IUR

International UFO Reporter

Fall 2001
Volume 26, Number 3
AN ANALYSIS OF ANGEL HAIR
1947-2000
At 2:00 p.111. 011 October 22. 1973. in Sudbiuy, Massachuseus. a child ran inlll the hou.1e calling to his
mother to cotne outside 10 see "the biggest spider11eb in the 1m rld. The mother di.,coFered in her yard a
sihel:\-lrhite 1reb-like material cmering hushes and hanging Jimn the trees. As she looked tmrard the sky,
she witnessed a shiny. silven . spherical object moPing o.ff to the west as m o r e < ~ { this web-like substc111ce
f ell.fi"om the skrfor another two hours. The 1\'itnes.\' took samples on construction paper and placed them
in a glass j ar and into the reji-igerator wking them to a locallaborm01:r for examination. The material
was ll'hite and translucent and di111inishing mpidly. This is a microscopic photo of the substance.
(NJCAP, UFO lnl'estigator. March 1974)
INTERNATIONAL
UFO
REPORTER
Editors:
Jerome Clark
George M. Ebcrhan
Mark Rodcghier
Contr ibuting Editor. :
Bil l Chalker
Richard F. Hai nc.\
Richard Hall
Kevin D. Randle
Jenny Randles
Chris Rutkowski
Web site:
www.curos.org
E-mail:
l nfocenter @cufos.org
Answering machine:
(773) 27 1-3611

Zl -1910-1986
TIIF. L ocKHEEil UFO CASE, 1953 IJy Joel Carpenter ............................................................................................. ............ . 3
A. \ M L\'SIS OF ,\.,\ICF.I. BAlK, 1947- 2000 by Brian Boldman .......................................................................................... . 10
R F.'IIli.ESIIM I TilE B RITISII MoD FILE by Jenny Randles ................................................................................... 21
L E'IT ERS ..................... ............ . ...... .... ............................................................ .................. .............. ......................... . .. ..... . . ... . .. 26
\-VIIAT UOES ,, IIAI. F-CE'ITLIH' OF 1:-rrr. ' SE UFO I>ISI'LA Y by Michael D. Swords .................................................. 27
OF INTERF.-rr To CUFOS .................................................................................................................................. 35
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IUit + t'\1 1 :!001
RENDLESHAM FOREST:
THE BRITisH MoD FILE
BY JENNY R ANDLES
T
he strange events in Rendl esham Forest. Suf-
folk. England. that took pl ace duri ng late De-
cember 1980 have gone down in UFO history as
one of the most debated cases of all time. With
both civi li an and military personnel from the U.S. Air Force
bases at Woodbridge and Bent waters as witnesses. the case
has generated more discussion than any outside rhe United
Stares. Already there have been five books devoted entirely
to the events- a record surpassed only by Roswell. And the
arguments rage as regards to what really took place. as
various articles in this magazine have revealed over the
years (see fUR. Fall 2000. for example).
For many ufologists. the sighting or a well- lit object
above and ins ide the forest. plus the reputed radar trackings
made or it, strongly suppo rt UFO reality. That the wi tnesses
included the base deputy commander, Col. Charl es Halt. as
well as phy ical evidence in the form of photographs and
radiation traces. underscores the significance.
Yer the skepti cs movement (which incl udes quire a few
Briti sh ufologists) has been arguing since 1983 that there is
a simpl e an" wer. The witnesses were aU fool ed by mundane
things, notably a bright meteor and the Orford Ness light-
ho use shining through coastal mi st. Other factors ro
compli cate the case are the known presence in the area of
experimental electromagnetic radiation research that was
occurring on the Ness during the 1970s and, according to
local s, was generating both physical effects (car-stops, TV
interference. etc.) and strange glowi ng li ght as a by-
product.
OFFICIAL VIEWS
Gi ven that we (UFO invest igators in Great Britain) learned
of the Rendlesham event soon after it occulTed. there has
been a 20-year search for government documents to learn of
the official position on the case and. important ly. to under-
stand what investigations were done by the U.S. and U.K.
Jenny Randles is an ! U R contributing editor. awhor ofmany
books on UF0.1 and related subjects. 01/{l 011e of the 1rorld's
most respected UFO investigators.
governments. I want to repon on these efforts in this article
and the extraordinary release this year of the full U.K.
government fil e on the case.
Despite the Rendlesham events havi ng been intensely
debated by ufologists for about 20 years, the ofricial gov-
ernment position on both sides of the At lantic is not easy to
define. There was no rapid public revelation about the
incidents on December 25/26 and 27/28: accordingly. even
the local press carried no reports until UFO investigators
alerted them almost a year later. Media attenti on only really
took off in 19R2. when my first articles appeared in news-
stand magazines. and in early 1983 when the popular
science journal Omni carried a report citi ng British Squad-
ron Leader Donald Moreland.
Morel and served as a token U.K. presence on the bases,
acting as a landlord for the British MoD (Ministry of
Defence) and interfacing between them and the U.S. forces
that leased these twin bases fo r NATO duties. Although
Moreland was not a witness, he had endorsed the credibility
or those who were and forwarded a repon to the MoD.
