Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 291: Rendlesham Forest Part 1 - Military Mystery

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

This week Jesse takes Mike, Alex and all of you on one of the most non-Jesse topics to date. MOFFMIN PLUSH MERCH - http://www.theyetee.com/collections/chilluminati Thank you too - All you lovely people at Patreon! HTTP://PATREON.COM/CHILLUMINATIPOD Green Chef - http://www.greenchef.com/chillfree PROMO CODE: chillfree Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - http://www.youtube.com/user/superbeardbros Editor - DeanCutty http://www.twitter.com/deancutty Show art by - https://twitter.com/JetpackBraggin http://www.instagram.com/studio_melectro Main Source: Encounter in Rendlesham Forest: The Inside Story of the World's Best-Documented UFO Incident by Nick Pope Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ6oqyCD400

Welcome to Langara College, known as Snoway Echlelam in the language of the Musqueam First Nation. We're Canada's premier pathways college offering the widest selection of university transferable courses in the province of BC. There's always more than one way to reach your goals and we're eager to help you explore them all because it's your education, your opportunity and your future. Because it's your education, your opportunity, and your future. Because it's Langalli. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Chiluminati podcast episode 291. As always, I'm one of your hosts, Mike Martin today joined by the John Fleming and Rusty Berther of LA, Jesse and Alex.

Whoa, whoa, hold on. John Fleming and Rusty Berther. Yeah. Berther. Berther B-E-R-T-H-E-R. That could be Jesse. Jesse, you want to be rusty? Berther sounds like Jesse could be the berther. Like a gross porn star, like just a really gross guy.

You one identifying fact for each one of them, right? John Fleming plays the mandolin. Rusty Berther plays banjo. Rusty, damn! Here's the thing, I kind of like Rusty Berther because he sounds like he's fun, but also has the worst name in the history of names. I'm good on that. I don't want the name.

I'll take whatever else is on offer. I'll play the mandolin. I'll play the... I don't know. I was going to say something bad about the mandolin. I got nothing. I don't know. I don't know shit about the mandolin. I'll play the, I don't know, I was gonna say something bad about the mandolin. I got nothing, I don't know. I don't know shit about the mandolin. I know what it sounds like, I know what it is.

I got nothing bad to say. You can call it your mando, which is fun. Oh hey, look at that. I was gonna call it. And you could be like, this is the way. Bing, da da da da da da da. You know what I was gonna fucking say? I was gonna call it the cockroach's ukulele.

What? What? I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. That's why I that's why I didn't say it. Send your angry letters care of Fossey on the see what you see you see you see why I gave take you see why I gave pause. This is what is given produced after them. Who are these guys? Comedy duo known as the scared weird little guys from Australia from 1990

they were active from 1990 to 2011. That's the same as the original name of the scary game squad. The scared weird little guys. Yeah, until Rusty Berther killed three people. We used to have a banjo player and mandolin player that used to play behind us the whole time and then they killed three people so they were off. We had to get it yeah it was rough it was yeah yeah a lot uh rusty birther there's no way anyone in any sort of media or

entertainment is like keep that name yeah that's good keep it these are gonna know who these are i'm always surprised by the random people of course know like some of the more bizarre polls I get. It's like, his name is like shabby nationalist. Oh, I was thinking something far more dirty, but like, yeah. Sure. Like, like disgusting birth canal. Kind of.

Yeah. That's what I, that's where my head went. Yeah. All right. But I've got birthers were a thing and that is hilarious. Let's get enough money for. I promise I will never. Yeah. All right. But I've got birthers were a thing and that is hilarious. And money for I promise I will never. Yeah, I promise I'll never say anything else that rusty birther reminds me of Patreon.com. What is that? What if we do though? What if

with the Chiluminahti pod? Patreon money we buy you will buy Jesse a banjo will buy Alex a mandolin and then I'll take my mic acoustic guitar and we'll all become an acute, like a string band only. Like a, like a bluegrass, like the, like the, the LA river band. And that's when we get saxophone Sasquatch to join us. That is my life goal is to have a live show where that dude shows up and one day be growing up a guitar to play with him on stage before one of our shows. That is my goal.

There's a whole bunch of action on the Sasquatches that are trying to play live shows with the Chiluminati. Somebody's been campaigning real hard on the subreddit to be asked to play with us. Somehow, this has come up a few times on the subreddit lately. I don't know exactly what the vibe is. What is the vibe? Let me know. Let me exactly what the vibe is. What is the vibe? Let me know.

Let me know what's the vibe. I have no idea what you're talking about. I've just seen it. I've just seen it. I've seen it. You've seen it. I've seen it. I think that I swear.

I've seen it. What movie is that? Pineapple Express? I will, if it is, I don't know. I wouldn't have seen it, so I don't know. What is the Pineapple Express about? It's about a guy who goes to a drug dealer's house to get some weed and then they witness a murder by accident and then they see that they get seen by the drug dealers. No, it's like a buddy comedy

where they're on the run from these guys, but it's also like an action movie. It's like a weed comedy action movie starring James Franco my smoking days So I just definitely didn't want not that I was during that time period where they let that group That that was making movies like Seth Brogan Judd Apatow. They let him make anything they want It was like the Rogan Yeah It was like the Rogan era went back when he was still friends with James Franco Seth Rogan is behind some really great projects now Like invincible is so good.

The boys so good. He's heavily involved in both. He literally just runs a weed company now. Yeah, I'll do that. A weed company that was hiring by the way. And I sent Alex the thing. Let's go dude. Dude, I have some of their, I have some of their merch. It's actually like, Hey, house plant. If you listen, anybody at house plant listens to the show, let us do a brand deal for you. I love your little ashtray that I have. It's my favorite. It came with a little vase. Davis got it for my birthday one year.

Beautiful. Before we get into this episode, I just wanna say, you almost lost me this week. What do you mean? Like you died? I almost died. I wanna say I almost passed away and I'm very grateful to see your faces.

I almost choked to death. On what? At four in the morning as I was eating a Ritz cracker and I swallowed it. Oh my God. It got stuck in my throat and I could only breathe a little bit, but it wouldn't go down and then I decided to try and drink it down, which I imagine just turned the dry cracker into a brick in my throat. I could literally no longer breathe. I had to run into the other room,

just wake her up in the middle of the night, and she had to give me the Heimlich because I was literally about to pass out as everything was going kind of blurry and black on me as a couple minutes passed, and then it vomited cracker everywhere, and I'm okay, and I'm here. But I almost died, and I just wanna say I'm grateful

to keep living life on this mortal plane. You got to reach out to, uh, president George W. Bush on your share. He has experience. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. He almost choked to death too.

If he can, I'm proud. I'm a math this for what it's worth. I'm glad you didn't choke to death, man. Me too. I would have math for what it's worth. I don't know what that has to do with this episode. I'm wondering why you brought up. Then I remembered, I thought he was going to say, but then I remembered that I had to tell everybody about the Rendlesham Forest.

And then I was going to, as much as I want to know about your life, I'm here for Chilumadati. I think a moment of gratefulness and the present moment among some of my for best. Well, that moment passed. So let's move on to Chiluminati. All right. This topic is gonna be, we've been building to it, we wanna do four years. We've talked about it off camera a lot. I don't know how much we've talked about it on camera, but in this season of the UFO, as it is on the Chiluminati podcast at the moment,

it is, take a look at our podcast. It is. Shout out to Mel. Yeah, shout out to Mel. She does all the Patreon art, she does all the channel art, it's good shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We are going to do the Patreon art. She does all the channel art. It's good shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We are going to do.

The Rendlesham Forest incident in the chilling predawn hours over the course of two nights in December of 1980, something extraordinary occurred in Rendlesham Forest near bases, RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge out in the UK. Over those nights, military personnel bases RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge out in the UK. Over those nights, military personnel witnessed what they described as inexplicable lights dancing dancing through the trees, which eventually escalated into a confirmed landing of an

unidentified craft. And unlike fleeting glimpses of so many other supposed UFO encounters that we've covered on the show over the course of years, this encounter involved close proximity with witnesses reporting a solid object that left impressions on the ground and scorch marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks

marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks marks and claims to have seen strange symbols later recalling a bizarre binary message, which we'll get into much more detail later. This wasn't a distant sighting. It was an up-close encounter that defied conventional explanation, sparking immediate questions and setting the stage for a mystery that continues to baffle to this day. But the Randallstrom Forest incident goes beyond mere eyewitness accounts. This event was reportedly tracked on military radar, adding a layer of technological confirmation

to the visual evidence and investigations at the landing site allegedly revealed abnormally high levels of radiation, hinting at tech that was leaving it at the time. Again, this is 1980 and the aftermath only deepens the intrigue with claims of aggressive debriefings involving unusual techniques, including the release of 18 minutes of audio from the night as they're literally investigating it in real time that we will play in today's episode. Oh, okay. In that 18 minutes? 18 minutes of it that you can go listen to. It's episode. Oh, 18 minutes, 18 minutes of it.

You can go listen to its public. And it is 18 minute segment of what is supposedly a two to three hour long audio. The rest completely, completely classified. And those who recorded the audio saying that it is unlikely that we'll ever hear the rest of the audio released. Is it gone? No, it's classified under the UK government. Oh, interesting. Rendersham Forest, one of the most credible UFO sightings in modern history

is why it's been on my list for such a long time. Unlike other UFO sightings we've covered, and I would say many are credible in their own right, like the Hudson Valley, which we covered, or the Phoenix lights, all seen by the vast majority of civilians. This you info encounter was exclusively all military personnel numbering over 60. Listen, if you don't know by now, uh, you will very soon. I'm all about trying to make my eating habits just better overall,

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Now before we get into the actual event itself We have to cover some of the more important basics to lay context for this sighting itself of the more important basics to lay context for this siting itself. RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge are more than just runways and hangar bases out there. They were and well maybe they aren't anymore who knows were vital keystones in NATO's shield against at the time the dreaded Iron Curtain. RAF Bentwaters established during the crescendo of World War II quickly transitioned into a crucial outpost for the US Air Force in the early 50s. It became a bustling hub, the primary home to fighter wings ready at a moment's notice. Think of it as like a frontline fortress in the air, safeguarding Western Europe during

a very precarious era. The roar of American fighter jets including the formidable aircraft like F-101 Voodoo and the A-10 Thunderbolt II for all you aircraft nerds out there was a constant reminder of the basis, strategic importance. Benton waters wasn't just an airfield. It was a symbol of American commitment to European security in a place where cutting edge military tech and highly trained personnel stood guard different time and just a stone's throw away.

