The Rendlesham Forest Incident

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During the latter period of the Cold War, American military personnel who were stationed in the United Kingdom were involved in a series of disturbing incidents, during which they reported mysterious interactions with unidentified flying objects.

Now, as we approach the 40th anniversary of the most infamous of these events, we take a look at the Rendlesham Forest incident.

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At the outset of the 1980s, the Cold War had been in full swing for over 30 years.

but was now entering a frightening new phase.

The recent invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet forces had raised tensions between the world's superpowers, taking them to breaking point.

It had also been a primary factor in the election of President Ronald Reagan, who had campaigned on a platform which promised to take more direct action against the perceived warmongering of the Soviet Union.

At the time of his election victory, Reagan viewed existing U.S.

foreign policy with open contempt.

The incoming president believed that the detente which the two main powers had agreed upon was the main reason that the conflict had yet to be decidedly resolved.

He was determined to break the will of his opponent by aggressively escalating the funding and deployment of America's armed forces.

Reagan's strategy was bold and had been conceived around the central concept that the already failing Soviet economy would not be able to survive an arms race to match his planned increases in military investment.

Its inevitable collapse would hopefully result in the country's population taking to the streets, streets, revolting against their government, and forcing political change to take place across the USSR.

Such an undertaking was music to the ears of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who held equally dismissive views of the policies and agreements that her predecessors had put in place.

Thatcher was quick to offer her American counterpart Carte Blanche to move whatever military resources he deemed necessary across the Atlantic and into mainland Britain, in readiness for a future strike across the English Channel and onto the European continent.

In a move that was typical of President Reagan's wider military build-up, the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing was ordered to phase out its ageing complement of F-4 Phantom fighter jets, in order to make way for the arrival of the new ground attack A-10 Thunderbolt.

Poised ready to counter any perceived Soviet incursions, its three sizeable squadrons had been deployed across a variety of different European air bases, including two which were hidden away in the depths of the East Anglian countryside.

Dotted across the sprawling county of Suffolk were countless tiny airfields, which had once played host to the Spitfires and hurricanes that had vanquished Hitler's Luftwaffe, and it was two of these former World War II bases that the airmen of the 78th and 79th Tactical Fighter Squadrons now called home.

Whilst half of their number were stationed at RAF Bentwaters, the remainder were housed at RAF Woodbridge, six miles to the south.

Lying between the two American air bases were the 15 square kilometres of Rendlesham Forest, a mixture of coniferous woodland and low-lying wetlands.

Now, as the dark and cold December of 1980 finally drew to a close around them, the American airmen and their commanding officers carried out their duties with no small degree of apprehension.

They had little idea, however, that it was not just the Soviets they would need to be on their guard against.

At approximately 3am on the 26th of December 1980, the otherwise calm and tranquil atmosphere of the Boxing Day morning was suddenly shattered by the activation of the emergency alert system at RF Bentwaters.

As deafening sirens blared in the rooms and corridors of the sprawling airbase, armed sentries spilled from doorways, sprinting across parade squares and car car parks towards their established firing positions along the base's perimeter fence.

Amongst them was Airman Steve Longero, who had been out on foot patrol in and around the base's weapons lockers at the time the cacophonous alarms had unexpectedly kicked into life.

As he joined his colleagues manning the nearby fence line, his attention was immediately drawn to something moving around, out in the depths of the adjoining woodland.

The inky darkness that usually separated the looming fir and pine trees of Rendlesham Forest was now unnaturally illuminated with an unearthly red glow.

This strange iridescence seemed as if it was being projected by a number of vividly coloured objects, which were hurtling back and forth at great speed.

The assembled airmen watched with a mixture of fear and bewilderment, as the bright lights pulsated and flew around in an erratic fashion.

Sometimes they would collide and ricochet off one another, resulting in a brief shower of bright red sparks and a loud metallic crash, before they shot off again in opposite directions.

On a number of occasions, the objects would slowly rise up above the treeline into the night sky, hovering perfectly still, as if they were conducting some form of surveillance on the US airbase.

To the staff on duty up in the control tower, The objects were also clearly visible, but bizarrely were giving off no radio signals or radar signature.