Even by the time he came forward (the first high
ranking offi cer to do so). effort s had continued to pressure
the MoD to release official comment on the case. The
witness testimo ny (mostly civil ians at this early stage)
suggested a major event o n forestry commission land and
surely, therefore, some sort of cooperation with the USAF,
who supposedl y investigated as the event unfolded. The
MoD would have had to grant permission for American
troops to conduct an off-base investigation on British soil.
after all.
Letters to the department charged with UFO investiga-
tion in the U. K. (then known as Defence Secretariat-S and
more recently as Air Staff 2A) had been fired ofT by myself
and locally ba. ed colleague Brenda Butler since six weeks
after the events when we both independently learned about
the case through mi litary contacts. But these requests had
brought replies that simply ignored our questions about the
events. as if it were a topic t hat the MoD preferred not to talk
about.
In October 1982 I won a partial breakthrough- a
promise to release all MoD UFO fil es soon-and was given
IUR + F,,u 200 I
1 1
the sop of various recent cases from a January 1983 nap.
But my request for information on Rendlesham still fell on
offi cially deaf ears-until the 011111i article appeared. This
changed everything. On April 13, 1983. the MoD wrote to
me and fi nally acknowledged that the case had occurred and
that "no explanation was forthcoming ... It i s true to say that
they probably had no option but to do so by thi s date. After
all , one of their own officers had j ust admitted the same
thing in a newsstand magazine. Had that not occurred. it is
difficult to know whether the MoD would havcj ust gone on
refusi ng to offer comment like before.
At much the same time in the US. the UFO political
action group CAUS-using a statement from witness Larry
Warren who had recently spoken to Larry Fawcett and
Barry Greenwood about his role in the case-applied via
the Freedom of Information Act for case Iiles. They re-
cei ved a si milar admi ssion of the incident from the USAF
about two weeks after my leucr from the MoD. and i n May
1983 put in an offi ci al request for fil es to back it up. I n June
1983 thi s turned up the one-page memo signed by Col. Halt
that summarized the case. Thi s was the memo forwarded by
Squadron Leader Morel and to the MoD back i n mid Janu-
ary 198 1. about three weeks artcr the incidents.
However, the MoD still declined to release thi s memo
to myself or any other Briti sh citi zen due to the U. K.
Offici al Secrets Act: a rather absurd posi ti on since the
USAF were now stati ng that they only got a copy to release
to Ameri can ci tizens owi ng to help from the MoD.
ln 1985 Ray Boeche of M UFON Nebraska was abl e to
squeeze more documents from the USAF. although these
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Col. Halt's memo. Jwwary 13. 1981.
were not very illuminating. consi sting of mostl y internal
memos advising staff on how to answer questions posed by
journal ists on the case. Several fil es were withheld for
security reasons. On appeal one of these was released to
Boeche. It was a teletype message in whi ch the operator had
drawn a line of little and ali ens on top, presum-
abl y as a joke. It seems likel y thi s was the reason for the
initial deci sion to withhold the fil es as the message content
seems innocuous.
As for the MoD. they continued to maintain a discrete
silence despite lots of pressure. In 1984 Ral ph oyes (a
retired Under Secretary who had been long associ ated
with the MoD UFO study and whom I had persuaded that
there was a case to answer) and I succeeded in convincing
a crusading Member of Pari iament ( David AI !'On) to de-
mand answers from the government. Although exchanges
of information went on between Al ton and the Defense
Mini ster, Lord Trefgarne. the end result was that both Alton
and Noyes were gi ven j ust as much of a runaround as I was!
Nobody was wi lling to say anything beyond a repetitive.
sheep-l ike comment that the MoD did not beli eve there
were any defense implication. behind thi s case.
Noyes and I argued with the MoD that such a sugges-
ti on made no sense. If the UFO was real and unidentifi ed
and it intruded into British ai r space, of course there were
defense implicat ions. I f it was not real and senior USAF
officers in charge of a NATO base were thus seeing things
that didn't exist and chasing them across Bri tish soil. then
that, too, clearl y was no inconsequential matter. But all thi s
proved to no avail.
THE BREAKTHROUGH
As with many aspects of Briti h government. where offi cial
secrecy is a way of l i fe. things have not changed rapidly.
But, given the closer associati on with the European Com-
munity i n recent years and pressure from British citi zens
upset by what they see as old rash ioned secrecy. the govern-
ment has made pl ans to i ntroduce a Freedom of Informati on
Act that would allow documentation to be released.
At present. MoD Ii les are l ocated at the Public Record
Offi ce in Kew. but only opened up to the publ ic after 30
years has elapsed following the last act i on taken on the fil e
(in the Rcndlesham case that would mean 30 years after
1985). For well over a year the Bri tish government has been
pri vatel y advi sing their intention to alter the pattern and
release UFO materi al well ahead of ti me owi ng to the
imminence of the Freedom of' Information Act (likel y to be
passed in 2002). Although several Bri tish ufol ogi sts (my-
sel f included) have known thi s since late 1999. we had
decided not to talk openl y about i t for fear or undermining
deci si ons that had to yet to be transformed into action.
