Post by Timeline on Nov 8, 2012 15:33:14 GMT -5
Hi,
A few years ago I was very interested in this case and put together a timeline using as much sources as possible.
It has been sitting on my hard disk for a few years now (I lost interest in the case due to the attitude and motives of some of the witnesses).
It took quite some effort to put together, and I'd hate to see it go to waste.
So here it is to use and share for anybody still interested.
Enjoy! For the rest I'm done with this case ...
---- Night of 25/26 December:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ‘D Flight’ team is finishing up their last swing shift (15:00 – 23:00) when a Woodbridge Patrol calls in a report of strange lights outside of the base. [Egercic, LEAG]
Somewhere between 0:00 and 01:00, Richard Bertolino and his colleague see a bright object traversing the sky that seems to be falling between the two bases. They continue their perimeter check, and:
“all of a sudden, on the radio, someone starts yelling ‘there is a UFO out here’.” [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
Some object was also seen on radar:
“Heathrow tower and the eastern radar was called by CSC [Central Security Control] and reported they spotted a object on radar over Woodbridge and then lost it on radar that is why we went into the forest looking for a downed aircraft.” [Burroughs, forum of rendlesham incident site].
“The London tower, on December 25 when all this started, contacted the tower at Woodbridge base and asked them to identify the object that was above them because it was on their radar and they could not determine what it was.” [Nevels, Earthfiles interview]
Chris Armold remembers a call from John Burroughs:
“After midnight, John Burroughs radioed the LE desk and reported he had seen strange lights in the outside the East Gate on RAF Woodbridge. I was actually on RAF Lakenheath hanging out at the Law Enforcement Desk at the time.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
Burroughs was one of the primary witnesses that night. Burroughs’ official witness statement:
“On the night of 25-26 dec at around 0300 while on patrol down at east gate myself & my partner saw lights coming from the woods due east of the gate. The lights were red and blue the red one above the blue one and they were flashing on and off. Because I’ve never saw anything like that coming from the woods before we decided to drive down and see what it was. We went down east gate road and took a right at the stop sign and drove down about 10 to 20 yards to where there is a road that goes into the forest. At the road I could see a white light shining onto the trees and I could still see the red & blue lights. We decided we better go call it in so we went back up towards east gate. I was watching the lights and the white light started coming down the road that leads into the forest. We got to the gate and called it in. The whole time I could see the lights and the white light was almost at the edge of the road and the blue and red lights were still out in the woods.
A security unit was sent down to the gate and when they got there they could see it too.” [Burroughs, official witness statement]
The security unit that is sent to the East Gate at Burroughs’ request consists of the other two primary witnesses of that night: Jim Penniston and his driver, Ed Cabansag. [Buran, official witness statement] [Chandler, official witness statement] [Cabansag, official witness statement].
When Penniston and Cabansag arrive at East Gate, Bertolino and his colleague are listening to their radio transmissions:
“he [Penniston] was saying ‘the woods are all lit up, the woods are all lit up’. (…) At about that time he [Penniston] reported he saw a blue and orange beacon type light.” “They were told to go out and investigate.” [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
John Burroughs joins Penniston and Cabansag as they go into the forest to investigate. [Buran, official witness statement] [Chandler, official witness statement] [Cabansag, official witness statement].
While Penniston, Cabansag, and Burroughs are moving into the forest, Bertolino and his colleague climb ‘bunker hill’, a bunker on a hill in the flight line, to find out if they can see anything.
Bertolino: “One thing I’ll never forget was we saw a luminescent glow. It almost had a dome quality to it, like it lit a certain area and that was it. It was a strange light, probably the size of a football field.” “All of a sudden Jim [Penniston] comes back ‘cause the light went out, the bright light. He goes ‘it’s dark out here’ and I’ll never forget him saying that the blue and orange beacon light are still there.” [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
The dome-shaped glow that Bertolino witnessed can also be found in one of Penniston’s drawings and witness statement: “The area in front of us was lighting up a 30 meter area”.
Penniston reports in his official witness statement that they drove towards the area where the lights were seen, via a logging road. Then they proceeded on foot into the forest and approached the lights:
“When we got within a 50 meter distance, the object was producing red and blue light. The blue light was steady and projecting under the object. It was lighting up the area directly under extending a meter or two out.” [Penniston, official witness statement]
At this point of positive identification he also reported “that it was definitely mechanical in nature.” [Penniston, official witness statement]
The fact that Penniston reported a mechanical object is confirmed in the official witness statements from Chandler, who was acting as a radio relay at the edge of the forest, and from Buran, who was in charge of the operation by radio from the Central Security Control building. [Chandler, official witness statement] [Buran, official witness statement]
John Burroughs’ drawing of the object shows a red & orange sphere that “would move back + forth, up + down”. When it was sitting in one place, a wide, conical red and orange ‘beam’ would point downwards from the bottom of the sphere, with blue lights inside the beam that blink on and off. Below this conical beam, a white light would come out in the trees. [Burroughs, official witness statement]
Later, on the Rendlesham forum, he stated: ““Penniston from the beginning stated he felt it was a craft I was farther away from it and did not feel it was a craft for sure. The lights around it were very bright.” [Burroughs, forum of rendlesham incident site].
About three weeks later, Halt informs the MOD in a memo: “The object was described as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two meters high.” [Halt, official memo to MOD]
As the men approach the object it leaves the area and disappears.
Penniston put in his official witness statement: “This [50 meters] is the closest point that I was near the object at any point. We then proceeded after it. It moved in a zigzagging manner back through the wood then lost sight of it.” [Penniston, official witness statement]
According to Penniston, Burroughs was at a distance of 15-20 meters from him:
“Burroughs and I were approx. 15-20 meters apart and proceeding on a true East direction from the logging road.” [Penniston, official witness statement].
Burroughs put in his official witness statement: “the woods lit up and you could hear the farm animals making a lot of noise and there was a lot of movement in the woods. All three of us hit the ground and whatever it was started moving back towards the open field and after a min or two we got up and moved into the trees and the lights moved out into the open field. We got up to a fence
that separated the trees from the open field and you could see the lights down by a farmer’s house. We climbed over the fence and started heading towards the red and blue lights and they just disappeared.” [Burroughs, official witness statement].
[ Note: The agitation of the farm animals reported by Burroughs is confirmed in the official witness statements from Chandler, who was acting as a radio relay at the edge of the forest and in Halt’s memo to the MOD. [Chandler, official witness statement] [Halt, official memo to MOD] ]
The official witness statement of Cabansag (who was probably some distance behind Burroughs) states:
“While we walked, each one of us could see the lights. Blue, red, white, and yellow. The beacon light turned out to be the yellow light. We would see them periodically, but not in a specific pattern. As we approached, the lights would seem to be at the edge of the forest. We were about 100 meters from the edge of the forest when I saw a quick movement, it look visible for a moment. It look like it spun left a quarter of a turn, then it was gone. I advised SSgt Penniston and AIC Burroughs. We advised CSC [Central Security Control] and proceeded in extreme caution. (…) As we entered the forest, the blue and red lights were not visible anymore..” [Cabansag, official witness statement].
The fact that Cabansag ‘advised’ Penniston and Burroughs when he saw ‘a quick movement, then it was gone’ seems to indicate he was some distance behind them and needed to contact them by radio.
Georgina Bruni interviewed Cabansag late in the nineties for her book ‘You can’t tell the people’.
In that interview Cabansag stated: “It was cone-shaped – egg-shaped, with lights running around its belt from left to right. They were blue, white and red lights, flashing, sometimes rapid, sometimes slow. Then we saw flakes of metal coming from it.” [Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
In a message to Larry Warren, Cabansag stated: “Someone was inside that damned thing, you could feel it. (…). Rumors? Bullshit. No one was talking…. But it was not from Earth” [Cabansag, LEAG].
The official witness statements of the three primary witnesses may have been watered down, because Col Conrad, the base commander, told in an interview:
“I believe the SP’s [Security Policemen] decided to keep everything low key, this being indicated by a change to the blotter entry concerning that early morning time frame.”
Col Conrad also stated: “Those with firsthand accounts were citing career concerns as justification for remaining silent.” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview] ]
Sometime during their chase, the object seems to have appeared behind them:
According to Conrad, Penniston told him:
“it disappeared beyond a small rise in the direction of a farm house. After a short pause, we decided we had had enough and headed back toward [Chandler] and the jeep. With a quick glance over the shoulder we saw the thing again back at the hill, this time coming toward us. We ran to get away, but within two seconds it was up and gone.” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
Bertolino was listening to the radio traffic while the men were in the woods.
Bertolino: “As they were going into the woods I’ll never forget the one transmission that first made my hair stand up – and it still does to this day. You could hear a little heavy breathing walking through the woods, and he [Penniston] says ‘security control the object is about 150 feet in front of us’. And then - I mean it was just a matter of a couple of seconds - he comes back and is breathing a little heavier and he goes ‘security, do you copy that the object is behind us now?’ “ [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview].
The fact that the object was behind them is also supported in a letter Larry Warren wrote to his mother on 6 January 1981:
“Then all of a sudden the light went out – and over the radio they said they didn’t like the situation and wanted to go back to base – but they were told to keep on investigating. Then they said the thing appeared behind them – it seemed like it was playing games” [Warren, LEAG]
In his official witness statement, Buran – who was leading the operation by radio from the Central Security Control building – states:
“SSgt Penniston reported getting near ‘the object’ and then all of a sudden said they had gone past it and were looking at a marker beacon that was in the same general direction as the other lights. I asked him, through SSgt Coffey, if he could have been mistaken, to which Penniston replied had I seen the other lights I would know the difference. SSgt Penniston seemed somewhat agitated at this point. They continued to look further, to no avail.” [Buran, official witness statement].
After the object is gone the men only see a beacon light in the same general direction as the other lights. They decide to follow it and walk up to a vantage point where they identify it as a lighthouse (the Orford Ness Lighthouse).
Cabansag’s statement (note that Cabansag probably was further back): “Only the beacon light was still blinking. (…) nothing was visible when we passed through the woody forest. We could see a glowing near the beacon light, but as we got closer we found it to be a lit up farmhouse (…) we ran and walked a good two miles past our vehicle, until we got to a vantage point where we could determine that what we were chasing was only a beacon light off in the distance.” [Cabansag, official witness statement]
Burroughs’ statement: “Once we reached the farmer’s house we could see a beacon going around so we went towards it. We followed it for about 2 miles before we caught(?) it was coming from a light house.” [Burroughs, official witness statement]
The beacon light is not mentioned in Penniston’s (short) witness statement.