The order was given that all personnel were to remain inside the perimeter fence, and to do nothing other than observe the objects.

It seemed the more prudent option, as opposed to sending any of the younger and possibly frightened airmen blundering out into a dark forest in the middle of the night, risking accident or injury.

Down the road at RAF Woodbridge, everything had remained still and silent, until the guards stationed at the east Gate radioed to report having observed a light aircraft of some kind slowly descending into the woods a short distance away from the airfield.

The duty officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Holt, quickly ordered one of the base patrols to head out into the woods to confirm the validity of the sighting.

The group dispatched into the forest by the Colonel consisted of three men, Staff Sergeant Jim Penniston, along with Airman First Class John Burroughs and Ed Cabensag.

As the American servicemen cautiously entered the tree line, the air around them slowly began to change.

The further they progressed into the forest, the warmer it seemed to get.

They also became aware of a low humming noise, which sounded as if it was gradually increasing in intensity.

The already nervous airmen were suddenly startled by a chorus of unnatural screams and cries emanating from somewhere not too far away from their position.

As they quickly struggled to regain their composure, the three men realised that what they had just heard was the livestock at nearby Capel Green Farm, which were apparently in the process of being worked up into a frenzy by someone or something.

It was at this point that Penniston made the decision for the group to separate.

He ordered Cabensag to peel off and follow the tree line for a short distance, heading in the direction of RF Bentwaters, whilst he and Burroughs would instead continue to penetrate further into the depths of the forest itself.

They had not gone far when they suddenly came across what appeared to be a strange metallic object, hovering just off the ground in the middle of a small clearing.

Penniston was a specialist in aircraft identification, and had never seen anything belonging to either the Soviet or American air forces, which even remotely resembled the floating craft he was now looking at.

The object was triangular in shape, with a surface that was covered in a combination of large red lights and smaller blue ones, and it seemed to be emitting a light mustard-coloured mist onto the ground below.

When the two airmen slowly advanced towards it, the floating object remained both silent and completely immobile.

As he edged forwards, Penniston was struck by the lack of any recognisable features anywhere on the exterior of the craft.

There was no sign of any kind of propulsion or exhaust system, nor any form of steering mechanism.

He also noted the lack of any bolts or rivets, with the surface of the craft appearing to be one solid, unbroken structure.

Burroughs came to a halt a short distance away, and watched on as his staff sergeant continued to walk right up to where the vessel was hovering.

Penniston seemed to be utterly entranced by what he was seeing.

drawn to a series of strange symbols that were etched into the outer hull of the object, which he would later say resembled ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Penniston reached out and was able to take hold of the craft's exterior, describing it as smooth and warm to the touch.

As his fingers moved across the polished surface and then onto the engraved symbols, it felt as though they had passed from a pane of glass and onto a sheet of sandpaper.

He could also discern what seemed to be a humming sensation being generated beneath his fingertips.

Suddenly, the airman felt a physical jolt, as if a low electrical current was being passed through his body.

The hieroglyphs had now illuminated, and he was temporarily blinded by an intense white light, which completely obscured his view.

As Penniston struggled to regain focus, he could see what resembled streams of ones and zeros dancing around at the edge of his field of vision.

This sensation continued for several minutes, before abruptly coming to an end, and causing the staff sergeant no lasting pain or ill effects.

The two airmen then remained in position, observing the hovering craft for a further 45 minutes, taking notes and drawing sketches of it.

The strange object then unexpectedly shot off, horizontally and at breakneck speed, heading deeper into the forest and weaving quickly in and out of the tightly packed tree trunks.

The two men immediately hurried back to where their colleague was standing waiting for them.

Cabensag told them he had also seen a red light moving at great speed through the woods away from him, but not with the level of detail that they had described.

All three airmen then made their way back to the East Gate, where they reported what they had encountered to the waiting Lieutenant Colonel Holt.

Charles Holt lived for rules and regulations.

immediately committing that which his men had described to him down on paper, before passing it directly on to both his superiors and the local police force.

Airmen were dispatched to the location that had been described by Penniston and Burroughs, and reported they had found strange indentations on the ground there, along with what seemed to be burn marks.