There was good reason ror thi s, as we had run into
problems before. In 1982, I had tried (wi th assi stance from
Bi ll Chalker who had recentl y been granted access to Air
Force files i n his nati ve Australia) to persuade the MoD that
IUR + r-" 1. 2001
22
it made to make the fil es available. locating
t hem at a :.ci ent ifi c inst itute and reli nqui shing
respon!>ibil ity. This had won some suppor1 withi n the MoD
and. as mentioned above. during 1983 several MoD files
were rcleused to me.
However. the remarkabl e publi city that followed the
revelati on of the Halt memorandum in October 1983 (i t was
the front page headline in Britain's highest ci n.: ulati on
newspaper and ended up being debated by all the media and
even in TV political programs) worked agai nst the plan. By
the spr ing of 1984 it was obvi ous that the MoD were
reneging on their promise-probably frightened off by the
furor they were inviti ng. In fnrstrati on I handed data over to
Martin Bai Icy of the Obsenw newspaper (which had a high
readership among pol iticians) and he canied an excellent
arti cle reporting the about-face. The MoD officiall y ci ted
l ack of money and complexity as the they could not
now release the data.
But it was clear a simi lar thi ng might happen again.
hence our deci sion to keep quiet on this . econd go-around.
Dr. David Clarke, whose academic background, skepti ci),lll
over UFO re<llity. years a. a professional journalist, and
l ong term w nwct s wi thi n the MoD made him attractive to
their stance. gently cultivated the MoD ro the point where
they agreed to start releasing data on Rendle),ham to him
early in 200 I.
Thi !> produced the major breakthrough i n May of the
of what the MoD profess to be the entire lile on
Rt::ndlesham Forest- 150 pages. far and away the most
derai led report on any case the MoD has ever released.
Seven documents were wi thheld on grounds that they might
compromil.e national . ecurit y operations i n some way. That
decision has been appealed.
It was decided to publ icl y rel ease this informat i on and
the documents through a Web si te prepared during the
summer and not to hold back this data from others
(www. ll yi ngsaucery.com). But. of course. it was Clarke
who was sent the tile ancl l had to wait for him to put up hi s
Web site before I was free to talk.
I n the mealllime, word got through to journali st
Georgina Bruni. whose book You Can't Tell the People
supports the UFO real ity behind the Rendle. ham case. and
she received a copy of rhe file. It i s to be hoped that the
already devel opi ng between Clarke and hi s
and Bruni and hers do not force the MoD into
another U-turn that wi ll limit the release of other UFO file . .
THE MoD APPROACH To UFO cAsES
What. then. docs the fil e tell us about how the MoD
investi gated what i. arguably Britain' s biggest UFO case?
First. a note of caution. The fil e is that of the Air Staff (i.e ..
DS 8/ Air Staf f 2A). Thi s i s the department at which Nick
Pope (now a noted UFO writer) served during the earl y to
mid- 1990s. But it wi se to recall what thi unit i s. and what
i t is not.
Thel.e Ai r Staff exi t primari ly tO interact with the
public. answering our question. about UFOs (as a small pan
of a wider brief of RAF-related matters). such they tend
to gi ve rock answers that have been carefull y constructed
over many years. The staiThavc a middle-rank civi l . er vant
at the helm and are not reall y the equi val ent or. for example.
Project Blue Book where USAF were (at least
sometimes) working on UFO cases in an effort to resol ve
them and in the process had some capabi li ty to follow up
leads all over the country.
The MoD Ai r Staff has no comparable resources. The
work is all done i n the oflicc and of minor consequence
(a few hours a week at mo t ). A personally interested
worker like Nick Pope (who Wtb not at the MoD during the
Rendlesham case) mi ght make a few phone calls to air ba es
and do some rudimentary check . . But even he could never
lly off to the scene and invest igate a ca!.e. Indeed Nick often
liaised with i nvestigators from my team at British UFO
Re ear-ch Association (BUFORAJ duri ng the period that he
worked for the Ai r Staff. In ef fect. our team of investigator.
made site visits that Nick coul dn' t make and Nick
from time to time spoke to base "ncl the like in
a way that we never could.
So it was a profi table relationship. bur one that illus-
trates the limitations of the MoD Air Staff. was no team
of government UFO charged with solving big
mysteri e), on some X-files-sized budget. It was there to
el iminate any obvi ous defense threat behind a case: once
sati!>lied that was the true. they moved on to more important
matters.
To most incumbents at the Air Staff. UFOs and the
madcap who wrote to them were a nuisance and
a publ ic-relations nightmare-not anything or ),ignific.:ance.
I ndeed staff rotated very frequently. withi n two to
three years-and few saw this as a great posting but instead
just a step en route to something better.
The Air Staff could- and did if' they could be both-
ered- liaise wi th other levels. of the MoD to pursue a
worthy case. The e other levels were typically de fen. e
intelligence units and the Department of Scicnti fi e and
Technical Intell i gence (DSTI ) where MoD-cleared scien-
tists and RAF intelligence staff work on intell igence claw.