Buran decides to terminate the investigation and orders all units back to their normal duties:
“At approximately 0354 hrs [maybe this should have been ‘approximately 03:45 hrs’?], I terminated the investigation and ordered all units back to their normal duties.” [Buran, official witness statement].
Bertolino: “Pretty soon they came back and we had radio silence. I still don’t know how that happened because from what I understand they still had their same radios but we could no longer pick up transmissions after about 45 minutes to an hour.”
Security Control called for radio silence. Since there is nothing more to see or hear, Bertolino and his colleague continue their regular patrols and security checks. They do not receive any further radio transmissions, which is unusual. [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
The radio silence is also remembered by Jerry Valdez, who joined a team that went to East Gate to check out the situation:
“Radio communications were disrupted on and off due to some type of atmospheric disturbance. The radios weren't working at all that night. (…) We switched channels all night. Contact had been lost with Burroughs, Penniston and Beachum [this probably should have been Cabansag?]” [Valdez, James Easton interview]
Halt’s memo to the MOD mentions a sighting of the object near the back gate (East Gate) about an hour after Penniston, Burroughs, and Cabansag were send out to investigate:
“The object was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near the back gate.“ [Halt, official memo to MOD]
Jerry Valdez, who joined a team that went to East Gate to check out the situation, remembers seeing the object near the East Gate:
“I could clearly see the lights from the gate, just outside the back gate [east gate]. It was next to the road. They were intermittent lights, very bright, 15-20 feet above the ground. They were pulsating and from what I recall there were 3 lights, red green and blue. It made no noise, but it defied gravity. It was really weird and scary. We all knew what we were looking at, but no one really came out and said it.” [Valdez, James Easton interview]
In the meantime, Penniston, Burroughs, and Cabansag are walking back to their vehicle. According to Cabansag, the men split up on their way back:
“CSC terminated our investigation. A1C Burroughs and I took a road, while SSgt Penniston walked straight back from where we came.” [Cabansag, official witness statement]
Possibly Penniston walked straight back because, according to Chandler,
“While en route out of the area he reported seeing lights again almost in direct pass where they had passed earlier. Shortly after this they reported the lights were no longer visible.” [Chandler, official witness statement]
Chandler could have been referring to a blue streaking light that the men see on their way back.
Cabansag: “A1C Burroughs saw the light again, this time it was coming from the left of us as we were walking back to our patrol vehicle. We got in contact with SSgt Penniston and took a walk to where we saw the lights. Nothing.” [Cabansag, official witness statement]
Burroughs: “We had just crossed a creak and were told to come back when we saw a blue light to our left in the trees. It was only there for a min and it streaked away.” [Burroughs, official witness statement]
Penniston: “On the way back we encountered a blue streaking light on left lasting only a few seconds.” [Penniston, official witness statement].
In the meantime, the Suffolk police are called. The time of the call is logged as 04:11 in the Suffolk Police log. The person at the Bentwaters LE desk who made the call was Chris Armold [Suffolk police, official log]
Armold: “I'm certain the decision to call the local constabulary was one that was made late in the morning and with hesitation. You see no one was particularly eager to call the local police and ask silly questions about UFO's.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
The Suffolk police is informed by the Bentwaters Law Enforcement desk that unarmed troops are in the woods to investigate unusual lights in the sky, and:
“we [the USAF] are terming it as a UFO at present”.
The police contact air traffic control West Dayton and learn that reports were received of aerial phenomena over Southern England during the night. They decide to go and take a look. [Suffolk police, official log].
One of the Police Constables that responded to the 04:11 call was Dave King. He was interviewed by Georgina Bruni:
“We were actually on our way to visit the Bentwaters LE desk when the call came through. When we arrived at the Bentwaters base we were escorted through the back gate to the East Gate sentry post and were then taken to the forest by some security policemen. We had to follow their vehicle. They took us toward the spot where they said the other SP’s had gone and we were told they were still out there. We had to park the car and walk on foot. The Americans didn’t come with us. (…) We walked about half a mile into the forest (…) there were no Americans there, not a soul. We walked for some thirty minutes.” [Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
Cabansag reports in his official witness statement: “Finally, we made it back to our vehicle, after making contact with the PC’s and informing them of what we saw.” [Cabansag, official witness statement]
Penniston states: “After a 45 min. walk arrived at our vehicle.” [Penniston, official witness statement]. So they probably arrived at their vehicle around 04:40, 45 minutes after Buran terminated the investigation.
Jerry Valdez, who joined a team that went to East Gate to check out the situation, also remembers how the men finally showed up:
“Burroughs and Penniston finally showed up. I somehow think something happened to them. They were acting strange. We were then told to go back to our posts.” [Valdez, James Easton interview]
Around that time Armold drives to Woodbridge to check out the situation. There he meets Burroughs at the East Gate and goes back into the woods with him:
“I cruised out to Woodbridge after my Flight Chief said it would be okay to check it out.” (…) “I met Burroughs at the East Gate of Woodbridge. We left our guns with the guy riding with Burroughs and drove to the end of the long access road. We left our vehicle and walked out there.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
Armold also remembers meeting Police Constables that arrived at the site:
“I believe we (Burroughs and I) met up with two constables who drove up in a small marked vehicle on the main road that connects to the East Gate access. I have to believe the conversation we had with them was of little consequence as I don't recall re-entering the woods with them or spending much time chit-chatting about the issue.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
The Police Constables report back and leave the forest:
“Only lights visible this area was from Orford Light House. Search made of area – negative.” [Suffolk police, official log]
Armold, too, saw nothing unusual while he was in the forest with Burroughs:
“There was absolutely nothing in the woods. We could see lights in the distance and it appeared unusual as it was a sweeping light, (we did not know about the lighthouse on the coast at the time). We also saw some strange colored lights in the distance but were unable to determine what they were.” ”The lights were primarily white and were very small, far off in the distance. Occasionally one would see a shade of blue or red but I attribute that to refraction from stained glass windows in a local church in addition to the fog and weather at the time.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
According to Armold, he and Burroughs found three depressions in the ground of the dark forest:
“Eventually we found three depressions in the ground, about the diameter of a coffee can in a triangular pattern. However, there was no damage to trees or scorch marks, or any damage to any plant life in the area. We noted the location of the impressions and departed the area.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
-----26 December:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Early in the morning, directly after their 23:00 – 07:00 midnight shift (i.e. a few hours after the strange encounter in the woods), Bertolino sits right next to Penniston in the bus that takes them back to the dorm, via the armory (to hand in their weapons). According to Bertolino, Penniston seems shook up, you can tell that something happened to him. Bertolino is anxious to know what happened, so Penniston tells Bertolino about his encounter. He tells he was glad they did not take their weapons out there, because they would probably have turned into pairs of ‘smoking boots’ if they would have shot at ‘this thing’.
Bertolino: “He [Penniston] pulled out this little notebook that he used to write incidents in if he was called to an incident – he always kept notes. He pulls out the notebook and he diagrams what he saw out there. It was kind of diamond shaped with tripod legs and he explained that it wasn’t like any metal he had ever seen.”
“There were people there when we turned in our weapons - kaki style pants, military haircut with glasses - that took Cabansag, Longero [this probably should have been Burroughs?], and Penniston for questioning, for debriefing.”
“One thing that drove me nuts from that day forward was, here’s guys that, .., we put our lives on the line for each other, we would fight side by side and die with each other if we had to …, these guys wouldn’t talk about it anymore. I felt kind of betrayed.” “What was said to them to clam them up so tight I don’t know.”
[Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
The witnesses arrive at the shift commander’s office. Major Ed Drury was in the shift commander’s office when some of the witnesses were making their statements:
“There was a pile of them because I recall going through them. On reading the statements I understood that it wasn’t very big [the object] but it was bigger than a mini. There were marks on the trees, quite high up and someone said they’d walked up to it [the object] and it had left depressions. I went out during the day and saw the marks on the trees and the ground depressions, which weren’t that deep, well defined and I suggested we send someone out there to do some readings [Geiger counter readings].” [Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
The Suffolk police is contacted again at 10:30 that a place has been found where a craft of some sort seems to have landed, approximately 2 miles due east of East Gate. This is about a mile to the east of the farmer’s field. The police find three marks which do not follow a set pattern. They are not impressed. They report that the marks are of no depth, and could have been made by an animal. [Suffolk police, official log]
Armold remembers: “In the morning several of us were asked if we would return to the area to point out the depressions to some folks who I believe were from environmental health. They did have some type of instrument for detecting radiation and I believe they did detect some measure of radiation, however I don't think it was a significant amount.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
Jerry Valdez remembers seeing ‘people in white overcoats’:
“When we went out the East gate back to Bentwaters, leaving Woodbridge, there were many people, including numerous people in typical lab coats making an analysis of the area. You could see out the vehicle to the right side, that there were many people examining the area, searching, looking for something. Some of these people were in white overcoats, that's why I say that they looked like typical techs in lab coats. They were searching the area in front of the forest.” [Valdez, James Easton interview]
Burroughs states on the Rendlesham forum: “Penniston and I were told to go to the shift commanders office and after we were finished we went out to the site. There were already people at the area where we were the night before. I don’t remember who they were for sure but they were dayshift personnel and I don’t know how they found the area. We looked around at the damage done to the trees and area that had the marks. Again I will not be able to tell you who found the area first or much about what was found - I just took a quick look. The people who were out there were involved with the British police and the area in question. If I remember right 2 of the names were Capt Verrano and Msgt Guylouis and I also believe the ops Commander Maj Drury showed up...” “If I remember right they were in the trees i.e. there were trees but there was a small area within the trees that they found the marks and damage to the trees.” [Burroughs, forum of rendlesham incident site]
After the bus arrives at the dorm, Bertolino’s shift is over. He later puts on his civilian clothes and goes out into the woods with a few other people. They see some security police vehicles. Captain Verrano shows them a triangular shape on the ground with circular indentations (9-10 inches across and about 4 to 5 feet apart). Verrano also shows them – using a Geiger counter - that the radiation peaks in the center of the triangular pattern. Bertolino notices broken limbs on the trees. Later he hears that there may be other landing sites. [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
About three weeks later, Halt informs the MOD that three depressions 1.5 inches deep and 7 inches in diameter were found where the object had been sighted on the ground. [Halt, official memo to MOD]
Col. Conrad, the Base Commander, only hears about the events late that evening:
“I believe the SP’s decided to keep everything low key, this being indicated by a change to the blotter entry concerning that early morning time frame. In any event, no notification or report was made to anyone above Major Malcolm Zickler, SP Squadron Commander, until late that evening.” “Sometime between 2100 and 2200 members of the Woodbridge SP shift appeared at a Christmas party at the O’Club where Lt Col Halt and myself were in attendance. They reported the events of the previous night and thinking there might be a recurrence, Halt decided to ride along with the shift leader, which he did. Aside from that, nothing unusual happened.” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
Armold remembers he joined Halt the evening following the incident involving Burroughs, Penniston, and Cabansag:
“Halt essentially said he planned on coming out to the site in the evening and one way or another several of us said we'd keep him company. The guys I remember were John Burroughs, Adrian Bustamante, and me. I think another officer joined Halt, I believe it was Lt Bruce England, but I'm not absolutely certain and maybe two other guys (possibly one named Pennington, just can't remember for sure). There was however, no army of USAF guys out in the woods. No fleet of vehicles, no towed light rigs, just a half-dozen or so of us stomping around goofing off. I brought a camera with me and I think Halt had a tape recorder. We were out there for hours and someone noticed some lights in the distance. While they often seemed to be very close in reality as we tried to approach them we discovered they were very far away. Now don't confuse what I just wrote. Little balls of light were not flying around us or getting closer and flying away. We initially thought the lights were closer than they actually were.” “In the end I would say we were in the woods for 4 or 5 hours.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
-----Night of 26/27 December:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to schedule, the night shift had been taken over from the ‘C-Flight’ team by the ‘D-Flight’ team around 23:00. The C-Flight team is on its three day break (team schedules here).
