2001 Fall IUR - Jenny Randles on Rendlesham File

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IURInternational 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.1·e calling to his

mother to cotne outside 10 see "the biggest spider11·eb in the 1m rld. ·· The mother di.,·co Fered in her yard a

sih •el:\·-lrhite 1reb-like material cm·ering hushes and hanging Jimn the trees. As she looked tmrard the sky,

she witnessed a shiny. silven ·. spherical object mo Ping o.f f o the west as m o r e < ~ { this web-like substc111ce

f ell.fi"om the skrfor another two hours. Th e 1\'itnes.\' took samples on construction paper and placed them

in a glass jar and into the reji-igerator wking them to a locallaborm01:r fo r 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 ibu ting Ed itor. :

Bi l l Chalker

Richard F. Hainc.\

Richard Hall

Kevin D. Randle

Jenny RandlesChris Ru tkowski

Web site :

www.curos.org

E-mail:

l nfocenter @cufos.org

Answering machine:

(773) 27 1-36 11 c / 4 ~ ~·Zl -1910-1986

TI·IF. L ocKHEE i l UFO CASE, 1953 IJy Joel Carpenter ............................................................................................. ............ . 3

A. \ M L\'SIS OF ,\.,\ICF.I. BAlK, 1947- 2000 by Brian Boldman .......................................................................................... . 10

R F.'IIli.ESI·IM I F Til E B RIT ISII MoD FILE by Jenny Randles ................................................................................... 21

L E'IT ERS ................... .. ................... .... ............................................................................. . ............. ........................... ........ ... . . .. 26

\-V IIAT UOES ,, IIAI.F-CE'ITLIH' OF 1-rr r. 'SE UFO I>ISI'LAY by Michael D. Swords .................................................. 27

OF INTERF-rr To CUFOS A s s o ................................. ........................ ......................................................................... 35

lntemational UFO Reporter (ISSN 0720-17-IX) is p u b l i ~ h c dquarterly h) 1he J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO t u d i 2-157

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re'erved. Reproduction without p e n n i prohibited.

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Center for UFO Studic, .

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IUit + t' \1 1 :!00 1



RENDLESHAM FOREST:

THE BRITisH MoD FILEBY JENNY R ANDLES

Te strange events in Rendlesham Forest. Suf

folk. England. that too k place during late De

cembe r 1980 have gone down in UFO history as

one o f the most debated cases of all time. With

both civi lian and military perso nnel from the U.S. Air Force

bases at Woodbridge and Bent waters as witnesses. the case

has generated mo re discuss ion than any outside rhe United

Stares . Alread y there have bee n five books de vo ted e ntire ly

to the events- a record surpassed only by Roswell. And the

arguments rage as regards to what really took place. as

various artic les in this magazine have revea led over the

years (see fUR. Fa ll 2000. for example).

For many ufologists. the sighting or a we ll- lit object

above and ins ide the forest. plus the reputed radar track ings

made or it, strongly suppo rt UFO reality. That the witnesses

included the base deputy co mmander, Col. Charles Ha lt. as

we ll as phy ical ev idence in the form of photographs and

rad iat ion traces. undersc ores the significance.Yer the skep tics movement (which includes quire a few

British ufo log ists ) has been arguing s ince 1983 that there is

a simple an"wer. The witnesses were aU fooled by mundane

things , notably a bright me teor and the Orford Ness light

ho use shining through coastal mist. Other fac tors ro

complica te the case are the know n presence in the area of

experimental e lec tromagnetic radiation research that was

occurring on the Ness during the 1970s and, according to

locals, was generating both phys ical effects ( car-stops, TV

interference . etc. ) and strange glowi ng light as a by

product.

OFFICIAL VIEWS

Gi ven that we (UFO invest iga tor s in G rea t Britain) learned

of the Re ndlesham event soon after it occulTed. there has

been a 20-year searc h for governme nt documents to lea rn o f

the official pos ition on the case and. important ly. to under

stand what inves tigations were done by the U.S. and U.K.

Jenny Randles is an !UR contributing editor. awhoro fmany

books on UF0.1· and related subjects. 01/{l 011e o f he 1rorld's

most respected UFO investigators.

governments. I want to repon on these e fforts in thi s article

and the ex traordinary release this year o f the full U.K.

go vernment file on the case.

Despite the Re ndlesham events havi ng bee n intensely

debated by ufologists for about 20 years, the ofricial gov

e rnme nt position on both sides of the At lantic is no t easy to

define . There was no rapid public reve lation about the

inc idents on December 25/26 and 27/28: according ly. even

the loca l press ca rried no reports until UFO in vestigators

a le rted them almost a year later. Media at te ntion only really

took off in 19R2. when my first articles appeared in news

stand magaz ines. and in ear ly 1983 whe n the popu lar

sc ience journa l Omni carried a report c iting British Squad

ron Leader Donald Moreland.

Moreland se rved as a token U.K. prese nce on the bases,

acting as a landlo rd for the British MoD (Min istry of

Defence) and interfac ing betwee n them and the U.S. forces

that leased these twin bases fo r NATO duties. AlthoughMoreland was not a witness, he had endorsed the c redibility

or thos e who we re and forwarded a repon to the Mo D.

Even by the time he cam e forward (the first high

ranking officer to do so) . efforts had continued to pres sure

the MoD to re lease official co mment on the case . The

witness tes timo ny (mostly c iv il ians at this early stage)

suggested a major event o n fores try commission land and

surely, therefore, some sort of co operation with the USAF,

who suppos edly in vestiga ted as the event unfolded. The

MoD would have had to grant permission for America n

troops to conduc t an off-base inves tigation on British so il.

af ter all.