Thi s is nor to infer that these groups bel i eve any case might
-;uggest an al ien presence. but rather that some might
suggest a new tactic by a foreign power or a new weapons
system een during an illegal overfli ght. Contacts wi th the
early warning radar network were al. o cl one !>Ometime . .
just i n ca. e UFO sightings were evidence of. for instance.
unrecorded spy plane missions.
Si nce these other departments had a higher security
classificati on than the Air Stall had, the Air
Stall could only be told by. say. DSTI. what DSTI chose to
tell them or what the stall was cleared to be told. This was
not necessaril y everything. or indeed necessar-
i l y anything.
The role played by the Air Staff was (and i s) one of a
I UR + F -111 1001
23
shop window whereby they arc vi. ible to the public and deal
with inquiries and can offer offi cial answers. But these
answers and <Lny in depth study behind a report (whenever
thi s rarel y happens) are dictated from above in the chain of
command- which the Air Staff. naturall y. trust implicit ly.
Consequentl y, if a si ghting occur!> and i s reported to the Air
Staff. they may end the member of the publi c a stock repl y
("we investi gate to establi ' h if there are any defense impli-
cati ons.'' and o on) and then may say nothing else. as Air
Staf f prefer not to enter the UFO minefi el d unl ess they have
no choice.
Air staff respon!>e!> to a witness who presl.es them wi ll
rarel y be speci fic. except in the negati ve. i.e .. "we have been
unable to identify any ai r exerci ses operat ing at the time:
and rarel y would they say what they said to me in April
1983-that a major case is consi dered to be unexplained-
since thi s invites the assumption that they are conti rming
that UFOs are real. Of course. in the strict sense they arc
doing so. where by UFO we mean simply an unidentified
phenomenon. But si nce most people equate a UFO wi th an
alien spaceship. the MoD knows the ri sks with aying too
much.
For specifi c answers the Air St<Lf f will depend
upon the outcome or an investigari on by their associ ate !>taft"
(such as DSTI) and can onl y report what the DSTI choo. e
to tell them. It i s likely that the DSTI would be ci rcumspect
in what they reveal to these ci vil servams. Consequently.
you must always read between the lines of communications
between Air Staff and the public and the ones from more
agencic!> and the Air Staff they arc advising.
The Air Staff honestl y report what they consider i s the
truth and if silly ufologists start bleating about cover-ups
and real UFOs lurking behind cases. they can shake their
head. at thi s evident paranoia and say-without ever need-
ing to lie- that so far as the Air Staff know thi s j u t i sn' t the
case. Because as far as they know it isn' t. But they do not
necessaril y know all that there is to know about a case.
THE R ENDLESHAM FILE
The UFO fil es of organi zations like DSTI are not often
Some data- mostl y communicati ons from DSTI
or a defense intelligence unit internally to the Air Staff
in reply to que. tions- are contai ned wi thin Air Staff fil es
that do get released. But not the inrernal fi les of the i ntel li-
gence agenci es themselves. which likely would be more
revealing. I n other words. any MoD file on UFO:-. i s prob-
abl y just reporting one part of the story. The fi le. even so.
not without and can illuminate matters. but i t may
not nece!>sari ly be the l ast word on government
And i t i s wi th Rcndlesham. We now have a lile that
paints a fascinat ing picture of a team of ci vi l
lloundering wi th a UFO case that is cl early beyond their
remi t and of only minimal i nterest. at least part ly because
they beli eve their own publicity that UFOs arc a
What we don't necessarily have in the released fi le is the
HOD (f)SBa)
. [ I ( .
RAF UAJSON OFFICE (;:
Rcy>IA.Ir- OenrNJton WOOdbrlclgo Sllltoll< I 12lRO
-w->m..,m 2257
0........_. BE!iT/019/76
A!!-
.,... If .l411ary 1981
FLYING 08JF.CTS (U70 'a)
r a :e;"':' =: ! ,_..,_
the Deputy i!<lse CCCI::I4nder ot RAT Bentw&:ers
ce:ninq some cysterlous si;htinqs in the
nea: RAFff:bridqe. raper: is
!or i . and action at con-
sidered necessary.
Cooy to:
SRAE'LO, RAP Hilc!onhall
D H XOIU:LAN D
Sq1ladron Lea<1er
RAr Comnando r
J I'('(
. '
. --.. ,.._
r; /Acl (, .... , 1
.. , ...... .
(...._.. ..
Moreland's cmer nole. January 15. /981.
whole story. although whether we arc only missing a few
minor pieces <>r a major part of the pun h: revol ve), around
how we interpret some of the that the lile
must cause us to ask.
The starting point. Chronologically the fil e on
January 15. 1981. with the cover note sent by Squadron
Leader Moreland to accompany Halt' s report to the MoD.
Thi s is 21 clays af'ter the f irst sighting- the alleged landing
witnessed by three USAF personnel inside the forest. Ac-
cording to the fi le it is the first time that the MoD were even
made aware of the case. But wa. it? Thi s is the bi g
that we must face.