For the next two days, Holt became frustrated by the lack of an official response to his memorandum, and when his sentries continued to report that more lights had been sighted moving around in the nearby forest, he resolved to enter the woods with with a group of airmen to conduct his own investigation.

In the early hours of the 28th of December, armed with only flashlights and a Geiger counter, as they were operating outside of their jurisdiction, a small party made its way to the area described by Penniston and Burroughs.

Holt had decided to document his investigation using a portable tape recorder.

and continued to dictate his findings as he made his way deeper into the forest.

At the clearing in question, he found a series of circular indentations burned into the ground, which formed a larger, triangular pattern.

In addition to this, similar marks were burned into the sides of tree trunks dotted around the periphery of the clearing, as well as freshly broken branches and foliage.

When the airmen investigated the scorch marks more closely, they found that the Geiger counter's reading immediately leapt up to double that of accepted background levels.

Holt continued to document these observations on his tape recorder before one of his men shouted a warning.

An unidentifiable red object was approaching them at speed, descending from the eastern skies.

On Holt's recording, he describes this object as being like an eye, winking down at the men beneath it.

As it now moved away from them, Holt and his group then followed the object for a short distance, where it appeared to explode and then break up into into three smaller, star-like objects.

These began to fly around at impossible speed, emitting further explosions and strobe-like effects, at which stage the men elected to return to the safety of the airbase.

These lights seemingly took up positions over RAF Woodbridge and started to buzz back and forth across the airfield at high speed.

occasionally beaming rays of crimson light down on the weapons lockers that were dotted around the base.

Three hours later, later, they suddenly shot off again back out to sea, passing by RAF Bentwaters as they did so, leaving the American servicemen below, wondering what the hell had just happened.

The events described as having taken place at Rendlesham Forest within Charles Holt's report were immediately dismissed out of hand by both the American and British authorities.

They condemned the document as a masterclass of naivety and misunderstanding on the part of all the personnel who had been named within it.

Indeed, the whole affair might well have gone on to be forgotten altogether, had it not been the second such incident to have taken place at RAF Bentwaters, involving unidentified flying objects.

In August of 1956, Radar operators at the base had detected a group of objects approaching from the sea at speeds of several thousand miles per hour.

A C-47 transport aircraft, which had been coming in to land at Bentwaters, had been forced to abort when a fast-moving white light had suddenly shot across its path, startling the pilot.

Calls were made to the control tower at RAF Lakenheath, located 60 miles to the north, and they confirmed that they too were registering multiple unidentified aircraft on their radar screens.

Not long after this, ground crews stationed at Lake and Heath reported groups of luminous green and red objects moving around in the skies to the south of the base.

Two de Havilland Venom fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the intruders and soon confirmed visual contact with the objects.

Almost immediately, one of the pilots was forced to disengage from the confrontation as his flight instruments began to wildly malfunction.

The remaining Venom pilots subsequently reported that he had been totally outpaced and outmaneuvered by one of the objects, which had then aggressively pursued him until he had broken off and headed back towards Lakenheath.

When the UK government later tried to officially write these incidents off as a meteor shower, they found few commentators were willing to accept their version of events.

The investigation into the Rendlesham sighting was allocated to General Charles Gabriel, who at the time was serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Air Forces in Europe.

It took over two weeks for Gabriel to arrive at Bentwaters, and when he did so, it seemed to the airmen stationed there as if he had brought every possible alternative explanation for what they had witnessed along with him.

According to Gabriel and his investigators, The objects that had been observed descending from the skies above the base on Boxing Day were the remains of a Soviet rocket which had been re-entering Earth's atmosphere, having having propelled a satellite up into space.

The red lights witnessed by Holt and his team in the early hours of the 28th of December would be similarly explained away.

The Orford Ness Lighthouse was located a little further up the coastline from the two RAF bases.

Investigators seized on two aspects of Holt's account, in which he described that the light he was witnessing was winking back at him.

This statement, coupled with a similarity in the time taken for the lighthouse beam to complete a full rotation and compared to the timings between the alleged sightings in Holt's audio recording, led them to assert that it was the lighthouse beacon he was witnessing off in the distance.

