Rendlesham Forest UFO case – the story concluded
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Here the police account provided a vital lead by showing that Col. Halt’s memo, written two weeks after the event, had got the date of the first
sighting wrong. It occurred on December 26, not December 27.
With this corrected date, I telephoned Dr John Mason, who collects reports of
such sightings for the British Astronomical Association. He told me that
shortly before 3 am on December 26 an exceptionally brilliant meteor, almost as bright as the full Moon, had been seen over southern England. Dr
Mason confirmed that this meteor would have been visible to the airmen at
Woodbridge as though something were crashing into the forest nearby. The time
of the sighting matched that given in Col. Halt’s memo.
Finally, I turned to the question of the radiation readings. I learned [from the
UK’s National Radiological Protection Board] that readings like those given in Col.
Halt’s memo would be expected from natural sources of radiation such as cosmic rays
and the Earth itself. In short, there was no unusual radiation at the site.
As for the star-like objects in the final paragraph of Col. Halt’s memo, they were probably just that – stars. Bright celestial objects are the main culprits in UFO sightings and have
fooled many experienced observers, including pilots. The object seen by Col.
Halt to the south was almost certainly Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.
If it seems surprising that a colonel in the US Air Force should identify a star
as a UFO, consider the alternatives. Is it likely that a bright, flashing UFO
should hover over southern England for three hours without being spotted by
anyone other than a group of excited airmen? And if Col. Halt really believed
that an alien craft had invaded his airspace, why did he not scramble fighters
to investigate? [Actually, we now know from Halt himself and from RAF Watton
that Halt asked if anything was seen on radar, but evidently nothing was.
Researcher Nicholas Redfern found that Halt’s call was
logged by RAF Watton at 03.25 on December 28, which shows that Halt’s memo got the date of the second sighting wrong, too].
UFO hunters will continue to believe that an alien spaceship landed in
Rendlesham Forest that night. But I know that the first sighting coincided with
the burn-up in the atmosphere of an exceptionally bright meteor, and that the
airmen who saw the flashing UFO between the pine trees were looking straight at
the Orford Ness lighthouse. The rest of the case is a marvellous product of
human imagination.
POSTSCRIPT:
One of the original promoters of this case, British UFOlogist Jenny Randles, who
has probably spent more time investigating and writing about it than anyone
else, has gradually come to accept most of the explanation outlined above,
although she still nurtures the belief that something unusual may have happened
even if it wasn’t a genuine UFO. In a 1998 book on the case, UFO Crash Landing, she writes glumly: “Many people think the Rendlesham story is a nonsense that was debunked out of
existence. One might even be tempted to argue that if a UFO case like
Rendlesham falls, then none is safe. The whole mystery may collapse into
misperception and witness exaggeration.”
That, of course, is exactly why the UFO community dare not let Rendlesham fall.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
LINKS TO MORE DETAILED DISCUSSION:
For more about the identification of the Orford Ness lighthouse, including
photographic evidence demonstrating the visibility of the lighthouse from the
forest and the question of whether Col Halt saw the lighthouse as well as the
UFO, click here.
For more about the landing marks, including a sketch of them, and a discussion
of the supposed tree damage, click here.
For more about the suggested connection between the Cosmos 749 re-entry and the
events in the forest, click here.
For a discussion of claims that the sighting was the result of a hoax or
practical joke, click here.
I would be particularly interested to hear from anyone who was on the base at
the time and can add their own insights to the case.
One interesting development for researchers came in 2001 when the formerly secret file of the British Ministry of Defence on the Rendlesham incident was released. It provides a fascinating insight into
official attitudes towards UFOs, but no support for those who think that
anything strange happened at Rendlesham.
ian @ ianridpath.com
Content last updated: 2009 July.
© Ian Ridpath 2009. All rights reserved.
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