Among other things. the Rendlesham event s invol ve
possible irradiation of the area by a l anded UFO. thi s in an
area of a Bri tish forest used by many dog walkers and
pi cnickers. It is irrelevant as to whether it actual l y was
irradiated to any signiticant degree. The report shows this
concl usion was made by Halt and hi!> orticers taki ng read-
ings wi th Geiger sample!>. etc .. activi ties well
beyond their jurisdiction. (It seems unlikely they could
have done thi s without MoD approval. ) They do thi s -IX
hours after the first incident and yet only bother
to ofliei ally report it to London by letter three weeks later.
Thi s is odd.
One mu t wonder how many British wandered
through a forest thought to be irradiated during thi s peri od.
suffering potential consequences? Even if. as later events
suggest. they were at no real ri sk. that had to be a cl ear
R +- F\U
2-1
po sibil ity in the immediate aftermath and it incon-
cei vable that nobody acted to protect the public. Thi' could
have been done without revealing the alleged UFO incident
(e.g .. under a pretext that the area was temporarily so
to be with dangerous chemical:-.). To do noth-
ing- as the report either extraordinary
complacency or even negl igence that would righlly lead to
all sort s of pub I ic concerns that are largely irrelevant to the
issue of what the UFO was. or even how seri ous the radia-
ti on threat eventually proved to be. If abnormal of
radiati on were believed to exist. then surely public
had to become an issue well before three weeks later?
The alternative. of coun .. e. is that the first memo in this
now rclea!>ed MoD tile is nut the first comact that the MoD
had with For my part. I am preny sure that the
MoD knew before Moreland s leller plopped on their mat.
I am certai n becau!.c forestry workers and farmers told me
of men i n with Briti sh accents who arrived and <hked
questions about the case in the area on January I . This is 14
days before the documents indicate the MoD even knew
about the case. Yet on that date no other British suurce knew
about the events. The first inkling any urologist had was
l ater that week. No reporters knew about the case umil
months later. Therefore. the most probable idemity or these
men in :-.ui ts i. government ofticial s maki ng an early fact-
finding mi ssion to check out the area. But if so, the MoD
was invol ved inthi!> case far earl ier than its newly rl!icased
tile shows.
A new revelation. The Iiles first major new revelati on
i). from a memo elated January 28. 1981 . Signed by Squad-
ron Leader J. D. Badcock at RAF openuion:-. it other
to express any i nterest in the Bentwaters
( Rendlesham) case now recei ved at the MoD i n the form of
the Halt memo. It !>ay:-. we would part icularly like to know
whether the reading!"> of radioacti vity are unusual or whether
they are wi thin the normal background range to be ex-
r 'j;;: J:ll1r.:
C;o(GE)10/J _.--
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2t 61

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t.;t \ h e J.i:- r _.:'CO lat'!C:" '"$ J::; 0,
Bad cock ' .1 llle/1/o. Jmwcuy 28. /981.
pected: This reveals how the radiation was singled out as
the key issue right m the start and further to me that
this was something the MoD would not have been happy to
si t on for weeks in case it led to any public health i sl>ues.
Just the fact that an MoD agency asking the above
question of rheir imclligence one month after the area
in question had possibly been irrudiated. but while the
British public still had unrestri cted Ltccess intowl ignorance
of these events. i s itself of concern.
Amazi ngl y. on February 16. Badcock reports 'J have
had no response." Nobody at any agency was interested.
But thi s memo does add three important new pieces of data.
First. that the MoD was seeking conlirrnat i on. but
checki ng the ni ght of December 29, 1980. for thi daw as it
was misl eadingly thought from the Halt memo to be the dare
of the events. We now know Hah apparemly misdated the
events. Consequentl y. the MoD to conlirm radar
presence of the obj ect via RAF Neati5.head were botched
until it too late and the fil ms had been destroyed.
Second. the memo notes thilt the MoD knew from this
very early stage that the events i n the forest had been tape
recorded (the infamous Hal t tape in 1984). But
third. the memo reveal s what had happened to thi s lllpe.
noting. ' J have spoken with Sqn Ldr Moreland at Bent waters
and he the deputy commander I Hal t] a sound
source. I asked if the incident had been reported on the
USAF net and l was acl vi!>ed that tape recorder I i c I of the
evidence had been handed to General Gabriel who hap-
pened to be visiti ng the station."
Clearl y thi s news is important a!. it til..!s in with n long-
told story about the case in which official evidence was
supposedly nown out of Beniwater.. and onto Ramstein Air
Force base in Germany just days after the event This story
hn never been veri fied but now it has some backing.
So perhap. a US FOI A request for the of General
Gabriel" :-. ofti ce and his for being at Bent waters in
late December 1980 should be mounted.
Intelligence replies. Eventual ly. on March 9. Badcock
confirmed that two MoD intelligence unit:-. (0 1 55 and Dl
52) had responded- better late than never (after all. only
Briti sh cit izens' health through radiation poi soning was
potentiall y at stake)- and Dl 52 had even made .. an offer to
pursue:' Dl 55. on March 2. explained they had .. canvassed
DST! for thought s but cannot offer any expl anation for
the phenomena.