But perhaps the most frustrating of the explanations offered by Gabriel and his team were the ones in relation to the alleged landing site in the clearing.

The investigators reported that the indentations discovered on the ground were in fact animal burrows, as opposed to scorch marks.

The damage which had been found on the sides of the trees there was dismissed as cuttings and markings from local Forestry Commission employees, or the work of pranksters and local youths.

General Gabriel's investigation remains notorious for its lack of cooperation with the British authorities.

as well as an accompanying campaign of threats and intimidation carried out towards the airmen involved.

Steve Longero and the sentries at Bentwaters maintained that they were ordered to sign official secrets documentation, barring them from discussing the incident for a 30-year period.

At RAF Woodbridge, the investigating officers would end up going to even more drastic lengths.

During interviews, some of the airmen were ordered not to discuss what they had seen with anybody else.

and then advised that if they chose to contravene this order, bullets were cheap and would be used to enforce it.

Some of the witnesses had far weirder experiences.

One of the airmen was apparently summoned to attend an interview that was being conducted at a property close to the airbase.

The individual found this odd as it did not meet the usual security protocols, but attended anyway.

He arrived at a remote farmhouse and was greeted by two gentlemen who were dressed incognito.

As he sat and chatted to them for around half an an hour, he couldn't help feeling that the whole situation was terribly wrong.

There was something incredibly eerie about these two men, who he said had strange doll-like eyes and exhibited bizarre mannerisms.

He had a distinct sense that they were not who they claimed to be, and made his excuses to leave.

His superior had no knowledge of this summons when the airmen mentioned it to him and demanded to know where this meeting had taken place.

They arrived at the farmhouse a few hours later, only to find it dilapidated and run down.

It looked as though it hadn't been lived in for many years, despite the fact it had been fully decorated and furnished when the airmen had been there just a few hours before.

This whole episode apparently affected the young recruit to such an extent that he had to seek therapy in the months afterwards.

These overt and aggressive efforts to gloss over the incident by the American authorities seem to be in stark contrast to their official findings.

If what the men at the two air bases encountered was simply a remarkable convergence of natural phenomena, then why would their superiors go to such great lengths to try and suppress any testimony of the sightings?

Could it be that what occurred does indeed have a more rational explanation than extraterrestrial visitors, but one that would be as equally disturbing to the British public?

It has long been speculated that the two air bases were in fact being used by the US Air Force to stockpile nuclear weaponry, despite assurances by Margaret Thatcher to Parliament that this was not the case.

Rather than some form of surveillance by an unknown party, is it possible that it was indeed the Soviets who were monitoring the two bases and their defences?

Witnesses who have spoken out claim that the beams of light descending on the facilities were concentrated in the vicinity of the weapons lockers.

Was this some form of advanced or experimental Soviet technology trying to probe the American defences and detect the nuclear weaponry that was allegedly being concealed there?

Maybe, but time has moved on 40 years, and we have yet to see technology of this magnitude emerge from any nation, let alone Russia.

In the decade since the incident, further explanations for what took place have emerged, which vary wildly in terms of credibility.

One of these is that the hapless airmen were unwilling participants in experiments conducted by their own government.

Some believe that what transpired may have been the result of hallucinogens, or some degree of mind control that the men were unaware of.

Many believe that neither airbase was simply the forward operating post that the United States Air Force assert.

It has been alleged that in recent years, a local resident who upgraded their internet was told by the engineer who carried out the work that he had found a mysterious bundle of buried cables leading off towards the base.

He described these as being powerful internet cables that apparently dated back to the early 1980s, long before they had been invented.

In addition to allegations that the locations were secret testing grounds for experimental weaponry, Other stories have emerged that revolve around the personnel who were based there.

Some believe that the sightings were the result of pranks being played between the sentries at the two bases, who had rigged up coloured lights on their patrol vehicles and then driven around at speed in an attempt to scare their opposite numbers.

It has also been claimed that in August of 1980, a few months before the incident, an SAS team was tasked with testing the security arrangements at the two sites.

The specialists parachuted into one of the bases, but were easily easily detected, as the radar systems had recently been upgraded without their knowledge.

The British servicemen were then captured and humiliated, before later being released.