Lori Buoen, D Flight, is stationed at East Gate for her midnight shift (23:00 – 07:00). This is unusual since this gate is normally left closed and unguarded at night. Sometime during the night she sees a red/orange fiery sphere of light with a blue/white ‘corona’ on the north side of the runway above the woods. The light slowly descends into the dark tree line at the horizon and disappears. She gets scared and calls the Desk Sergeant. After a while, John Trementozzi is sent to join her. [Buoen, Earthfiles interview]
Trementozzi and four of his colleagues also saw lights above the woods. Trementozzi remembers they were red, green and white. They were silent and not blinking. The lights would be in one spot and then disappear, go to another spot and appear again, go to another spot and appear – not in any particular pattern. [Trementozzi, Earthfiles interview]
PC Dave King, who responded to the 04:11 call the night before, was at the Bentwaters LE desk when reports of strange lights came in.
“While I was there another report came in on the radio, a pocket radio, saying that there were lights in the forest at the exact same spot as the previous night. This would now be the early hours of the 27th. I was just about to go and have a look, thinking I might see something this time, when I got an emergency call to attend to a post-office break-in about ten miles away at Otley.” [Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
After Trementozzi has joined Buoen, something peculiar happens: They hear Lt. Bonnie Tamplin panicking on their radio and calling out for her superior, Bobby Ball.
Buoen: “Lt. Bonnie Tamplin was talking to Master Sgt. Bob Ball, Robert Ball. And I just remember the fear in her voice. Then her saying, ‘Bob! Bob! Where are you? I can’t see anything!’ She was scared to death – she was just, ‘Bob, Bob! Where are you? I can’t see anything!’ She was so scared – and this was our Lieutenant!”. [Buoen, Earthfiles interview]
-----27 December:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Early in the morning of Dec 27, John Burroughs waked up with a funny feeling. Even though he is off duty, he goes back to RAF Bentwaters to ask Desk Sergeant O’Brien if something has happened that night. O'Brien tells Burroughs that D Flight’s Shift Commander, Lt. Bonnie Tamplin, had been relieved of her duty because a light entered her vehicle in the forest causing Lt. Tamplin to panic and cry during her radio communications. She was ‘freaked out’ by beams of light that lit up her vehicle and blue lights that passed through her vehicle and caused her vehicle to shut down. They also lost radio contact with her for over 10 min. [Burroughs, forum of rendlesham incident site]
That same day, Col. Conrad, the Base Commander (who first heard about the UFO incidents the evening before), decides to collect more information:
“By the morning of [27 December 1980] I contacted Maj. Zickler for information of the alleged sighting. His information was all second hand and sketchy. Those with firsthand accounts were citing career concerns as justification for remaining silent.”
“Maj Zickler later convinced Sgt [James] Penniston to answer some questions for me. After a sincere guarantee that his report would have no ill effects on his career, Penniston reluctantly told his story. At the end of the session, I asked him to draw a picture of the object he had seen, which he did freehand. Jim Penniston is the only first-hand observer I was able to interview. We kept his name out of any of our correspondence to honor his request.”
“I do recall Penniston's story and he did leave me with a sketch of an object he claimed to have seen. I left the sketch in my desk drawer and the story was summarized in Halt's letter. Here's Penniston's narrative to the best of my recollection. I'm paraphrasing, of course:”
“….The lights were clearly visible when I arrived at the RAF Woodbridge gate. No one knew the source of the lights, but some speculated that it was close enough to the approach path of the runway that it could in fact be a crashed plane. Because of this, it was decided that further investigation was warranted. Burroughs, Cabansag and myself were sent out by jeep. We worked our way toward the still- visible lights by way of a logging road. As we approached close enough to have a clear view of the site, [Burroughs?] decided we were close enough and stopped the vehicle. We were still more than 100 meters away and, wanting a better look, I decided to proceed further on foot. [Burroughs?] accompanied me as we closed on what we began to see was an object with lights on it. Our apprehension began to build, so we stopped about 50 meters away, taking cover behind some brush. After studying the situation for about 10 minutes, we decided to move in yet further for a closer look. Just as we began to close the distance to the object, it began to move away through the trees. The faster we moved toward it the faster it moved away. By the time we arrived at an open field a much greater distance had opened up between us, and soon it disappeared beyond a small rise in the direction of a farm house. After a short pause , we decided we had had enough and headed back toward [Cabansag] and the jeep. With a quick glance over the shoulder we saw the thing again back at the hill, this time coming toward us. We ran to get away, but within two seconds it was up and gone.-------(end of narrative)…”
“I asked [Penniston] for a description of the object. Penniston said he didn't get close enough for a detailed look. What he saw was generally rectangular in shape and slightly larger than a jeep in size. The object was mostly obscured by two horizontal rows of very bright closely spaced lights, one row white, the other light blue. He thought one row ran along the top, the other row around the middle. Again his distance from the object and the brightness of the lights obscured any further detailed observance.” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
Col. Conrad decides that a brief in-house investigation is in order.
“Frankly at this point, Lt Col Halt and I were discussing what level of involvement was required from my office. We knew that silence would likely lead to allegation of cover up. With the rumor mill already operating it was a matter of time before the press got the story. We did not want the press to report the appearance of misinformation or cover up. We decided that a brief in-house investigation was in order. If we could find any credible evidence to justify a request for more high-tech investigators, then we would be in a position to pass the entire episode on to the British authorities. If any meaningful evidence were not found, we would document that fact and close the entire episode down by providing our facts to authorities in a low key manner. Events dictated the latter approach.” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
That afternoon, Col. Conrad orders an investigation that involves Monroe Nevels, his disaster preparedness officer.
On Saturday afternoon on Dec 27, at around 16:00, Lt Englund picks up Nevels at his home.
Nevels: “I was in my home on Woodbridge base and I got a knock on the door. Lieutenant Englund from the Security Police came in, started walking and looking throughout my home to see if there was anybody else there with me. And I told him that yes my daughter was there, she was three years old. He said ‘well does she understand what I’m talking about because what I’m about to say is top secret. He said ‘I am here because I was sent by the Base Commander, Colonel Conrad. He asked me to come to here and pick you up, and let me go into detail what he said.’ So then he started going back and relating all the incidents as of the UFO on December 25 through that time frame.
The story that I got from Lieutenant Englund was that the London tower, on December 25 when all this started, contacted the tower at Woodbridge base and asked them to identify the object that was above them because it was on their radar and they could not determine what it was.
Lieutenant Englund told me that one of the airmen had been taken aboard the spacecraft. He just basically went through and told me about Sergeant Jim Penniston and John Burroughs were involved – I do remember the names were mentioned – and he said ‘even to the point that someone had been abducted into the aircraft’ and he said ‘the reason Colonel Conrad has asked for me to come and get you because he felt that if he wanted an honest answer from anybody then you would give it to him.’ So it’s my orders, they are down at the Woodbridge officer’s club and they are having a party down there – and when we get through on out investigation he’ll be waiting for us and we need to go back and report to him what you saw.
So we left at about 16:30 that day and we went over to Bentwaters and carried my daughter with me to the Chaplin because my wife was over there at a Chaplin’s event for the ladies. And .. we got back in the Jeep, and we had light scopes, the night vision goggles, we had those with us, and I had my camera, and when we got there, at the scene, we went to Rendlesham Forest and he began to pinpoint things that had happened.
When we went out there to do the investigation he stopped the Jeep and said ‘well right here is where we need to stop’. It was dark and I never went out that way before. I was astounded – told myself ‘man those trees are tall’, and he said ‘yes and they said that the craft that came in, it did not break any limbs and came right through the trees and sat down.’ It’s an impossible thing in our realm, but not impossible from what they were doing.
And he took me to the site of the landing, and I proceeded to go into the area, and I looked around to see what I could find, I took my camera, and when we got in there I saw the three indentations in the ground. And I looked at that. And when we get back in the Jeep and slowly headed back toward the East Gate, underway I looked out and saw the bright light in the forest. At that time I wasn’t looking through the night vision goggles, all I saw was the light with my naked eye.
It was probably about that time at least seven or eight o’clock in the evening – we stayed out there for some time – and as I looked I grabbed my night vision goggles I had, and I looked through them and when I did, what I saw was the bright green through that picking up from the heat from the object. But what I saw was something that looked like an eyeball, and it was very green around it but inside it looked like a pupil of an eye. And it would just pulsate very slowly .. until I would get out of the Jeep. I had Lieutenant Englund stop the Jeep and I got out, and when I got out the lights got brighter, like they knew I was there. And I said ‘I’m gonna get back in the Jeep and see what happens’, and about that time I had static all over my hair and my arms and everything and I knew something was wrong – like you would say ‘static in the air’. And I naturally got scared too, because I didn’t know what I was looking at. So I get back in the Jeep and when I get back in the Jeep he’s a little bit agitated but then I could see the light would get dim. And then I move out and start to open my door and it would get bright again. But what it would do is just sit there and pulsate.
Finally I said ‘OK now we can go’. And we got back to the Woodbridge officer’s club, and when we got in the … [unintelligible] went to Colonel Conrad, Colonel Conrad came out and ushered both of us in. And inside that room I saw Colonel Halt, Colonel Conrad, I believe Colonel Williams was there - I’m not sure but I think he was, the Security Police Chief was there – and he was in uniform. So when I got in, we discussed a little bit about what I saw and then he asked me ‘Sergeant Nevels, do you think that it warrants further investigation?’ And I said ‘yes, sir, most definitely.’ That’s when Colonel Halt jumped in and began to assemble a team, and we went back from there to the base, over at Bentwaters, and I picked up a Radiac instrument.”