So they had not by this :-.tage. for instance. found
evidence for conventional expl anati ons :..uch as RAF air-
craft a bright meteor. or realit.ed that the Orford Ness
lighthouse might have been These MoD
:..cicntists and intelligence :-.taff were app<trently as non-
plussed a:.. ufologi sts and the witnesses. This is an important
poi nt in the ongoing debate abolll the true nawre of the
Rendlesham sighting ..
However. we don"t have the DSTI files themsel ves.
only what Dl 55 told the Air Staff, so we have no idea how
(continued rm page 30)
l Ull+ F\11 2001
.25
R ENDLESHAM-continuedfrom page 25
extensive were their efforts to solve this riddle. Did it
include checks with astro nomers, meteorologists or what-
ever '? Or was it just two staff from the Ministry chatting for
five minutes over a pot of tea about the latest idiotic UFO
story?
Dl 52 o n February 23 concurred with a . light caveat,
saying .. DI 52 do not know of any seri ous explanation'' (not
indicating what a 'non serious .. explanation might be). It
did add that the background radiation varies a lot and
indicated that the readi ngs suggested 0. 1 mi ll irad was
detected in the forest as opposed to the expected 0.015 to
0.03 millirad, meaning that Dl 52 was suggesting a reading
.. V I , J


PISS< to::;on
S:of\ .:3:!ca:
l::o.o-.1 or e.7 :.er1o4:: o:;..l.::.r.;.t!c.:. 1t:. .. cr-.s.
' Ir !'0'.1 '!o :,ur::v.o U.1D 1 co.-:.L:. t..:.b c.::f,..,!..-1<-"1 :.a :o '....r;;.t
hcl.,:....-;,4-' !nulL 1.!l '1.-:.:.J t ,.. W :-r.;e:-t !,..; ..
0.1 uc.e """'-.:a1. ti:.:.:l t=.-7 ex:;-:eh.:..
Me111ojiom Dl 52. Februarv 23. 198/.
that was maybe five or six times the expected level. How-
ever. their offer to pursue this was to .. make enquiries as to
natural background levels in the area ...
Although they did not get asked by Air Staff to pursue
t hings. in so far as the fi le indicates. I did myself as soon as
I saw the Hall memo two years later. From a plant biologist
! learned how pine needles in a forest can accumulate higher
level of radiation. This impl ies that the level reported by Dl
52 was not a mazingly high and that the radiatio n wa
probably not the major issue it has long been argued to be.
But as these now released memo. indicate. as late a.
March 1981 the U.K. government did not know if the
radiation recorded in a public forest was or was not a risk to
health. They did not know before thi s but evidently just
gambled on the heal th and safety of its citizens by presum-
ing that thi s UFO tale was of no importance.
Radar checks. Checks with the radar at RAF Watton
(Eastern Radnr)- long a bone of contention over this case-
are also revealed by this file. I spoke with a radar operator
at Watton in late January 198 1-my first knowledge of the
case- after he had initially spoken to a mutual contact (Paul
Begg) in a pub. He advised that Watt on did track something
and that their films were later taken away by USAF intelli -
gence officers for study. During t hat visit Watton staff had
been told about the UFO landing in detail.
At the time Watton was silent on this. leaving the tory
as ju. t a rumor told by a man not willing to publ icly back hi s
clai ms for fear of violati ng the Official Secrets Act. But
what does the MoD file reveal? On February 26. 198 1.
Squadron Leader Coumbe. commander of Walton. re-
poned that they had checked fil m "on the days pri or to and
after the reported pheno mena' and that regrettably both
l'ilms were also faulty. Moreover. '"the fil m of the reported
sighting [i.e., on the date in the Halt memo I was at fault. .. The
Walton conrroller on duty ""was requested to view the radar ..
and ' ' nothing was observed ...
Thi s response is curious for several reasons. First. there
is no reference to thi s blanket fault in the letter sent to UFO
writer Nick Redfern when the then Watton commander
confirmed a sighting o n December 28. 1980. And the
apparent failure of all the fil m SUJTOLmdi ng these events
leaves one wondering why intelligence offi cers would later
need to exami ne it-as Watton now confirms they did.
Moreover. if you look at the account of the case reported to
me by the Watton radar officer in earl y 1981 (the one
supposedly given to him by USAF intell igence ofti cers
while taki ng the ti lm from the base). it is remarkably
accurate and full of details veri tied only year. later (such as
Halt going out from a base Christmas party to tape record
the events). So why would this Warton offi cer be truthful
and correct about thi s main part of the story and yet appar-
ently lie that Watton did see something on their radar?
However, the MoD file seems to suggest that Walton
saw nothing on radar ... except when you read between the
lines. Then it actuall y says that the controller at Walton saw
nothing "on the night of the reported sighting ... This may
well be true because the ni ght reported in the Halt memo is
in fact not the night when the UFO was seen. Thus this
statement from Watton may be technicall y true but does not
necessarily mean that something was not detected o n radar
on the night when events really took place! See what ! mean
about reading between the lines?