Le tters to the departmen t charged with UFO in vestiga

tion in the U.K. (the n known as Defence Sec re tariat-S and

more recently as Air Staff2A) had been fired ofT by myself

and locally ba. ed colleague Brenda Butler since six weeks

after the events wh en we bo th independently lea rned about

the case through mi litary contacts. But these req ues ts had

brought rep lies that simply ignored our ques tions about the

events. as if it we re a topic that the Mo D preferred not to ta lk

about.

In October 1982 I wo n a partial breakthrough- a

promise to re lease all MoD UFO files soon-and was given

IUR + F,,u 200 I

1 1



the so p of various recent cases from a January 1983 nap.

But my request for information on Rendlesham still fell on

of ficially deaf ea rs-until the 0 11111i art icle appea red. This

changed everything. On April 13, 1983. the MoD wrote to

me and finally acknowledged th at the case had occurred and

that "no explanation was forthcoming .. It is true to say thatthey probably had no option but to do so by this da te. A fter

all , one of their own officers had j ust admitted the same

thing in a newsstand magaz ine. Had that not occurred. it is

di fficul t to know whether the M oD would havc just gone on

refusing to o f fer commen t like before .

A t much the same time in th e US. the UFO political

action group CAUS-using a statement from witness Larry

Warren who had recently spo ken to Larry Fawcett and

Barry Greenwood about his role in the case-applied via

the Freedom of Information Ac t for case Ii les. They re

ceived a similar admission of th e incident from the USAF

about two weeks after my leucr from the MoD. and in May

1983 put in an o ff icial reques t for fi les to back it up. In June

1983 this turned up the one-page memo signed by Col. Halt

that summarized the case. Th is was the memo forwarded by

Sq uadron L eader Moreland to the MoD back in mid Janu

ary 198 1. about three weeks artcr the incidents.

However, the M oD stil l dec lined to release th is memo

to myse l f or an y other Brit ish cit izen due to the U.K.

Official Sec rets Ac t: a ra ther absurd pos i tion since the

USAFwere now stating th at they only got a copy to release

to Ameri ca n ci tizens owing to help from the MoD.

ln 1985 Ra y Boeche of M UFON Nebraska was able to

squeeze more documents from the USAF. although these

:.;;.,·:J.f· cu

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W l l t o c ~ r i O t j e fh in '-tn9 tn l i rcr &rt lt1qht t i n t cruh.a or filft111

Oo..,, t l l ~ t t C & l l tor ! Q f \ ta 90 ow ts 1dt t.he 9U t to H l ' l t H q . a ~ •T/'lr 0 1 ' 1 · fll9"1t c:,,., f't'lt'OnMd o ~ t ~ l ll ovtJJ ~ H r ~ 1

011 root tM ir,.:.hiO..ah r•POf1t<l U t\ 1'1 9 • Hrv•9f Qlo.ln9 obJ«:t

11'1 forc n . Tht GbJ •c t ... " ' c : r l t ~ d n :W1ng ne t. I it tn ""'frtrc:e

t n.o h n q u '" Utp t , t t>CI1'6"t N lioiJ t .. t o thr ee: •crou th e

ttu &1\d • COn:t . nu tl; , ~ ntUr-1 MIJfrl h tl lwnlnufd '""' tfltlf'r fc,..u• l ll'l t VOlt Z• l ttiH h· . Of)jt< t h l t lt 1\.14 1 £ t t . ~ h h u ; ru l t . ; Oft top •n d

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1: : . : " ~ ; , J t c t "'U Of'1tf11' ~ ~ ~ t . l : > ~ r 4 <'1 t - . o h ttr 't .tr

l f i>C n11 1( dt)', tn , ., . O " ' \ I ) .'1 ' 4t t P en1 J ' '"' • ' l l l t l ~ r ""t f l'fO\Ma " ' ' l f ~ " t tflt ObJCc t , . , . ~ :.Ce" t l ~ h t f 4 on t» t ; ro lolt'·d The tollco-1n9fl19f)t (19 Ot:cC tc ) tfrlc .t.r•.t "'-1\ h r r&tHH t ()' ru ot n'f)

11l l l 't'Ot"l9tM .,ofrf retorC-•.:I .. 't" Pu • rcad"1 ' '" tt•• tl'tN't"' c.e·£tre n t (;'! \ ._u,. Htt ~ t e r o f t •• -,1 t "-f 4t-Preu tc:ta

: o : : ~ ~ · ~ : : : : i ' : ~ ~ J t t ( .05o- ?I I ~ l n ~ ) on tflt ~ I c e o "I t :r t t ·

Col. Halt's memo. Jwwary 13. 1981.

we re not ve ry illuminating. consisting of mos tl y in ternal

memos advising staff on how to answe r questions posed by

journal ists on the case. Several fi les were withheld for

sec urity reasons. On appea l one of these was released to

Boeche. It was a teletype message in which the operator had

drawn a line of little p a c e ~ and aliens on top, presumably as a joke. It seems likely thi s was the reason for the

initial dec ision to withhold the fil es as the message content

seems innocuous.

As for the MoD. they continued to ma intain a discrete

silence desp ite lots of pressure. In 1984 Ral ph oyes (a

reti red Unde r Sec retary who had been long assoc iated

with the MoD UFO study and whom I had persuaded that

there was a case to answer) and I succeeded in convincing

a crusad ing Member of Pari iament (David AI 'On) to de

mand answe rs from the government. A lthough exchanges

of information went on between A lton and the Defense

Minister, LordTrefgarne. the end result was that both A lton

and Noyes were give n ust as mu ch of a runaround as I wa s!

Nobody was wi lling to say anything beyond a repetit ive.

sheep-l ike comment that the MoD did not believe there

were any defense implication. behind this case.

