Somewhere in the Skies - Rendlesham Forest: Unexplained Cold War Encounters

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

In this episode, we dive into one of the most famous UFO cases ever recorded: the Rendlesham Forest incident. Known as “Britain’s Roswell,” the event unfolded over three nights in December 1980 between the twin U.S.–U.K. bases at RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge. With Cold War tensions high and American nuclear weapons secretly stored on-site, security personnel witnessed strange lights on radar and in the forest, followed by reports of a landed craft. Backed by official documents, on-the-ground audio recordings, and decades of ongoing testimony, we break down the encounters that cemented Rendlesham as a cornerstone of UFO history. Please take a moment to rate and review us on Spotify and Apple. Book Ryan on CAMEO at: https://bit.ly/3kwz3DO Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ PayPal: [e-mail] All Socials and Books: https://linktr.ee/somewhereskiespod Email: [e-mail] SpectreVision Radio: https://www.spectrevision.com/podcasts Opening Theme Song by Septembryo Copyright © 2025 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. #Christmas #England #ChristmasUFO #UFO #RendleshamForest #BritainsRoswell #UAP #ColdWarMystery #UFOHistory #SomewhereInTheSkies #Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Specter Vision Radio. R.A.F. Woodbridge and R.A.F. Bentwaters were known as the twin bases, separated by an area of woodland called Rendelsham Forest. The two installations in Suffolk, southeast England, were perhaps the United States' most important military complexes during the Cold War, and they held a dark secret. Even today, it's not officially acknowledged that nuclear weapons were being stored at the bases. a complete violation of the U.S. and UK's treaty obligations. But another secret was being held in that forest. And almost 40 years later, it remains one of the most famous UFO cases of all time. This is the story of the incident in Rendezham Forest.

While our government's official position is not to speculate on this subject, we can choose to let our minds explore other possibilities. To use our imaginations, for if we consider that astro-scientists agree on one point, that the possibility of life elsewhere is not only quite probable, some feel if is there without a doubt. Let us suppose them that these objects are real space vehicles, extraterrestrial origin, and not an illusion of the mind. I'm Ryan Spratt, and you are now somewhere in the skies. It was a rather quiet and cold night in 1980. It's probably not much fun to be on security duty on Christmas night,

thousands of miles from home in a cold British military base in England. 20-year-old American patrol sergeant, John Burroughs, had the short straw that night, guarding R.A.F. Woodbridge's lonely Eastgate, which edged into the dark woods of the neighboring Rendersham Forest. As the 25th turned into the 26th, Burroughs looked out into the darkness, and saw something strange. Colored lights appeared to be hovering and dancing over the trees. Was this some sort of Christmas display?

Burroughs had an uneasy feeling that it was something unusual and drove back to the gatehouse to inform this security controller. Security policeman Jim Penison joined Burroughs at the gate to observe the lights. In his two years of working at the base, the 26-year-old Peniston had never seen lights in the Rendoshaum Woods before, but had witnessed several small aircraft crashes during his career and felt that this might explain what the men were seeing. Relating this possibility to the security tower at around 3 a.m., Peniston, Burroughs,

and fellow airman Ed Cabansec were given permission to venture out into the forest to investigate. I then ordered Airman Cabanzac, A1C, Banzac, Burroughs to respond with me off-site. When we arrived to the suspected crash site, it quickly became apparent that we were not dealing with a plane crash, but for that matter, anything else we've ever responded to. There was a bright light emulating from an object on the forest floor. As we approached it on foot, a silhouette-tri-angor craft about nine feet long, six-and-a-half-feet-high, came into view.

The craft was fully intact and sitting in a small clearing just inside the woods. As the three of us got closer to the craft, we started experiencing radio difficulties. I then asked the Airman-Cabanzac to relayed the radio transmissions

back to our control center. Burles and I proceeded towards the craft. The air around them, according to Penniston, seemed to be filled with electricity. It was surging through them as they approached the object. When we came up on the triangular-shaped craft, there were blue and yellow light swirling around the exterior as though they were a part of the surface.