[Nevels, Earthfiles interview]
Halt remembers: “the duty flight commander for the security police unit [Englund] rushed in to a belated Christmas party white as a sheet. `The UFO is back,' he said.” "I was asked to investigate.” [Halt, Sally Rayl interview]
Col. Conrad does not mention the investigation by Nevels but states:
“The rest of [27 December 1980] saw Lt Col Halt assemble our meager assets. These were a Geiger counter, starlight scope (night vision device) and trained SP investigators out at the site in Rendlesham Forest.” “Halt spent most of that day with the investigators, the starlight scope and Geiger counter.”
“After sundown he [Halt] went back to the forest with his tape recorder, and reported seeing lights that night. This was actually early morning” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
----Night of 27/28 December:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Normally, Greg Battram was working in the back-office. Once or twice a month the people from the back-office “had an alert over there for exercises and things” “And during those times, all the back-office people would go on a security post, additional posting and stuff out there.”
Possibly the back-office people were used as additional posting because of the strange events on 25/26 December, since a lot of the regular SP’s were not at the base due to the Christmas period.
Greg remembers he was out there for his second night:
“Nothing going on but we all still had to be there, and we were driving around on Woodbridge base on a perimeter patrol, and we saw some lights up in the sky, and it looked a lot different from any other aircraft we had ever seen.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
He probably already picked up rumors from the night of 25/26 December, because the night before (26/27 December) he had thought “now I get to see if these guys are really high or if they're really seeing something. The night it happened it was like – ‘Holy shit! there must be something in the water’.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
In a 1984 CNN documentary Battram tells:
“We were about halfway into the shift, I guess, when we noticed some lights in the sky that didn’t seem to follow any pattern of any aircraft we’d seen. And we watched them for a while and they disappeared. And the next thing we saw was the lights in the forest … in a clearing off the end of the runway. And we called Central Security Control to tell them we’d like to go investigate it, and they gave us permission to go on out.” “I looked like a fire at first, that’s what we thought it was.” [Battram, Chuck DeCaro interview, CNN documentary]
Bustinza remembers how he got a report of a ‘fire in the forest’:
“We were in the alert area [at Bentwaters], and I was on my way over to RAF Woodbridge base at around midnight. While we were over there, one of my patrols sighted an object of some sort. He didn't describe it, he just said it was like a fire in the forest area. I notified my acting commander -- which was Lieutenant Englund -- and he went ahead and called the Commander that night -- which was Colonel Halt -- and he told Lieutenant Englund to check out the situation. We proceeded to check out the situation -- myself, Lt. Englund, and Sergeant Ball.” [Bustinza, Ray Boeche interview]
In the meantime, Battram and a few other men have gotten permission to go into the forest and there they see something strange. They experience static electricity all over them and decide to run back:
“As we got in there, we could see into the clearing and see a series of lights in there surrounded by like a ground fog. It was kind of common of the area so we did not really think much of it. And we decided to get a little bit closer to see what we could find out. And when we got closer, you began to feel the hair on your arms, and the back of your neck, under your hat even, stand on end. Like there was a real big static charge in the air.
We began to feel the hair on our arms stand up and we could see into the clearing and see a set of lights that seemed to be alternating through different color ranges but it was predominantly a red or reddish-orange hue to it. I looked like a fire at first, that’s what we thought it was. … red or reddish orange color but it had other colors moving around in it. We didn’t know what we were encountering and we knew it was something that .. uh .. that was totally beyond our realm of experience .. we’d never experienced anything like this before. And about that time, we decided that we’d better get the heck out of there ’cause we were getting a little too scared to .. uh .. just stick around and we saw some other people coming up from one of the access roads.” [Battram, Chuck DeCaro interview, CNN documentary]
Englund was one of the people who Battram remembers coming up from the access road, he also thinks Larry Warren was with them:
“and when we left we met up with Lieutenant Englund as I remember it…anyway he was the only officer I knew; and some security police come over from Bentwaters. I think Larry was with them.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Battram remembers he was ordered back to the Woodbridge perimeter by Englund:
“We just told them the whole bit and he said, ‘OK, head on back.’ So we did”. “Then we went back to the perimeter of Woodbridge and stuck around there. We could see some activity over there but that was it.” “We were just chattering our heads off about what we had seen. We weren't really paying too much attention to our surroundings. We went off and parked some place.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Battram also remembers a helicopter:
“We could see one of them out there hovering around. Up above the normal parking area.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Bustinza also talks about helicopters being scrambled:
“a squadron, pararescue squadron was activated. Woodbridge they weren’t very far away as a matter of fact.” [Bustinza, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
According to Battram, twenty to thirty people were out there. Battram himself eventually went to the other end of the base:
“then we got off at the other end of the base there and got involved with exercises and horsing around and stuff. Never did see any more from that point on. The next day was when we heard all the silly stories and stuff.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Bustinza, too, says that “at least thirty people” were out there. [Bustinza, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Bustinza remembers he went into the forest with Ball and another officer, where they find the object:
We started to search. … One individual [Battram?] had said that he had spotted the object -- like sitting on the ground. We proceeded to look and in the process found kind of like triangular tripods … burned into the [ground] at 3 different standpoints. … They were like it was a heavy object. They [later?] took radiation readings of the holes. And they got a radiation reading as I recall. Then I recall that we were walking through the woods and came upon the lights again. And that's when I first saw the object …”
“We got -- I think it was the flight chief [Sergeant Ball] and I believe another individual officer. We kept searching the area -- kind of like trying to follow the object. And it was moving through the trees. And in the process, we came upon a yellow mist about 2-or-3 feet off the ground. It was like dew, but yellow … like nothing I've ever seen before. … We kind of like ignored it. We were worried about the object … to see if we could locate it again or catch up to it again …”
“We did see the object again. It was hovering low, like moving up-and-down anywhere from 10-to-20 feet -- back up, back down, back up. There was a red light on top and there were several blue lights on the bottom. But there was also an effect maybe like a prism … with rainbow lights on top, scattered about .. [and] several other colors of light. It was weird … It was a tremendous size. It even surprised me that it was able to fit into the clearing. A tremendous size -- and I use the word 'tremendous' carefully. It was a round, circular shape. I hate to say like a "plate", but it was thicker at the center than it was at the edge.” [Bustinza, Ray Boeche interview]
“It flew toward the wooded area. You know I didn’t like when I saw it up close. I couldn’t understand how a big thing–that big–could go in. It seemed like this thing was going dashing in between the trees. We were chasing it for a while.” [Bustinza, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
“When I arrived it was going in and out through the trees, and at one stage it was hovering. Then it went over to a clearing at the edge of the forest. By the time we got to the clearing it had already landed.”
“There was a landed craft. There was a yellowish haze on the ground; it came up to about knee level, like a low fog, it was very yellow. Everything was so weird, animals were acting strange and nobody had a sense of direction. People had camera equipment, not the normal equipment, and there was a lot of it.”
[Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
In a later interview with Larry Fawcett, Bustinza describes the object as circular shaped, thick in the middle, and it narrows out toward the edges. It is about forty feet (12 meters) wide and more than twelve feet (3,5 meters) in height. The body of the machine is blackish grayish, and it has all kinds of lights that are so bright that only certain parts of the craft can be seen. There are a bunch of little gadgets on it, but no engines are visible. [Bustinza, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Bustinza does not remember how long the object was on the ground, but he does remember how it suddenly took off:
"It was gone in a flash, almost like it just disappeared. When it left, we were hit by a cold blast of wind which blew toward us for 5-or-10 seconds. … It was a really scary feeling. … I was just frozen in place at first … my life actually passed in front of my eyes." [Bustinza, Ray Boeche interview]
“It turned, like, into a ball of light. And it was like a glow around it, and it just took off.” [Bustinza, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
It is unclear whether Halt was already there during this encounter. It is entirely possible that he first gave his orders by radio and was driven to the site in a hurry just after the strange object departed.
According to Conrad: “After sundown he [Halt] went back to the forest with his tape recorder, and reported seeing lights that night. This was actually early morning” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
Another witness, Randi Smith, remembers how Bob Ball collected Halt at Bentwaters and drove him to the site in a hurry:
“Not long after the shift began, perhaps midnight or so, I heard Bob Ball come over the radio and request that the aircraft control tower give him permission to cross the active runway, it saves 15 minutes driving time, as opposed to driving the perimeter road. At that point I knew SOMETHING was happening because no-one ever crossed the active runway unless there was an extreme emergency. Bob, perhaps logically accompanied by Lt. Bruce Englund, crossed the runway on Bentwaters, they picked up Lt. Col. Halt and some equipment and returned by the same route. I would say that between 30 minutes to an hour had passed since Bob made his first request to cross. They then proceeded to re-cross the runway, and went out the back gate headed toward RAF Woodbridge.” [Smith, James Easton interview]
Halt tells that when he arrives: “About a dozen of our men were already there. Our light-alls (large gas-powered lights) wouldn't work, and there was so much static and constant interference on our radios that we had to set up a relay. There was increasing commotion. I was determined to show them this was nonsense.” [Halt_Sally_Rayl_interview]
Halt is shocked to see so many men outside the base and sends everyone home except for a handful of men that are selected for a further investigation.
Bustinza remembers what happens when he meets up with Halt that night:
“Colonel Halt later tried to tell us it was our imagination. I remember he approached myself and another, and ordered us to confiscate cameras from some British nationals. I went over and took their cameras and gave them to Colonel Halt. He put them into bags and told us that they would be dealt with at a higher level.” [Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
“What I remember clearly was that when we got there, [Col. Halt] pointed to the individuals that he wanted to go with him. So we went back to Bentwaters base; grabbed 2 "light-alls" and had a patrol refuel them; and once we refueled them, we took them out there to see if we could light up the area to see if there was anything out there. In the process of trying to check the light-alls, everything was malfunctioning. When we got to "Point A" -- the sighting of the object -- we had trouble turning the light-alls 'on'. Our truck wouldn't run either. It was kind of like all the energy had been drained out of both light-all units…” [Bustinza, Ray Boeche interview]
Col Halt has the habit of carrying a memo tape recorder wherever he goes. He carries one with him in the woods that night. The tape he made that night (or at least 18 minutes of it) is in the public domain. On the tape we can hear that Monroe Nevels, Adrian Bustinza, Bob Ball, and Lt. Bruce Englund are with him.
(continued in next message)
A few years ago I was very interested in this case and put together a timeline using as much sources as possible.