Noyes and I argued with the MoD that such a sugges

ti on made no sense. If the UFO was rea l and unidentified

and it intrud ed into British ai r space, of course there were

defense implications. I f it was not rea l and senior USAF

officers in charge of aNATO base were thus see ing th ings

that didn't ex ist and chasing them across British so il . then

that, too, clearly was no inconsequential matter. But all thi s

proved to no avail.

THE BREAKTHROUGH

As with many aspec tsofBriti ·h government. whereofficial

sec recy is a way of l ife. things ha ve not chan ged rapid ly.

But, given the closer association w ith the European Com

munity in recent years and pressure from Brit ish cit izens

upset by what they see asold rash oned secrecy. th egovern

men t has mad e plans to introduce aFreedom of Information

Act that would allow documentation to be released .

At present. M oD Ii les are located at the Public Record

Office in Kew. but only opened up to the publ ic after 30

years has elapsed fo llow ing the last action take n on the file

(in the Rcndlesham case that would mean 30 years after1985). For well over a year the Bri tish government has been

pri va tely advising their intention to alter the pattern and

re lease UFO material well ahead of time owing to the

imminence of the Freedom of' Information Ac t ( li kely to be

passed in 2002). Although several British ufologists (my

se l f included) ha ve known this since late 1999. we had

decided not to talk openly about i t for fear or undermining

dec isions that had to yet to be transformed into ac tion.

There was good reason ror this, as we had run into

problems before. In 1982, I had tried (w i th ass i stance from

Bi ll Chalker who had recentl y bee n granted access to Ai r

Force fi les in his nat ive A ustralia) to persuade the MoD that

IUR + r-" 1. 2001

22



it made to make the fi les available. locating

them at a :.c ient i f ic in st it u te and rel i nqu i shing

respon!>ib il ity. Th is had won some suppor1 within the MoD

and. as mentioned above. during 1983 several Mo D files

were rcleused to me.

However. the remarkable publicity that followed the

revelation of the Halt me mo randum in October 1983 (i t was

the front page head line in Br itain's highest cin.:ulation

newspaper and ended up be ing deba ted by all the media and

even in TV political programs) worked aga inst the plan. By

the spr ing of 1984 it was obvious that the MoD we re

reneg ing on their promise -probably frightened off by the

furor they were invit ing. In fnrstration I handed data over to

Martin BaiIcy of he Obsenw newspaper (which had a high

readership among pol iticians) and he ca n·ied an excellen t

arti cle reporting the about-face. The MoD officiall y ci ted

lack of money and complex ity as the e a s o they could not

now release the data.

But it was clear a simi lar thi ng might happen aga in.

hence our dec ision to keep quiet on this .econd go-around.

Dr. David Clarke, whose academic background, skeptici),ll l

over UFO re<llity. years a. a professional journalist, and

long term w nwcts wi thin the Mo D made him attractive to

thei r stan ce. gent ly cult ivated the Mo D ro the point where

they ag reed to start releas ing data on Rendle),ham to him

ea rly in 200 I.

Thi !> produced the majo r breakthrough in May of the

of what the Mo D profess to be the en tire li le on

Rt::nd lesham Forest- 150 pages. far and away the most

derailed report on any case the Mo D has ever re leased.

Seven documents were wi thheld on grounds that they might

compromil.e national . ecurity operations in some way. That

decision has been appealed.It was decided to publ icly re lease this informat ion and

the documents through a Web site prepared during the

summer an d not to hold back this data from others

(www. ll yi ngsa ucery.com). But. of course. it was Clarke

who was se nt th e tile ancl l had to wait for him to put up his

Web site before I was free to talk.

In the mea l l l ime, word got through to jo urnali 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 is to be hoped that the

a r g u m already developing between Clarke and his

~ u p p o and Bruni and hers do not force the MoD into

anoth er U-turn that wi ll limit the re lease ofother UFO file .

THEMoD APPROACH To UFO cAsES

What. then. docs the f il e tell us about how the MoD

inves tigated what i. arguably Br ta in' s biggest UFO case?

First. a note of ca ution. The fi le is that of the A ir Staf f (i.e .

DS 8/Air Sta f f 2A). This is the depa rtment at wh ich Nick

Pope (now a no ted UFO writer) served during the early to

mid- 1990s. But it wise to reca ll what thi unit is. and what

it is not.

Thel.e Ai r Staff ex i t primari ly tO interact with the

public. answering our question. about UFOs (as a sma ll pan

of a wider brief of RAF -related matters). such they tend

to give ·rock answers that have been carefu ll y constructed

over man y years. The staiThavc a middle-rank civi l . ervant

at thehelm and are not reall y the eq ui va lent or. for example.

Project Blue Book where USAF were (at leas t

sometimes) work ing o n UFO cases in an effort to reso lve

them and in the process had some capabi li ty to fo llow up

leads all over the country.

The MoD A ir Staff has no comparable resources. The

work is all done i n the oflicc and of m inor conseq uence

(a few hours a week at mo t ). A personally interested

worker like Nick Pope (who W tb not at the MoD during the

Rendlesham case) might make a few phone ca lls to air ba es

and do some rudimentary check . But even he could never

lly off o the scene and invest igatea ca!.e. Indeed Nick often

liaised with inves tigators from my team at British UFO

Re ear-ch Associati on (BUFORAJ during the pe riod that he

worked for the Ai r Staff. In effec t. our team of investigator.

mad e site visits that Nick couldn' t make and Nick

from time to time spoke to base m a n d "ncl the like in

a way that we never cou ld.

So it was a profitable relationship. bur one t hat illus

trates the limitationsof the M oD Ai r Staff. h was no team

of government UFO v e s t charged with so lv ing big

mys teri e), on so me X-files-sized budget. It was there to

el iminate any obv ious 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 Staf f. UFOs and the

madcap who wrote to them were a nuisance and

a publ ic-relations nightmare-

not anythingor

,igni fic.:ance.Indeed staff rotated ve ry freq uen tly . within two to

three yea rs-and few saw this as a great pos ting but ins tead

just a step en route to something better.