Nothing in my training prepared me for what I was witnessing. After 10 minutes without any apparent aggression, I determined the craft was non-hostile to my team and to the base. Following the security protocols, we completed a thorough on-site investigation. This included a full physical examination of the craft, which include photographs and my notebook entries I had at the time, and relays with the radio through Airman Cabanzac to our control center. On one side of the craft, there were symbols that measured three inches high, and they're approximately about two and a half feet long. The feeling I had during the encounter was like no type of aircraft that I've ever seen before. It was in the James book of known aircraft or anything I've seen since. Penniston scribbled furiously in his notebook, drawing as best he could the shape of the object,

but found it increasingly difficult to write as if some strange force was weighing him down. The light from the craft began to intensify. Burles and I then took a defensive position away from the craft as it lifted off the ground without any noise or air disturbance. It maneuvered through the trees and shot off at an unbelievable rate of speed. It was gone in a blink of an eye. In my law book, I wrote, speed impossible. That night, over 80 Air Force personnel, all trained observers assigned to the 84th Security Police Squadron, witnessed to take off.

What on earth had the men witnessed? Whatever it was, all three were reluctant to go back. to their commanding officers and say that they'd seen a UFO. Rumors had long circulated around the twin bases of lights in the sky, but most airmen preferred to keep such reports to themselves for fear of ridicule. On returning to the base, the men relayed what Peniston described as a sanitized account of the encounter to their commanding officer, Lieutenant Fred Bearing, and were informed that the nearby radar base had also reported an unusual.

blip on the radar earlier the previous night. Was this the object the men had seen? Like so much of the Rendlesham incident, we have official documents that confirm that this incident did indeed occur. Vuren's typewritten report dated January 2nd, 1981, confirms Burroughs and Penniston's sighting. Fred Buren affirms that the men are reliable and mature individuals and appear convinced that Peniston had indeed experienced something out of the realm of explanation for him at the time. By now, the strange lights over Rendelsham had also been reported to the local police.

Returning the next morning, the two officers from the Suffolk Constabulary, Burroughs and Peniston tried to find the location of their mysterious nocturnal encounter. Happening upon what they believed was the same clearing, the men saw three indentations in the ground. Often seized by skeptics, the subsequent police report states that these indentations were actually nothing more than rabbit burrows. Peniston, however, is adamant that they were not, stating that the ground was frozen and it was impossible for that to have happened. Peniston believes the officers were reluctant to state what the marks really were as, like him, they were worried that they'd be ridiculed. supportive of Peniston's integration

was the fact that the three indentations formed an exact equilateral triangle when measured out. Burroughs and Peniston's encounter in the woods might well have been dismissed as a mistake, or even just Christmas hijinks, if it wasn't for the events of the following two nights. Although the Rendals from Forest incident is usually reported as two nights of UFO activity,

the 25th to 26th, and the 26th, 7th through 28, there was actually a lesser reported sighting the following night. 20 hours after the Burroughs and Peniston sighting, 18-year-old basic airman, Lori Reifelt, recalls her own series of events that night. So I was on patrol at the time, and I had a colleague with me, Airman, his Airman-Duffield. We were both Airman First Class, which is the E-3 at the time. And we had just checked the lock on the gate, and we were just feeling. out our check sheet and making sure everything.

And we're just sitting there. And it was about 2, 3 o'clock in morning. And it was just really, it was a clear night. It wasn't rainy out. And we were just kind of, you know, bored figuring out we got about four or five more hours left. And, you know, so we're just sitting there talking. And all of a sudden we see this light approaching that was coming from the area of the North Sea. So it's coming west to east.