Moreland's concems. Much of the rest oft he MoD fi le
concerns communications from ufologist. (i ncluding sev-
eral from myself) and artempts by the powers-that-be to
decide how best to reply to t hem. Great concern is ex-
pressed by my arguments in 1982-83 that an accident
involving a nuclear weapon might have occurred and been
covered up by the invention of a UFO story. The file even
contains an an notated copy of the fi rst article I wrote on the
case in 1982. lt was sent to the MoD by Moreland, who
asked for advice o n how to respond to the flood of
enquiries'' he now expected on the until then well concealed
incident. He noted that week (October 1982) that ' ' Eric
Mishara .. had call ed him and wanted the base commander's
IUR + F,,u 200 t
)()
comments on my arti cle. I went on to publish the Omni
arti cl e that appeared three months later.
Thi s period (October 1982 to January 1983) coincided
exactl y with the peri od when the MoD was writi ng to me to
tell me that they planned to UFO ti les. and then over
the next fi ve months sent me vari ous recent case files as
sweeteners. Whether thi s is coincidence is not certai n.
The MoD responded to the squadron leaders <.:Oncerns
and told Moreland to stick to a standard reply with detailed
advi ce on stock answers that the Air Staff would send out.
The precise wordi ng suggested to use was. " I understand
that MoD did receive a report from base personnel of a UFO
sighting near RAF Bentwatcrs on 27 December 1980. The
report was dealt with i n accordance wi th normal proce-
dures: it was not considered to indicate anything of defence
interest. There was no quest i on of any contact with ali en
beings ....
All fair enough. except that on the strength of the
evidence in released fil e. it becomes rather difficult to
justify that the case had no defense interest when this advice
was being given to Moreland. The " evidence' ' for no
defense i nterest boil s down to the Air Staff sending out a
memo in January 1981 asking intelli gence staff for advi ce.
getting precious little back. bei ng told by their relevant
radar base that their fi l m was useless. then being advi sed
that higher than normal radi ation seemed to have been
recorded in the woods by a senior officer but then not
actually pursuing thi s matter to the point of verifying if thi s
posed any threat to l ocal citizens.
In other words. at best the rel eased documents di scl ose
a sloppy. disorganized attempt to disprove that there were
defense impli cations. All the MoD staff did was talk to
DSTI and Dl 55 and get told that they di dn' t have a cl ue
what had been seen. Whether in the process these scienti tic
intell igence staff did eli minate defense possibilities (li ke a
terrori st reconnaissance mi ssi on). and if so how they did it.
must presumabl y be locked in the fil es of DSTI and cer-
tainl y is not reveal ed in the Rendlesham fil e just released.
Thus. Ai r Stall assured the RAF commander at
Bentwaters that he should tell the British public there wa
no defense threat from this case because nobody had told
them that . uch a defense threat did exi st. But in truth all they
had been tol d i s that no or intelligence offi cer had
a clue what had taken place. Oh. and by the way. the
radi ati on li gures looked a bit high.
Nuclear issues. One wonderful piece of commentary i s
contai ned in a letter dated November 9. 1982, from the Ai r
Staf f to Squadron Leader Morel and. As noted he was a bit
concerned by rny raisi ng of the nuclear accident theory-
something I do not today regard as likely. but that was a
viable candidate in 1982. That Morel and was more both-
ered by thi. than by the UFO story is itselfinteresring but not
surpri sing. In 1982 the USAF was tryi ng to bring crui se
missiles into Britain and facing a major peace campaign
against them. And Bentwaters had nuclear weapons but
local people hadn't been told.
MIMS7RY OF DEFENCE
M.-. Bw'a.no lor.OOtl SW1A 2MB
lo...,._tf.;. .... )
.. -.11 t eoeo '""''._..,
g"M'fJi5/2 rt+
q 1962
'(),"""- si .... 1..... L;,....ri.
)'0\1 ror TOV.: l :tr,:- o .. 25 tkt obt .n1
(th
i). !.X>:Pz: line on VPOc a ae ! ollO'd'o
1
..
t; Cur :solo 1ntornt 1:-. t bo vro :-e-orted .. ., 112 tc
fththo:- hcvr n.'lr of
Letterfi'OIII MoD 10 Moreland. Nol'emher 9. 1982.
In repl y to Moreland's concerns Peter Watkins (the
Nick Pope equi valent in 1982) told the commander that I
was one of hi regulars. Then he suggested that Moreland
should in reply to any journal ists eire a parli amentary
written answer gi ven on January 28. 198 1. that " no acci -
dents have occurred invol vi ng ... damage to nuclear
weapons containi ng fi ssile materi al on U.K. tetTitory ......
The Air Staff added that if someone mentions "the
Lakcnheath incident" (as I had. where a rire at this base in
July 1956 caused a near disaster to a weapons storage area).
then to reassure that duri ng thi s event "no nuclear material s
were invol ved''-as the U.S. authori ties had assured the
MoD was true.
But, in a well-tempered perspect i veonufology. Watkins
concluded. " I would not expect ufologists to pursue either
I UR + FAI. I. 2001
31
of these angl es any further-if they do I suggest you ref er
them to u:-: And he wryl y notes. 1 hope thi:- i:- helpful to
you and that Bentwaters does not become East Angl in' :.
an. wer to Warmi nster .. (a l ocale notorious in Britai n for
UFO sightings. many of dubious origin).