It has been sitting on my hard disk for a few years now (I lost interest in the case due to the attitude and motives of some of the witnesses).
It took quite some effort to put together, and I'd hate to see it go to waste.
So here it is to use and share for anybody still interested.
Enjoy! For the rest I'm done with this case ...
---- Night of 25/26 December:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ‘D Flight’ team is finishing up their last swing shift (15:00 – 23:00) when a Woodbridge Patrol calls in a report of strange lights outside of the base. [Egercic, LEAG]
Somewhere between 0:00 and 01:00, Richard Bertolino and his colleague see a bright object traversing the sky that seems to be falling between the two bases. They continue their perimeter check, and:
“all of a sudden, on the radio, someone starts yelling ‘there is a UFO out here’.” [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
Some object was also seen on radar:
“Heathrow tower and the eastern radar was called by CSC [Central Security Control] and reported they spotted a object on radar over Woodbridge and then lost it on radar that is why we went into the forest looking for a downed aircraft.” [Burroughs, forum of rendlesham incident site].
“The London tower, on December 25 when all this started, contacted the tower at Woodbridge base and asked them to identify the object that was above them because it was on their radar and they could not determine what it was.” [Nevels, Earthfiles interview]
Chris Armold remembers a call from John Burroughs:
“After midnight, John Burroughs radioed the LE desk and reported he had seen strange lights in the outside the East Gate on RAF Woodbridge. I was actually on RAF Lakenheath hanging out at the Law Enforcement Desk at the time.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
Burroughs was one of the primary witnesses that night. Burroughs’ official witness statement:
“On the night of 25-26 dec at around 0300 while on patrol down at east gate myself & my partner saw lights coming from the woods due east of the gate. The lights were red and blue the red one above the blue one and they were flashing on and off. Because I’ve never saw anything like that coming from the woods before we decided to drive down and see what it was. We went down east gate road and took a right at the stop sign and drove down about 10 to 20 yards to where there is a road that goes into the forest. At the road I could see a white light shining onto the trees and I could still see the red & blue lights. We decided we better go call it in so we went back up towards east gate. I was watching the lights and the white light started coming down the road that leads into the forest. We got to the gate and called it in. The whole time I could see the lights and the white light was almost at the edge of the road and the blue and red lights were still out in the woods.
A security unit was sent down to the gate and when they got there they could see it too.” [Burroughs, official witness statement]
The security unit that is sent to the East Gate at Burroughs’ request consists of the other two primary witnesses of that night: Jim Penniston and his driver, Ed Cabansag. [Buran, official witness statement] [Chandler, official witness statement] [Cabansag, official witness statement].
When Penniston and Cabansag arrive at East Gate, Bertolino and his colleague are listening to their radio transmissions:
“he [Penniston] was saying ‘the woods are all lit up, the woods are all lit up’. (…) At about that time he [Penniston] reported he saw a blue and orange beacon type light.” “They were told to go out and investigate.” [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
John Burroughs joins Penniston and Cabansag as they go into the forest to investigate. [Buran, official witness statement] [Chandler, official witness statement] [Cabansag, official witness statement].
While Penniston, Cabansag, and Burroughs are moving into the forest, Bertolino and his colleague climb ‘bunker hill’, a bunker on a hill in the flight line, to find out if they can see anything.
Bertolino: “One thing I’ll never forget was we saw a luminescent glow. It almost had a dome quality to it, like it lit a certain area and that was it. It was a strange light, probably the size of a football field.” “All of a sudden Jim [Penniston] comes back ‘cause the light went out, the bright light. He goes ‘it’s dark out here’ and I’ll never forget him saying that the blue and orange beacon light are still there.” [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
The dome-shaped glow that Bertolino witnessed can also be found in one of Penniston’s drawings and witness statement: “The area in front of us was lighting up a 30 meter area”.
Penniston reports in his official witness statement that they drove towards the area where the lights were seen, via a logging road. Then they proceeded on foot into the forest and approached the lights:
“When we got within a 50 meter distance, the object was producing red and blue light. The blue light was steady and projecting under the object. It was lighting up the area directly under extending a meter or two out.” [Penniston, official witness statement]
At this point of positive identification he also reported “that it was definitely mechanical in nature.” [Penniston, official witness statement]
The fact that Penniston reported a mechanical object is confirmed in the official witness statements from Chandler, who was acting as a radio relay at the edge of the forest, and from Buran, who was in charge of the operation by radio from the Central Security Control building. [Chandler, official witness statement] [Buran, official witness statement]
John Burroughs’ drawing of the object shows a red & orange sphere that “would move back + forth, up + down”. When it was sitting in one place, a wide, conical red and orange ‘beam’ would point downwards from the bottom of the sphere, with blue lights inside the beam that blink on and off. Below this conical beam, a white light would come out in the trees. [Burroughs, official witness statement]
Later, on the Rendlesham forum, he stated: ““Penniston from the beginning stated he felt it was a craft I was farther away from it and did not feel it was a craft for sure. The lights around it were very bright.” [Burroughs, forum of rendlesham incident site].
About three weeks later, Halt informs the MOD in a memo: “The object was described as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two meters high.” [Halt, official memo to MOD]
As the men approach the object it leaves the area and disappears.
Penniston put in his official witness statement: “This [50 meters] is the closest point that I was near the object at any point. We then proceeded after it. It moved in a zigzagging manner back through the wood then lost sight of it.” [Penniston, official witness statement]
According to Penniston, Burroughs was at a distance of 15-20 meters from him:
“Burroughs and I were approx. 15-20 meters apart and proceeding on a true East direction from the logging road.” [Penniston, official witness statement].
Burroughs put in his official witness statement: “the woods lit up and you could hear the farm animals making a lot of noise and there was a lot of movement in the woods. All three of us hit the ground and whatever it was started moving back towards the open field and after a min or two we got up and moved into the trees and the lights moved out into the open field. We got up to a fence
that separated the trees from the open field and you could see the lights down by a farmer’s house. We climbed over the fence and started heading towards the red and blue lights and they just disappeared.” [Burroughs, official witness statement].
[ Note: The agitation of the farm animals reported by Burroughs is confirmed in the official witness statements from Chandler, who was acting as a radio relay at the edge of the forest and in Halt’s memo to the MOD. [Chandler, official witness statement] [Halt, official memo to MOD] ]
The official witness statement of Cabansag (who was probably some distance behind Burroughs) states:
“While we walked, each one of us could see the lights. Blue, red, white, and yellow. The beacon light turned out to be the yellow light. We would see them periodically, but not in a specific pattern. As we approached, the lights would seem to be at the edge of the forest. We were about 100 meters from the edge of the forest when I saw a quick movement, it look visible for a moment. It look like it spun left a quarter of a turn, then it was gone. I advised SSgt Penniston and AIC Burroughs. We advised CSC [Central Security Control] and proceeded in extreme caution. (…) As we entered the forest, the blue and red lights were not visible anymore..” [Cabansag, official witness statement].
The fact that Cabansag ‘advised’ Penniston and Burroughs when he saw ‘a quick movement, then it was gone’ seems to indicate he was some distance behind them and needed to contact them by radio.
Georgina Bruni interviewed Cabansag late in the nineties for her book ‘You can’t tell the people’.
In that interview Cabansag stated: “It was cone-shaped – egg-shaped, with lights running around its belt from left to right. They were blue, white and red lights, flashing, sometimes rapid, sometimes slow. Then we saw flakes of metal coming from it.” [Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
In a message to Larry Warren, Cabansag stated: “Someone was inside that damned thing, you could feel it. (…). Rumors? Bullshit. No one was talking…. But it was not from Earth” [Cabansag, LEAG].
The official witness statements of the three primary witnesses may have been watered down, because Col Conrad, the base commander, told in an interview:
“I believe the SP’s [Security Policemen] decided to keep everything low key, this being indicated by a change to the blotter entry concerning that early morning time frame.”
Col Conrad also stated: “Those with firsthand accounts were citing career concerns as justification for remaining silent.” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview] ]
Sometime during their chase, the object seems to have appeared behind them:
According to Conrad, Penniston told him:
“it disappeared beyond a small rise in the direction of a farm house. After a short pause, we decided we had had enough and headed back toward [Chandler] and the jeep. With a quick glance over the shoulder we saw the thing again back at the hill, this time coming toward us. We ran to get away, but within two seconds it was up and gone.” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
Bertolino was listening to the radio traffic while the men were in the woods.
Bertolino: “As they were going into the woods I’ll never forget the one transmission that first made my hair stand up – and it still does to this day. You could hear a little heavy breathing walking through the woods, and he [Penniston] says ‘security control the object is about 150 feet in front of us’. And then - I mean it was just a matter of a couple of seconds - he comes back and is breathing a little heavier and he goes ‘security, do you copy that the object is behind us now?’ “ [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview].
The fact that the object was behind them is also supported in a letter Larry Warren wrote to his mother on 6 January 1981:
“Then all of a sudden the light went out – and over the radio they said they didn’t like the situation and wanted to go back to base – but they were told to keep on investigating. Then they said the thing appeared behind them – it seemed like it was playing games” [Warren, LEAG]
In his official witness statement, Buran – who was leading the operation by radio from the Central Security Control building – states:
“SSgt Penniston reported getting near ‘the object’ and then all of a sudden said they had gone past it and were looking at a marker beacon that was in the same general direction as the other lights. I asked him, through SSgt Coffey, if he could have been mistaken, to which Penniston replied had I seen the other lights I would know the difference. SSgt Penniston seemed somewhat agitated at this point. They continued to look further, to no avail.” [Buran, official witness statement].
After the object is gone the men only see a beacon light in the same general direction as the other lights. They decide to follow it and walk up to a vantage point where they identify it as a lighthouse (the Orford Ness Lighthouse).
Cabansag’s statement (note that Cabansag probably was further back): “Only the beacon light was still blinking. (…) nothing was visible when we passed through the woody forest. We could see a glowing near the beacon light, but as we got closer we found it to be a lit up farmhouse (…) we ran and walked a good two miles past our vehicle, until we got to a vantage point where we could determine that what we were chasing was only a beacon light off in the distance.” [Cabansag, official witness statement]
Burroughs’ statement: “Once we reached the farmer’s house we could see a beacon going around so we went towards it. We followed it for about 2 miles before we caught(?) it was coming from a light house.” [Burroughs, official witness statement]
The beacon light is not mentioned in Penniston’s (short) witness statement.
Buran decides to terminate the investigation and orders all units back to their normal duties:
“At approximately 0354 hrs [maybe this should have been ‘approximately 03:45 hrs’?], I terminated the investigation and ordered all units back to their normal duties.” [Buran, official witness statement].