And at first it looked like, it looked like a, it looked like a, it looked like, we thought it was this regular aircraft coming in and we looked over at the runway waiting for the lights to go on figuring while all the aircraft's coming in and then as it got closer and closer and now is about maybe 200 it wasn't really that far

it was just this it was a big light and it just stopped and this guy and I were looking we noticed that the runway lights aren't on we see this light and then and then all of a sudden it just stops midair, and then all of a sudden just moves up, down, left, right, and then it breaks into like three pieces and speeds across the runway. And now we're stunned. We're like, what the, we, you know, what was that? So we immediately got on, I got on the radio, because we, you know,

we were thinking, what is that? And we get on the radio, and, and I mean, we were kind of excited about, you know, police control, this is police for, be advised. But we couldn't see the aircraft itself, the speed, the rate of speed that it was moving when it went across. I mean, it was moving in like a regular aircraft, then when it stopped, then when it did its movement, and then when it split into three, then when it went sped across the runway, it was going west, you know, it was just going at a phenomenal speed. And the only other thing that really caught our attention was that it didn't make any noise. There was no sound to it at all. And we were like, you know, this, we just, you know, we just didn't know what it was. And as for the, as for the same thing,

size. You know, from the distance we were, I guess I'd say it was probably about the size of a car or a small truck or something. It was probably about maybe two football length. Football field length. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your ocean front room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now.

Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay. News of the UFO sightings head by now reached the base as deputy commander, Colonel Charles Halt.

While attending a Christmas awards party at the base on the night of the 27, Lieutenant Bruce England rushed into the room and told Colonel Charles Halt, We've got to talk. It's back. Halt, then a 41-year-old veteran of Vietnam and Korea, had no patience for tales of UFOs and was irritated that his men were getting distracted from their duties with such nonsense. Determined to find the source of the lights once and for all,

Halt led a search party into Rendell Shum Forest to look for answers. took two senior patrolmen with me, a disaster preparedness expert, and the reporting on-duty police officer. At the site we find three, one-and-a-half-inch indentations, triangular pattern. We discovered mild radiation and evidence of broken branches on the trees. We suddenly observed a very bright, red-orange object. It was oval, and with a black center, it reminded me of an eye and it appeared to be winking, or blinking. It maneuvered horizontal, Finally through the trees with an occasional vertical movement. When approached, it receded and silently broke into five white objects.

We moved out of the forest and onto a pasture and observed several objects in the sky, multiple objects to the north. They changed shape from elliptical to round. Several other objects were seen to the south. One approached at a very high speed and sent down a strange beam right at our feet. It was different than an ordinary light, and it didn't radiate. more like a laser beam. Another object sent down beams

to light into the weapon storage area. The whole time we had difficulty communicating with the base as all three radio frequencies that we were using kept breaking up. This activity continued for about an hour. During this entire event, I was fortunate to have with me at my small pocket recorder.

It's a little linear recorder that I carried around the base usually to take notes because I didn't like to write much. So I recorded all the significant events that happened that night. Unfortunately, the tape recorder is no longer functional but I do have a tape and a good copy of it.

I have no idea what we saw that night, but I do know with great certainty it was under intelligent control. More on the Halt audio tape in just a little bit. From this point on, many of those present during this search believe a vast cover-up had begun, even under the nose of a senior officer

like Colonel Charles Halt. While Halt himself tried to find out from his men what had happened, other agencies swooped in to interrogate the men about the events of the previous three nights. Jim Penniston recalls being repeatedly grilled about the incidents by the Air Force's Office of Intelligence, even being administered truth drug sodium pentanol on one occasion.

Sergeant Adrian Bastinza claims he was interrogated for hours in an underground part of the base by unnamed agents, possibly from the CIA. Ed Cabansac, who had accompanied Burroughs' and, Panison on the first night of activity says he was ordered to sign a false statement that concealed what he really saw. Wing commander Charles Gabriel in charge of all USAF forces in Europe made an unprecedented, impromptu visit to the bases, seizing much of Halt's evidence. Unbelievably, Halt was then told the United States had no official interest in this incident.

unsure of just exactly what to do, and with jurisdiction over the matter officially shared between the U.S. and U.K., Halt was told to hand the matter over to the British Ministry of Defense. Halt's January 13, 1981 memo, entitled Unexplained Lights, summarizing the events of the weekend, was sent to the British government, but received a similar lack of interest. For all those involved, this seemed to mark the end of the matter, and life-finding. the base seemingly went back to normal. Outside of a bit of gossip among euphologists, events of that amazing weekend would probably have faded into obscurity. That was until a sensational taplight scoop, nearly three years later blew the whole thing wide open. UFO lands in Suffolk, and that's official. This was the headline in the UK's news of the world. The paper had managed to obtain Halt's top secret memo.