The A ir Staff could- and did if' they could be both

ered- liaise with other levels. of the MoD to pursue a

worthy case. The e other leve ls were typica lly de fen. e

intell igence units and the Department of Sc icnti fie and

Tec hnica l Intell igence (DSTI ) where MoD-cleared sc ien

tists and RAF inte ll igence staff work on intell igence claw .

Th is is nor to in fer that these groups bel ieve any case might

-;uggest an alien presence. but rather that some might

suggest a new tac tic by a foreign power or a new weapons

sys tem ·een during an il legal overflight. Contacts wi th theearly wa rning radar network were al. o clone !>Ometime .

just in ca.e UFO sight ings were evidence of. for instance.

unrecorded spy plane missions.

Since these other departments had a higher security

classification than the Air Stall i o n a r i e ~ had, the Air

Sta l l could only be told by. say. DSTI. what DSTI chose to

tell them or what the stall was clea red to be told. This was

not necessa ri ly everything. or indeed m necessar

i ly anything.

The role played by the Ai r Staff was (and is) one of a

I UR + F -111 1001

23



shop window whereby they arc vi. ible to the public and dea l

with inquiries and can offer official answers. But these

answers and <ny in depth study behind a report (wheneve r

thi s ra rely happens) are dictated from above in the chain of

command - which the Air Staff. naturally. trus t imp licit ly.

Consequentl y, i fa sighting occur!> and is reported to the A ir

Staff. they may end the member of he public a stock reply

("we inves tigate to es tab li h i f here are any defense impli

cations.'' and o on) and then may say nothing else . as Air

Staff prefer not to en ter the UFO minefi eld unless they have

no choice.

Air staff respon!>e!> to a witness who presl.es them wi ll

rarely be spec i fic. except in the nega ti ve. i.e . "we ha ve been

unable to identify any air exe rcises operat ing at the time:·

and rarely would they say what they said to me in April

1983-that a major case is considered to be un ex plained

since thi s invites the assumption that they are conti rming

tha t UFOs are real. Of course. in the str ict sense they arc

doing so . where by UFO we mean simply an unidentif ied

phenomenon. But since most people equate a UFO wi th analien spaceship. the MoD knows the risks with aying too

much.

For spec if ic answers the Air St<Lff will a l w a depend

upon the outcomeor an inves tiga rion by their assoc iate !>ta ft"

(such as DST I) and can only report what the DSTI choo. e

to tell them. It is likely that the DSTI would be circumspect

in what they reveal to these civil se rvams. Consequently.

you mu st always read between the lines ofcommunications

be twee n A ir Staff and the public and the ones from more

agencic!> and the A ir Staff they arc advising.

The A ir Staffhones tl y report what they consider is the

truth and i f sil ly ufologists start bleating about cover-ups

and real UFOs lurking behind cases . they can shake theirhead. at thi sev ident paranoia and say -w ithout ever need

ing to lie- that so far as the A ir Staffknow this u t isn' 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 abo ut a case.

THE R ENDLESHAM FILE

The UFO files of organiza tions li ke DST I are not often

~ e d . Some data- mos tl y communications from DSTI

or a defense in tell igence unit internally to the Air Staf f

in reply to que. tions- are contained within A ir Staff fil es

that do ge t re leased. But not the inrernal fi les of the intel li

gence agencies themse lves. which li kely would be more

revealing. In other words. any M oD file on UFO:-. is prob

ably ju st reporting one part of the story. The fi le. even so.

not without and can illuminate matters. but it may

not nece!>sari ly be the last word on gove rnmen t i n t e rAnd it iswi th Rcndlesham. We now have a lil e that

paints a fascinat ing pic ture of a team of civi l

lloundering wi th a UFO case that is clearly beyond their

remi t and of only minimal interest. at least pa rt ly because

they be l ieve their own pu blicity th at 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 . I r - OenrNJton WOOdbrlclgo Sllltoll< I 12lRO

•-w- >m..,m 2257

0... . . . . ._. BE!iT/0 19/76

A!!-.,... I f l411•ary 1981

D E N T ! F I E D FLYING 08JF.CTS (U70 'a )

r e . ' : : - . : ~ e h a c o ~ · :e;"':'=: ! ~ . . a · n : : : o c e e i · : : ; , ~ ,_..,_the Deputy i!<lse CCCI::I4nder ot RAT Bentw&:ers ~ ~ ~ :ce:ninq some cysterlous s i ;h t inqs in the ~ n d l es h ~ ~ f o r o s ~ nea: RAFff:bridqe. ra per: is! o r ~ a r ~ a d !o r i . t l o ~ and action at con-sidered necessary.

Cooy to :

SRAE'LO, RAP Hilc!onhall

D H XOIU:LAN DSq1ladron Lea<1erRAr Comnando r

J I'('(

.. -.. .._

r•; /Ac l (, .... , 1

- · " ' · • . \ .. , ......(...._.. ..

Moreland's cm·er nole. January 15. /981.

whole story. although whether we arc only missing a few

minor pieces <>r a major pa rt of the pun h: revolve), around

how we interpret some of the that the c l c a ~ e d lile

mu st cause us to ask.

Th e starting point. Chronologically the fi le onJanuary 15. 1981. with the cover note sent by Squad ron

Leade r Moreland to accompany Halt's report to the MoD .

This is 2 1clays af'ter the f irst sighting- the alleged landing

witnessed by three USAF personnel inside the fores t. Ac-

cording to the fi le it is the fi rst time that the MoD were even

made aware o f the case. But wa. it? This is the big

that we must face.

