The Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident
Known as the UK’s Roswell, the Rendlesham Forest UFO Encounter involves multiple days of seeing lights in the sky, along with a potential UFO landing.
At a nearby Air Force base by Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, the United Kingdom, multiple servicemen, including Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, investigated a strange light descending into the forest at 3am. Nearby animals went into a frenzy, and Halt recorded everything he experienced along the way.
This story involves lights, aircraft, conspiracies, and men in black. Listen now!
Would you walk into a dark forest if you saw a bright white light?
Would you call the police if you saw nocturnal lights in the woods?
Could one of the brightest lighthouses be the cause of one of the most infamous extraterrestrial sightings?
Did an aircraft with unidentified aliens touch down in a forest in Great Britain?
What is up, Bizarros? This week we dive into the possible alien event that took place in Rendlesham Forest.
What Is The Rendlesham Forest Incident?
The Rendlesham Forest incident was several sightings of unexplained lights near Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, England, on late December 1980, which became linked with claims of UFO landings. The events occurred just outside the Royal Air Force Base Woodbridge, which the United States Air Force was using.
This incident is considered Great Britain’s Roswell.
Rendlesham Forest is owned by the Forestry Commission and has plantations and wetland areas. It is about 5.8 square miles big and is located in Suffolk.
Where all of this takes place is near two former military bases. There is RAF Bentwaters, which is just north of the forest, and RAF Woodbridge, which extends into the forest from the west.
These military bases were being used by the United States Air Force, and it is the US air force personnel that had the experience.
The Air Force base commander was Colonel Ted Conrad, and his deputy was Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt.
Colonel Halt comes into play in a big way later in this story.
The Rendlesham Forest Incident
Day 1 – December 26th (Technically 27th)
So, we are in the 1980s. 1980, to be exact. It is December 26th, and the servicemen are hanging around the base, doing whatever it was that they may be doing.
Around 3 am, a security patrol near the Eastgate of RAF Woodbridge claimed to see strange lights descend into the Rendlesham Forest.
Now, anyone would be a bit alarmed, but beyond the average person like you or me – these are Air Force personnel. So, one, they probably are extra alert, and two, this is something coming from the sky, which is kind of their thing.
So, naturally, they are very intrigued. And they were pretty adamant that this wasn’t a shooting star or anything like that.
It seemed like it was something that intentionally descended into the forest.
So, registering that it could have potentially been a downed aircraft, a group of servicemen decided to go investigate.
As they headed into the Rendlesham forest, they noted that all the animals at a nearby farm were in hysterics.
Yelling and running and screaming in ways that they never witnessed before. They were in a frenzy. It was unsettling, to say the least.
When they got into the forest, it wasn’t the expected aircraft that they saw.
They immediately acknowledged that they stumbled upon a landing area. They could see branch debris, marks around, and a strange heat radiating throughout the area.
At this point, the animal’s hysterics at the nearby farm ramped up.
Then, they saw a small glowing, metallic object with red-colored lights.
They were awestruck.
It was moving side to side, and it seemed to have a dark, hollow center in the middle. They said it was like an eye winking at them, the way it blinked.
At first, it started moving North, then the flying object started to get closer and closer to them, and it seemed as though it had a beam coming down to the ground.
They couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
Shortly, it was out of sight – leaving the men dumbfounded about what they might have witnessed.
Around 4:00 am, when they got back out of the forest and to the base, they called the local police.
However, when the police arrived, there was no sign of any aircraft or glowing light.
All they could see was the Orfordness Lighthouse, which was about 5 miles away from where they were at in the forest.
Confused and a bit disturbed, the servicemen decided to sleep on their experience and investigate more when they had the sun to assist them.
The next morning, they went back into the forest to see if there were any clues as to what they experienced the night before.
What they found was startling.
In a clearing inside the forest, they found three small yet significant impressions on the ground. They seemed to be in a triangular pattern.
Along with that, many of the tree branches were either broken or seemed to have been burned by something incredibly hot.
They called the police again, now with more evidence and some daylight.
The police, apparently, kind of shrugged it off and claimed that it could have been made by an animal in regard to the impressions.
Here Are Some Statements Made From Witnesses From This Night.
This is a quote from Ed Cabansag, which was given in 1997 to a researcher named James Easton.
Ed claimed, “We figured the lights were coming from past the forest since nothing was visible when we passed through the woody forest.
We would see a glowing near the beacon light, but as we got closer, we found it to be a lit-up farmhouse.
We got to a vantage point where we could determine that what we were chasing was only a beacon light off in the distance.”
Another serviceman, John Burroughs, reported a noise “like a woman was screaming” and also that “you could hear the farm animals making a lot of noises.”
Day 2 – December 28th
Two nights after the original sighting, the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, visited the location in the Rendlesham forest with a few servicemen where they had witnessed the strange aircraft.
Once again, they heard the farm animals go off in a frenzy.
It was very early in the morning – between 2 am and 3 am, and they took radiation readings of the triangle impressions and surrounding area.
They used an AN/PDR-27, which is a standard US Military radiation survey reader.
Nothing was too alarming according to their readings, but they did detect a small burst of radiation levels over half a mile away from the original landing site.