I mean, talking literally from this base to RAF Woodbridge is hundreds of yards. That's not a huge distance. Isn't this the same base from that was connected to that like Navajo tapestry thing? So Joanna. Oh, I don't remember. Remember that radar array? Maybe I'm wrong. No, no. Yeah, I think you're no. Yeah, because we're gonna talk about the radar. We're gonna talk about radar No, yeah. I think you're no. Yeah, because we're going to talk about the radar. We're going to talk about radar here and radar's origin here later actually. But yeah, you know, it's interesting. Again, as we've been doing this for seven years, you can see a lot of similar names

and things showing up in military around the very particular peculiar events. Yeah. So, yeah, this was like, again, it was a place where we basically were able to kind of establish an RF Woodbridge was hundreds of yards of forest away from this one and that forest is the Rendlesham forest, uh, which they shared a similar wartime origin initially built as an emergency landing strip for damage bombers returning from missions over enemy territory. It's unusually long runway earned its nickname crash drone as testament to its emergency landing strip for damage bombers returning from missions over enemy territory.

It's unusually long runway earned its nickname crash drone as testament to its lifelong purpose barge crashing ships would come into land. Shout outs to whoever made it drone instead of dome. Yeah, that was like a like a little bit of a flare that I like really appreciate from like a like roasting perspective. Pretty solid and like Bentwaters Woodbridge was handed over to the USAF during the Cold War buildup. And for many years, these two bases

operated as a unified entity, often referred to as the twin bases under the same command. Woodbridge also housed significant fighter squadrons and even air rescue units, playing its part in the intricate network of Cold War defenses. These bases were just like military installations. They were communities and they had a bunch of American and British personnel who may not have really liked each other all that much.

Honestly, even during this time, they had a shared mission here. And now the main, uh, now before we get further, I do want to shout out the main source for this short two-part series that we'll be doing on the Rendlesham forest encounter. I will mainly be relying on the book and counter in Rendlesham Forest by author Nick Pope. It's basically the best firsthand accounts that we have of this thing. There's so many fucking Rendlesham Forest books out there. It's crazy. It rivals like, um, it rivals, uh, Roswell.

It's insane how many books out there. It's literally UK's Roswell, like everywhere that you see it online. Somebody's like, it's UK's Roswell. It's UK's Roswell. There are 60 plus witnesses. Everybody has an in to write a book about this thing basically.

And I do just wanna say really quick, it was not RAF Woodbridge. It was RAF Men with Hill. Oh, okay. I didn't know what you're talking about. Just for correct, just so that somebody doesn't have an infarction thinking about this. So a quick little bit about the author. Nick Pope is an English media commentator and author who previously worked for the British government's Ministry of Defense from 1985 to 2006. But from 1991 to 94,

he was assigned to Secretariat Air Staff, commonly known as the UFO desk. He was the molder. The guy who's kind of thrown the back of the spooky molder came. Yeah. He was not looked upon like with respect in this particular role is responsibilities included in investigating reports of UFO sightings to determine if they have any defensive significance. This is basically the UK's version of, we had J. Alan Hynek doing.

This position gave him first-hand access to government information and classified material related to UFOs, and he had access to it all. And he would follow a similar trajectory as his US counterpart, J. Alan Hynek, entering as a non-believer and leaving as a believer that something was happening. The other major player we'll be looking at through the series is Colonel Charles Holt, who was at the time was the deputy base commander of one of the two bases. He was a noted and vocal skeptic about these things, and this incident turned him very much into a believer. There were and are other witnesses that we'll also talk about and get to,

but these two men are the kind of main two that we'll be mainly focused on because we just can't cover everybody. And I want you to remember these two names in particular. And while we'll get to what they've talked about and the information they've shared, all of the witnesses also openly admit they have even more information that they want to share but cannot because it is heavily classified. It would be illegal for them to do so. And they'd end up in prison all through the UK. This is the UK government because it's all classified. Like,

so again, we have 18 minutes of a supposed three hour ish audio, because the rest of it was chopped. Um, and just to reemphasize, as we move into the event itself, Smitty knows this is important. Smitty is very excited. He likes UFO advocates. He likes people that just get the message out there. And just to re-emphasize, as we move into the event itself, the two RAF bases at the time in 1980 when these events are happening were of extreme importance because it was

like the Cold War era period. And their strategic importance amplified the implications of a potential UFO encounter in the vicinity. Both bases were operated by the USAF, United States Air Force, and were considered key NATO installations. RAF Bentwaters in particular served as the primary home for the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, which was a crucial component of NATO's air defense in Europe. These bases housed advanced military aircraft and personnel, which also played a vital role in maintaining security during intense geopolitical climate. That's thank God that's over.

And the presence of such strategically important military assets made any unexplained activity in their vicinity a matter of serious concern for both the U S and the UK governments, which is all that to say it's extremely unlikely that whatever this was, was civilians pulling a prank. And again, this is 1980, not 20, you know, 25 drones are not really a thing as we understand them, at least in 1980. Adding to the significance of these bases was the pioneering work in radar tech that originated here on the Suffolk coast, 1980. Adding to the significance of these bases was the pioneering work in radar tech that originated here on the Suffolk coast.

Just a few miles south of Rendlesham, Bodsey Manor holds the distinction of being the birthplace of what we now know as operational radar. In the years leading up to world war II, under the looming threat of German aggression, Bodsey became the top secret site where scientists led by Robert Watson Watt developed the world's first functional radar system. And by 1937, RAF Bodzie was operational in this revolutionary technology proved instrumental in Britain's defense during the war, particularly in the Battle of Berlin. What's funny is that radar, as we understand it,

was an accidental discovery. What they were trying to do was create a radio wave weapon that they could aim at German planes and take them out of the sky or like fuck with the pilot in some way, like creating a noise. Is that true? Is that where that came from? Yeah, that's exactly where it came from. That was what their goal was. The legacy of this- Of all the facts I don't know, that's one of them, I guess. Yeah.

Whoa. The legacy of this groundbreaking work meant that by the time of the Vandalsham forest incident, 1980, 1980, the Suffolk coastline, its military installations were no strangers to advanced detection technologies, further highlighting the potential implications of any unusual aerial activity that they could not prevent for whatever reason. This is a top of the line at the time, technological detective, uh,

detection area and following world war two. and with the onset of the Cold War, the strategic importance of the Suffolk coastline for air defense continued. In the early 1950s, as part of the buildup of the NATO forces in Europe, the US Air Force took over operations at both RAF Bentwaters and Woodbridge, and these bases became integral to the US Air Forces in Europe, which was the USAFE, and played a critical role in monitoring and defending against potential threats from the East. While the initial radar development

had been a British endeavor centered at Bodsey Manor, the US military, with its significant resources and focus on long range detection during Cold War, eventually took over established and operated advanced long range radar systems as the strategically vital airfields to maintain constant surveillance over the airspace, over the North sea and beyond.

And to really understand why these two bases were so crucial, we need to talk a little bit about the cold war itself. Very briefly, just bear with me, history nerd, non-history nerds. This is important. After world war II, the world basically split into two powers. On one side, we had the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, aka NATO, which included the US, UK, and other Western Europe nations, which was all formed as a military alliance to protect its members from aggression. And on the other side was the Warsaw Pact, which was led by the Soviet Union, then comprised its satellite states in Eastern Europe. In these two groups, NATO and the Warsaw Pact were locked in a constant

tent standoff, which is where the cold war kind of originated from, uh, where they didn't directly fight each other on a large scale, but were constantly competing for influence and building up their military strength, each wary of each other's intentions. The space race is like the most famous example of, of that. And given this context, RAF Bentwaters, RAF Woodbridge operated by the US Air Force as key NATO installations right on the front line.

Their location on the eastern coast of England made them ideally situated to monitor any activity coming from the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe. These bases house advanced fighter jets ready to intercept potential threats and were vital for maintaining NATO's air superiority in this critical region during a very dangerous time. So these are just not some rando military bases is what all this context is trying to put down. And honestly, as I was putting this together, I found it interesting to draw

parallels between the Rendlesham forest incident and some of the more recent drone incursions that we've been seeing around military bases. In both cases, you've got unidentified aerial activity popping up near highly sensitive military locations. And just like in the 80s with the lights and the objects seen by airmen, these modern incidents involving drones show up in restricted airspace, sometimes even in swarms.

This proximity naturally sparks concerns about who's doing the flying and what their intentions might be, especially when it comes to the security of important military assets. There's a lot of similarities here. Just to keep moving forward, we're almost done with the context, I promise. Obviously, though, between the drones and Rendlesham, key differences. The Rendlesham event involved what many believe was an actual physical craft that landed, left traces on the ground, had radiation readings. The drones haven't been doing any of that. They

just never land. They just hover for hours. We don't have the same kind of physical evidence just in general, but if we entertain the idea that these events could be involved in non-human intelligence, then scouting military bases makes a certain kind of sense. Think, you know, as we, if we think about them as nuts and like physical UFOs, think about it. These bases are where you find the most advanced technology our civilization has, from aircraft to radar and maybe even weapons. It's literally where our secrets are. Literally. It would be a prime spot to observe and try to understand our capabilities.

And these bases are strategically important. Another thing to note is, again, it's important to this time period, the potential presence of nuclear weapons. Now it's the UK's government policy not to confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons in any of their bases or bases around their country. But when it came to Randall Shim Forest incident, a man by the name of Lord Peter Hill Norton, former UK chief of defense staff and chair of NATO's military committee wrote

the following about the UFO incident in Randall Shim Forest and, uh, Alex or Jesse, who would like to be Lord Peter Hill Norton? It sounds like a character that Jesse would play in an entire season of a tabletop campaign. So I'm going to just say that's for Jesse. All right. This comes again. This comes from his former U.K.

chief of defense staff and chair of NATO's military committee. This is what he wrote about the Randall Shumford UFO incident. Of course, yes. My position, both privately and publicly expressed over the last dozen years or more, is that there are only two impossibilities. Either, or, an intrusion into our airspace and a landing by unidentified craft took place at Randall-Ton, as described, or, b, the deputy commander of an operational nuclear armed US Air Force base in England and a large number of

his enlisted men were either hallucinating or lying. Which confirms essentially that there were nuclear missiles at the nuclear armed base at this place. This was taken from a letter, so you know, that was sent to the minister of state at the ministry of defense, making the statement that nuclear weapons were there pretty clear, which again makes sense, especially during this time period, as it would be a first line launching point in a war against the Soviet Union if need be, which of course plays into so many of these sightings. And similarly to the drone incursions that we are still experienced to this day, that we'll be actually giving you an update on today's mini-sode and Patreon.