Soon, news outlets begin to pick up on the story. CNN being one of the first networks to report. CNN began asking the Air Force for information about the Bentwater's UFO incident six months ago. Throughout, the Air Force has been slow to respond. And when it did reply, the answer was usually, quote, unknown, end quote, or in some cases, apparently misleading. For example, when CNN asked, are there any photographs, tape recordings, videotapes, drawings, or descriptions of any kind, and Air Force files, the official U.S. Air Force reply was, quote, there was no audiovisual documentation done, end quote. If it is a cover-up, then the American public may never know what those

airmen saw at bent waters in 1980. If they were merely keystone cops who were hallucinating, as one critic suggests, then one of the national security implications of those same airmen guarding a strategically important air base where nuclear weapons are reportedly stored. If they weren't hallucinating, then what are the implications of what they actually did see? When CNN recently asked the Air Force about the possible existence of movie film of the Bent Waters UFO, the official Air Force response was, the United States Air Force stopped investigating UFOs in 1969. Inconsistencies with witnesses is something that needs to be addressed. Larry Warren, a former American security officer, was the first person to come forward about what happened in the forest.

Warren had originally been anonymously leaking stories about Rendell Shum to the UFO community for years, and his remarkable account of what he saw would prove to be very divisive amongst the other witnesses. According to the then-19-year-old Warren, it wasn't just lights or a craft that was seen, but actual beings as well. Warren would also make some startling claims about how men-in-black-style agents had interrogated him and messed with his mind, possibly planting false or distorted memories. Rendezham Forest was starting to move from a well-documented encounter with a mysterious light to a full-on craft and now full-scale science fiction.

The integrity of Larry Warren's testimony is still up for debate until today. But it does need to be addressed in the overall picture of the Rendezham-Forest. incident. Despite inconsistencies and controversy, this UFO incident had something most cases did not. The words of a senior American Air Force colonel in an official memo. The credibility of the document even led to questions being asked of the then conservative government in the UK Parliament. Over the next few decades, competing claims would emerge about what happened over Christmas 1980 at the twin bases, more witnesses would emerge often with incredible claims. Skeptics would pounce on inconsistencies and try to find rational explanations for what happened.

Some have even suggested the whole thing was a hoax, or that the airmen had had a bit too much Christmas cheer, or perhaps it was simply a mistake. The nearby Orfordness Lighthouse bouncing its powerful illumination amongst the trees. Regardless of the attempts to debunk Rendezhum, the original witnesses, the documents, and the physical evidence all attest to something very genuine occurring. The most cited piece of evidence in the Rendezhum Forest case, the Halt memo, provides a rare, direct piece of contemporary documentary UFO evidence,

signed by a senior member of the U.S. military. Some critics have questioned the dating of this memo, January 13th, supposedly more than a week and a half after the incident occurred. But this appears to be explained by the general confusion over the jurisdiction of the incident. As such, Colonel Halt was told by his own commanders to hand the matter over to the British. With the base's British liaison, Donald Moulin, Don Leave, Halt elected to wait to act until he had discussed it with Morland. When no further activity and no evidence of any threat, Halt no longer regarded the incident as especially urgent.