Among other things. the Rendlesham events involve

poss ible ir radiation of the area by a landed UFO. thi s in an

area of a Bri tish forest used by man y dog walkers and

picnickers. It is irrelevant as to whether it actually was

irradiated to any sign itican t degree. The report shows this

conclusion was made by Halt and hi!> orticers taking read

ings wi th Geiger u m sample!>. etc . activities we ll

beyond their jurisdiction. (It seems unlikely they could

have done this without M oD approval.) They do th is -IX

hours after the fi rst incident and yet o s e d l y only bother

to ofl ieially report i t to London by letter three wee ks later.

Thi s is odd.

One mu t wonder how man y British i t i ; wa ndered

through a fores t thought to be irradiated during thi s period.

suffering potential conseq uences? Even if . as later events

sugges t. they were at no real risk. that had to be a clear

R +- F\U ~ 0 ( 1 12-1



po sib il it y in the im med iate aftermath and it m incon

ce i vable that nobody acted to protect the public. Thi' could

have been done w ithout re vea ling the alleged UFO incident

(e.g . under a pretext that the area was temporarily l u ~ e d so

to be a y e d with dangerous chemical:-.). To do noth

ing- as the report n t e n d s - either ext raordinary

comp lace ncy or even negligence that would righlly lead to

all so rts of pubI c conce rns that are largely ir relevant to the

issue of what th e UFO was. or even how serious th e radia

tion threa t eventually proved to be. I f abnormal of

radiation were be lieved to exist. then surely public ~ a f e t yhad to become an issue we ll before three weeks later?

The alternative. of coun.e. is that the fi rst memo in this

now rclea!>ed Mo D ti le is nut the first comact that the Mo D

had with c a ~ e . For my part. I am preny sure that th e

MoD knew be fore M oreland·s lel ler plopped on their mat.

I am certai n becau!.c forestry workers and farmers told me

of men in with British 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 knewabout the case . Yet on that date no other British suurce knew

about the events. The f irst inkling any urologist had was

late r th at week. No reporters knew abou t the case umil

months later. Therefore. the most probab le idemity or these

men in :-.u i ts i. government ofticia ls making an early fact

finding mi ss ion to check out the area. But i f so, the M oD

was invo lved inthi !> case far ea rl ier than its newly rl!icased

ti le shows.

A new revelation. The Ii les f irst major new revelation

i). from a memo elated January 28. 1981 . Signed by Squad

ron Leader J. D. Badcock at RAF openuion:-. it a ~ k ~ other

a g e n c to express any i nteres t in the Ben twaters

(Rend lesham) case now rece ived at the MoD in the form ofthe Halt memo. It !>ay:-. ··we would pa rt icularly li ke to know

whether the reading!"> of adioactivity are unusual or whether

they are wi thin the normal background ran ge to be ex -

·r ' j ; ;: J:ll1r.:

• I l l ~ C;o(GE)10/ J _ . -

.2L.n

~ ~ J C ~ ) ( ; U F )

2t·· 61~ : ~

,-!1 . . . . . .

<>·t(v .)': ~ . . . : " J' :!I 7:- !::l

t.·• ;t \ h e J.i:- r _.:'CO lat'!C:" '"$ J::; 0 ,

Badcock .1 llle/1/o. Jmwcuy 28. /981.

pec ted:· This reveals how the radiation was singled out as

the key issue right m the start and further u g g e s t ~ to me that

this was something theMoD would not have been happy to

si t on for weeks in case it led to any public hea lth isl>ues.

Just the fact that an MoD agency ask ing the above

question of rhe ir imclligence one month after the area

in ques tionhad

poss ibly been irrudiated. but whi le the

Bri tish public stil l had unrestri cted Ltccess intow l ignorance

of these events. is itse lf of conce rn.

Amazingly. on February 16. Badcock reports ·'J have

had no response." Nobody at any age ncy was interes ted.

But this memo does add three important new pieces of data.

First. that the MoD was seeking r a d < ~ r conlirrnat ion. but

checking the night of December 29, 1980. for th i daw as it

was misleadingly thought from the Halt memo to be th edare

of the events. We now know Hah apparemly misda ted the

events. Consequently. the MoD e f f o r t ~ to conlirm radar

presence of the obj ec t via RAF Neati5.head were botched

unt il it too late and the fi lms had been des troyed.

Second. the memo notes thilt the MoD knew from th isvery early stage that the events in th e forest had been tape

recorded (the infamous Halt tape in 1984). But

th ird. the memo reveals what had happened to thi s lllpe.

noting. ·' Jhave spoken with Sqn Ld rMoreland at Bentwaters

and he the deputy commander IHalt] a so und

source. I asked i f the incident had been reported on the

USAF net and l was aclvi!>ed that tape recorder · I ic I of the

evidence had bee n handed to General Gabriel who hap

pened to be vis it ing the station ."

Clearly this news is important a!. it t il..!s in with n long

told story about the case in wh ich official evidence was

supposedly nown out of Beniwater.. and onto Ramstein A ir

Force base in Germany just days after the event This storyhn never been veri fied but now it has so me t r o n g . backing.

So perhap. a US FOIA req uest for the of Genera l

Gabriel" :-. oft ice and his e a s o for being at Bent waters in

late December 1980 should be mounted.

Intelligence replies. Even tual ly. on March 9. Badcock

confirmed that two MoD intelligence unit:-. (0 1 55 and Dl

52) had respond ed - better late than never (after all . only

British ci t ize ns' hea lth through radiation poisoning was

potentially at stake)- and Dl 52 had even made ..an offer to

pursue:' Dl 55. on March 2. ex plained they had ..ca nvassed

DST! for thoughts·· but ··can not offer any explana tion for

the phenomena.··

So they had not by this :-.tage. for instance. found

evidence for conventional explana tions :..uch as RAF air

craft a bright meteor. or rea lit.ed that the Orford Ness

lighthouse might ha ve been ~ p e r c e i v e These MoD

:..c icntists and intelligence :-.taff were app<trently as non

plussed a:.. ufologists and the witnesses. This is an important

point in the ongoing debate abolll the true nawre of the

Rendlesham sight ing .