Patreon.com. And like UFO sighting seemingly ramped up after we learned how to split the atom. And there's a lot of theories as to why, obviously. But one of my favorite ones is just like alien showed up because it's like a bunch of kids getting a hold of a shotgun. They don't know what the fuck they're doing with it, but they grab their hands on it and they know they can pull the trigger and it goes boom. And that's very destructive to everything around them. This idea of potential alien interest in our nuclear capabilities isn't unique to the Randall

Shim Ford incident. Just a few years later in the 80s in an event we covered a few weeks ago. The Hudson Valley sightings in New York experienced a wave of UFO sightings that involved large boomerang shaped objects with multiple lights. What's particularly interesting for our discussion today is that some of these sightings reportedly occurred directly over the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. Security guards at the facility even claimed to have seen a massive, silent object hovering over the plant for a significant amount of time that we talked about. And while some explanations for the Hudson Valley sightings involve conventional

aircraft flying in formation, the sheer number of eyewitnesses including law enforcement and security personnel at a nuclear facility adds another layer to the narrative of this UAP thing that we're about to be diving into today. Now, before we jump in even fully, you have to know that there's a ton of different tales for many of the witnesses of the events, too many to go through one by one in real detail. So we'll be mainly focusing on Henneston's notes and Holt's recordings today, which are the Can I ask a question just before we begin this? Yeah. Are all of the witnesses telling the same story or the stories like

varied? They're there. Man, I will answer your question in this episode, I promise you and I don't think it's gonna be an answer you or anyone here suspects. It's not, it's not quite that binary for put it there. So, these are the best spectrum of answers. Yeah. These, this, this, these, but these, the penistens notes and Holtz recordings are kind of the best firsthand and the

moment accounts that we have. And so without, so mystifying. Yeah, okay. Without further ado, let's get into the events, the actual events. Oop, my thing has scrolled up. The actual events of Randall Shim Forest. So as I already said early, in the early biting cold of the early hours

of December 26th, 1980, the twin United States Air Force bases of Bentwaters and Woodbridge lay nestled quietly in the seemingly tranquil Suffolk countryside. And to the casual observer, there was little to suggest. Any high stakes operations were unfolding within its parameters. Separated by just a few hundred yards with Randall Shimfor stretching between them, these

bases held a secret, a mission of immense importance that remained unknown to most of the local population. Situated on the exposed East Anglian coast, bent waters and wood bridge were a world away for the young American servicemen and women that were all stationed there. Many experiencing for the very first time their taste of a foreign land. A lot of these people who were here never left the U.S. before. And to ease this transition, the bases offered a lot of familiar comforts. We're talking burger joints built into the bases themselves, a camaraderie bar there

for everybody to kind of hang out and chat. This is what I've always thought was so romantic about this type of life. It's like a little city. It's like a little private city for a few hundred people. You've got convenience stores on there. You got just like a little pocket of America in the UK. And the quiet of that winter night was first disturbed by Airman First Class John Burroughs. While on patrol at RAF Woodbridge near the East Gate, often referred to informally as Back Gate, Burroughs noticed something distinctly out of the

ordinary. To the east, beyond the gate, strange lights flickered within the dense trees of Rendlesham Forest. He described them as a red light positioned above a blue light, both pulsing on and off with an unusual intensity. So puzzled and intrigued, Burroughs immediately alerted his supervisor, Staff Sergeant Bud Stevens, as they'd need permission and clearance to move and investigate further. When he was given the go-ahead, together, the two men, both seasoned airmen familiar with the night sky and the surrounding area, burrows had been stationed here for 17 months by this time, watched in growing amazement.

Neither had ever witnessed anything remotely like these enigmatic lights before. Their initial logical thought was that a civilian aircraft might have gone down in the forest. It certainly wasn't one of their A-10 Thunderbolts as there was no military flight activity scheduled for that night. But the possibility of a light aircraft crash was enough to trigger an immediate response,

which is again not necessarily out of the impossible. So their first instinct as any responsible airmen would have was to investigate and offer assistance if needed. And beyond the humanitarian aspect, there was also a crucial matter of security. Unexplained activity so close to two vital military bases just could not be ignored. They needed to know if this was a potential threat or was it somebody truly in need of help. So without hesitation, Burroughs unlocked the combination lock on the back gate and he and Stevens climbed into their vehicle.

They drove out of the gate and a short distance down the small public road that ran alongside the base perimeter. Turning right, they continued for another 10 or 20 yards before reaching a left-hand turn, leading onto a narrow track that disappeared into the darkness of the forest. As they turned onto this track, a new light joined the perplexing display, a bright white light now visible alongside the red and blue. This white light struck them as particularly odd, and at one point it seemed to be moving

closer to them, advancing down the track. The color, the way the lights were configured, and their unusual movements were unlike anything associated with conventional aircraft or vehicles that they were familiar with. Despite the natural urge to push further into the forest and investigate, Stevens and Burroughs recognized the need to report their findings. They turned their vehicle around and headed back to the East Gate, Guard Shack. There, using their secure landline rather than their pocket radios, which were known to be vulnerable to scanners,

Burroughs placed a call to the law enforcement duty desk sergeant, a Sergeant McCabe, whose nickname, kind of ironically, was Crash, because they were investing in a crash airplane. Burroughs recounted what they had observed, and McCabe, initially unsure what to make of the report, briefly entered the idea of a practical joke. He asked to speak with Stevens, who corroborated Burroughs' account, confirming that he too had witnessed the strange lights.

Still suspecting a possible aircraft crash, McCabe then contacted Central Security Control, passing the responsibility and the unfolding mystery to Staff Sergeant John Coffey. Now, Coffey, in turn, called the on-duty flight chief at RAF Woodbridge, Staff Sergeant James W. Penniston. Penniston wasn't given any details about the situation, but was simply instructed to proceed to the East Gate with his driver, Airman First Class Edward N. Cabinsag, and their vehicle flashing blue lights to go rendezvous with Police 4, which is Burroughs, and Police 5, which was Stevens.

All I just must, I must stress all these names style sound like Stephen King characters. Every single one is. What was the last one you said? Literally is the green mild guy. Yeah. John coffee literally is. It's blowing my mind. Listen to this. Yeah. These are all, these are all real dudes. Now it's, it's important to note that this is what is a significant deviation from standard procedure,

and Penniston felt a bit of frustration and annoyance at being kept in the dark, like him not being told everything. Why wasn't he being briefed on what to expect? Because he's going out there being told nothing, just go out there and meet them. And the fact that he was merely told just to meet the others at the gate where the situation would be explained, raised the distinct possibility for him that individuals higher up the chain of command already possessed more information than they were willing to share, or had been instructed to withhold details over

the open communication systems. Otherwise, a simple explanation to Penistin that a patrol was investigating a potential aircraft in the forest would have sufficed. Coffee could have been even more vague using standard military parlance like possible security situation or the incident. There was no issue of jurisdiction. The USAF personnel routinely patrolled off base in various circumstances. Tim, it didn't make sense. Why he was being told to go out there? Why was he giving such weird vague information

if it was just something as simple as an air crash craft? None of this was piecing together for him. And while the precise timing remained somewhat debated, Penniston recalls it being just after midnight when he and Cabinsag arrived at the East Gate. Burroughs and Stevens were still waiting and they quickly filled Penniston in on what they had seen. Penniston, an experienced flight chief,

initially leaned towards the aircraft crash theory as the most plausible explanation. However, the circumstances were unusual. It was the middle of the night during the Christmas season and there was definitely no military aircraft activity scheduled. And while civilian aircraft remained a possibility, no one had reported hearing an explosion

or any other sounds of a crash. It was at this point that Stevens uttered a quiet but kind of unsettling observation that caught everyone's attention. It didn't crash, it landed. Despite this disconcerting remark, Penison still felt the aircraft crash theory was the most likely scenario. And with that in mind, radioed Central Security Control, requesting to speak with the overall flight chief for both bases, Master Sergeant J.D. Chandler. Now this back and forth of phone calls and radio transmissions, A calls B, who then calls and checks with C,

kind of seems cumbersome and it fucking is, especially when you consider that they might have been dealing with an actual aircraft crash. If people were injured, this is a lot. It seems like a lot. However, there are a few important things you need to keep in mind when listening. Firstly, while hearing about it might make it seem like valuable time is being wasted.

Most of these actions were pretty quick and straightforward. The phone calls, radio conversations were seconds long each. And that's it. Secondly, the military is obviously a notoriously hierarchical organization where rank and protocol are just like more important than anything else. And such like an environment like this, clearing a non-routine action. hierarchical organization or rank and protocol are just like more important than anything else. In such an environment like this, clearing a non-routine action, again, remember this is non-routine, with your supervisor or at the very least informing them is far more critical than in most civilian organizations.

It's about quote-unquote, as they put it in the book, getting your top cover. Making sure you're not doing anything that isn't recorded and people can just like fill in and like, say you go fucking murder somebody and you weren't supposed to be out of the base. You got to cover it. People need to know where you're at, what's going on. You murder someone tonight? No, I was out just looking at you. No. I want the truth.

I was in the built-in burger place slash relaxation lounge. Get out of here, Rolf. You're not even a listen man. I'm not going to blame me on it. I you're only at the comfort bar or whatever the hell we call that. I'm a comfortable muppet. And finally security police and law enforcement within the military tend to be operate under very strict process driven guidelines. So initiative,

while initiative is encouraged, many tasks are performed by meticulously following just procedures and it takes forever. Still operating under the assumption of an aircraft crash, Chandler checked the situation regarding scheduled aircraft activity just to be sure with the control tower at Bentwater's. Someone in the control tower then checked their radar and also placed calls to RAF Bodsey and RAF Watten and even Heathrow Airport in London. So you can't handle Bodsey still.

I know it's spelled B-A-W-D-S-E-Y too. It's spelled so well. It's like the worst possible. It's like the worst. Yeah. Yeah. It's just more proof that England has good fun with names. They got like open Shia over Broadswood and then Bozzie.

We like to act. We like to act. We like to act high and mighty with our English over British English because British English is like quote unquote weird, but you know what? They're like on another lit. Look, we are 2008 and they're we're 2000 and late and they're 3000 and eight. Yeah. Yeah. It's fucked up.