During this radiation investigation, Halt and all of the other men witnessed a flashing light to the East, almost directly in line with the farmhouse and all of the animals.
They noted this was the same direction as that large, bright lighthouse – the Orford Ness.
Shortly after seeing the light, they witnessed 3 star-like lights in the sky.
One was to the south, and 2 of them were to the north. They estimated the lights were about 10 degrees about the horizon.
They hovered for about 2 or three hours, and at one point, Halt noticed a stream of light seemed to beam down from it.
That was the end of their experiences.
HALT MEMO
About a week or so later, Lieutenant Colonel Halt detailed all of the events in a memo to the UK Ministry of Defence.
He was trying to make sense of everything to the best of his abilities, but his Memo that he made is one of the few legitimate resources and most important piece of evidence that we have from the Rendlesham Forest Incident, and he was pretty convinced that what he and the other servicemen experienced was otherworldly, and not just bright stars.
At this point, they decided to keep everything pretty hush-hush from the public.
The only folks who knew about anything were the servicemen, the local police, and the Ministry of Defense.
However, a couple of people arrived in town that seemed to have been unusually tipped off about the experiences.
A couple of men in black suits.
These men visited a worker of the forest named Vince Thurkettle.
They started bombarding him with questions about whether he saw anything on the nights in question.
Here is a quote
‘They said, “Did you leave the house at all? Did you see anything?”
I said: “What?”
‘They said: “Oh, there’s a report of some red lights in the forest… We’re just checking.” And the two of them, very politely but firmly, asked me probably about 20 questions. I thought they were journalists.’
‘They suddenly said: “Oh well, fair enough. There’s probably nothing in it.” And left.’
‘So, I bought the papers every day for the next few days to find out what was going on, and, of course, there was nothing.’
It was actually three years until Halt’s memo was released to the public by the United States government.
When it did, it became a massive news story and made Rendlesham Forest the UFO capital of the United Kingdom.
They even eventually made a UFO trail in the forest – remember, it’s like their Roswell, essentially.
Halt has written some books and done some interviews, and even in the last ten years, has gone on record again saying he believes that it was something extra-terrestrial that they witnessed and both the UK and US governments were doing their best to cover it up.
In 1984, a copy of what became known as the “Halt Tape” was released to UFO researchers by Colonel Sam Morgan.
Again, this memo, aka the Halt Tape, chronicled Halt’s investigation in the forest in real-time, including taking radiation readings and sighting of the flashing light between trees and the starlike objects that hovered and twinkled.
Now, you might ask why they released the information if they wanted to cover it up; my guess is they knew Halt was going to expose it himself anyway, and they have a lot of people that are very skeptical and trying their best to explain away what they witnessed.
But before we get to the skepticism, I have a few odd stories for you. Three of them, to be exact.
1. Sergeant Jim Penniston
One of the men that were at the Air Force Base, Jim Penniston, decided to go under hypnotic regression, I believe, in the 90s.
The idea was to try and recall deeply buried information that may explain some of what the servicemen witnessed in Rendlesham Forest.
As a quick reminder, Hypnotic regression is the process by which you enter a trance and recall material from deep inside that is normally not available to the conscious mind.
While under hypnosis, Penniston stated that our presumed aliens are, in reality, visitors from a far-flung future.
That future, Penniston added, is very dark, in infinitely deep trouble, polluted, and where the Human Race is overwhelmingly blighted by reproductive problems.
The answer to those same massive problems, Penniston was told by the entities he met in the woods, is that they travel into the distant past – to our present day – to secure sperm, eggs, and chromosomes, all as part of an effort to try and ensure the continuation of the severely waning Human Race of tomorrow.
2. Jenny Randles
Jenny Randles, along with Brenda Butler, were early researchers in the Randlesham Forest Incident.
She ended up getting her hands on a copy of Halt’s Tape.
A quote from Jenny:
“A number of sources on base told us that a taped record of some of the activity had been made. We were given a description and knew by early 1983 that it was recorded in the forest during the second night of encounters, featuring officers and men who were seeing various UFOs.”
In her mind, especially once the tape surfaced publicly in 1983, 3 years after the entire incident, she felt that it truly confirmed all of the rumors and stories coming out of the base around that time regarding what they witnessed.
Essentially, the first-hand accounts and testimonies from the air force base servicemen.
So, in 1988, Jenny reached out to a journalist. The journalist said that they were working on a documentary with the BBC and the main subject was going to be UFOs and the Randlesham incident.
The documentary was intended to air on BBC in December of 1988.
With Jenny being a researcher and having a copy of the Halt Tape, he felt it was prudent that he spoke with her.
Jenny agreed to take part in the interview. In her mind, it was more exposure, which was a good thing.
The man arrived with very professional equipment, equipment that Jenny had experienced herself when dealing with BBC staff previously.
As he was setting up for the interview, he advised Jenny that the documentary would be focused on the Renlesham Forest case and that all manner of questions were intended for her to display her expertise, knowledge, and opinions on what happened at that time.
The name he gave her was Tom Adams.