Bertolino: “Pretty soon they came back and we had radio silence. I still don’t know how that happened because from what I understand they still had their same radios but we could no longer pick up transmissions after about 45 minutes to an hour.”
Security Control called for radio silence. Since there is nothing more to see or hear, Bertolino and his colleague continue their regular patrols and security checks. They do not receive any further radio transmissions, which is unusual. [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
The radio silence is also remembered by Jerry Valdez, who joined a team that went to East Gate to check out the situation:
“Radio communications were disrupted on and off due to some type of atmospheric disturbance. The radios weren't working at all that night. (…) We switched channels all night. Contact had been lost with Burroughs, Penniston and Beachum [this probably should have been Cabansag?]” [Valdez, James Easton interview]
Halt’s memo to the MOD mentions a sighting of the object near the back gate (East Gate) about an hour after Penniston, Burroughs, and Cabansag were send out to investigate:
“The object was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near the back gate.“ [Halt, official memo to MOD]
Jerry Valdez, who joined a team that went to East Gate to check out the situation, remembers seeing the object near the East Gate:
“I could clearly see the lights from the gate, just outside the back gate [east gate]. It was next to the road. They were intermittent lights, very bright, 15-20 feet above the ground. They were pulsating and from what I recall there were 3 lights, red green and blue. It made no noise, but it defied gravity. It was really weird and scary. We all knew what we were looking at, but no one really came out and said it.” [Valdez, James Easton interview]
In the meantime, Penniston, Burroughs, and Cabansag are walking back to their vehicle. According to Cabansag, the men split up on their way back:
“CSC terminated our investigation. A1C Burroughs and I took a road, while SSgt Penniston walked straight back from where we came.” [Cabansag, official witness statement]
Possibly Penniston walked straight back because, according to Chandler,
“While en route out of the area he reported seeing lights again almost in direct pass where they had passed earlier. Shortly after this they reported the lights were no longer visible.” [Chandler, official witness statement]
Chandler could have been referring to a blue streaking light that the men see on their way back.
Cabansag: “A1C Burroughs saw the light again, this time it was coming from the left of us as we were walking back to our patrol vehicle. We got in contact with SSgt Penniston and took a walk to where we saw the lights. Nothing.” [Cabansag, official witness statement]
Burroughs: “We had just crossed a creak and were told to come back when we saw a blue light to our left in the trees. It was only there for a min and it streaked away.” [Burroughs, official witness statement]
Penniston: “On the way back we encountered a blue streaking light on left lasting only a few seconds.” [Penniston, official witness statement].
In the meantime, the Suffolk police are called. The time of the call is logged as 04:11 in the Suffolk Police log. The person at the Bentwaters LE desk who made the call was Chris Armold [Suffolk police, official log]
Armold: “I'm certain the decision to call the local constabulary was one that was made late in the morning and with hesitation. You see no one was particularly eager to call the local police and ask silly questions about UFO's.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
The Suffolk police is informed by the Bentwaters Law Enforcement desk that unarmed troops are in the woods to investigate unusual lights in the sky, and:
“we [the USAF] are terming it as a UFO at present”.
The police contact air traffic control West Dayton and learn that reports were received of aerial phenomena over Southern England during the night. They decide to go and take a look. [Suffolk police, official log].
One of the Police Constables that responded to the 04:11 call was Dave King. He was interviewed by Georgina Bruni:
“We were actually on our way to visit the Bentwaters LE desk when the call came through. When we arrived at the Bentwaters base we were escorted through the back gate to the East Gate sentry post and were then taken to the forest by some security policemen. We had to follow their vehicle. They took us toward the spot where they said the other SP’s had gone and we were told they were still out there. We had to park the car and walk on foot. The Americans didn’t come with us. (…) We walked about half a mile into the forest (…) there were no Americans there, not a soul. We walked for some thirty minutes.” [Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
Cabansag reports in his official witness statement: “Finally, we made it back to our vehicle, after making contact with the PC’s and informing them of what we saw.” [Cabansag, official witness statement]
Penniston states: “After a 45 min. walk arrived at our vehicle.” [Penniston, official witness statement]. So they probably arrived at their vehicle around 04:40, 45 minutes after Buran terminated the investigation.
Jerry Valdez, who joined a team that went to East Gate to check out the situation, also remembers how the men finally showed up:
“Burroughs and Penniston finally showed up. I somehow think something happened to them. They were acting strange. We were then told to go back to our posts.” [Valdez, James Easton interview]
Around that time Armold drives to Woodbridge to check out the situation. There he meets Burroughs at the East Gate and goes back into the woods with him:
“I cruised out to Woodbridge after my Flight Chief said it would be okay to check it out.” (…) “I met Burroughs at the East Gate of Woodbridge. We left our guns with the guy riding with Burroughs and drove to the end of the long access road. We left our vehicle and walked out there.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
Armold also remembers meeting Police Constables that arrived at the site:
“I believe we (Burroughs and I) met up with two constables who drove up in a small marked vehicle on the main road that connects to the East Gate access. I have to believe the conversation we had with them was of little consequence as I don't recall re-entering the woods with them or spending much time chit-chatting about the issue.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
The Police Constables report back and leave the forest:
“Only lights visible this area was from Orford Light House. Search made of area – negative.” [Suffolk police, official log]
Armold, too, saw nothing unusual while he was in the forest with Burroughs:
“There was absolutely nothing in the woods. We could see lights in the distance and it appeared unusual as it was a sweeping light, (we did not know about the lighthouse on the coast at the time). We also saw some strange colored lights in the distance but were unable to determine what they were.” ”The lights were primarily white and were very small, far off in the distance. Occasionally one would see a shade of blue or red but I attribute that to refraction from stained glass windows in a local church in addition to the fog and weather at the time.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
According to Armold, he and Burroughs found three depressions in the ground of the dark forest:
“Eventually we found three depressions in the ground, about the diameter of a coffee can in a triangular pattern. However, there was no damage to trees or scorch marks, or any damage to any plant life in the area. We noted the location of the impressions and departed the area.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
-----26 December:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Early in the morning, directly after their 23:00 – 07:00 midnight shift (i.e. a few hours after the strange encounter in the woods), Bertolino sits right next to Penniston in the bus that takes them back to the dorm, via the armory (to hand in their weapons). According to Bertolino, Penniston seems shook up, you can tell that something happened to him. Bertolino is anxious to know what happened, so Penniston tells Bertolino about his encounter. He tells he was glad they did not take their weapons out there, because they would probably have turned into pairs of ‘smoking boots’ if they would have shot at ‘this thing’.
Bertolino: “He [Penniston] pulled out this little notebook that he used to write incidents in if he was called to an incident – he always kept notes. He pulls out the notebook and he diagrams what he saw out there. It was kind of diamond shaped with tripod legs and he explained that it wasn’t like any metal he had ever seen.”
“There were people there when we turned in our weapons - kaki style pants, military haircut with glasses - that took Cabansag, Longero [this probably should have been Burroughs?], and Penniston for questioning, for debriefing.”
“One thing that drove me nuts from that day forward was, here’s guys that, .., we put our lives on the line for each other, we would fight side by side and die with each other if we had to …, these guys wouldn’t talk about it anymore. I felt kind of betrayed.” “What was said to them to clam them up so tight I don’t know.”
[Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
The witnesses arrive at the shift commander’s office. Major Ed Drury was in the shift commander’s office when some of the witnesses were making their statements:
“There was a pile of them because I recall going through them. On reading the statements I understood that it wasn’t very big [the object] but it was bigger than a mini. There were marks on the trees, quite high up and someone said they’d walked up to it [the object] and it had left depressions. I went out during the day and saw the marks on the trees and the ground depressions, which weren’t that deep, well defined and I suggested we send someone out there to do some readings [Geiger counter readings].” [Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
The Suffolk police is contacted again at 10:30 that a place has been found where a craft of some sort seems to have landed, approximately 2 miles due east of East Gate. This is about a mile to the east of the farmer’s field. The police find three marks which do not follow a set pattern. They are not impressed. They report that the marks are of no depth, and could have been made by an animal. [Suffolk police, official log]
Armold remembers: “In the morning several of us were asked if we would return to the area to point out the depressions to some folks who I believe were from environmental health. They did have some type of instrument for detecting radiation and I believe they did detect some measure of radiation, however I don't think it was a significant amount.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
Jerry Valdez remembers seeing ‘people in white overcoats’:
“When we went out the East gate back to Bentwaters, leaving Woodbridge, there were many people, including numerous people in typical lab coats making an analysis of the area. You could see out the vehicle to the right side, that there were many people examining the area, searching, looking for something. Some of these people were in white overcoats, that's why I say that they looked like typical techs in lab coats. They were searching the area in front of the forest.” [Valdez, James Easton interview]
Burroughs states on the Rendlesham forum: “Penniston and I were told to go to the shift commanders office and after we were finished we went out to the site. There were already people at the area where we were the night before. I don’t remember who they were for sure but they were dayshift personnel and I don’t know how they found the area. We looked around at the damage done to the trees and area that had the marks. Again I will not be able to tell you who found the area first or much about what was found - I just took a quick look. The people who were out there were involved with the British police and the area in question. If I remember right 2 of the names were Capt Verrano and Msgt Guylouis and I also believe the ops Commander Maj Drury showed up...” “If I remember right they were in the trees i.e. there were trees but there was a small area within the trees that they found the marks and damage to the trees.” [Burroughs, forum of rendlesham incident site]
After the bus arrives at the dorm, Bertolino’s shift is over. He later puts on his civilian clothes and goes out into the woods with a few other people. They see some security police vehicles. Captain Verrano shows them a triangular shape on the ground with circular indentations (9-10 inches across and about 4 to 5 feet apart). Verrano also shows them – using a Geiger counter - that the radiation peaks in the center of the triangular pattern. Bertolino notices broken limbs on the trees. Later he hears that there may be other landing sites. [Bertolino, Earthfiles interview]
About three weeks later, Halt informs the MOD that three depressions 1.5 inches deep and 7 inches in diameter were found where the object had been sighted on the ground. [Halt, official memo to MOD]
Col. Conrad, the Base Commander, only hears about the events late that evening:
“I believe the SP’s decided to keep everything low key, this being indicated by a change to the blotter entry concerning that early morning time frame. In any event, no notification or report was made to anyone above Major Malcolm Zickler, SP Squadron Commander, until late that evening.” “Sometime between 2100 and 2200 members of the Woodbridge SP shift appeared at a Christmas party at the O’Club where Lt Col Halt and myself were in attendance. They reported the events of the previous night and thinking there might be a recurrence, Halt decided to ride along with the shift leader, which he did. Aside from that, nothing unusual happened.” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
Armold remembers he joined Halt the evening following the incident involving Burroughs, Penniston, and Cabansag:
“Halt essentially said he planned on coming out to the site in the evening and one way or another several of us said we'd keep him company. The guys I remember were John Burroughs, Adrian Bustamante, and me. I think another officer joined Halt, I believe it was Lt Bruce England, but I'm not absolutely certain and maybe two other guys (possibly one named Pennington, just can't remember for sure). There was however, no army of USAF guys out in the woods. No fleet of vehicles, no towed light rigs, just a half-dozen or so of us stomping around goofing off. I brought a camera with me and I think Halt had a tape recorder. We were out there for hours and someone noticed some lights in the distance. While they often seemed to be very close in reality as we tried to approach them we discovered they were very far away. Now don't confuse what I just wrote. Little balls of light were not flying around us or getting closer and flying away. We initially thought the lights were closer than they actually were.” “In the end I would say we were in the woods for 4 or 5 hours.” [Armold, James Easton interview]
-----Night of 26/27 December:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to schedule, the night shift had been taken over from the ‘C-Flight’ team by the ‘D-Flight’ team around 23:00. The C-Flight team is on its three day break (team schedules here).