In revenge for this discomfiture, it is alleged that the SAS decided to cause a major embarrassment for their American visitors.

During the winter of 1980, They rigged up a series of parachutes and kites, to which they added lights, flares and smoke canisters.

These were then deployed in and around the two air bases, successfully resulting in a hugely public incident, much to the delight of the elite British soldiers.

Such explanations do seem to resonate with the events which were described by Lieutenant Colonel Holt and his team.

Already on edge as a result of the sightings from the previous evenings, it is entirely possible that on seeing unexpected lights throughout the area, these these airmen could have misunderstood what they were seeing.

But it is much more difficult to explain away the testimony of Jim Penniston and John Burroughs.

Neither man had any obvious reason to lie about having encountered a floating craft in the woods, or to go to the lengths of fabricating written notes and sketches of what they had seen.

Indeed, In the years that have passed since they retired from the Air Force, both men have gone on to be diagnosed and treated for PTSD.

For his part, Penniston does not believe that the object he interacted with on that fateful evening came from outer space, but instead originated from much closer to home.

He describes the sensation he felt when he touched the craft as an information download, and in later years, provided ufologists with copies of the sequence of ones and zeros he had written down when they were fresh in his memory.

The former staff sergeant claims that at the time of the incident, he did not know what binary code was, and only came to learn of the concept much later.

Analysis of his notes appears to show a message, claiming that the craft originated in the year 8100, and that it had in fact travelled back through time, rather than space.

Alongside this message, the code also contains coordinates for notable landmarks throughout human history, such as the pyramids and Stonehenge.

Penniston's testimony is made all the more interesting by the striking similarities between the vessel he reportedly encountered and one which allegedly fell near the US town of Kecksburg in 1965.

This was also described by those who witnessed it as being of a similar size and adorned with mysterious writing.

Could this be the same, or even a similar craft, which had travelled back to modern times, from the far future.

It is perhaps unsurprising that the man who has done the most to raise awareness of the Rendlesham Forest incident is Lieutenant Colonel Holt himself.

He has spent the time since his retirement from the United States Air Force continuing to investigate the encounters, writing a number of books, and participating in several films and interviews pertaining to the event.

Many commentators have sought to rubbish the testimony of the servicemen who were involved in the incident.

They point to the fact that these were 19 and 20 year old airmen, stationed far from home in an unfamiliar environment.

Given these circumstances, is it not surprising they may have misinterpreted events due to their overactive imaginations and anxieties?

Whilst this is a compelling argument, Holt remains a far more difficult source to discredit.

He was a veteran of both the Vietnam and Korean wars, an experienced officer noted by his superiors for both his honour and his integrity.

Since he left military service, he has never made any effort to alter or change the account he had initially made to the authorities, one that arguably stunted any further advancement in his career.

The audio recording Holt made during the second encounter is easy enough to find on the internet, and lays bare the thoughts and fears he felt about the objects he was seeing.

Nobody has ever been able to convince him that what he was witnessing was the result of the brake lights of passing vehicles reflecting off low cloud cover, or the rotating beacon of a lighthouse seen off in the far distance.

With the US High Command having gone to such great lengths to discredit Lieutenant Colonel Holt's report, Are we really to believe that several hundred American airmen, who were stationed across two separate locations, all misinterpreted and misunderstood what they were seeing, that such highly trained military personnel were bamboozled by rogue atmospheric formations and the revolving light of a neighbouring lighthouse.

These were professional soldiers, who in some cases were battle-hardened from previous events in their careers.

Given their backgrounds and experiences, their accounts should automatically hold a greater degree of weight and accuracy than those given by civilian witnesses, and should have been a cause for concern to the authorities, as opposed to being ridiculed.

The explanations offered by American commanders do not account for the fact that the reported incidents were spread over a number of different nights, and across two different airbases.

They also do not account for the radioactive readings detected by the airmen, or the reports of lights being cast down onto the metal containers that were allegedly housing nuclear weapons.

There is little doubt that at least some of what was reported by those involved during the Rendlesham incident did indeed take place, and is very difficult to explain using conventional means.

This can only leave us to conclude that something inexplicable did pay a visit to rural Suffolk on that cold December morning.

Peter is part of the geez.