My visit to Rendlesham forest at night
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21 April 2007
Although this was not my first time in Rendlesham forest during the night, it’s the first time that I have been able to have a proper look around the forest armed with a high quality digital camera and a camcorder.
When I arrived, the first thing that struck me was how clear the sky was – I could see just about every star and planet. The stars are clearly visible where I live, however there is no light-pollution around Rendlesham forest what-so-ever.
Once in the forest I noticed how quiet the surroundings were. Occasionally I would hear an owl or a fox rustling around in the bushes – but on the whole it was deathly silent.
The first thing that I wanted to do was to see the Orford Ness lighthouse’s beam. A few years ago I had managed to capture a fleeting glimpse of it, although that was in the summer. I thought I may have missed something.
I had heard about how the beam sweeps through the trees and creates the illusion of being closer than it really is – apparently confusing many different airmen for up to three consecutive nights back in December 1980. What I saw surprised me.
I turned right at the end of Route 10, which bought me onto one of the smaller paths in the forest. The trees hung overhead like an archway. It was still deathly silent. At times I felt uneasy, it was hard not to really – it was much darker here, the moonlight could not shine through the ceiling of branches above me.
Soon I arrived at a clearing, part of the UFO trail. From this point I could see across the open field, there was a light on in the house which lies at the Eastern edge of the field.
On the second night of the incident, Charles Halt said the farmhouse looked as if it was glowing. Some people have claimed that the unusual glow coming from the farmhouse was down to a bright lamp or something similar – which can still be seen today apparently. There are infact no unusual lights on the inside or outside of the farmhouse – if there ever was anything unusual there, it has now gone.
Within a few seconds, my eyes were attracted to a small point of light near to the farmhouse. It disappeared. A few seconds later the light flashed again – this was the Orford Ness lighthouse. I sat on a nearby picnic table and watched as the lighthouse’s weak light flashed from time to time. At first I began smiling to myself as I thought, “how could this tiny, dim light cause USAF personnel to ‘freak out’ and think they were witnessing a UFO landing, for up to three consecutive nights? It couldn’t.”
The amusement of the situation soon disappeared and I was left feeling quite angry. The sceptics claim that the UFO story has grown over time and become more elaborate in a negative sense. In my opinion, it has “grown” for one reason only - researchers have dug deeper and uncovered more information.
But if anything has grown with time, I can assure you it is that lighthouse’s ‘beam’!
On the History Channels recent documentary on the Rendlesham forest incident, “Britain’s Roswell”, UFO sceptic James McGaha remarked, “If you’re out, a dark sky on a cold night in December, and a lighthouse is swinging through the trees, with this bright beam of light passing through the trees – it’s going to have some strange unusual effects – light is going to get scattered by the trees.”
Mcgaha seems to believe that there is some kind of beam which sweeps through the trees, and that light gets scattered everywhere – creating some kind of optical illusion. I can only assume that Mcgaha has no idea of what the lighthouse actually looks like. Let’s see what the lighthouse’s wonderful “beam” really looks like, here’s a frame from my video footage. I zoomed in almost 10x to capture this shot on my camcorder.
This animation shows two frames, one with the lighthouse off and one with the lighthouse on. The animation is 225kb and may take 10-20 seconds to load on a slower connection.
Yes, that’s right. That really is the lighthouse. The little window in the farmhouse was much bigger than the lighthouse’s so-called “beam”. You must remember that the lighthouse is almost six miles away too, you can’t seriously expect it to “swing between the trees”.
I decided to forget about the lighthouse for a while and walked off deeper into the forest. I noticed how difficult it was to walk in the forest at night, and a flashlight only seemed to make it worse, casting shadows that looked like dips onto the floor. I stumbled a few times and would have only encountered more trouble if I had been walking through the thick trees – just as Colonel Halt and others did over 26 years ago.
A few years ago, the BBC reported on a group of UFO/paranormal investigators who regularly visited the forest. The group claimed that they have seen ‘orbs, ‘streamers’, strange mists, UFOs and unusual animals. I did not bump into anyone else at all that night, let alone a group of ‘UFO hunters’.
One thing that did strike me as being odd was the number of aircraft flying over the area. There was one aircraft in particular that had three bright white lights, which flashed in four quick bursts; I had never seen anything like it before. Perhaps some of the more advanced aircraft flying overhead could account for some of the recent UFO sightings in the area?
I was quite convinced I would not see anything remotely unusual in the forest, but I did not return completely disappointed. Coming up to about 11PM I observed a bright light which seemed to be hovering over the forest – although I could not tell how far away it was. It looked bigger and brighter than Venus, which was in another section of the sky, and looked like it was just above the tree tops. I took out my pair of binoculars, but by the time I had found the correct position in the sky the object had disappeared. It did not see it go; it just wasn’t there when I looked again. I have made a little image which accurately shows what I saw, it wasn’t much though – just a light in the sky. The image also shows exactly where the light was, the photo I used to create the reconstruction was a real one taken at Rendlesham forest.
I took a few photos utilizing my camera’s powerful flash, I have managed to capture some strange and unexplainable objects on camera in Rendlesham forest in the day, but was rather disappointed that I could not capture any during the night. I eventually managed to capture an orb, although I am certain that most orbs can be explained as either dust or pollen. Does it look like dust to you?
View the original untouched image here.
Whether you want to walk the UFO trail, visit the famous landing sites, see the lighthouse blinking on the horizon or simply have a walk around, the beautiful and mysterious Rendlesham forest is well worth a visit, especially on a dark night.