They got us. Yeah. So, uh, someone within the control tower checked their radar, placed calls to RAF Bodzie, RAF Watton, and even Heathrow airport seeking any information about unusual air traffic. And the crucial piece of information that came back was that a quote unquote bogey, as defined by the USAF as a quote radar or visual air contact whose identity is unknown had been tracked approximately 15 minutes prior. What was particularly significant was that the radar target had been lost

directly over the wood bridge base disappearing from the screen entirely. With this kind of troubling news, Chandler contacted the shift commander and gave penistin the go ahead to continue the investigation, perhaps sensing that something was amiss or even perhaps knowing more than he let on, Penniston requested backup and in response Chandler decided to come out to the East Gate himself. With the unsettling information about the radar return now hanging in the air, Penniston burrows in Cabin Sag set off into the forest to resume the investigation that Burrows and Stevens had initiated shortly before. There remains some confusion as to why Stevens didn't join

them in the forest. One possibility is that with personnel about to venture off the base, weapons needed to be left with somebody, although in reality, weapons can be taken off base under certain circumstances, particularly when an immediate and serious security threat might be perceived. In fact, there's even a suggestion that some of those who did enter the forest didn't leave their weapon behind despite regulations. Peniston, Burroughs and Cabinsag retraced the route taken earlier, driving the short distance from the East gate to the small road running through

the forest, turning right and then left onto the narrow bumpy track, leading deeper into the woods like you did before. And these tracks were not proper roads, mind mind you and were barely wide enough for a vehicle and after no more than 50 yards or so the men had to stop their vehicles even a sturdy military jeep couldn't navigate the rough terrain any further they had to proceed on foot because this isn't built for vehicles it's literally a forest between the two bases as they cautiously advanced into the rendlesham Forest, Cabinsag later described their approach as one of extreme caution.

All three men could clearly see the strange lights. Cabinsag recalled them as being blue, red, white, and yellow. Though not officially designated as such at this early stage, the event was clearly being treated as a potential security situation now. While the only theory discussed so far was the possibility of a light aircraft crash, the facts simply weren't adding up for them. By this time, none of those involved genuinely believed they were dealing with the downed aircraft anymore. The most obvious indication of this was that nobody had called for an ambulance, a first aid kit, or the fire brigade.

If they truly believed there was something crash-landed, they would have started calling for medical. Another clue was Cabin Sag's admission that they proceeded with extreme caution, which is not behavior that he would describe as approaching a civilian crash crash. By this time, the backup they had requested finally arrived. This consisted of Master Sergeant Chandler, the Flight Chief Penniston, the guy who Penniston had spoken to earlier, and in another vehicle there's some discrepancy in the accounts as to who arrived first. Chandler stated that when he arrived, Penniston, Burroughs, and Cabinsag, quote, had entered

the wooded area just beyond the clearing at the access road. While Cabinsag recalled that Chandler was already, quote, on the scene. It's a minor inconsistency about when who got there first. I don't know, a lot of people like to latch onto that as to be like they're lying, but it also could just be the most, like a lot is happening.

There's probably not a lot of time before he arrived behind them. It's a bit of a mix up of probably a few minutes. They were all eventually there, regardless. And it was around this time that the radios of all four men began to malfunction, or rather, given the improbability of four separate radios failing simultaneously, something began to seemingly interfere with their communications, at least that's how it seemed, which now only seemed to work over very short distances. The radios' distances just got

only seemed to work over very short distances. The radio's distances just got unusably short between each other. So to overcome this now new technological hurdle, the four men adopted a low-tech solution, setting up a human radio relay. Chandler remained with the parked vehicles, acting as a central point to relay messages between the men who ventured deeper into the forest and their colleagues back at central security control on the base. Cabin Sag initially moved forward but stopped when he and Chandler could barely hear each other anymore. This left only John Burroughs and Jim Penniston to push further into the dense woods determined to find the source of what these mysterious lights that they saw were.

Now Burroughs and Penniston soon realized that something was weird in the air. The air seemed to have like a weird static electricity in it. They said the hairs on their arms and legs and on their backs of their necks began to stand on end. The very act of walking became kind of awkward and somewhat difficult. And they later described the sensation of being akin to wading through deep water. All the while, the lights remained ahead of them, growing brighter and more clearly defined as they ventured deeper into the forest. Suddenly, as they approached a small, brightly illuminated clearing,

their objective came into clear view. But just as they reached the edge of the clearing, there was a silent explosion of light, and just like a burst of light, like a burst of light. Like in a movie when a flashbang goes off. Yeah. That's how I imagine it. Like literally the first episode of X-Files that we watched, where they go into the forest and they're like, Oh, the light.

And it's a helicopter. Yeah. Yeah. It's something I imagined something that. Both men. Vegeta explodes and yeah, we all gave him our power. We're like, yeah, you can defeat him. Yeah, we all gave him our power. We're like, yeah, you can defeat him. But instinctively, like you said, like, uh, you know, kind of an explosion of flight, like a flashbang, both men hit the ground instantly, fearing that they were just struck. They might be struck by debris or this was a flashbang in

some way and they were about to be attacked. Penniston quickly realizing that they were unharmed though, stood up and what he saw in the clearing had absolutely nothing to do with an aircraft crash. Looking to his right, Penniston saw burrows enveloped in a huge beam of light, seemingly emanating from above. The light completely encompassed burrows. Then, Penniston's attention shifted to what had initially appeared to be a sphere of light directly in front of him. This light now dissipated, revealing the distinct shape of a craft of some sort.

Staggered by what he was witnessing, Penistens took a moment to process the unbelievable scene to him. In the clearing sat a small, metallic craft, approximately three meters high and perhaps three meters across at its base. The craft had a roughly triangular shape and appeared to be either hovering just above the ground or resting on legs at each of its three corners, resembling a lunar landing module, kind of think of it like that, but with three legs instead of four. A bank of blue lights adorned its side and a brilliant white light shone from its top.

There was zero sound whatsoever. And for whatever reason, Peniston decided to cautiously approach the object. And as he did, he noticed strange symbols etched onto the side. These symbols to him were unlike anything he had ever seen before. The closest resemblance that he could recall that he was able to think about when talking about it was ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. That's the closest thing. And well, I have a picture of him.

He drew out what he saw in his notes, his penistens notes. With remarkable presence of mind still happening in this situation, I don't know how I would react if I was seeing this stuff. I feel like I want to think I'd be a penistens. I have no idea. I feel like I would really have to be like so present. Yeah, not to like just go insane immediately. Right? Right. So still still actually, what would you Jesse, let me get

here. If this was happening to you, just take this face value. This is but you put yourself in penistens place. Would you like curiously approach this thing? Yeah. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think in that, I mean, like normally you would think that the brain would activate, like, I don't know what this is. I don't want to be near it. It could be radioactive, whatever. But I know in the moment, if I saw a thing with Egyptian hieroglyphics on it, that looked like it land. I'd be like, I gotta go. I gotta look. Well, I would have to, I gotta go. I gotta look.

Well, I would have to know. It would eat me the rest of my life if I didn't go look. That's exactly what it was for him too. Like he approached it, cause he saw these symbols and he's like, what the fuck? They look like Egyptian hieroglyphics. And you know, with still being able to like, with a presence of mind in this wild situation,

Penison began to take a series of photographs and meticulously sketched both the craft and the enigmatic symbols into his police notebook. Let me give you a link to one of the sketches now. It has sort of a- This looks like Stargate fan art. Yeah, it has kind of like a paper airplane vibe to it. Sweet ass logo.

Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, paper airplane vibes. Balsa wood outline vibes, yeah. Yeah, yeahiper also would outline vibes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I think it's a good way of putting it, but also I'm very clearly influenced by the show, not the movie star gate, but the show star gate star gate. Because I mean, I haven't seen the show either. So, oh God, what is happening? You've seen star gate, right? Me? Yeah. No. I mean, math is surely the movie. I never watched Stargate the movie

once when I was a kid. And that's all I really remember. Anyway, in the TV show, they expand the lore a great deal, but the ship looks just like one of the gold ships and it's tripping me and the symbol looks very similar to one of the Stargate symbols. Interesting. Well, yeah, still presence of mind. Penniston began to take those notes and photographs and finally very similar to one of the stargate symbols. Interesting. Well, still presence of mind. Penniston began to think that those notes and photographs and finally decided, you know what? Let me reach out and touch it. And he did. He said it's surface felt hard and remarkably smooth. This texture combined with the closeup appearance of the hall reminded him of a smooth, opaque, black glass.

Uh, he then moved to touch the strange symbols and he said, and he recalled later the sensation, quote, the skin of the craft was smooth to the touch, almost like running your hand over glass. It was devoid of any seams or imperfections until I ran my fingers over the symbols. The symbols were nothing like the rest of the craft. They were rough, like running my fingers over sandpaper. Bizarre. The moment. So they were like, wait, so like they, the way I feel like this is being described to

me, and I know this is for a very niche subset of people, but to anyone out there who has ever had or will have the chance to go to a grocery store or a, you know, a convenience store or whatever. Touch and feel the can of a monster energy pipeline punch. The outside of it is metal. I know exactly what you're talking about. But it has, it has these, it's almost like, it's like halfway between a can and like a basketball jersey or something. Like, yeah, it has this like texture that, cause in my mind, the way you're describing it, I was thinking, Oh,

it's like they chiseled the hieroglyphs into it. But no, I think much like that can the way it's like in my mind, it's that, it's like got a texture to it. It is a normal can. There's like, I got it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like the, I imagine it's something similar. So the moment penistens fingers reached out and made contact with the symbols, the white light on the top of the craft flared up with such blinding intensity that penistens was instantly gripped by terror and temporarily blinded by the sheer brilliance of what was being shined on him.

He immediately withdrew his hand from the craft and as soon as he did, the light dimmed and the overwhelming sense of panic receded. After what seemed like an eternity, and to Peniston's utter astonishment, the craft slowly began to lift off the ground. Now again, the movement seemed to unfold in slow motion, the craft taking what felt like two or three minutes to rise above the trees surrounding the small clearing. Throughout this ascent, even as the object cleared the ground, there was no sound.

Because the clearing was small and the surrounding trees were dense, the object appeared to have carefully maneuvered its way through the branches. And finally, once it had cleared the tree line, it accelerated away in an instant, vanishing into the night sky, and Peniston, ever methodical and professional, even in the face of the unbelievable wrote the following

observation in his notebook, simply two words, speed dash impossible. So you only know what he wrote about how fast impossible speed speed. That's like the equal to like now how people are always like, it does things that aircraft can't do. Yeah, literally. Now that aircraft can't do. Literally. Now this was all penistent. On the other side of things, Burroughs was still there being beamed on by that light. However, Burroughs on the other hand, has few coherent memories of what happened after the initial explosion of light. After throwing himself to the ground, he said he vaguely recalls seeing a red, oval, sun-like object in the clearing but has no recollection of the craft itself.

