There are many facets to this incident and there are many eye witness statements.
The numerous conspiracy theories that have been suggested over time have ranged from “well may be to pull the other one”. Collectively they have muddied the waters just like the Roswell incident.
If people want to write books about these incidents great, it makes for interesting reading. Some times when the subject is well researched and a book published, it can be quite convincing. Other books may not be so convincing. The bottom line to this is I always maintain that there has to be an element of band wagon jumping and a quick buck attitude by some authors.
First of all there were many USAF airmen who witnessed the incident first hand.
One, Jim Penniston actually touched the ‘object’ which was only about 3m high and of pyramid shape. Not much room for a pilot and navigator in there then. All the witnesses described the coloured lights in a similar fashion.
Jim actually made sketches of the object on his note pad while looking at it.
Most of the witness statements were the same with just a few discrepancies.
Georgina Bruni’s book You Can’t Tell the People was a pretty accurate account from her research into the available information of the incident although she made a few minor mistakes and inaccuracies. I cannot work out just what Lady Thatcher meant by those words. “You Can’t Tell the People”. Sorry Maggie, she’s already told us, but we are not quite sure what?
Here are just a few of the conspiracy theories:
Vince Thirkettle, a then forestry worker claimed it was the Orfordness light house that they had all witnessed shining into the forest. Quite how this corresponds to an object floating amongst the trees, flashing different coloured lights and settling on the forest floor then taking off again in a blaze of light I do not know. However, I believe Vince retracted his theory in a later TV documentary. Ah wait a minute, I’ve sussed it, all these sceptics and de bunkers are colour blind.
It was a secret stealth aircraft. Well blow me down, why didn’t I think of that, Anglia Television and other networks loved the idea. ‘plonkers’. Firstly, what stealth aircraft about 3 metres in height could land with no engine noise amongst the tightly packed trees of a forest? Cause a heavy electrostatic atmosphere surrounding it and then shine all its lights, and in 1980? A stealth aircraft or such like shining its lights. What’s with that?
Then take off again with out touching any trees, gain height, break up into 5 sections and then shine beams of light down to where the men were standing. Then all 5 sections raced off into the sky in different directions at a phenomenal speed!
Perhaps the F117 stealth fighter has this ability and they haven’t let on. Get outa here. We must remember that the modern day stealth aircraft such as the F117 and B2 Spirit are still visible to the naked eye, its only radar that cannot see them.
Some experiments are in progress on aircraft that are invisible to the naked eye achieved I believe by spectrum light wave emissions from the plane.
Secondly, why did it not land on the runway and why did it land when the base was on low alert due to Christmas time etc. There was no flying during that period for the above reasons. Sneaky, the UFO pilot new the base was not flying over the 3 nights and this was his chance to have a nose around but the silly sod crashed it. Drat, forgot to turn the lights off.
The SAS were doing one of their diversion tactics for a dummy invasion of B/Waters.
Hang on, it would take at least a Hollywood special effects unit to carry this out and given the technology of the 80’s I doubt it very much. The SAS techniques were always stealth. The cost alone if achievable would be astronomical.
It was a downed/crashed Russian spy satellite. Wow! One that can take off again! I’ll have two please. Read my further explanation re satellite later in this text.
It was a jettisoned nuclear weapon that fell into the forest, please tell us what it fell off? There were no flying operations that week due to the Christmas break.
The nuclear weapons stock piled at Bentwaters & Woodbridge were what we call low yield tactical ‘theatre’ weapons measured in the half to 2 KT range. (Hiroshima was a 20KT weapon)There were no aircraft based at these bases large enough to carry any thing more powerful.
The miniaturisation of NW where a Thermo nuclear device (H Bomb) became small enough to be carried by a Buccaneer or Phantom had not been invented then.
We must also bear in mind that RAF bases in East Anglia also had stock piles of NW. The V bomber bases had ‘H’ bombs which had a much bigger ‘bang’. So if it was a spying mission, why just Woodbridge?
Why was a local prison put on evac standby during that period? Georgina never really researched this in depth. It may of course be of an entirely unrelated reason, but never the less, why?
USAF Police car flashing lights as a prank. This has more or less been eliminated due to research into times, dates and statements. Plus a Police car would not have been able to drive down the very narrow fire breaks in the forest. The Police car driver later admitted that he did all his ‘flashing’ on one of the taxi ways in side the base.
If you believe that Lt Col Halt and all the others are not telling the full story, I can only assume that it is because they are protecting their military pensions rather than giving away state secrets with the threat of death or prison. They were/are under a very similar system to the British Official Secrets Act. The OSA stays with you even after retirement. You can be prosecuted in the UK for letting on how long a tyre lasts on a military vehicle or how many miles per gallon it does. With silly insignificant things like this, Halt and the rest would be only too aware of the consequences if they let out too much military information no matter how insignificant it seems to us civilians. My personal view is that they have told us most of it but were reminded at a later date by their authorities to button it or else.