The Halt Memo was released to the public in 1983 after the American Citizens Against UFO Secrecy Organization successfully launched a Freedom of Information Act request to release the document. Both the USAF and the Ministry of Defense have consistently stated the activity detailed in the Halt memo is of no different. interests. But former UK defense chief and chairman of the NATO military committee, Lord Hill Norton, thinks differently. There are only two conceivable explanations for what happened. Either a UFO landed there, causing the damage and collateral business, or the deputy commander of a United States nuclear-armed air base in Britain, and several hundred of his men were hallucin. I put it to you, I put it to anybody with an atom of common sense. Either of those explanations, and they are the only two possible explanations,

must be of defense interest. In the early 1990s, while head of the MOD's UFO desk, researcher Nick Pope conducted a cold case review into the Rendezhum incident. According to Pope, the reality was that the MOD were unable to find any credible explanation for the incident and classified it as unexplained. Pope thinks the original investigation was hobbled by confusion over jurisdiction. The wrong day quoted in Holt's memo, delays, and some destruction of evidence. Suspiciously, Charles A. Gabriel, the commander-in-chief of the USAF in Europe,

made an unscheduled trip to Bentwater shortly after the incident. The incident. Gabriel was briefed about the incident and removed a large amount of evidence, much of which was never seen again. Nick Pope reveals that Gabriel's intervention caused disconnection at the MOD. It directly contradicts the official USAF line that they had no interest in the incident and that it should be handed over to the British. In fact, the MOD was never made aware of Gabriel's visit. what evidence he took and the results of any subsequent investigation. Skeptics have a long struggle to dismiss the Halt memo. Colonel Halt's credibility is difficult question,

as he had a distinguished 42-year military career and retired in 1991. With the highest peacetime award given by the Secretary of Defense, Halt never spoke publicly about the incident until he retired. He is therefore the most reputable senior military figure for which we have direct contemporary documentary evidence discussing an encounter in a UFO case. Halt's memo rules out the idea that the incident may have been some kind of joke fueled by Yuletide spirit.

A deputy commander of a nuclear facility like Haltz, would clearly never escalate such a hoax to the British government. While his memo cannot easily be dismissed, the deputy commander is also the source of arguably an even more convincing piece of evidence, in the form of an 18-minute audio tape of a real live UFO encounter. Halt's 18-minute tape of the party's seven-hour expedition in the woods is unique amongst all UFO cases, and that it contains HALT and several other military personnel's live reactions to UFO phenomena occurring around them.

The officers featured on the tape are HALT, Sergeant Monroe Nevels, Sergeant Robert Ball, Sergeant Adrian Bustinza, and Lieutenant Bruce England. The men could be heard inspecting the original landing site, Burroughs and Penniston found two nights earlier, and as they survey the area, things start to get interesting. guys Ryan Sprague here from somewhere in the skies. The podcast has always been and always will be completely free for you to listen to. But creating it every week takes a lot of time, research and resources. And to be honest, it's just never been free for me to create. That's why we've built a few simple ways for you to help support the show and keep it going strong. You can join us over on Patreon or through Apple Premium. Both offer the same awesome perks. Add

free episodes, early access to new content, exclusive bonus shows, and even priority to ask our guests your listener questions. It's a quick and easy way to support what we do for just a few bucks a month. And right now, you can even try Patreon for free for a week to see if it's right for you. To learn more and to join, head over to patreon.com slash somewhere skies. That's patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Or hit that subscribe button right at the top of your Apple podcast feed. Thank you so much for listening,

for supporting, and as always, keep looking up. As mentioned before, one popular suggestion from skeptics to debunk what is captured on this tape is that the men were observing light from the nearby Orfordness Lighthouse. Vince Thurkechettle,

the local forester who is familiar with this site, explained his theories on both the lights that the officers had witnessed and the physical trace marks believed to have been left behind from the craft. 20-odd years of playing in woods taught me what to see, and this site was ordinary. It was just ordinary and natural. Nothing strange or unusual had happened there. Sure enough, the landing site had some sticks marking three of these,

which were roughly in a triangle, but as a forester, to me, they were nothing more than rabbit scrapes. They certainly weren't the feet marks of some craft having landed. Every single shred of physical evidence I'd seen could be explained away naturally. Just off to the side is where the alleged landing happened. So the American patrol would have come through here somewhere and out to the edge of the forest, which is out on our right, from where you look out over the fields, over the few houses,

and out towards the lighthouse. I've been jogging down this track at night, and the first time I saw the lighthouse, I really thought it was poachers with a lamp in the forest. So I knew that to people who weren't ready for it, the lighthouse really appeared to be a pulsing light within the forest. I knew that from earlier. And I think the fact that the lighthouse can only be seen