For him, the time between hitting the ground and seeing the UFO depart seemed like mere seconds, while for Peniston, the inspection of the craft, it taking off and leaving, said it felt like it took many minutes. This discrepancy in the recollection remains, like for Penniston to this day, bothers him. And I'm gonna have a quote here from, I would like you to read, Alex, you can take this. Because when they, this is afterwards,

they call like when they move toward the craft, that the air changes, things get different, they just end up referring it to like, as a bubble field around it. So you know what you're saying when you say bubble field. Go ahead. I entered the bubble field, the area immediately around the craft first. John was over to my right about 10 feet and a couple of feet back. The silence was then the most prominent part of it. The area or field seemed dead. The air, no sound, no rustling of air or wind, no distant sounds, no animals or nothing. A dead silence. A strong static on clothes, hair and skin being pulled towards the light. Then dissipated. I was alone. And

from John's perspective, he has no memory. John is standing still and motionless. I yelled at him, of course, no reaction. He does not move. He, of course, cannot hear me. And I then turn and focus on the craft and the matter of security for the bases. It has always been the case that John does not have a memory of this, but when we were being debriefed and writing statements in Colonel Halt's office less than 72 hours after the first night, John, in his statement, which was handwritten, has the drawing of

the craft he saw with me. This has always made me wonder about John's memory. Why could he do this within 72 hours and today has no memory? Definitely food for thought. Yeah, food for thought. Combine this with one of the cryptic comments Burroughs made when pressed on his location while Jim examined the craft and why their memories diverged so significantly at this point. He simply said, the only possibility is that I was in the light when he was doing his exam at his examination. It's all he says. Penison and Burroughs, both still in a state of considerable shock at this time and disbelief. This is back at the event, attempted to relocate the UFO and find it through the trees

and experienced a number of further sightings of strange lights on the horizon. At one point, the object was so close they thought it was going to land again, but it didn't and the UFO eventually departed to the east, disappearing out over the coastline. Still confused and disoriented by their weird encounter, they eventually decided it was time to make their way back out of the forest. And as they did so, they passed back through the small clearing where the event had unfolded. Still trying to process the unbelievable experience,

they looked around, half expecting to find nothing, perhaps hoping to convince themselves it had all been some sort of shared hallucination. But their hopes would be dashed because in the very center of the clearing on the hard, frozen ground were three distinct indentations. They were clearly recent. Something heavy like weighing several tons judging by the hardness of the ground

and the depth of the impressions had definitely been resting there. Upon closer inspection, they noticed that if they were to draw an imaginary line connecting the three indentations, the shape formed would be a near perfect equilateral triangle. Adding further confirmation to Peniston's account, they noticed that branches had been snapped off

at the trees around the edges of the clearing, where the object would have crashed its way in from above and then done the same upon its departure. And it would sound utterly absurd if it weren't for the fact this was exactly what Peniston had just witnessed. They left the clearing and met up with Cabin Sag, Chandler, and six other security force members before making their way back to RAF Bentwaters, the main operating base,

and when they arrived back, they discovered that they had been gone much longer than they realized. This coupled with the fact that they had been out of radio contact for an extended period had caused near panic in certain quarters of the base. Indeed, they actually had a search party had been on the verge of being dispatched to go look for them. Like they were ready to go when they got back. They had been crazy. Peniston tried to rationalize the time discrepancy because according to him, it hadn't even been

an hour, but to them had been over an hour near two. And what's interesting is those on the outside of this bubble, going back to the event, because this is all kind of part of the time discrepancy, the people on the outside, Cabin Sag and the six others, said they were gone for 45 minutes near an hour. Both Penniston and Burroughs felt like at most it was up to 10 minutes.

And when they came back, they tried to rationalize it, attributing it to adrenaline, but they unfortunately also had physical evidence something was wrong. Their watches told a different story. And I'm going to go ahead and let this quote be for Jesse to read. Well, I'll re-clarify, we're talking right now at the event where the two went toward the craft and came back to everybody who was waiting for them acting as an intermediary for the radio to the base.

Right. They were gone for nearly an hour. But for them, their time is totally different. Like 10 minutes most, but yeah, go ahead. That's a quote. I suppose anything's possible with this time discrepancy. I believe it is more than likely that within the affected area around the craft there was a distortion of some kind, which based on the missing time from our watches,

indicates that this by them running 45 minutes slow. We were definitely affected by this phenomenon in a physical way, including the machinery we wore watches. Yep, Burroughs and Pennison's watches were both 45 minutes slow compared to everybody else's when they got back. And upon their return, there were formalities they now had to deal with. Weapons had to be returned, signed for, and a hurried debriefing, the first of what would be many, was carried out. Though they weren't fully aware of it at the time, dozens of other military personnel at the twin bases had also witnessed the strange lights and had been watching from various vantage points across the base, including the control tower at Bentwaters. These lights were visible from both bases. Everyone wanted to know what

had happened to Penniston and Burroughs. They knew they were out there, what were they seeing. But for the two Ironmen, the immediate aftermath of the encounter was kind of a blur. They simply wanted to get off duty, return to their beds, sleep, and just try and forget whatever the fuck just happened for the night. And soon, they soon got their wish, but if they thought their ordeal was over, they were sadly mistaken. The experience was only just about halfway over. It's important to note that both Burroughs and Penniston were, and in some ways still are, skeptical about UFOs. I'm going to have this quote from Penniston

read about his skepticism for you, Alex. My thoughts are simply that 99% of all so-called UFO sightings can be explained by people with a knowledgeable background or aerial training to reporting such things for exactly what they are. Their UFO is an observation of the following type of possibilities. As a man-made object, star-slash-planetary body, or other natural occurring phenomena, all completely identified by a trained observer. There are also people who seem to have some physiological issues which are, in my opinion, manifested exponentially when they see things they can't explain. I feel

it is a natural state for those with tainted objectivity within their thinking and can have easily occurred with other sightings. With that entirely aside with the 99%, this leaves the remaining 1%. It is this percent, I believe, is the truly unknown, a conclusion I made after I left the forest that night. This is the very reason I am troubled by the events of December 26, 1980. I went into the forest with what I just said being the case. Then I left the forest with the 1% factor raining all over me.

I had no answers for what clearly created conditions, effects, and the presence of an unknown craft with technology that cannot be replicated even today. So how does this all play? Simply 1% of UFO sightings are unknown. Burroughs, on the other hand, was much more succinct about all this, though his kind of dismissive remarks about UFOs betray betray, I think a sense of how uneasy he is about all what happened. He says, quote, I never spent any time thinking about any of that. The only feeling I ever had was I hoped I never had to walk a mile in their shoes. That's it. That's all he said about it.

Pennison, what? Pennison went on to summarize that the transformative nature of the experience as quote, what I once believed is no more. And what I've witnessed defies all that I have ever imagined I am truly in awe over the whole incident and no one can fully understand the magnitude of such an event unless you were there For jurisdiction and legal reasons It was standard procedure for the American military to notify the British authorities whenever their personnel were going off base And the usual method for this was to inform the local Suffolk police

personnel were going off base and the usual method for this was to inform the local Suffolk police. This notification was made at approximately 4 a.m. by Airman First Class Chris Arnold at the LE desk. In a message to Suffolk police he wrote quote, we have a sighting of some unusual lights in the sky have sent some unarmed troops to investigate we're terming it as a UFO at present. Two Suffolk police officers responded to the notification and briefly searched the area. They found nothing of significance though their inquiries did reveal that strange lights had been witnessed over large parts of southern England earlier in that night as they were looking around. So people saw other lights in the sky.

A later entry in the Suffolk police log provides the first known documentary evidence suggesting that a landing had actually taken place. This log entry reads as follows. Let me go ahead and grab this. It's a short one, so Jesse, it's a quick one. We have had a call from LE at Bentwaters in reference to the UFO reported last night. We have found a place where a craft of some sort seems to have landed. So they were also able to find the physical evidence of something having landed there. One of the other central figures in this now unfolding story

was the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, the name I mentioned earlier. Halt was known as a thorough and meticulous man holding wide ranging responsibilities for security, policing, law enforcement, and numerous administrative functions at the twin bases. Halt was also known for his hands-on approach,

often taking the time to personally inspect the areas under his command. He would frequently engage with enlisted personnel, sitting with the fire department, talking to the cooks, or riding along with security police on patrol. While some officers might maintain a more detached professional distance from the junior ranks, Halt believed that to effectively do his job,

he needed to understand every aspect of base operations from the ground up, what he, what the junior ranks, Halt believed that to effectively do his job, he needed to understand every aspect of base operations from the ground up, what he, what the military calls quote, ground truth. Not just what people reported was happening, but what was actually happening. I wish we had that. Yeah, me too. In general, in our world.

It would be nice. Burroughs acknowledged this trait, though he clearly felt somewhat over-supervised, remarking quote, he was high speed, would ride around with Ellie to get a feel of what was going on at the base. He rode with me a couple of times, always was getting in our way. And Penniston, on the other hand, clearly held Halt in high regard saying, Colonel Halt is what I call an enlisted man's colonel. He valued the non-commissioned officers, NCOs, as he commanded.

He valued their knowledge, skills, assessments, opinions, judgments, and the people themselves as a valuable and key part of the U.S. Air Force mission. Colonel Holt is an officer who truly believes you are only as good as the people you command. From major command evaluations to local evaluations, the Colonel believes it was the NCO Corps that made it all happen. Then his conduct in regards to the Rendlesham Forest incident, well, he was only following orders and he stretched those orders as far as he could without jeopardizing his career. God bless him.

Yeah. The morning after the initial UFO encounter, at approximately 5 o'clock in the morning, Holt came on duty and headed for the LA desk. The usual morning chatter and laughter abruptly ceased as he entered the room and he immediately asked what's going on. And he was responded with, Penistens and boroughs were out last night chasing UFOs, sir, from Sergeant McCabe.