During the course of the interview, Tom’s entire focus shifted to the Halt Tapes, knowing that she had a copy of it. Not just a copy of it, but the supposed original tape.
He requested that Jenny give him the tape so that he could use it for the BBC project.
Jenny quickly denied his request, immediately saying no. Although Jenny suggested that she make him a copy of the tape.
While this seemed like a fair middle ground to Jenny, Tom didn’t budge.
He became more aggressive in asking that she give him the original Halt Tape.
He claimed it was crucial that he had the original tape.
She went on to tell him that she likely didn’t even have the original tape anyway. It was likely that the military copied it and gave her a different one than the original.
This didn’t sway Tom, and he kept requesting.
Eventually, Jenny gave him and told Tom that she would give him the original tape.
However, unbeknownst to Tom, she gave him a copy that she had made of the one that the Military gave her. So, essentially it was a copy of a copy.
This pleased Tom, the interview was quickly concluded after receiving the Halt Tape copy, and he went on his way.
A few weeks later, Jenny checked in with the BBC to see when the documentary was going to air. She was excited to see it.
What program?” came the reply.
No one at the BBC knew anything about a proposed UFO documentary, and no one there knew Tom Adams.
A quote from Jenny:
”I do find it odd that he should be particularly insistent about needing the original tape. This rather infers some ulterior motive.”
3. Larry Warren Experience – Bonkers
After the two days of potential alien encounters and everything Halt and the servicemen were claiming, there are additional Military personnel around the area.
Many of them had unusual and sophisticated scientific equipment that many of the people around the base weren’t accustomed to seeing.
Larry Warren, one of the men at the Air Force base, reported that military personnel was swarming around the dense, dark woods, seemingly deeply anticipating the return of the UFOs.
In addition to the farm animals nearby, it was claimed that a lot of wildlife, like deer and rabbits, seemed to be fleeing from the forest in droves.
They seemed spooked to their cores by something unknown in the forest.
Warren and a number of his colleagues and friends were ordered to head into the woods. They weren’t given a “why,” just an order to enter.
When the group arrived at a clearing, they could see that the immediate vicinity was lit up by an eerie mist.
It felt very tense, and he could sense his own anxiety along with the entire group’s rising.
There were countless people swarming around with cameras and other equipment.
He immediately knew that something very strange was happening, and he was wondering why he was there.
Out of nowhere, there seemed to be a small, blue ball of light that headed toward the mist – before coming to an immediate stop.
It hovered overhead, then there was an intense, powerful flash, and it was gone.
He shielded his eyes from the flash, and when they regained focus, his gaze returned to where the blue light had been; he noticed there was a tiny object that seemed to be pyramid-like in shape.
Then, something even more incredible happened: a large ball of gold/blue light surfaced from the side of the craft, maneuvered slowly, and came to a halt about three or so meters before the military personnel.
Warren claims that contained within the ball were a trio of small creatures.
It was obvious to Warren that these beings were 100% not human. They had large, bulbous heads and cat-like eyes.
Everything started getting a bit fuzzy, and he was admittedly in a bit of shock, but he remembers some sort of conversation back and forth between the creatures of unknown origin and a military officer nearby.
A few moments later, Warren and his group were told to return to the truck that they arrived in.
Here is a quote from what happened the next evening:
“Early on the following evening, Warren – on base but off-duty at the time – received a phone call.
The caller ordered Warren to head down to the dorm parking area and to be there in 20 minutes.
Warren was additionally told to keep a lookout for a dark sedan.
Puzzled, Warren did exactly as he was told. And, sure enough, there was the car.
So, Warren walked over to it. With hindsight, that may not have been a good idea.
Two men in black suits directed him to one of the rear doors of the car.
Warren followed their orders and got in the vehicle.
At that point, things got even weirder. A strange, green glow dominated the interior of the sedan. It wasn’t just illuminated: it was glowing.
On top of that, Warren began to feel strange, as if he had been suddenly drugged.
From there, Warren recalls being groggily taken to an underground portion of the base – possibly one that was extremely deep – and where he encountered, from one side of a Plexiglas window, what may very well have been something unearthly.
In Warren’s own words, as presented in Left at East Gate: “I stepped into the confined area and felt as if I was no longer on Earth. I found myself looking into a gigantic, dark cavernous space.
It reminded me of the interior of the Houston Astrodome in a strange way. Beads of humidity rolled down the other side of the seamless glass.”
A shadowy, small figure was vaguely seen behind the glass, and a strange and brief “conversation” occurred.
It was one in which Warren visualized words and pictures in his mind.
The entity appeared to know much of Warren’s life and indicated it came from a realm that he would never be able to understand.
Warren later found himself wandering the base, as his mind finally began to return to normal.”
Was The Mysterious Light In Rendlesham Forest From Out Of This World?
What do you think, Bizarros?
There are military witnesses, civilian witnesses, and a number of eyewitness accounts that seem to report there was more going on in the Rendlesham Forest than some coloured lights being seen.
Was there an unearthly craft that some have witnessed?
Did the British Government cover up this extraterrestrial event?
Or were the lights from nearby Orford Ness Lighthouse?
Let us know in the comments if you find this believable or unbelievable.