Lori Buoen, D Flight, is stationed at East Gate for her midnight shift (23:00 – 07:00). This is unusual since this gate is normally left closed and unguarded at night. Sometime during the night she sees a red/orange fiery sphere of light with a blue/white ‘corona’ on the north side of the runway above the woods. The light slowly descends into the dark tree line at the horizon and disappears. She gets scared and calls the Desk Sergeant. After a while, John Trementozzi is sent to join her. [Buoen, Earthfiles interview]
Trementozzi and four of his colleagues also saw lights above the woods. Trementozzi remembers they were red, green and white. They were silent and not blinking. The lights would be in one spot and then disappear, go to another spot and appear again, go to another spot and appear – not in any particular pattern. [Trementozzi, Earthfiles interview]
PC Dave King, who responded to the 04:11 call the night before, was at the Bentwaters LE desk when reports of strange lights came in.
“While I was there another report came in on the radio, a pocket radio, saying that there were lights in the forest at the exact same spot as the previous night. This would now be the early hours of the 27th. I was just about to go and have a look, thinking I might see something this time, when I got an emergency call to attend to a post-office break-in about ten miles away at Otley.” [Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
After Trementozzi has joined Buoen, something peculiar happens: They hear Lt. Bonnie Tamplin panicking on their radio and calling out for her superior, Bobby Ball.
Buoen: “Lt. Bonnie Tamplin was talking to Master Sgt. Bob Ball, Robert Ball. And I just remember the fear in her voice. Then her saying, ‘Bob! Bob! Where are you? I can’t see anything!’ She was scared to death – she was just, ‘Bob, Bob! Where are you? I can’t see anything!’ She was so scared – and this was our Lieutenant!”. [Buoen, Earthfiles interview]
-----27 December:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Early in the morning of Dec 27, John Burroughs waked up with a funny feeling. Even though he is off duty, he goes back to RAF Bentwaters to ask Desk Sergeant O’Brien if something has happened that night. O'Brien tells Burroughs that D Flight’s Shift Commander, Lt. Bonnie Tamplin, had been relieved of her duty because a light entered her vehicle in the forest causing Lt. Tamplin to panic and cry during her radio communications. She was ‘freaked out’ by beams of light that lit up her vehicle and blue lights that passed through her vehicle and caused her vehicle to shut down. They also lost radio contact with her for over 10 min. [Burroughs, forum of rendlesham incident site]
That same day, Col. Conrad, the Base Commander (who first heard about the UFO incidents the evening before), decides to collect more information:
“By the morning of [27 December 1980] I contacted Maj. Zickler for information of the alleged sighting. His information was all second hand and sketchy. Those with firsthand accounts were citing career concerns as justification for remaining silent.”
“Maj Zickler later convinced Sgt [James] Penniston to answer some questions for me. After a sincere guarantee that his report would have no ill effects on his career, Penniston reluctantly told his story. At the end of the session, I asked him to draw a picture of the object he had seen, which he did freehand. Jim Penniston is the only first-hand observer I was able to interview. We kept his name out of any of our correspondence to honor his request.”
“I do recall Penniston's story and he did leave me with a sketch of an object he claimed to have seen. I left the sketch in my desk drawer and the story was summarized in Halt's letter. Here's Penniston's narrative to the best of my recollection. I'm paraphrasing, of course:”
“….The lights were clearly visible when I arrived at the RAF Woodbridge gate. No one knew the source of the lights, but some speculated that it was close enough to the approach path of the runway that it could in fact be a crashed plane. Because of this, it was decided that further investigation was warranted. Burroughs, Cabansag and myself were sent out by jeep. We worked our way toward the still- visible lights by way of a logging road. As we approached close enough to have a clear view of the site, [Burroughs?] decided we were close enough and stopped the vehicle. We were still more than 100 meters away and, wanting a better look, I decided to proceed further on foot. [Burroughs?] accompanied me as we closed on what we began to see was an object with lights on it. Our apprehension began to build, so we stopped about 50 meters away, taking cover behind some brush. After studying the situation for about 10 minutes, we decided to move in yet further for a closer look. Just as we began to close the distance to the object, it began to move away through the trees. The faster we moved toward it the faster it moved away. By the time we arrived at an open field a much greater distance had opened up between us, and soon it disappeared beyond a small rise in the direction of a farm house. After a short pause , we decided we had had enough and headed back toward [Cabansag] and the jeep. With a quick glance over the shoulder we saw the thing again back at the hill, this time coming toward us. We ran to get away, but within two seconds it was up and gone.-------(end of narrative)…”
“I asked [Penniston] for a description of the object. Penniston said he didn't get close enough for a detailed look. What he saw was generally rectangular in shape and slightly larger than a jeep in size. The object was mostly obscured by two horizontal rows of very bright closely spaced lights, one row white, the other light blue. He thought one row ran along the top, the other row around the middle. Again his distance from the object and the brightness of the lights obscured any further detailed observance.” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
Col. Conrad decides that a brief in-house investigation is in order.
“Frankly at this point, Lt Col Halt and I were discussing what level of involvement was required from my office. We knew that silence would likely lead to allegation of cover up. With the rumor mill already operating it was a matter of time before the press got the story. We did not want the press to report the appearance of misinformation or cover up. We decided that a brief in-house investigation was in order. If we could find any credible evidence to justify a request for more high-tech investigators, then we would be in a position to pass the entire episode on to the British authorities. If any meaningful evidence were not found, we would document that fact and close the entire episode down by providing our facts to authorities in a low key manner. Events dictated the latter approach.” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
That afternoon, Col. Conrad orders an investigation that involves Monroe Nevels, his disaster preparedness officer.
On Saturday afternoon on Dec 27, at around 16:00, Lt Englund picks up Nevels at his home.
Nevels: “I was in my home on Woodbridge base and I got a knock on the door. Lieutenant Englund from the Security Police came in, started walking and looking throughout my home to see if there was anybody else there with me. And I told him that yes my daughter was there, she was three years old. He said ‘well does she understand what I’m talking about because what I’m about to say is top secret. He said ‘I am here because I was sent by the Base Commander, Colonel Conrad. He asked me to come to here and pick you up, and let me go into detail what he said.’ So then he started going back and relating all the incidents as of the UFO on December 25 through that time frame.
The story that I got from Lieutenant Englund was that the London tower, on December 25 when all this started, contacted the tower at Woodbridge base and asked them to identify the object that was above them because it was on their radar and they could not determine what it was.
Lieutenant Englund told me that one of the airmen had been taken aboard the spacecraft. He just basically went through and told me about Sergeant Jim Penniston and John Burroughs were involved – I do remember the names were mentioned – and he said ‘even to the point that someone had been abducted into the aircraft’ and he said ‘the reason Colonel Conrad has asked for me to come and get you because he felt that if he wanted an honest answer from anybody then you would give it to him.’ So it’s my orders, they are down at the Woodbridge officer’s club and they are having a party down there – and when we get through on out investigation he’ll be waiting for us and we need to go back and report to him what you saw.
So we left at about 16:30 that day and we went over to Bentwaters and carried my daughter with me to the Chaplin because my wife was over there at a Chaplin’s event for the ladies. And .. we got back in the Jeep, and we had light scopes, the night vision goggles, we had those with us, and I had my camera, and when we got there, at the scene, we went to Rendlesham Forest and he began to pinpoint things that had happened.
When we went out there to do the investigation he stopped the Jeep and said ‘well right here is where we need to stop’. It was dark and I never went out that way before. I was astounded – told myself ‘man those trees are tall’, and he said ‘yes and they said that the craft that came in, it did not break any limbs and came right through the trees and sat down.’ It’s an impossible thing in our realm, but not impossible from what they were doing.
And he took me to the site of the landing, and I proceeded to go into the area, and I looked around to see what I could find, I took my camera, and when we got in there I saw the three indentations in the ground. And I looked at that. And when we get back in the Jeep and slowly headed back toward the East Gate, underway I looked out and saw the bright light in the forest. At that time I wasn’t looking through the night vision goggles, all I saw was the light with my naked eye.
It was probably about that time at least seven or eight o’clock in the evening – we stayed out there for some time – and as I looked I grabbed my night vision goggles I had, and I looked through them and when I did, what I saw was the bright green through that picking up from the heat from the object. But what I saw was something that looked like an eyeball, and it was very green around it but inside it looked like a pupil of an eye. And it would just pulsate very slowly .. until I would get out of the Jeep. I had Lieutenant Englund stop the Jeep and I got out, and when I got out the lights got brighter, like they knew I was there. And I said ‘I’m gonna get back in the Jeep and see what happens’, and about that time I had static all over my hair and my arms and everything and I knew something was wrong – like you would say ‘static in the air’. And I naturally got scared too, because I didn’t know what I was looking at. So I get back in the Jeep and when I get back in the Jeep he’s a little bit agitated but then I could see the light would get dim. And then I move out and start to open my door and it would get bright again. But what it would do is just sit there and pulsate.
Finally I said ‘OK now we can go’. And we got back to the Woodbridge officer’s club, and when we got in the … [unintelligible] went to Colonel Conrad, Colonel Conrad came out and ushered both of us in. And inside that room I saw Colonel Halt, Colonel Conrad, I believe Colonel Williams was there - I’m not sure but I think he was, the Security Police Chief was there – and he was in uniform. So when I got in, we discussed a little bit about what I saw and then he asked me ‘Sergeant Nevels, do you think that it warrants further investigation?’ And I said ‘yes, sir, most definitely.’ That’s when Colonel Halt jumped in and began to assemble a team, and we went back from there to the base, over at Bentwaters, and I picked up a Radiac instrument.”