There was apparently a hint of like laughter and like amusement in his voice. McCabe was in the process of writing up the Ellie blotters, the official logs, those are official logs where any significant events occurring during the shift were recorded and these logs served as a dual purpose. They were a crucial part of the handover process to the next duty shift and provided a valuable source of raw data if questions arose later after memories had faded. Halt just simply said put it in the blotter and moved on. It later emerged that accounts of the night's events were recorded not only in the law enforcement blotter but also in the security blotters and that of and air and that of an air force form 1569,

which is an incident slash complaint report. And that was completed by the security controllers at central security control. So there's multiple paper trails leading to this, like pointing this incident from different point areas of the government. Given the sensitivity surrounding the loaded term UFO, Holt suggested using a more ambiguous phrase such as unexplained lights, areas of the government. Given the sensitivity surrounding the loaded term UFO, Halt suggested using a more ambiguous phrase such as unexplained lights.

Even in 1980, even in 1980, they were like, they wanted to be too serious. UFO is a term, we can't even use it if we want to explain this. And perhaps referencing the initial theory of a possible light aircraft crash, Halt himself would later use the same phrase, unexplained lights when formally reporting the incident to the British government via

the Ministry of Defense. This indicates that even in the immediate aftermath, just hours after the encounter, there was a move to downplay the significance of the event, but perhaps more sinister forces were already at work. We'll talk about that more in next episode. Later in that day, Halt became aware that the encounter Penniston and Burroughs had experienced was something far more tangible than just lights in the sky UFO sighting. Halt quickly acted quickly to review not only the Ellie blotter, which he had instructed to be written up in vague terms, but also the security blotter,

which was likely to contain the most accurate and contemporaneous account of what had actually taken place. However, Halt's plan was thwarted. Somehow, both blotters and the incident report had been removed, and no one on duty could offer a satisfactory explanation as to how. Staff Sergeant Coffey later recalled, quote, My blotter was pulled and classified secret by the base commander, Colonel Ted Conrad. Penniston offered his perspective on the situation,, the removal and classifying of the security blotters AF Forms 53 and AF Forms 1569 incident complaint report

were part of the containment process initiated by others outside of the base command. Colonel Hull unknowingly asked the desk sergeant to include the first night's information that they had already omitted in the morning after. I think it disturbed him when he became aware the security blotters in 1569 had already been classified and pulled. With the removal of the blotters in 1569 without Holt's knowledge, it was much easier to put out a cover containment story about the night

in question. So within hours after I got blotted and sent in, the government said, classified, bye bye, and yanked them all. And that's it. And they could do nothing. Burroughs ended up taking a bit more of a conspiratorial view, offering his thoughts on where the missing material went. Alex, you can read this. That, along with all the other missing documents, shows that this incident was classified early on. Also, there is no way they just disappeared.

My guess is they were sent to Germany, HQ, United States Air Force, Europe, USA FE, and that the State Department got a copy too. And to this day, as far as I've been able to find out, the blotters were never found. And there, right from the beginning, we have not only a wild UFO encounter, but also compelling evidence of a potential cover up happening in real time. It's like, what is that paper? Yeah, blotters of paper in the eighties, I'm assuming like,

and they, you know, get handed up to a higher up. The final, like the final form of it is like a piece of paper. It's not digital. To our military listeners, and I know there are a bunch of you out here. We appreciate respect you. I would love to know if that's how it would go. Like in the eighties, if you know,

because I'm sure now it's more computerized, but maybe it's not, I'm not sure. Whatever the case, standard procedures were clearly being disregarded and crucial evidence was somehow being removed from right under the noses of the individuals for whom security was kind of their way of life. It's difficult to imagine how the blotters in the incident report could have been spirited away without the involvement of

one of the key players and the alternative that outsider somehow managed to access secure area and remove the material without attracting attention is even more unbelievable. Basically somebody within their had to have taken it and handed it over. We know we will never know who it was that did it because yeah there was no digital copies here. Either way this ended up setting the stage for the events that would follow creating a climate of suspicion and fear that would stretch working relationships and friendships to their breaking point.

And in the immediate aftermath of the Rendlesham Forest incident, the air on the twin bases of Bentwater and Woodbridge crackled with rumors. The tale of the encounter spread rapidly, evolving with each retelling. Officers and senior non-commissioned officers faced the challenge of maintaining order

and ensuring that the personnel under their command remained focused on their regular duties. But this is like, this is fucking the most exciting thing that's probably happening to them right now because you have to remember, this is the Christmas season. The base isn't fully staffed. Nothing's fucking going on. Like people are just sitting around and this happens. And yeah, that's kind of hard to like Santa shows up and everyone goes crazy.

Right? Exactly. That's probably like, I, that angle probably had, well, not because it was after right. It's like Boxing Day There's not really like Santa activity. I forgot your gift John coffee. I forgot the gifts for the servants Rudolph Yeah, this type of situation where the like a wild kind of thing occurs at a very boring time when people are nothing to do. The commander's main concern is maintaining hierarchical organization when they can easily slip away because humans being humans.

The typical military approach to these kind of unusual events involves consulting established standard operating procedures known as SOPs or protocols. And these guidelines dictate specific responses to various scenarios, ensuring consistency and eliminating the need for guesswork. However, in the case of a UFO sighting, particularly one involving a potential landing, the existing protocols were inadequate to say the least.

While the US government had once maintained an official UFO investigation program known as Project Blue Book, and they were secretly still doing it. It was terminated in 69 project blue book, which followed obviously earlier initiatives like project sign project grudge. We've talked about ad nauseum on the show, ultimately concluded that no investigated UFO posed a threat to national security represented unknown technological advancements or as a

sign of extraterrestrial origin, even though we know that those who created those books came out later and said, yeah, no, they were very much haranguing me to find natural explanations. That was J. Allen Hynek who would say that. He was the guy came up with ball lightning and swamp gas kind of stuff. This is this conclusion, even if readily available to base personnel in 1980 offered no guidance for an event involving a physical landing. Commanders quickly realized they were in uncharted territory with no clear authority within the USAF or the broader US government

to whom they could readily hand over the situation to. So this left the complex option of involving the British authorities. Despite the policy vacuum, some individuals on base initiated informal investigations the day after the initial encounter. Unaware of the official stance of non-investigation, Major Edward Drury, the deputy squadron commander of the 81st Security Police and Law Enforcement Squadron, was briefed by the on-duty flight security officer, Lieutenant Fred Skip, who also notified Major Malcolm Zickler and base commander, Colonel Conrad.

Following standard security incident protocols, Drury and Captain Mike Verrano were among the first to question Burroughs and Peniston. While Drury initially suspected a Christmas prank, the detailed debriefings and confirmations of a brief radar track over Woodbridge quickly changed its perspective. Remember, they were radar hits of this thing showing up and then disappearing. Later on December 26, Drury and Verano decided to inspect the reported landing site themselves. They instructed Burroughs and Penniston to meet them there along with Master Sergeant Ray Goulias who was tasked with taking measurements and photographs. Upon arriving at the edge of the forest where they had previously dismounted, Burroughs and Peniston proceeded to the clearing where they found three distinct indentations exactly

as they remembered. Drury, Verano, and Gullius soon joined them and after a brief briefing Burroughs and Peniston left while the officers remained to examine the site further before reporting back to Major Zickler. Zickler then instructed them to return to the site with a British police officer who had been present the previous night and was concerned about potentially missing missing evidence in the darkness. Remember they had some police out there looking the night before. This explains the initial police report standing stating nothing was found followed by a later report confirming the discovery of a landing site. He just couldn't

see in the darkness the night before he was able to see it the next day because the sun was up. Meanwhile, Penniston unable to sleep after the sun was up. Yeah. Cause he's not in the middle of the night anymore. Um, yeah. What did I say something that I misunderstood? No, it's just, it's just funny. It's just like, yeah. Yeah. I was like, yeah, obviously. Yeah. Um, meanwhile, I just been unable to sleep after this felt compelled to just gather more evidence. You just let it just started to like consuming him after the next day, which I would do the same for me. He obtained plaster of Paris and returned to the landing site where he made

casts of the three indentations, concealing his action from the others. So he did that on his own. This was his personal way for himself. He said to confirm the reality of what he saw and borrows had witnessed, even if he said he wasn't remembering as penestin returned with to his lodgings jury, Verano and Gullius and the British police officer continued their examination of the landing site. Gullius took measurements in a roll of photographs, which he later gave to Verano and Verano subsequently reported that all the pictures had been logged.

Suspicious of this outcome, Gullius later returned to the site independently to take his own photographs and like peniston made plaster cast of the indentation. These people are so like, I gotta go do something. I gotta go make sure I get this on my own. I gotta go like double, like get my own. They're like obsessed. Yeah. They're like, they're like mind blown. Yeah. These independent actions show just the confusion, lack of

clear direction in the aftermath of the event, they don't know what the fuck to do. Honestly, that's the real shit that that you're talking about is like, I don't know what I would do activity wise, but I do know I would not be able to stop like thinking about it and focusing on it and just trying to figure out what the fuck I live with that in a much smaller way with the weird shit I see in the sky. I haven't seen anything in over a month, like nothing like, but, but it's, it's like, I

just want an explanation. It's like, I get that on a much smaller scale. Um, but yeah, like they just like trying to figure out, like they have no protocols, nothing. They don't know what the fuck to do. The absence of this formal protocol led to a situation where various personnel just started taking initiative. Sometimes duplicating efforts like taking cast molds. This lack of a centralized response would soon contribute to significant complications.

Just as a sense of normalcy though seemed to be returning, an unexpected event occurred. The UFO returned. On the evening of December 27th, the next night, a combat support group awards dinner was taking place at Woody's Bar on Woodbridge. Base commander Colonel Ted Conrad and deputy base commander Charles Halt were both in attendance. Do you have any info on whether it was named after the fact that it was on Woodbridge? No, I do not. All right.

Well, that's just going to be speculation. Leave that to the mysteries of the air. Okay, fair enough. During the dinner, Lieutenant Bruce England spelled England with a U, not a name. The on dude like the guy from Austin Powers, London, England. Yes, very much. The on duty shift, he was the undutiful commander, entered the bar in a state of obvious shock.

He approached halt and reported quote, uh, sir, it's back halt initially confused, asked what's back. And England's reply was direct and unambiguous saying the UFO is back. The, um, aliens. The UFO is back sir. Halt and Conrad conferred very briefly and it was clear that one of them needed to take charge of this investigation. So Conrad as the senior officer had the authority to make the decision perhaps

due to his commitment to the award ceremony, skepticism about the sightings or simply his rank. Conrad decided to remain at the social function, tasking Holt with investigating the latest reports. As Holt left the building and headed out into the cold December night and back into the Rendlesham Forest once more, he could not have known that he was about to walk further into the annals of UFO history. As Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Holt, being his middle initial, departed the social gathering, the cold night air sharpened his focus.

