This article was published in the daily newspaper The Daily Mail, London, U-K, author Nick Pope, on May 15, 1996.
|
At three in the morning on December 27, 1980, two security patrolmen on a routine tour of the perimeter of the RAF/USAF airbase at Woodbridge in Suffolk saw bright lights among the trees of the adjacent Rendlesham Forest. Their first assumption was that an aircraft might have overshot or misjudged the runway and been forced into the trees, although they had heard no noise. They asked permission to investigate beyond the camp gates, which was duly granted.In the forest it soon became clear that the object was no aeroplane. They saw a metallic, triangular craft unlike anything they had seen before and chased it through the trees. And that was not the end of it.
Two nights later, there was a similar sighting, and a larger team, led by deputy base commander, U.S. Air Force, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Halt, went out to investigate.
Hall and his team advanced into the forest, leaving others in the vicinity of the powerful lights, known to the military as light-alls, that had been brought to illuminate the scene. Their equipment behaved strangely. Although the tape recorder, Geiger counter and night vision scope were in perfect order, all three machines experienced interferences. The lights-all refused to work.
It is eerie to hear the 18-minutes recording of Halt and his team as they edged their way through the undergrowth to within 150 yards of the light source.
"Strange flashing red light sheed."
"Not, it's yellow."
"Weird."
"It's definitely coming this way."
Halt remembered the light vividly in later years: "it pulsated as though itwere an eye winking at you and around the edges it appeared to have molten metal dripping off.Here I am, a senior official who routinely denies this sort of thing and works to debunk them,and I'm involved in the middle of something I can't explain.
What he couldn't explain was that the moving light, now red, now yellow, suddenly exploded into pieces each of them in a white light, and then disappeared. Immediately he saw three objects in the sky, like stars, except that they gave off red, green and blue light and darted in all directions in sharp, angular movements. Those to the north appeared elliptical when viewed through a power lens, but their shape changed into full circles.
They were visible for two or three hours and occasionally flashed down beams of light or energy - Halt didn't know which. His skepticism vanished. "I was really in awe", he confesses.
A mile away, U.S. airman John Burroughs was with his vehicle, still trying to repair the malfunctioning light-alls. A blue streak past him at head height and the light-alls came on. The light passed through the open windows of his truck and vanished into the distance. Then the light-allswent out.
U.S. airman Larry Warren was with another team. He is still able to pinpoint the exact spot where he saw the light, in a strange circle of mist, in a field. The whole field was lit by a bright light. A glowing red ball approached from across the field and at first Warren thought it was an A-10 aircraft coming in to land. But it stopped over the circle of mist and exploded, without sound, without heat, into a galaxy of coloured lights.
Somehow - and Warren was at loss to explain how - the vapour of the mist and coloured lights transformed into a structured object. He estimated it to be 30 feet across the base and 20 feet high.
There was a bank of blue lights on the underside and the whole thing shone with a rainbow or mother of pearl effect, so bright it was difficult to look at it.
There are also reports of local farm animals going into a frenzy. Halt's report mentions that the following day checks were made in the woodlands. Three depressions, 1.5 inches deep and 7 inches in diameter, were found in the soil. The ground readings on the Geiger counter were 25 times the normal background level.
A cloud of secrecy hung over Rendlesham. Unscheduled flights came and went. People were told to keep quiet and forget the lights. Even Halt was left in the dark. His superior told him to submit his report to the Ministry of Defence, which he did. My predecessor on the UFO Desk seems not to have acknowledged this. Bewildered and angry, Halt is still awaiting hisreply from us 15 years later.
So what actually happened at Rendlesham Forest? The science writer Ian Ridpath suggests that the lights in the trees were actually the Offord Ness lighthouse, six miles away. A timing of Halt's tape fits the lighthouse's rhythms. But, as Halt has said, a lighthouse doesn't explode, doesn't change shape, doesn't send down beams of light.
We have no proof that an alien craft landed in Rendlesham forest, but we have no proof that it didn't. Clifford Stone, a former intelligence officer, believes that Washington has the answer and is keeping it secret. A highly advanced technology appeared in those woods and there was an intelligence involved. "That intelligence," says Stone, "did not originate on Earth."
See here for information on this incident.