from very certain parts of the forest, and one of them is exactly where all the alleged landing happened. While Thurkettle's theory should obviously be considered, there are some serious issues with his theories. The most obvious is that the lighthouse predates the then 38-year-old military bases. Yet none of the thousands of men and women who had served at the base during the time had ever mistaken the lighthouse for a UFO before. Indeed, since these were U.S. Air Force bases, with military aircraft coming in and out multiple times in, day, it seems somewhat unlikely that trained airmen would make such an obvious mistake. Furthermore, the beam from the Orfordness is deliberately dimmed when shining in-wind by a blocking

plate fitted around the lens. A lighthouse's beam also fails to match the actual nature of the observations made. Colonel Charles Holt himself also dismissed the lighthouse theory, stating that, quote, a lighthouse doesn't move through the forest. A lighthouse doesn't go up and down, it doesn't explode, doesn't change shape, size, doesn't send down beams of light from the sky, end quote. Some of the military witnesses, such as Jim Pedestin and Fred Buren, had already stated they had heard over the radios that radar stations had tracked an uncorrelated target or a bogey on the radar.

In her book, You Can't Tell the People, author Georgina Bruni, found former radar operators who claimed that a strange object had been tracked in Rendlesham on the night of the first sightings. More recently, two USAF air traffic controllers at Bentwaters have come forward with similar accounts. In an interview with author and UFO researcher Robert Hastings, James H. Carey and Ivan R. Barker gave their own text. testimony for the very first time, having seen the objects on radar and then with their own eyes. I was just sitting there and I happened to see a dot come on the scope and it just went like one dot at beginning, then another dot, another dot, and it was gone. So the scope is 120 miles across. It was just phenomenal to me to see it go that fast. All of a sudden, hear it come back across again. It went one, two, and then it made the immediate right-hand turn and came right towards.

towards the base. You know, I just said that can't be one of ours. No jet at that speed can make it an immediate right-hand turn, just absolutely phenomenal. It's not like any radar target I've ever seen. When they sweep would hit the target, you would have the entire back of it would be like a solid line. Traveling an extremely high rate of speed, it passed over the control tower, and then it stopped. never seen anything in my life like the maneuverability that happened with this object was an

orangeish color sort of popped into my mind at the time that somebody's flying a basketball out here there were like lights around the center of it but it wasn't like running lights or navigational lights it was more like port holes and then you were seeing the light from the inside coming out it It wasn't, you know, flashing lights or anything. But it covered momentarily, reversed its course, and went back out at a high rate of speed. The MODs released UFO files do demonstrate that they sought to corroborate the radar readings, but were hampered by the fact that records had been destroyed. And some of the cameras used to record the radar readings were conveniently not working during the days in question.

While there are countless witnesses with highly credible backgrounds that witness the events in Rendell from Forest, there simply will always be those who want to attribute prosaic answers to what happened. And besides the lighthouse theories, there are a few other explanations that should at least be brought up. It's notable that the period of the 25th and 26th of December coincided with a confluence of unusual atmospheric phenomenon. Shortly before the first cluster of sightings at Rendelsham, a Russian Cosmos 749 satellite burnt up over Western Europe and was widely reported as a UFO by multiple civilians. Another rare event, the burning up of a meteor in the atmosphere, occurred in the early hours of the 26th of December. This meteor produced an unusually bright fireball and was visible throughout southeast England. There are pros and cons to these alternative possibilities.