A mix of frustration at the unfolding rumors, determination to understand what the fuck was going on, and a healthy dose of curiosity occupied his thoughts. Looking back at the glow emanating from Woody's bar, the contrast of the task ahead was stark for him. While a nice evening indoors would have been preferable, duty called and that's how this shit goes sometimes. The persistent rumors of a UFO were proving a significant distraction at the very least on the base and Halt now had the opportunity to investigate first hand and maybe potentially

put the matter to rest and get everybody's head back in the game. Yet there was still a sense of curiosity that lingered for him. While UFO sightings were often relegated to sensationalized media reports, the idea of such an event occurring at two critical military bases involving not just distant lights, but something encountered up close, was at least compelling, and despite his inherent skepticism, part of Halt, like I imagine most of us, was undeniably curious about what the fuck was happening at the base's perimeter. Halt's immediate priority was to form an investigation team. Lieutenant Bruce England, the on-duty shift commander who had reported the UFO's return, was a natural inclusion. Halt then contacted the disaster preparedness office where he connected

with Sergeant Monroe Nevels, a photographer with experience in radiation detecting, a detection, who brought his camera and a Geiger counter and master sergeant Bobby Ball, the on duty flight chief completed with the, completed the initial team. Those are the people going out. Yeah, Bobby Ball, what a name. I love that name. Adding to his equipment,

Holt retrieved his handheld cassette recorder, a habit reminiscent of kind of like old timey, like kind of, just kind of gives you like what you call it like crime noir vibes having like a recorder on you. He intended to document his observations this time. He also he also gathered because remember he the all the blotters were taken so he's like no I'm going to record this if something happens. He also gathered spare batteries, micro cassettes, flashlights, radios, a starlight scope for enhanced night vision, warm utility jackets to make sure they'd be comfortable outside in the cold for long periods of time, and simultaneously Halt ordered the illumination of the forest

area where the UFO had been reported, requesting the deployment of light-alls, which were mobile floodlight units powered by gasoline generators. However, the light-alls proved problematic. Accounts varied, with some suggesting they were simply low on fuel, a belief that frustrated the shit out of Halt, leading to his sharp order for them to be refilled. Others reported a more inexplicable malfunction, hinting at a possible interference, but it really does seem like with Halt's frustration, they were all low on gas. They weren't keeping up with the light-alls, so they couldn't use them. The difficulty with the light-alls had an unintended consequence.

It drew more personnel into the unfolding situation and amplified the buzz across the base now. Why does it feel like a door fortress? Yes, it's under spiral air control. Someone got struck with inspiration and they're freaking out. Yeah, confusion. Boat murder. Confusion was beginning to reign as personnel debated whether to refuel the

existing units or procure new ones. Meanwhile, news of the deputy base commander's personal investigation spread rapidly through radio chatter and word of mouth, reaching both on-duty and off-duty personnel. In what appeared to be a lapse of kind of discipline, a number of individuals who were just driven by their own curiosity headed into the forest without official orders. They were just like, yo, let's go fucking see this thing. This made it very challenging for Halt to distinguish between those present due to his instructions regarding the lightalls and those acting on their own initiative. Airman Tony Bricciano on duty at the fire management branch recalled a chaotic scene at the Woodbridge gas pumps as he responded to Halt's

Increasingly urgent requests for fuel and light alls Numerous light alls mounted up mounted on pickup trucks along with several police cars were all vying for fuel in the early hours of the morning Which was unusual an unusual site that just kind of underscored what the fuck was happening and reflecting on these events halt consistently emphasize the small size of his official team, just himself, England, Neville's and ball. That's it. No one else, whether this was an attempt to either minimize the incident in line with the US official US government stance on UFOs or maybe just to make sure that he doesn't get confused for everybody fucking run into the woods.

Beyond Halt's core team though, Sergeant Adrian Bustinza, Sergeant Frail, and significantly Airman First Class John Burroughs, one of the key witnesses from the first night, were also present in the forest. While awaiting the arrival of functioning light-alls, Halt decided to proceed to the previous night's landing site to conduct his own initial investigation. It was at this point that Holt began recording

his observation on his mini cassette recorder. Over the next few hours, he intermittently documented his thoughts, resulting in approximately 18 minutes of recorded dialogue that has been released, punctuated by pauses. This recording is a huge piece, and we're gonna listen to pieces of it very, very soon.

But it's out there if everybody wants to listen to the whole thing, but go listen after the pieces of it very, very soon. But it's out there if everybody wants to listen to the whole thing, but, uh, you know, go listen after the episode. Very interesting. Very exciting. Yeah. The publicly available recording begins with halt providing kind of just like a rough location and summarizing the light all situation saying quote 150 feet or more from the, from the initial, I should say, a suspected impact point having a little difficulty.

We can't get the light all the work. There seems to be some sort of mechanical problem. Let's send back and get another light. All meantime, we're going to take some readings from the Geiger counter and or chase around the area a little bit waiting for a lot for another light all to come back in. So he's just setting up. You don't see any lights. He's just getting shit set up. The recording then captures halt directing Monroe Nevels to use his Geiger

counter in the clearing where Burroughs and Penniston had their initial encounter. Nevels initial readings revealed only minor background radiation. Holt inquired about safety, receiving an affirmative response, either verbally, off tape, or through a nonverbal cue. But an important distinction is that the very,

the kind of Geiger counter that he was using was specifically designed to pick up intense radiation, even from like sheltered nuclear missiles. It was like a military designed Geiger counter. So the fact that I was picking something up is a little unusual. And then that people, they say that regular kind of Geiger counter may not have even actually picked it up.

But either way, the focus then shifted to the three indentations discovered the previous night where the triangular UFO appeared to have rested. Both Penison and Gullius had independently taken plaster casts of these impressions in the frozen ground. Hull estimated that an object weighing several tons would have been necessary to create the deep indentations in the hard frozen ground. He instructed Neville to concentrate his Geiger counter readings on these marks. The radiation levels appeared to peak within three indentations and at their central point,

so right in the center of where the triangles would come together, directly beneath where the craft would have been centered. This area also exhibited discoloration, prompting discussion among the team. Halt's voice can be heard in the recording saying, we found a small blast what looks like a blasted or scuffed up area here. We're getting very positive readings. Let's see, is that near the center? England confirms it's the location that they assumed the center of.

And then following a pause in the recording, Halt, ever methodical, ordered a more thorough sweep of the area, approximately 10 feet out from the indentation, starting from their initial entry point. Sometime during another break in the tape, at least one functioning light, light all finally arrived, as Holt is heard saying,

then I can put the light all on it. It's important to remember that Holt's primary mission is to investigate the reported return of the UFO, not just the landing site from the previous night, but this initial portion of the recording contains no indication that the UFO was even currently visible at the time, or that Holt was actively even searching for it,

just kind of setting up. Given that the Lieutenant, even currently visible at the time or that Halt was actively even searching for it, just kind of setting up. Given that Lieutenant England was the one who reported the UFO's return, the absence of any recorded conversation between him and Halt about this is notably unfortunate, but again, we only have a chunk of what is supposed to be hours long. Halt's recording occasionally captured incoming radio transmission from base personnel or others arriving in the forest, the summarized that each tree facing the assumed landing site had a similar abrasion directed inward toward the landing site. Halt specifically noted the unusual reaction of one particular pine tree to the damage. The team then began taking samples. Neville's asked for a container

and Halt confirmed before England suggested placing the sample in the soil. It appears that samples of soil, sap, and other material from the damaged sides of the tree facing the clearing were collected. Later in the recording, Halt instructed someone to cut off a portion of the damaged branch and include some of the sap in the sample. The tree damage appeared consistent with the observations made by Burroughs and Penniston from the night before as well. However, it does raise the question of how much their prior report influenced Halt's team's conclusion, but that's just some of the skeptic's take on it

when in this moment, he just seems to be taking physical evidence in and not really doing much else. While Halt's team investigated the landing site, John Burroughs, the witness from the first night, was independently drawn back to the base. After finishing his shift, Burroughs was on a three-day break

at his home in Ipswich. Mirroring Peniston's experience, he found himself unable to sleep and felt an undeniable urge to return to the base. And upon his arrival, an LE sergeant named O'Brien, who greeted him with a, like, hey, it's the UFO guy, I guess, that's like how he got greeted, that's gotta suck. O'Brien then shared startling news saying that there had been another UFO sighting on the night of the 26th involving the personnel from deflight the night he saw it. Lori Bouyan and the desk sergeant, John Tremontazi,

Bouyan had reported seeing a fiery red orange object slowly descend into the forest surrounded by an eerie blue white corona. While Tremontazi and other deflight personnel arrived, they observed red, green, and white lights in the forest that would appear, disappear, and reappear in different locations. The shift commander, Lieutenant Bonnie Tamplin,

along with Master Sergeant Bobby Ball, had gone to investigate, and during their investigation, the Jeep Tamplin was driving was struck by beams of light and a blue light raced through the vehicle, causing a complete power failure, stalling their engine. Booian and Tremontazzi, monitoring the situation on their radio, heard Tamplin's panic call saying,

Bob, Bob, where are you? I can't see anything. Booian recalled the fear in her voice. And O'Brien, now his tone going to serious, turned to Burroughs and asked for his explanation. Burroughs had none to offer. It was evident that two separate incidents had occurred with C-Flight and D-Flight seemingly unaware of each other's encounters. The failure to brief D-Flight on the events experienced by C-Flight personnel remains unclear. It's potentially just a consequence of the missing blotters that was

taken earlier. There's like, you can't communicate this shit if you're taking all the information to be communicated away before it can be communicated to those who need to know before they move. So yeah, that's of course that's why D-Flight didn't know C-Flight had seen it. So like that, yeah, does that as Holt and his team ventured in the forest, perhaps 50 to 60 personnel were unofficially now monitoring the situation, either by listening to radio communications or by observing from vantage points like the Bentwater's control tower. This was in addition to the on-duty personnel directly involved in supporting Halt's investigation.

And while most off-duty personnel remained passive observers, Barros felt a strong compulsion to go to the forest by himself. Driven by a desire for confirmation of his own experience, maybe a need for closure, he also felt actively, he said, drawn back to the location after the initial encounter. Burroughs hitched a ride with two friends heading to the East Gate, where he then transferred to a military jeep and proceeded to the staging area where the light-alls were being worked on. The halt tape recorded the following exchange. where the light alls were being worked on. The Halt tape recorded the following exchange.