[Nevels, Earthfiles interview]
Halt remembers: “the duty flight commander for the security police unit [Englund] rushed in to a belated Christmas party white as a sheet. `The UFO is back,' he said.” "I was asked to investigate.” [Halt, Sally Rayl interview]
Col. Conrad does not mention the investigation by Nevels but states:
“The rest of [27 December 1980] saw Lt Col Halt assemble our meager assets. These were a Geiger counter, starlight scope (night vision device) and trained SP investigators out at the site in Rendlesham Forest.” “Halt spent most of that day with the investigators, the starlight scope and Geiger counter.”
“After sundown he [Halt] went back to the forest with his tape recorder, and reported seeing lights that night. This was actually early morning” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
----Night of 27/28 December:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Normally, Greg Battram was working in the back-office. Once or twice a month the people from the back-office “had an alert over there for exercises and things” “And during those times, all the back-office people would go on a security post, additional posting and stuff out there.”
Possibly the back-office people were used as additional posting because of the strange events on 25/26 December, since a lot of the regular SP’s were not at the base due to the Christmas period.
Greg remembers he was out there for his second night:
“Nothing going on but we all still had to be there, and we were driving around on Woodbridge base on a perimeter patrol, and we saw some lights up in the sky, and it looked a lot different from any other aircraft we had ever seen.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
He probably already picked up rumors from the night of 25/26 December, because the night before (26/27 December) he had thought “now I get to see if these guys are really high or if they're really seeing something. The night it happened it was like – ‘Holy shit! there must be something in the water’.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
In a 1984 CNN documentary Battram tells:
“We were about halfway into the shift, I guess, when we noticed some lights in the sky that didn’t seem to follow any pattern of any aircraft we’d seen. And we watched them for a while and they disappeared. And the next thing we saw was the lights in the forest … in a clearing off the end of the runway. And we called Central Security Control to tell them we’d like to go investigate it, and they gave us permission to go on out.” “I looked like a fire at first, that’s what we thought it was.” [Battram, Chuck DeCaro interview, CNN documentary]
Bustinza remembers how he got a report of a ‘fire in the forest’:
“We were in the alert area [at Bentwaters], and I was on my way over to RAF Woodbridge base at around midnight. While we were over there, one of my patrols sighted an object of some sort. He didn't describe it, he just said it was like a fire in the forest area. I notified my acting commander -- which was Lieutenant Englund -- and he went ahead and called the Commander that night -- which was Colonel Halt -- and he told Lieutenant Englund to check out the situation. We proceeded to check out the situation -- myself, Lt. Englund, and Sergeant Ball.” [Bustinza, Ray Boeche interview]
In the meantime, Battram and a few other men have gotten permission to go into the forest and there they see something strange. They experience static electricity all over them and decide to run back:
“As we got in there, we could see into the clearing and see a series of lights in there surrounded by like a ground fog. It was kind of common of the area so we did not really think much of it. And we decided to get a little bit closer to see what we could find out. And when we got closer, you began to feel the hair on your arms, and the back of your neck, under your hat even, stand on end. Like there was a real big static charge in the air.
We began to feel the hair on our arms stand up and we could see into the clearing and see a set of lights that seemed to be alternating through different color ranges but it was predominantly a red or reddish-orange hue to it. I looked like a fire at first, that’s what we thought it was. … red or reddish orange color but it had other colors moving around in it. We didn’t know what we were encountering and we knew it was something that .. uh .. that was totally beyond our realm of experience .. we’d never experienced anything like this before. And about that time, we decided that we’d better get the heck out of there ’cause we were getting a little too scared to .. uh .. just stick around and we saw some other people coming up from one of the access roads.” [Battram, Chuck DeCaro interview, CNN documentary]
Englund was one of the people who Battram remembers coming up from the access road, he also thinks Larry Warren was with them:
“and when we left we met up with Lieutenant Englund as I remember it…anyway he was the only officer I knew; and some security police come over from Bentwaters. I think Larry was with them.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Battram remembers he was ordered back to the Woodbridge perimeter by Englund:
“We just told them the whole bit and he said, ‘OK, head on back.’ So we did”. “Then we went back to the perimeter of Woodbridge and stuck around there. We could see some activity over there but that was it.” “We were just chattering our heads off about what we had seen. We weren't really paying too much attention to our surroundings. We went off and parked some place.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Battram also remembers a helicopter:
“We could see one of them out there hovering around. Up above the normal parking area.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Bustinza also talks about helicopters being scrambled:
“a squadron, pararescue squadron was activated. Woodbridge they weren’t very far away as a matter of fact.” [Bustinza, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
According to Battram, twenty to thirty people were out there. Battram himself eventually went to the other end of the base:
“then we got off at the other end of the base there and got involved with exercises and horsing around and stuff. Never did see any more from that point on. The next day was when we heard all the silly stories and stuff.” [Battram, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Bustinza, too, says that “at least thirty people” were out there. [Bustinza, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Bustinza remembers he went into the forest with Ball and another officer, where they find the object:
We started to search. … One individual [Battram?] had said that he had spotted the object -- like sitting on the ground. We proceeded to look and in the process found kind of like triangular tripods … burned into the [ground] at 3 different standpoints. … They were like it was a heavy object. They [later?] took radiation readings of the holes. And they got a radiation reading as I recall. Then I recall that we were walking through the woods and came upon the lights again. And that's when I first saw the object …”
“We got -- I think it was the flight chief [Sergeant Ball] and I believe another individual officer. We kept searching the area -- kind of like trying to follow the object. And it was moving through the trees. And in the process, we came upon a yellow mist about 2-or-3 feet off the ground. It was like dew, but yellow … like nothing I've ever seen before. … We kind of like ignored it. We were worried about the object … to see if we could locate it again or catch up to it again …”
“We did see the object again. It was hovering low, like moving up-and-down anywhere from 10-to-20 feet -- back up, back down, back up. There was a red light on top and there were several blue lights on the bottom. But there was also an effect maybe like a prism … with rainbow lights on top, scattered about .. [and] several other colors of light. It was weird … It was a tremendous size. It even surprised me that it was able to fit into the clearing. A tremendous size -- and I use the word 'tremendous' carefully. It was a round, circular shape. I hate to say like a "plate", but it was thicker at the center than it was at the edge.” [Bustinza, Ray Boeche interview]
“It flew toward the wooded area. You know I didn’t like when I saw it up close. I couldn’t understand how a big thing–that big–could go in. It seemed like this thing was going dashing in between the trees. We were chasing it for a while.” [Bustinza, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
“When I arrived it was going in and out through the trees, and at one stage it was hovering. Then it went over to a clearing at the edge of the forest. By the time we got to the clearing it had already landed.”
“There was a landed craft. There was a yellowish haze on the ground; it came up to about knee level, like a low fog, it was very yellow. Everything was so weird, animals were acting strange and nobody had a sense of direction. People had camera equipment, not the normal equipment, and there was a lot of it.”
[Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
In a later interview with Larry Fawcett, Bustinza describes the object as circular shaped, thick in the middle, and it narrows out toward the edges. It is about forty feet (12 meters) wide and more than twelve feet (3,5 meters) in height. The body of the machine is blackish grayish, and it has all kinds of lights that are so bright that only certain parts of the craft can be seen. There are a bunch of little gadgets on it, but no engines are visible. [Bustinza, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
Bustinza does not remember how long the object was on the ground, but he does remember how it suddenly took off:
"It was gone in a flash, almost like it just disappeared. When it left, we were hit by a cold blast of wind which blew toward us for 5-or-10 seconds. … It was a really scary feeling. … I was just frozen in place at first … my life actually passed in front of my eyes." [Bustinza, Ray Boeche interview]
“It turned, like, into a ball of light. And it was like a glow around it, and it just took off.” [Bustinza, Larry Fawcett interview, in LEAG]
It is unclear whether Halt was already there during this encounter. It is entirely possible that he first gave his orders by radio and was driven to the site in a hurry just after the strange object departed.
According to Conrad: “After sundown he [Halt] went back to the forest with his tape recorder, and reported seeing lights that night. This was actually early morning” [Conrad, Dave Clarke interview]
Another witness, Randi Smith, remembers how Bob Ball collected Halt at Bentwaters and drove him to the site in a hurry:
“Not long after the shift began, perhaps midnight or so, I heard Bob Ball come over the radio and request that the aircraft control tower give him permission to cross the active runway, it saves 15 minutes driving time, as opposed to driving the perimeter road. At that point I knew SOMETHING was happening because no-one ever crossed the active runway unless there was an extreme emergency. Bob, perhaps logically accompanied by Lt. Bruce Englund, crossed the runway on Bentwaters, they picked up Lt. Col. Halt and some equipment and returned by the same route. I would say that between 30 minutes to an hour had passed since Bob made his first request to cross. They then proceeded to re-cross the runway, and went out the back gate headed toward RAF Woodbridge.” [Smith, James Easton interview]
Halt tells that when he arrives: “About a dozen of our men were already there. Our light-alls (large gas-powered lights) wouldn't work, and there was so much static and constant interference on our radios that we had to set up a relay. There was increasing commotion. I was determined to show them this was nonsense.” [Halt_Sally_Rayl_interview]
Halt is shocked to see so many men outside the base and sends everyone home except for a handful of men that are selected for a further investigation.
Bustinza remembers what happens when he meets up with Halt that night:
“Colonel Halt later tried to tell us it was our imagination. I remember he approached myself and another, and ordered us to confiscate cameras from some British nationals. I went over and took their cameras and gave them to Colonel Halt. He put them into bags and told us that they would be dealt with at a higher level.” [Bruni, You Can’t Tell the People]
“What I remember clearly was that when we got there, [Col. Halt] pointed to the individuals that he wanted to go with him. So we went back to Bentwaters base; grabbed 2 "light-alls" and had a patrol refuel them; and once we refueled them, we took them out there to see if we could light up the area to see if there was anything out there. In the process of trying to check the light-alls, everything was malfunctioning. When we got to "Point A" -- the sighting of the object -- we had trouble turning the light-alls 'on'. Our truck wouldn't run either. It was kind of like all the energy had been drained out of both light-all units…” [Bustinza, Ray Boeche interview]
Col Halt has the habit of carrying a memo tape recorder wherever he goes. He carries one with him in the woods that night. The tape he made that night (or at least 18 minutes of it) is in the public domain. On the tape we can hear that Monroe Nevels, Adrian Bustinza, Bob Ball, and Lt. Bruce Englund are with him.
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