CONCLUSION
The MoD file on Rendl esham will keep me busy for some
time assessing i ts hidden ramificat i on!>. Wi thout doubt it s
rel ease is an import ant event- by rar the largest official file
and on one of Britain s most contenti ou cases. But it tell s
us much more about the MoD than it doe. about the events
in Rcndlcsham Forest.
It reveals an Air Staff barely taki ng the ca).C seri ously
and pursuing it on a fairly tri vi al level. never seeming to ask
questi ons about public safety i ssues or tryi ng to fi nd reali s-
ti c soluti on to what happened as any ufologist might do.
Indeed. we sec more imerested in finding the ri ght
words to U!>e to answer awkward questions than in finding
proper answers to these awkward questi ons i n the first
place! To me that is the overriding lesson robe taken from
this file. Of course. it reveal s no smoking gun about the
case. But i t would never been released i f it had.
It al so demonstrates that the Air Staff have always
truthfull y reported their perspecti ve on thi s case. I have
never doubted thm. To them it was a minor unsol ved
irritation. one that they never properly thanks
to thei r disinterest in UFOs and because they relied on
mi . l eading inrormati on. most importantly about the date.
The l ack of any true spirit of scientilic inquiry is
unsurprisi ng to me but also worrying. The MoD knew the
Halt tape exL Led less than two after the sighti ngll.
yet never made any effort to suggest to their own Squadron
Leader with an ofli cc just yards away from where rhattapc
sat that he bOLher to go take a listen and report back. There
i, no interest at all expressed in ecuring photos or soil
samples that were taken on the ni ght in questi on. Overall. it
i s a catalog of mi ssed opportunities. Too little i s done
because the case is never regarded as a scientilic or an
intell ectual challenge but rather as a chore to be gotten out
of the way.
Indeed. better still. so long as nobody asked questi ons
about it hccause the whole thi ng was hi dden
for as long as po. sible. then the matter could be quietly
buried. The fact that about 85o/ r of the fi le cover:-. the peri od
after the case went public and very li ttle of any meani ngful
substance happened while the i nci dent was out of publ ic
sight speak for itsel f .
But. of course. behi nd al l the real question:
whether anything else offi ciall y happened that i!. not in thi:-
report. I must concl ude it did. We know that because some
file are admittedl y hel d back. even though it is unlikely
they are of any great import. We know also becau, e the
internal ri les of DSTI , Df 55, Dl 52 are not incl uded and
must be able to add something to the case investi gation.
This poses many How did these departments
discuss the case and decide it had no defense impl ications?
How did they conclude there was no expl anation? Was this
guesswork. or research? And can we really be certain that
until the Hal t memo wa. sent to the MoD i n mid-January
1981 there was no investigat ion of any sort? But if so. how
worryi ng is that?
Even i f thi s time there reall y was no defense threat. next
time there mi ght be. And finding out about a defense threat
and an irradiated forest three weeks af terwards hardly
suggests a defense and intelli gence organi7.ation that is well
on top of things.
Disappointingl y. the fil e in no way helps us to know
whether the Rendl esham case should be considered more
li kely to be resol ved one way orthc other. Frankly. ufologi sts
have cl one much more- both from the pro and skeptical
side of the fence- i n trying to learn the truth about thi s
complex case than the MoD evidently did. The MoD are l eft
exposed by thi s fi le a!. adrift in tenm of serious efforts to
find out what happened. and then in the end rather feebl y
l eft to cl aim that they just don' t know.
To me. thi s ril e makes me face one worrying question
above all others. Is fear of the public relati ons headache that
UFOs retlect compromi sing other more salient issues when
defense authoriti es gel invol ved? After all. it does not
matter in the context of nati onal security whether the
Rendlesham UFO was a mi spercepti on. some kind or atmo-
energy or a real UFO (whatever one of tho!>e might
be). More important i s what mi ght have been true and what
senior personnel thought wa. true.
Whatever the truth about Rcndlesham. thi11 rile sug-
gests that the MoD dropped the ball and got away wi th the
fumble. Next time they might not escape. So this fi le should
be considered a warning to the authori tic that UFOs (and
ufol ogi sts) may indeed be a pain in the neck that they would
much rather have nothing to do wit h. but if they intend to
continue to pursue them then they must try harder. +
MULTIPLE GENESIS
Earth may have survi ved several early impacts from
l arge causi ng life to disappear and reappear
several times according to a theory put forth recently.
The earl y Earth may have been an interrupted Eden-a
planet where l ife repeatedly evol ved and divcrsil'ied.
only to be back to square one by a!>teroid. I 0 or 20
times wi der than the one that the dinosaurs
demise. When the surface of the Eanh fi nal l y became
inhabi table again. thousands of years after each impacr.
the emerged from hidi ng places and spread
acros!'> the planet- unti l another hit and the
cycl e repeated ... We know that large im-
pacts <.:an steril ize or partially steril i1.e planets: said
Norman Sleep. professor of geophysi cs at Stanford who
presented the theory at the fall meeting of thl.! Ameri can
Geophysical Union in San Franci sco December 14.
l UI{+ l-\11 200t