Go security control to Ball. You have Airman Burroughs and two other personnel requesting to ride him over on a jeep at your location. Ball then says, tell them negative at this time. We'll tell them when they can come out here. We don't want them out here right now. The irritation of Ball's voice, you can count it here, is palpable.

He likely didn't know that Burrows was off duty. A fact that would likely have increased his annoyance, honestly. And Halt was irritated, though the reason remains unclear. I think he's just like, the situation is frustrating and he has no clear guidelines as to what he's supposed to do. He's just fucking winging it. Wild Devils? Oh, yeah, yeah. So, whether it was a force, whatever, blah, blah, blah.

The elevated radiation readings prompted a desire for him to limit the personnel in the area as well. While Neville's never indicated dangerously high radiation levels, the very mention of radiation could understandably cause concern. So as a senior officer's present halt in England would have a natural instinct to protect the personnel from any potential threat. Legal considerations just a good sign of how serious they were taking potential threat. Legal considerations were also, remember, we're getting Cold War, nuclear weapons are on this base. Legal considerations also played a role. While US personnel were authorized to operate off base in certain situations, such as a

perceived security threat, the general principle was that UK police had primary jurisdiction here. The presence of a large number of US military personnel in the forest would raise eyebrows. Furthermore, the potential media fallout would have been a concern, likely more so for Halt than for junior personnel. And a final complicating factor was the possibility that some personnel in the forest were armed. While not absolutely prohibited in all circumstances, the conditions under which this would be permissible were extremely limited.

They were not, it would be against the law for them to be armed for this. Testimony regarding whether anyone in the forest that night was armed remains inconclusive, which tells me that they were, with the official line being that they were not, though some accounts suggest otherwise. For the next several minutes, Halt and his team continued their examination

of the clearing. Neville's took further Geiger counter readings, focusing on the trees facing the clearing and all the surrounding areas. Looking through the night vision device, he noted a definite heat reflection off the trees as well and later identified three trees near the suspected landing site exhibiting similar heat signatures. Holt then noticed hot spots, quote unquote, on the ground, cautioning his team to avoid stepping on them, though it's unclear whether his concern was about preserving potential evidence

or if he's worried about radiation contamination. Regardless, Halt's recorded observations such as, hey, this is eerie and this is strange revealed growing unease. It's all recorded. Halt then attempted to correlate the hotspots with the three indentations and their central point. The following exchange between Halt and Neville's, I want to go back and forth here. I'm gonna be England Halt is Jesse and Neville's is Alex and I'm I'm England You say that there is a positive after-effect Yes, there is definitely that's on the center spot. There is an after-effect. What does that mean? Means that when the lights are turned off, once we are focused in and allow time for the eyes to adjust, we are getting an indication of a heat source coming out of that center spot as of, uh,

which will show up on... Good Lord, England! What's going on with you, man? What happened, man? What is that? Central London accent? Oh my God! Are you all right, man?

Oh, jeez! What is that? Central London accent? What did you drink? Oh my god! Are you alright? Oh, shit! Pops is American, remember? Oh, sure, certainly. Heat or some form of energy, I believe heat at this stage of the game, i.e. nearly two days after whatever landed in the clearing departed. And it is still, and as soon as he says that, there is a break occurs in the tape. The subsequent recording kind of features a monologue by Halt

then describing further damage to the trees, saying things like looking looking directly overhead one can see an opening in the trees plus freshly broken pine branches. He's just vocally describing what he's seeing. In this observation, again aligned with the reports from Penniston and Burroughs the night prior. The small clearing suggested that this UFO would have had to maneuver vertically through the dense canopy, likely causing damage. While Burroughs and Penniston didn't witness the craft's arrival, its slow, deliberate

ascent before its rapid departure seemed consistent with that kind of maneuver. And another break in the tape follows Holt's earlier descriptions of eerie and strange hotspots hinted at the unusual nature of the situation he found himself in. And thus far, Halt, England, Ball and Nevels had ventured into the cold December night in response to this UFO's return, but had yet to see the actual UFO. Halt's requests for light-alls to pierce the darkness of Randall's and Forrest's have been met, and the units proving stubbornly unreliable, either suffering from mechanical issues or whatnot, were all finally taken fucking care of. He had his light-alls.

And then he finally saw something. Holt had been diligently recording his observations and thoughts on his handheld cassette recorder and following an extended discussion about the intriguing hotspots, the tape falls silent once more. When the recording resumes, Holt does something he hadn't done previously.

He provides a precise time, marking a shift in the unfolding events. The subsequent observation is particularly noteworthy. He says quote, oh, 148, we're hearing a very strange sounds out of the farmers barnyard animals. They're very, very active, making an awful lot of noise. And despite the landing site location some distance within the forest, access from the RAF Woodbridge, it lay in close proximity to the eastern edge of the woods, bordering a large open field and this field was part of Green Farm, situated in the small hamlet

of Capel St. Andrew. The specific types of animals present on this farm, or any location close to that, enough to be audible to Halt in his team remains like we don't know. Interestingly, Halt makes no mention of dogs, which were known to be present at the farmhouse or other nearby and on other nearby properties. But they didn't hear any. Some say a plausible explanation is that the men were hearing muntjac deer, also known as barking deer, which are known inhabitants of Rendlesham forest. These deer are nocturnal, making their activity at this hour, potentially unremarkable and do they own and operate like big spaceships? They might they might maybe they are part of their dude. Dogs weren't the aliens this time. It was actually the deer and that's why

they come forward like that Reddit poster said they're called Mundak deer. Yeah, Mundak deer. That's clearly a Klingon word. Oh yeah. The Mundakians. Come on. Yeah. Everyone knows the Mundakians. Oh yeah. Um, but however, the events that followed these noises kind of make it see if they were animals. It would certainly be a hell of a coincidence. Uh, now I'm going to play an audio clip here and where they've been, this is, at this point we're picking up the audio clip. They have seen now a red light and they've just been visually tracking it over the top.

Play the audio for you now. Here we go. Again, they've been tracking this. They can see the red light and they've been tracking it. I'll do that again. About four feet off the ground, about 110 degrees, getting the lean of about four clicks. Yes sir. Yeah, but it's... It's dying. It's dying. I think it's something on the ground. I think it's something that's valuable here.

We just felt the first light bulb we've seen. We're about 150 or 200 yards from the site. The real loss is just breathily calm. There is no doubt about it. There's some type of strange flash of red light ahead. I saw yellow. I saw yellow tinging at 2. Weird. It appears that he may be moving a little bit this way. Yes, it's brighter than I have spent.

It's coming his way. It's definitely coming his way. This is a little showing off. There is no doubt about it. This is weird. To the left. And that's just a clip of it. You can hear him saying turn the flashlights off. Let's get a little bit of look as like the lights are making a weird and you can see, you're saying he's seeing multiple lights.

There's other ones appearing on other sides of them. At one point it starts, seems to be coming toward them and eventually it does get close to them. There's another few minutes of them just tracking it and tracking and tracking it. And then it does actually get close. I'm going to play that final clip for you here. And then it does actually get close. I'm gonna play that final clip for you here.

305 at about 10 degrees horizon, directly north we've got two strange objects. Half moon shape, dancing about with colored lights on them. But it has to be about five to 10 mile long, maybe less. The half moon's now turned into full circles. There's all those ellipticals or something there for a minute or two. 0 to 315, now we've got an object at 10 degrees directly south, 10 degrees on the horizon. And the ones

north are moving, ones moving away from us. Moving out fast. Now they're both heading north. Okay, here he comes from the south. He's coming toward us now. Now we're observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground. What? This is unreal. 330, 0-3-30 and the objects are still in the sky, although the one to the south looks like it's losing a little bit of altitude. I swear to God, it's a beam.

Still in the sky. Although the one that the side looks like it's losing a little bit of altitude. I swear to God, it's a beam. Two of them are flying away and then one from the side zips up on them and fires a beam on the ground in front of them. For some reason, he just doesn't know what the fuck it is. And, uh, the, again, I, there's 18 minutes of it. You go, you can go listen to the whole thing. Not all of it's very exciting. It's a lot of them setting up and whatnot, but this is again,

they've said 18 minutes of an hour's long clip at like right when he started getting out, they started recording only 18 minutes were approved to be released. That's all we have. I highly suggest you go listen to it if you're interested. And as that little last beam of light thing happens and the lights kind of vanish, the second sighting ends or does it? We'll pick up there next week. How dare you? He hit me with a real or does it? Got me.

The very last part of the Rendlesham Forest incident, what happens after it, the weird decisions of where this information goes and where it happens to the information itself and a bunch of other stuff. But this is my opinion, arguably the most, I don't want to say, I guess plausible, the most documented, like by military UFO, modern UFO encounter. I think that exists at least as far as the public has access to. And this

18 minutes of audio is like, it's wild because people know Roswell, but a lot of people, like people don't really know Reynolds-Gym well. Um, and it took place 20 years later, just about fascinating. I love when we have stuff like this, even though I have no clue what to believe hearing them be like, shut, Sean and now it's doing like, that's fascinating. Pairs that I'm witnessing a B that like the actual logs going missing the time difference on their watches like the little bits that can be corroborated by tons of other people in other and then having 60 people watching the lights from the base and stuff. While this is all going on, it's fascinating. But that was where I'm going to leave you all with a little bit of a tantalizing

look at what's coming the main two sightings of the fendelshim Forest and next week we'll talk about all the other possibilities and the other sides of the coin of what people think could have happened and what other explanations could it be but I find it fascinating simply alone for the first sighting that Peniston and Burroughs had two very different experiences and saw two very different things and yet it was still something pretty real yeah yeah, it's wild. But that's it, boys. Thank you so much for letting me bring you into part one of Rendlesham.

This has been an oven. Very excited for for a while. We're off to go to a mini soda over at patreon.com slash Juliana plot where we will talk a little bit about the drones actually that are that are going on right now and whatever. Yeah. So thank you. Devils are back. They are. They haven't gone anywhere. That's the thing. We appreciate you. We thank you. Devils are back. They are. They haven't gone anywhere. That's the thing. We appreciate you. We love

you. Goodbye. Bye bye. Anyway, me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night enjoying ourselves. I needed to go to the bathroom. So I stepped back inside and after a few moments I hear my wife go, Holy shit, get out here. So I quickly dash back outside. She's looking up at the sky in awe. I look up too, and there's a perfect line

of dozen lights traveling across the sky. So Thank you. Thanks for watching.