However. we don"t have the DSTI f iles themselves .

only w hat Dl 55 to ld the Air Staff, so we have no idea how

(continued rm page 30)

lUl l+ F\11 2001

.25



R ENDLESHAM-continuedfrom page 25

extensive were the ir efforts to solve this riddle. Did it

include checks with astro nomers, meteorologists or what

ever '? Or was it ju st two sta ff from the Ministry chatting for

five minutes ove r a pot of tea about the lates t id iotic UFO

s tory?

Dl 52 o n Feb ruary 23 con curred with a . light caveat ,

say ing .. DI 52 do not know ofany se rious explanation'' (not

indicating what a '·non seriou s . explanation might be). It

did add that the background radiation va ries a lot a nd

indica ted that the readings suggest ed 0. 1 mi ll irad wa s

detec ted in the fores t as opposed to the expected 0. 0 15 to

0.03 millirad, mea ning that Dl 52 was suggesting a reading

1 . ~ . , / ..V I , J

~ l ~ ~ ~ ~ ' · o~ " \ ' I -

PISS< ~ , to::;on

S:of\ .:3:!ca: h o - · / 1 r / 1

! ~ D c z ! ' ; ! ~ s ; ; , ~ ~ \ . ~ l::o.o-.1 or e.7 :.er1o 4:: o:;..l.::.r.;.t!c.: 1:.· .cr -.s·.

'· I r !'0'.1 \ . 1 . : ~ '!o :,ur::v.o U·.1D f l . . r t . ~ 1 co.-:.L:. t..:.b c.::f,..,!..-1< -"1 :.a :o : ' \ ~ '....r;;.t

hcl.,:....-;,4-' !n u lL 1.!l ~ . : . t " " ' ~ . ~ : : . ' ! . '1.-:.:.J t ,. ¢ W :-r.;e:-t !,..; .. H ~ < " . - : . . : Y " c rl · ~ - - . . ! U 0. 1 ~ . o • · uc.e """'-.:a1.· ti:.:.:l t=.-7 ex:;-:eh.:..

Me111o ji·om Dl 52. Februarv 23. 198/.

that was maybe five or six times the ex pec ted level. How

ever. their offe r to pursue this was to ..make enquiries as to

natural background levels in the area ..

Although they did not ge t asked by Air Staff to pursue

things . in so fa r as the fi le indicates. I did myself as soon as

I sa w the Hall me mo two years later. From a plan t biologist

! learned how pine need les in a forest ca n accumulate higher

level of radiat ion . Th is impl ies that the level reported by Dl

52 was not a mazingly high and that the radiatio n wa

probab ly not the major issue it has long been argued to be.

But as these now released memo. indicate. as late a.

Ma rch 198 1 the U.K. governme nt did not know if the

radiat ion recorded in a public forest was or was not a risk to

hea lth. Th ey did not know before this bu t ev iden tly ju st

ga mbled on the heal th a nd safety o f its c itizens by presum

ing that thi s UFO ta le was of no importance.

Radar checks. Chec ks with the radar at RAF Watton

(Eastern Radnr)- long a bone ofco nte ntion over this case

are also revealed by th is f ile. I spoke with a radar operator

at Watton in late January 198 1-my first know ledge of the

case- after he had initially spoken to a mutual co ntact (Paul

Begg) in a pub. He advised that Watton did track something

and that their films were late r taken away by USAF inte lli

gence officers for study. During that visit Wa tton staff had

been told about the UFO land ing in de tail.

At the time Wa tton was silent on th is. leav ing the tory

as ju . t a rumor to ld by a man no t willing to publ ic ly back hi s

c lai ms for fear of vio lati ng the Offici al Secrets Ac t. But

what does the Mo D file reveal? On February 26 . 198 1.

Squad ron Leader Coum be. commander o f Walton. re

poned that they had checked f ilm "on the days prior to and

a fter the reported pheno mena'· and that ··reg rettab ly both

l'ilms we re also faulty .·· Moreover. '"the film of the reported

sighting [i.e.,on the date in the Halt me mo Iwas at fault. . The

Walton conrro ller on duty ""was req ues ted to view the radar .

and ''nothing was observed ..

T hi s response is curious for several reasons. First. the re

is no reference to thi s blanket fault in the letter sent to UFOwriter Nick Redfern when the then Watton co mmander

co nfirmed a sigh t ing o n December 28 . 1980. And the

appare nt failure of all the film SUJTOLmding these events

leaves one wonde ring why in te lligence office rs wo uld later

need to exami ne i t -as Watton now con firms they did.

Moreover. if you look at the account of the case reported to

me by the Watton radar officer in earl y 198 1 (the on e

supposedly given to him by USAF intell igence ofti cers

while taking the ti lm from the base). it is remarkably

accurate and fu ll of details ve ritied on ly yea r. later (such as

Halt go ing out from a base Christmas party to tape record

the events) . So why wou ld thi s Wa rton office r be truthful

and correc t about thi s ma in part o f the story and ye t appar

e ntly lie that Watton did see something on their radar?

However, the MoD file seems to suggest that Walton

saw nothing on radar . . . except when yo u read between the

lines. Then it actually says that the controller at Walton saw

nothing "o n the night of the re ported sighting... This may

we ll be true because the night reported in the Halt me mo is

in fact not the night when the UFO was seen. Thus this

statement from Watton may be tec hnica lly true but does not

necessarily mea n that something was no t detec ted o n radar

on the night when even ts really took place! See what ! mean

about reading between the lines?

