I've received permission from Dave Hodrien,
Birmingham UFO Group Chairman who attended the
event, to post his account.
Dave writes:
Yeah I headed down the Rendlesham conference,
luckily the snow held off, for a while I thought the
whole thing may have been cancelled. There was quite
a decent turn out for it, more than I expected. I found
all the speakers to be of a very high quality.
Peter Robbins began with a short introductory talk
about the case in general and why it could not have
been the result of certain things (the usual arguments
against it - lighthouse, meteorite, and some of the more
recent claims such as a burning fertilizer truck). At the
end of his talk he got Larry Warren up on stage as well
to thank him for what he had done for the case.
Next up was Linda Moulton Howe, who spoke mostly
of the recent regressions of both John and Jim and
the possibility that more happened to them on the 1st
night than just a close encounter. Obviously this depends
on how you feel about regression in the first place, but
there were numerous signs that John, possibly both of
them had been abducted.
After a short break it was then time to welcome both
John and Jim to the stage. I found them both to be very
believable in their account of what took place, they seemed
to certainly be talking from the heart and I would certainly
dispute the idea that they are making up their encounters
with the strange glowing lights/craft in the forest. They
also spoke of something new which is about to break with
the case, 8 pages of binary numbers that were apparently
"downloaded" into Jim's head. Probably many of you will
have already heard of this, and I apologise if someone's
already mentioned it elsewhere on here, but it's the first
I'd heard about it. If you haven't heard of this already,
apparently the binary numbers translate to some kind of
message which is going to be revealed in a History channel
documentary airing tomorrow.
This caused some backlash from the crowd who questioned
why it was only coming out now so long after the incident,
a valid point to make of course, but Jim!
's answers to this seemed reasonable enough. Plus someone
has tested the note paper and ink to prove he wrote it back
in 1980. They wouldn't reveal what the message was at all
(due to wanting all the evidence to be shown at once, and
also probably due to contractual obligations with the
TV company), however we've only got to wait till tomorrow
to find out.
Nick Pope gave a brief chat about the involvement of the
MOD with the case, then there was a pretty extensive Q&A
session. After that was over about 11.30pm many people then
headed out to the forest. It was very dark, cold and foggy
which added to the atmosphere I thought. The camera crew
who had been filming the conference continued filming, and
I'd say there were about 100 people present. We first headed
for the East Gate, where Jim and John shared with everyone
how they had first caught sight of the lights in the forest.
We then backtracked to the edge of the trees by the visitors
car park, where they continued to talk about their approach
to the object and what they remembered taking place.
It was pretty late by this time but I needed a look at Carpal
Green, the location of the 3rd night's incident (it was my
first time at the forest). So me, my brother and father
headed out into the forest along the UFO trail until we
finally arrived at the field. It was pitch black and extremely
foggy by this time, but we didn't see anything out of the
ordinary. Couldn't even see the lighthouse in the distance,
I assume because of the fog. After some photos out at the
field we then returned to the car and headed for home.
Arrived back in Brum about 6am tanked up on Red Bull!
Overall it was a superb evening and I was very glad I made
it down there, especially considering the significance of the
event.
Dave Hodrien
Birmingham UFO Group Chairman/Investigator
www.bufog.com