Retired Sergeant Michael Stacy Smith served in the 81st Airborne Police Squadron at the twin bases of RAF Bentwater and RAF Woodbridge at the time of the famous UFO incident in 1980.
It was during the base’s Christmas party that US airmen were sent out to investigate strange goings on at the base which have since been nicknamed the UK’s Roswell.
Retired Sergeant Michael Stacy Smith
Sergeant Smith was only 19 when the events took place and has never spoken publicly about his alien encounter until now. Speaking to website The Analysis, Sgt. Smith spoke of a number of incidents which took place in Suffolk only weeks before the well-known incident.
“In November of 1980 I had my first incident. Our base went on alert, I was called out to the barracks,” said Sgt Smith.
“They assigned me to a post behind the east gate on Woodbridge. So they dropped me off and I got into the bunker.”
Sgt Smith said that while in the bunker he needed to go to the toilet.
“I was standing on the edge of the bunker, peeing, and I looked off in the forest and you could see an orange, glowing light down in the woods.
“It was an orange – reddish glowing ball.
“Bigger than a beach ball and it had a cats eye in it.
“I thought what the hell is that. At first I thought it was someone with a lantern walking through the woods, looking at our planes.
“It stopped right in front of me. It just stayed there and hovered two feet off the ground.”
Sgt. Smith called for reinforcements who couldn’t believe what they had seen.
Not long after the encounter, the object disappeared.
“I was scared, I was just a 19-year-old kid,” said Sgt Smith.
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• 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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• The Rendlesham Forest incident in Suffolk, England is still one of the most compelling stories of a UFO sighting recorded in the UK, and it has been referred to as “Britain’s Roswell”. What was the Rendlesham Forest incident?
• On the night of December 26, 1980, a patrol near RAF Woodbridge reported seeing lights, which appeared to land in the near by Rendlesham Forest. (At the time, RAF Woodbridge was a U.S. Air Force base for the 79th Tactical Fighter Squadron. This is adjacent to it’s “twin” base, RAF Bentwaters.) Thinking the lights might be a crashed human aircraft, they rushed to the site and found a round, glowing metal object with colored lights. Returning to the site the next morning, all they found were a number of triangular impressions on the ground.
• Two days later, on December 28, 1980, the deputy base commander, Lt. Col. Charles Halt, visited the area and took radiation readings. He and his party saw another flashing light which hovered and beamed down a stream of light. A witness to the event, U.S. Air Force officer Steve Longero, said, “I think it was something not from this world.”
• Longero said of the object in the woods, “From what I remember… it was really glowing like a reddish, greenish light… like something was really hot and it was just glowing.” He also recalled how the object vanished. “As people were getting close to this thing it kind of came nearer to us and then it would go forward and then go back and all of a sudden it just disappeared, like something out of Star Trek, it was like warp speed and we were all ‘what was that?’”
• Other British local claimed to have seen the UFO as well. The occurrence caused the Ministry of Defence to issue a public statement to the people of Briton to assure them it was not a threat to national security.
• You can camp in Rendelsham Forest, and the forest has a trial called the UFO Trail.
ALIEN encounters of signs of aliens are some of the most intriguing mysteries for human kind. Was proof of aliens found in the Rendlesham Forest incident in Suffolk? Local men claimed to have seen UFO sighting.
Alien encounters such as the Rendlesham Forest incident are often the subject of public intrigue.
This event, which occurred in 1980, is still one of the most compelling stories of a UFO sighting recorded in the UK, and it has been referred to as “Britain’s Roswell”.
It even caused the Ministry of Defence to issue a public statement to the people of Briton to assure them it was not a threat to national security.
What was the Rendlesham Forest incident?
The Rendlesham Forest incident took place over two nights in December 1980. On 26 December a patrol around RAF Woodbridge reported seeing lights, which appeared to land in the near by Rendlesham Forest.
They rushed to the site, thinking the lights might be a crashed human aircraft, however, they were shocked by what they found.
They claimed to have found a round, glowing metal object with coloured light that scared animals in a nearby farm.
Returning to the site in the morning all they found were a number of triangular impressions on the ground.
On December 28 deputy base commander Lt. Col. Charles Halt visited the area and took radiation readings. He and his party then claimed to see another flashing light, which hovered and beamed down a stream of light.
Was proof of aliens found in Rendlesham Forest incident in Suffolk? While some think this could be evidence of an extraterrestrial visit, most agree it is not conclusive.
Some believe it to be a hoax, while others claimed the object was a downed Soviet spy satellite.
A witness of the event, retired U.S. Airforce officer Steve Longero, told the Sun in December 2016: “I think it was something not from this world.”
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And sceptics have often dismissed it as a series of nocturnal lights or even a fireball.