Moreland's concems. Much of the res t o ft he MoD fi le

conce rns co mmun ica tions from ufologist. (inc luding sev

eral from myself) and artempts by the powers-that-be to

dec ide how best to reply to them. Grea t co nce rn is ex

pressed by my arguments in 1982-83 that an acciden t

invo lving a nuclear weapon might have occurred and been

covered up by the invention of a UFO story. The file even

co ntains an an notated copy of the fi rst artic le I wro te o n the

case in 1982. l t was sent to the Mo D by Moreland, who

asked for advice o n how to res pond to the ··flood of

enquiries'' he now expected on the until the n well concealed

inc ide nt. He noted that week (October 1982) that ''Eric

Mishara . had ca lled him and wanted the basecommander's

IUR + F,,u 200 t

)( )



comments on my article . I went on to publish the Omni

art icle tha t appeared three months later.

T his period (October 1982 to Janu ary 1983) coincided

exactly with the period when the Mo D was w ri ting to me to

tell me that they planned to e a ~ e UFO ti les . and then over

the nex t fi ve months sent me vari ous recent case files as

swee teners. Whether this is coinciden ce is not certain.

The MoD res ponded to the sq uad ron leaders <.:Once rns

and told M oreland to stick to a standard reply with detail ed

ad vice on stock answers that the Ai r Staff would send out.

The precise wording suggested to use was. " I understand

that M oD did receive a report from base personnel of a UFO

sighting near RA F Ben twatcrs on 27 Dece mber 1980. The

report was dea lt with in accordance with normal proce

dures : it was not considered to indicate an ything of defence

interes t. T here was no quest ion of any contact with ·alien

beings ...

A ll fair enough. except that on the strength of the

evidence in released fi le. it becomes rather difficult to

ju st ify that the case had no defense interest when this ad vice

was be ing given to M oreland. The " ev idence' ' for no

defense interest boil s dow n to the A ir Sta f f sending ou t a

memo in January 198 1asking intell igence staf f fo r advice.

getting precious little back. being told by their relevant

radar base that their fi lm was use less. then be ing advised

that higher than normal radiation seemed to ha ve been

recorded in the woods by a senior o ff ice r but then not

actually pursuing thi s matter to the point of veri fy ing i f his

posed any threat to local cit izens.

In other wo rds. at bes t the released documents disc lose

a sloppy. diso rganized attempt to disprove that there were

defense impli ca tions. A ll the MoD staff did was talk to

DS TI and Dl 55 and get told that they didn' t have a cluewhat had bee n seen. Whether in the process these sc ienti tic

intell igence staff did eliminate defense poss ibi l ities (li ke a

terrorist reconn aissance mi ss ion). and i f so how they did it.

must presumably be locked in the fi les of DST I and ce r

tainl y is not re vea led in the Rendlesham fi le ju st released .

Thus. Ai r Sta ll assured the RAF commander at

Bentwaters that he should tell the British public there wa

no defense threat from th is case because nobody had told

them that . uch a defense threat did ex ist. But in truth all th ey

had been told is that no or intell ige nce o ff icer had

a clue what had taken place. Oh. and by the way. the

rad iation li gures looked a bi t high.

Nuclear issues. One wonderful piece of commentary iscontained in a letter dated November 9. 1982, from the Ai r

Staff to Squad ron Leader Mo reland. As noted he was a bi t

conce rn ed by rny raisi ng o f the nuclear accident theo ry

so mething I do not today regard as li kely. but that was a

viable candidate in 1982. That Moreland was more both

ered by th i. than by the UFO story is itse lfin teresr ing but not

surprising. In 1982 the USAF was tryi ng to bring crui se

miss iles into Britain and facing a major peace campaign

aga inst them. And Bentwaters had nuclear weapons but

local people hadn 't been to ld.

M IMS7RY OF DEFENCE

M.-. Bw'a.no h : t " ~ lor.OOtl SW1A 2MB

lo...,._ tf.;. • 2 6 3 8 1 ~ n . l ' ...... .11 t eoeo '"" '. _ . . ,

g"M'fJi5/2· rt+

q ~ ~ < " O 1962

'(),"""- si....1..... L;,....ri. J . c . ~ L ()'0\1 ror TOV.: l •:tr,:- l ' t ~ 9 / 1 . 6 / o .. 25 tk t obt .n1: ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ; . . r ; ; o ; . t r ; ~ t ~ ~ K ' , b i n o d (th ~ t } " . o r - ~ a c : r ,

i) . !.X>:Pz: line on VPO•c a ae ! ollO'd'o1 .

t; Cur :solo 1ntorn t 1:-. tbo vro • t . e ' b :-e-orted .. , 112 tct h o e ~ fththo:- ~ ! ' ; hcv r . l ! . r ~ \ ' n ! l . n.'lr d e o f • ~ r e of

Letterfi'OIII MoD 10 Moreland. Nol'emher 9. 1982.

In rep ly to More land' s concern s Peter Watkins ( the

Nick Pope equivalent in 1982) told the commander that I

was one of hi regulars. Then he sugges ted th at Mo reland

should in reply to any journalists eire a parl iamentary

written answer given on Jan uary 28. 198 1. that " no accidents have occur red involving ... damage to nuclear

weapons containi ng fiss ile material on U .K. tetTitory. . . . . .

Th e Air Staf f added that i f someone ment io ns "t he

Lakcnhea th incident " (as I had. where a ri re at this base in

July 1956 cau sed a near disaster to a we apons storage area).

then to reassure that duri ng thi s event "no nuclear materia ls

we re invol ved' ' -as th e U.S. authori ties had assured the

M oD was true.