It's certainly a striking coincidence that the period of the observed UFO activity corresponded in time and location with at least three viable sources of false positives, meteor satellites, and, of course, the White House. These clearly cannot be overlooked and must surely account for at least some of the lights people claimed to have seen during that Christmas weekend. If these mistaken sightings could be eliminated from the list of observed UFOs at Rendosham, then the incident might start to look a little less impressive. However, the rocket and the meteor are both short-lived events, and don't adequately explain the nature of most of the observations, nor the fact that they were spread out over several hours. over three separate nights. Likewise, the lighthouse cannot account for the majority of the sightings,

as it simply was not visible in the locations. So besides these alternative explanations, I want to focus again on two of the primary witnesses mentioned earlier, who seem to be keeping this case alive with developing stories. Those witnesses are Jim Peniston and John Burroughs. Jim Penniston now says he spent 45 minutes examining the craft he observed in the first night, noting symbols on the body of the craft. He also says he touched the skin of the craft and received a telepathic message in binary coat. Oh, it absolutely was telepathic.

It wasn't like I could see it in front of me, like visually. It was like it was a pictorial that was running a movie in my, in my, uh, brain you know it was it wasn't it was a mind's eye kind of thing yeah it wasn't i couldn't physically actually see something no and uh it was flashings of zeros and ones and later we find out some type of binary code which i uh be honest with you i have trouble with algebra or i'm not a math person by no means a lot alone computers and in 1980 i don't think we even had computers that we used so it was foreign. I did record the glyphs at the scene,

but when I went home in the following day, I don't know, I can't get these images. I mean, they're just like there. One's the zero, zero, zero, zero. They're all in my head. So I felt compelled to run it out. So I grabbed my notebook, flipped it open, and then I did the most crazy thing I thought in the world.

I wrote these ones in the zeros all the way down. It was like 12, 14 pages of them. And anyway, at a certain point, when I got done, I had no more imaging. Now, I'm not at the craft. I'm at home. I go back to Ipswich, and this is where this is happening. And then once I'd done it, though, the imaging was gone. So I thought, great. Now, can I tell somebody that? That I went, I was received imaging in my living room at home in Ipswich. And I had to rhyme down, I'm okay now.

I did not tell anybody that happened. Since coming forward with these theories, Jim Peniston had this binary code deciphered, and it apparently picked up the message, quote, Exploration of Humanity Continuous for Planetary Advancement, End quote. There were also some coordinate points in the binary code to High Brazil, the location of a legendary advanced and highly moral ethical Earth civilization, now the location of a submerged island west of Ireland. This and several other coordinates were found as well.

This will be explored in an upcoming book by Jim Penniston, called the Rendlesham Enigma. Jim Penison's claims are intriguing, but many do question its veracity. In fact, there is no mention of this binary code in his original witness statements, nor is there anything remotely resembling this version of events in his radio, communications with his commanders at the base. John Burroughs also does not remember Peniston making any notes during the entire period they observed the object, but there are missing gaps in time between the two witnesses when the event occurred. So I guess for now, we'll just have to take Jim's word for it. The next string of events is much more grounded in official documentation,

and just pure fact. It involves John Burroughs, the officer who accompanied Penniston that night. But it also involves a legal battle, the help of a six-term American senator, and perhaps an entirely new outlook on the Rendezham Forests Instate in what it may have been. But let's get back to John for just a moment. Because he was one of the officers that got closest to the craft, and as the years went on, he became more and more sick from what he believed was due to the event that night in the forest. In 2011, John Burroughs' and suffering periodic, life-threatening atrial fibrillation, also known as a fib, a quivering or irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure,

and other heart-related complications. He filed for Veterans Administration Medical Benefits, but was denied when the VA staff said there was no record of his survey at RAF Bentwaters and Woodbridge. John sought legal help in Jackson, Mississippi. and hired attorney Pat Frescogna. John's VA case then went to the office of Arizona's U.S. Senator, John McCain. Eventually, the VA admitted knowledge of John's service at RAF Bentwaters, but found those medical records were classified. By 2013, needing open-heart surgery to repair seriously damaged, valves.

