Rendlesham Forest UFO case
The 3 a.m. fireball – how it all started
ON OTHER PAGES
Summary
At the same time that the security patrol at Woodbridge East Gate saw bright
lights apparently descend silently into Rendlesham Forest early on 1980
December 26, an exceptionally brilliant meteor, termed a fireball by
astronomers, was seen over southern England. It is shown that this fireball is
most likely what they saw, and that nothing landed in Rendlesham Forest.
The fireball
British Astronomical Association Meteor Section Newsletter no. 4 dated 1981
February contains a brief report on the fireball that apparently sparked the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident. The
BAA report notes that this fireball was seen at 02.50 UT (± 5 minutes) on Boxing Day 1980 by four witnesses, locations not given but
seemingly in southern England, all of whom estimated its brightness as
comparable to the gibbous (i.e. three-quarter) Moon and of 3 to 4 seconds
duration. In that bare information lies the genesis of one of the most
celebrated UFO cases of all time.
Brilliant fireballs like this, caused by natural pieces of debris from space
burning up in the atmosphere, are a major cause of UFO reports. Although they
occur high in the atmosphere they appear to be much lower, and often give the
impression that something has plummeted to Earth nearby. They are totally
silent. For examples of what such a fireball looks like, see this video, filmed near Perth, Western Australia in 2005 [2.5 MB AVI file] and this one filmed in Sweden in 2009.
Given the coincidence of timing, it seems that the 3 a.m. fireball is what the
security guards saw and misinterpreted. (For an example of how a military guard
once mistook a bright fireball for a rocket attack, see this page from Tim Printy’s SUNlite newsletter.) So it is important to realize that nothing came down in Rendlesham Forest.
Did anyone else at Bentwaters or Woodbridge see the 3 a.m. fireball other than
the patrol at East Gate? It seems that at least two others did so. The first of
these accounts is particularly convincing. It comes from a former security
guard at Bentwaters, Richard Bertolino, who was interviewed in 2009 September
on a podcast called Earthfiles. To the best of my knowledge, he had never
spoken publicly about the case before.
“A very bright falling star”
Bertolino reported that he was on duty on the morning of 1980 December 26 when
he and his driver Sergeant Hall saw what he described as “a very bright falling star. It had a blue-green luminescence, sparkle [sic] tail
to it.” He said their immediate feeling was that it was close to them and was “falling between the two bases”.
This is a classic description of a fireball. Shortly thereafter Bertolino says
he heard someone on the radio yelling “There’s a UFO out here!”. In the interview Bertolino estimates the time as about 1 a.m., but it is clear
from the context that what he saw was actually the 3 a.m. fireball seen by the
guards at East Gate of Woodbridge. His testimony leaves little doubt that this
fireball sparked off the whole UFO chase in the woods. The entire interview
with Bertolino can be heard
here; his description of the fireball starts at 3 minutes 30 seconds into the
podcast.
Later in the same interview Bertolino reports listening to the radio
transmissions from Penniston in the forest. His account meshes very well with
the witness statements made by the participants, and provides no support for the oft-made claim that
significant details were omitted from those statements. Bertolino also recounts
that Penniston sketched the object for him in his notebook when they met at the
end of their shifts, but makes no mention of being shown any notes or sketches
made by Penniston during the event itself. [Note: In his interview, Bertolino
wrongly names Steve Longero rather than John Burroughs as one of the three
airmen who went into the woods but this is evidently a failure of memory.]
Was Larry Warren a witness?
Another apparent witness of the 3 a.m. fireball, from a location off base, was
none other than Larry Warren, whose involvement with events during Col Halt’s expedition to the forest two nights later remains controversial. Unlike much
of Warren’s later claims, though, here we have a near-contemporary written statement of
what he knew and saw at the time.
On 1981 January 6, a week before Col Halt typed up his now-famous memo, Warren
wrote a letter home to his mother, which is reproduced in full in his book with
Peter Robbins, Turn Left at East Gate. Warren’s letter starts by referring to the sighting of what is evidently the Cosmos 749 re-entry the previous evening, confirming that the airmen had heard about this through
media reports: “Over Europe and England a bunch of lights were seen – Over London one of the lights broke into about twenty smaller lights – and flew in all directions.”
His letter then goes on to report a sighting at 3 a.m. by a security policeman
at Bentwaters, and a simultaneous sighting of his own made off-base, both of
which seem to coincide with the report by the patrol at Woodbridge’s East Gate of an object apparently descending into the forest.
Below, I have italicized the passages from Larry Warren’s letter that are relevant to the 3 a.m. fireball sighting. As with Bertolino’s testimony, Warren’s hearsay evidence on the activities of Burroughs, Penniston and Cabansag given
in the intervening paragraphs is consistent with the statements that these
witnesses filed at the time, and again contradicts suggestions that significant
details of a close encounter were left out.
“At about three in the morning, a guy I know in D-Flight of Security Police [the
same flight at Bentwaters to which Warren was assigned] told me he responded to
a falling star outside the Weapons Storage Area...
“Anyway he reported it and then everyone started feeling strange – then a guy on the Backgate at Woodbridge reported a bright light moving through
the pine forest. An officer and two sergeants responded but they could not take
weapons because they were off base.
“Over the radio they reported seeing a pie-shaped object – about 7 by 8 ft in size. But they said every time they would get near it, it
would seem further away all of a sudden. They also said that all the animals in
the forest were going nuts.
“Then all of a sudden the light went out – and over the radio they said they didn't like the situation and wanted to go
back to base – but they were told to keep on investigating.
“Then they said the thing appeared behind them – it seemed like it was playing games. After 3 and a half miles of following the
thing through the countryside and woods – the thing just disappeared in a field. It was only about 10 ft off the ground.
This is what a friend of mine said he heard on the radio.
“At that same time, me and five other guys were walking up a dark path about 2
miles from base... cause we couldn't get a ride and we felt like we were being watched and it was
strange cause there were no street lights – Then we saw a bright light go right over us about 50 feet up and just fly over a
field. It was silent. We first thought it was an A-10 jet. But they scream. So we ran away, because
witchcraft and black magic is a big thing in this part of Suffolk and we
thought that witches were in the woods. That light just seemed to jump over the trees – Then the next day it turned out that we were in the same place as the U.F.O. so
I think we saw it too.” [Ian’s note: In 2008 May Larry told me by email that at the time of the sighting he
and his companions were heading back to base from Bromeswell, a village to the
west of Bentwaters, and had seen the light in the direction of Woodbridge Base,
which was to the south of them, consistent with a fireball over southern
England.]
Content last updated: 2012 April.
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