But, in awell -tempered perspect iveonufology. W atkins

concluded. " I wou ld not expect ufologists to pursue either

IUR + F AI. I. 2001

31



of these angles any further-i f they do I suggest you refer

them to u:-:· And he wryly notes. ··1hope thi :- i:- helpful to

you and that Bentwaters does not become Eas t Angl in' :.

an . wer to Warminster . (a locale notor ious in Britain for

UFO sightings. many of dubious or igin ).

CONCLUSION

The M oD fi le on Rendlesham will keep me bu sy for so me

time assess ing its hidden ramification!>. Wi thout doubt it s

re lease is an importan t event- by rar the larges t official file

and on one of Britain·s most contentiou cases. But it te ll s

us much more about the M oD than it doe. about the events

in Rcndlcs ham Forest.

It reveals an Air Staff barely taki ng the ca).C seriously

and pursuing it on a fa ir ly tr ivial level. never seem ing to ask

questions about public sa fety issues or trying to fi nd rea li s

ti c so lution to what happened as any ufologist might do.

Indeed. we sec more imerested in finding the right

words to U>e to answer awkward questions than in finding

proper answers to these awkward questions in the fi rst

place! To me that is the overriding lesson robe taken from

th is file. Of course. it reveals no smok ing gun about the

case. But i t would never been re leased i f it had.

It al so demonstrates that the Air Staf f ha ve always

truth full y reported their perspec ti ve on this case . I have

never doubted thm. To them it was a minor un so lved

irritation. one that they ne ver properly n v e ~ a t e d thanks

to their disin teres t in UFOs and because they re lied on

mi . lead ing in rormation. mos t importantly about the date.

T he lack of any true sp irit of scientil ic inquir y is

unsurprising to me but also worrying. The MoD knew the

Halt tape exL Led less than two m after the sighti ngll.yet never made any effort to suggest to their own Squadron

Leade r with an o fl icc just yard s away from where rhat tapc

sat that he bOLher to go take a listen and report back. There

i, no interest at all expressed in ecur ing photos or so il

samples that were taken on the night in ques tion. Overall. it

is a catalog of mi ssed opportunities. Too little is done

because the case is never regarded as a scientilic or an

in tell ec tu al challenge but rather as a chore to be gotten out

of th e way.

Indeed. better still. so long as nobody asked qu es tions

about it hccause the whole thing was s u c c e ~ s f hidden

for as long as po. sible. then th e matter could be quiet ly

bur ied. The fact tha t about 85o/ of the fi le cover:-. the period

after the case went public and very li tt le o f any meaningful

substance happened whi le the incident was out of publ ic

sight speak for itself .

But. of cou rse. be hind al l t b i ~ the rea l question:

whether anything else off icially happened that i!. not in thi :

report. I must concl ude it did. We know th at because some

file are admittedly held back. even though it is unlikely

they are of any grea t import. We know also becau, e th e

internal ri les of DSTI , Df 55, Dl 52 are not included and

must be ab le to add something to the case in ves tiga tion.

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 explanation? Was this

guesswork. or research? And can we really be ce rtain tha t

until the Halt memo wa. sent to the MoD in mid-January

1981 there was no investigat ion of any so rt? But i f so. how

worryi ng is that?

Even i f thi s time there rea ll y was no de fense threat. next

tim e there might be. A nd f inding out about a defense threat

and an irradiated fo rest three weeks afterwards hardly

suggests a defense and intell igence orga ni7ation that is well

on top of things .

Disappointingly. the fi le in no way helps us to know

whether the Rendlesham case should be considered more

li kely to be resolved one way orthcother. Frankly. ufologists

have clone much more- both from the pro and skeptical

side of the fence- in trying to learn the tru th about thi s

complex case than the MoD evidently did. The MoD are left

exposed by th is fi le a!. adrift in tenm of serious efforts to

find out what happened. and then in the end rather feebly

left to claim that they just don' t know.

To me. thi s rile makes me face one worrying question

above all others. Is fear of th e public relations headache that

UFOs retlect compromising other more salient issues when

defen se authorities gel involved? A fter all. it does not

matter in the contex t o f na tional security whether th e

Rendlesham UFO was amispercep tion. some kind oratmo

p h e r i energy or a rea l UFO (whatever one of tho!>e might

be). M ore importan t is what might have been true and what

senior pe rsonnel thought wa . true.

Whatever the truth about Rcndlesham. thi11 rile sug

gests th at the MoD dropped the ba ll and got away wi th the

fu mble. Next time they might not escape. So this fi le shouldbe considered a wa rning to the author itic that UFOs (and

ufologists) may indeed be apa in in the neck that they would

much rather have nothing to do wi th. but i f they intend to

continue to pursue them then they must try ha rder. +

MULTIPLE GENESIS

Ea rth may have survived several early impacts from

large r o i d ca using l i fe to disappear and reap pear

seve ral tim es according to a th eory pu t forth rece ntly.

The ea rl y Earth may ha ve been an interrupted Ede n-a

plane t where l i fe repeatedly evolved and divcrsil'ied .

only to be back to sq uare one by a!>teroid. I0 or 20times wider than the one that h a ~ t e n e d the dinosaurs·

demise. When the surface of the Eanh fi nally became

inhabitab le again. thousands of yea rs after each impacr.

the emerged from hid ing places and spread

acros!'> the planet- unti l another a ~ t e r o i d hit and the

cycle w repeated. . .We know that large a ~ t e r o i im

pacts <.:an steril ize or partially steril i1.e planets:· said

Norman Sleep. professor of geophysics at Sta nford who

presen ted the theory at the fall mee ting of th l.! American

Geophys ical Union in San Francisco Dece mber 14 .

l UI {+ l-\11 200t

2001 Fall IUR - Jenny Randles on Rendlesham File

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Transcript of 2001 Fall IUR - Jenny Randles on Rendlesham File