John was angry and frustrated at not being able to get VA medical disability coverage. It was at this point when he learned of a former top secret UK restricted project called Project Condine. It had been quietly declassified in 2006, and it contained information that directly linked exposure to radiation to possible unexplained lights in the sky. Here, former UFO desk official Nick Pope describes Project Condine for us and its relevancy to this case. Project Condine was an intelligence study into the UFO phenomenon carried out by the Defence Intelligence staff in the Ministry of Defence. Project Condine was an attempt to do a proper intelligence assessment of the UFO phenomenon. The Condon report, the final report,

is arguably one of the most important UFO documents of all times. and it ran to over 168 pages, I think. At the time, its classification was secret UK eyes only. A proper intelligence assessment attempted to draw together all the data that we had and really answer the more important strategic question. What is all this? You know, never mind the case-by-case analysis, put it all together, what have we got?

What are we dealing with? Bear in mind, this was a British intelligence study, highly classified. At the time it was written, it was never conceived that it was going to be released. And essentially it says, yeah, the witnesses that encountered the UFO in Rimbledham Forest were probably irradiated by it. Once John and Jim's attorney put that document to the VA and said, oh, wait a minute, you've denied, the U.S. government has denied that this ever took place. You might want to read this British intelligence assessment.

Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Finally, under pressure from Senator John McCain's office, the VA arranged John's urgent open-heart surgery for mid-December 2013. He began to recover to more normal health, but without VA medical benefits or his RAF Bentwater's medical records, and he didn't believe that to be right, that officers were not being treated for what presumably happened during this and several other close

encounters with UFOs and their physical effects on officers. Here, John Burroughs state such at the Citizens' Hearing on Disclosure to former senators in 2013 at the National Press Club. The first night, there were three of us and one out there. The second night, you had the shift commander and the on-duty flight chief. On the third night, Colonel Hall took a team out there, and there was also other personnel in the woods. And different people saw different things.

So that's one of the reasons why I would come forward besides our health issues is I feel it's necessary to anyone that was even out in that area should have the opportunity to be checked out medically and be told what they were exposed to, especially something that's over 30 years old. What the heck was going on out there that would draw this much attention from the agencies involved to this day? What would still be classified? and if it is, what did we have or what we were dealing with that would still remain silent today? Almost every weapon we've ever developed back in that time frame has been exposed that we're aware of. And yet today, this is still classified and we can't even receive medical treatment for it. By January 23, 2014, John began filing Freedom of Information Requests with the MOD. And by the spring and fall of 2014, the UK Ministry of Defense,

finally admitted it withheld at least 18 classified UFO files. Upon this happening, John Burroughs finally got the news he wanted all along. The United States government has for the first time ever, acknowledged by de facto, the long-suspected reality of the UFO phenomenon. John Burroughs encountered a craft of unknown origin in England's Rindleson Forest in December of 19, Haiti and suffered injury their phone, for which the Veterans Administration is now recognized

by Brandon's Helm, full medical development. Since John Burroughs and Jim Penison have come forward, many other witnesses have followed suit. In 2016, Steve Longaro, who served as a police sergeant for the USAF, stated that he was guarding the weapon's storage area during the event. and the highly sophisticated alarm systems had been triggered by something over the base. He would describe very similar accounts as Charles Holt, presumably witnessing the same craft at the same time at completely different vantage points.

It is no easy task to cover this entire event, the detailed testimony of those involved and then trying to come out on the other side with answers. Despite controversy, debates have truths, lies, and documented proof. The hard evidence from the time remains unimpeached. Whatever stories are told and whatever information continues to develop, something very real happened in the woods at Rendezham Forest, that, as the MOD files themselves now conclude, remains unexplained.

This episode was co-written and directed. directly inspired by the unredafted.com. Audio clips were provided by countless YouTube channels under the Fair Use Agreement. Selected audio provided by Jeremy Peasley, the National Archives, the Disclosure Project, The Citizens Hearing, Exopolitics, Germany, the BBC, and CNN special assignments. This episode was produced by me, Ryan Sprague, with special thanks to Peter Robbins, Nick Pope, Jim Peniston, John Burroughs, and the many men and women who served under the U.S. Air Force, before, during, and after the Randall Shum incident.

Remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching, somewhere in the skies. Somewhere in the Skies is part of the Somewhere Podcast Universe. Please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. To learn more about all of our shows, visit the SPU.com. Spector Vision Radio Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Ralph's app,

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