The Stealth or Black aircraft projects that some say were responsible for this incident don’t stack up. For one thing, the F117 was still in its infancy and the SR71 Black bird although operational was no way going to land at Woodbridge during the Christmas break. For one thing there would have been a back up C130 with CIA technicians ready to receive and service it. The CIA was cagy about letting the USAF near the SR71. There was no unmarked C130 to my knowledge at Woodbridge over the Christmas break. This also applied to the U2 spy planes also operational at that time.
Jenny Randles in her book ‘Skycrash’ comes up with a much more Sci Fi reason for the incident. She claims that the Cobra Mist radar project on Orfordness had in some way unwittingly altered a time dimension which opened up a window for these phenomena to take place. She also claims that this window still exists in the area.
In another book by Jenny, ‘Timestorms’ she explains this theory in more detail.
Another theory or more to the point gossip proposed by some locals but not entirely related to the UFO is that the twin bases are connected by a tunnel.
Could this have been part of the underground bunker system at Bentwaters?
Another interesting fact is (and I have this from some body who worked on the project) that there were cables laid under the road from the Cobra Mist radar project on Orfordness to the BT research centre at Martlesham Heath. There were a number of cables but only one was a standard BT Trunk. The others were not identifiable. This came from an old friend who had worked on BT cables! Just what involvement BT had with Cobra Mist except for communications I do not know, my guess it was more than just communications! I think there are some unanswered
questions concerning the BT research centre and its links to Cobra Mist.
Only in recent times do we see spying UAV’s that are small, can hover and navigate round obstacles all because of recent microchip development. They do however all have engines and none to my experience are pyramid shaped.
Even the electric powered ones give off a loud humming sound as the electric motor drives the propellers. This in the 80’s, no way.
It was a retrieval exercise by the Russians for one of their spy satellites that had crashed out of orbit into Rendlesham forest. ‘I’ll just flash all my lights so the enemy
can find me’. This was carried out by an airship that was launched from a Soviet submarine out in the North Sea. The airship hovered over R/forest on 3 consecutive nights dangling a pyramid shaped object trying to locate their piece of hardware. They were not successful and the incident was covered up by a both the US and GB for fear of escalating the cold war. I love this one and it possibly was achievable for the technology of the time. However, many aspects of this scenario do not add up, still like though.
It was parts from a Russian aircraft where the crew had defected and tried to land at Woodbridge. Wow, a crashed Russian aircraft only 3m high and shaped like a pyramid. Not much room for the bomb aimer then, more a crate of Vodka.
In Georgina’s book, you can’t tell the people, she mentions an F100 Super Sabre parked in a hanger but all the writing in and around cockpit was in French. Sorry Georgina, if you had bothered to find out, the French air force were operating F100’s at that time and they did pay an occasional visit to USAF bases that also operated the F100. The USAF often visited the French air force. It was a NATO thing. Commonality of type by different but friendly air forces often carried reciprocal visits.
In another theory, a Russian Tupolev TU 20 ‘Bear’ bomber defected to RAF Woodbridge whilst on a North Sea patrol. It was supposedly kept in a hanger out of sight. Hey folks, more ‘plonkering’, the TU 20 Bear was almost as big as a B52 and there was no hanger big enough on either Bentwaters or Woodbridge bases to house it. Or perhaps they parked it in Rendlesham forest, but first they had to cut down many trees. It could have been a Tupolev TU16 Badger which is smaller and may have squeezed into a Bentwaters hanger. I don’t buy this at all.
You must realise that the interception of enemy aircraft coming into or near British sovereign territory including the 12 mile limit out to sea (Soviet aircraft at that time) was the sole responsibility of the RAF and they would have been the escorts to whichever base the Soviet aircraft landed. I suspect that the RAF would claim the ‘capture’. Come to think of it, the RAF had few bases with hangers large enough.
Oh, I forgot to mention the main point of the theory, the Russians jettisoned some thing into the forest before landing. A bit off course on finals then! Must have been the Vodka. Well it was Christmas wasn’t it.
The MIG 25 ‘Foxbat’ that defected to Japan or was it South Korea, I cannot remember made world headlines, so why didn’t this Soviet defection if it ever happened at all make headlines?
We must not lose sight of the fact that the Rendlesham forest incident could have been man made for whatever reason and investigations into this area are a long way from being exhausted. However, failing all these theories and the many not mentioned, it is increasingly looking like a paranormal event!
I’ve had a little dig at Georgina Bruni but her book still remains the best account to date.
There are more conspiracy theories but I will leave it there for the moment.
Cover up by governments? Cover up what? That’s what we are all trying to find out.
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