1988 09 - IUR - Benton Jamison

7/30/2019 1988 09 - IUR - Benton Jamison

1/17

IURInternationalUFO Reporter

-,What happened at

September/October 1988Volume 13, Number 5


2/17

INTERNATIONALUFOREPORTER

Editor:JeromeClarkAssociate Editor:Nancy ClarkConsulting Editor:Richard HallContrlbullng Edllors:Bill ChalkerGeorgeM. Bberht111Roberto PinoniJenny RandlesMark RodeghiaChris RutkowskiArtists:Roo MillerDon Schmitt

EDITORIAL 3A frre in the forest! new light on tbe Rendlesbam landing by Benwn Jam ison 4The compleat skeptic byMark RodeghierLeuers

llllemalioNJJ UFO Reporter{ISSN, 0720-174X) ispublished bimonthly by the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFOStudies, 2457 West Peterson Avenue, Chicago,lliinois60659. Al l rights reserved. Reproduction withoutpennissionis strictly prohibited.CopyrighlC 1988 by the I . AllenHynek Center for UFO Studies. Third class postage paid atGlenview,lllinois.

Address all editorial correspondence to llllematioNJJUFO Reporter, JeromeClark. Editor, 1511 GreenleafStreet,Evmston,lllinois 60202.

2 IUR - Septemlnr/Octobu 1988

1822

Address all subscription correspondence to lnUmatioNJJ UFOReporter, 2451 West Peterson Avenue, Chicago, illinois 60659.

The lnlernaJioNJJ UFO Reporter is a benefit publication mailed toAssociates of the Center for $25.00 or more. Foreign Associates add$10.00 fo r delivery. Al l amowlls in U.S. funds. Other publications alsoavailable for contributors of larger amounts. For details, write to theJ. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Srudies, 2457 West Peterson Avenue,Chicago, illinois 60659, USA. Posrmaster. Send Form 3579 to CUFOS,2457 West Peterson Avenue, Chicago, illinois 60659.


3/17

A fire in the forest:new light on the Rendlesham landingby Benton Jamison

Benton Jamison, Ph.D., is a pro fessor of mathematics atth e State University of New Yor k at Albany. He hasha d a longstanding inte rest in the q uestion or government an d military involvement in UFO investigation.

R AF Benrwaters andRAP Woodbridge are air basesnear the east coast of England a few miles northeastof the East Anglian town of Ipswich. The two bases areleased to the United States Air Force under provisions ofthe NATO treaty. Bentwaters is the larger of the twobases. On it is the control tower for the two bases, as wellas the headquarters of the United States Air Force 8lstTactical Fighter Wing. The " Bentwaters case'' refers toincidents occurring in late December 1980 not on the basecomplex itself, but in Rendlesham Forest. a 17-squaremi.le, commercially-logged tract of woods, much of whichlies between the two bases and part of which surrounds theeast halfofWoodbridge.The ftrst accountofpeculiar goings-on reached BrendaButler in early January 1981. Butler lived (and I believestill does) in the coastal town ofLeiston, a few milesnonheast of the base complex. Her source, an Americanairman friend described as a "security officer" at the basecomplex, is given the pseudonym "Steve Roberts ,. in thebook Sky Crash [1]. He claimed that in late December afarmer living near Rendlesham Forest had called the baseto reporL that an aircraft had crashed into the forestRoberts and other airmen were sent to investigate. Theyfound not an airplane but a UFO. After they reported backto the base. the Base Commander and other high-rankingbase personnel arrived to find not only the UFO but a trioof three-foot-tall entities, clad in silver suits and suspendedin beams of light The UFO was apparently damaged onthe outside, and the entities were repairing i t They and theBase Commander engaged in some sort of br ief communication. After four hours, the craft rose from the ground,hovered briefly, and took off at enormous speed ([2], pages5-6).

Butler did not laugh. She did not flee Roberts'presence, or suggest to him that a condition which givesrise to delusions as severe as his calls for immediatetherapy and perhaps a long vacation. Instead, she guaranteed herself a permanent place in ufodom by launching an4 IUR-September/Octobu 1988

investigation which was to consume a sizable chunk of thenext three years of her life. She was joined in this ef fortfirst by her friend Dot Street, and later by the moreexperienced investigator Jenny Randles. Randles hadalready gotten wind of the story via an intriguing accountgiven her by the writerPaul Begg ([1], pages 25-28).Butler, Randles, and Street give a chronological account oftheir investigation in their book Sky Crash.

After her tallc with Steve Roberts, Butler proceeded toask local townspeople as well as airmen from the basewhether they recalled anything out of the ordinary that hadhappened near Bentwaters/Woodbridge during the last daysof the previous year. What she turned up ([1], pages 9-11and 40-44) suggested that lights had indeed been seen overthe forest, that something may well have crashed, and thatbase personnel had indeed been sent of f the base toinvestigate. Apparently no one she turned up said anythingabout aliens, whether floating, repairing, or communicating. (fhe account that got Randles interested in the casedid support Roberts ' story in this and several other respects[{1), pages 25-28].)The three investigators made repeated and largelyfruitless attempts to pry in formation out of the police,military, and Ministry of Defense. The United Statesmilitary would tum out to be more forthcoming than itsBritish counterpart

The first account of the Bentwaters incident in anAmerican periodical appeared in the "UFO Update"section of the March 1983 issue ofOmni magazine [3].Th e article, written by Eric Misbara, began with a briefrecounting of the Butler-Street-Randles story, probablygleaned from Randles' 1982 Flying Saucer Review articleon the case ([2]). Mishara's article, though, was more thana quick introduction to the case for the American reader.He had somehow managed to interview Col. Ted Comad,who had been base commanderat Bentwaters in lateDecember 1980. (Randles' FSR article [2] had stated thatit was the base commander who had the brief encounterwith the aliens.) Conrad denied to Mishara that he hadseen any aliens. His affmnations, however, are as significant as his denial. Here is that part of Mishara's articlebased on what Conrad told him:

Colonel Ted Conrad, the base commander alleged to havespoken with the aliens, has a more dramatic version of the story:At 10:30 on that fateful night, he recalls, four Air Force policemen spotted lights from what they thought was a small plane de


4/17

~ F 1 7 J Bentwalo"' mol" "'"" ' '1 Base Accommodation (Halt's home)a Base Offices

Friday Street

IIII

To Orford

h IIRunway hg ts11

~Folty House bb'' ... -- :::..:.:==== = =-=== ::-:.East Gate \ f'" ,,N ''

(cows on field)

1 \ \Forestry\ Offlcesscending into the forest. Two of the men r a C k e d the object onfoot and came upon a large, tripod-moWlted craft. It had nowindows, but was srudded with brilliant red and blue lights.Each time the men came within 50 yards of the shlp, Conradrelates, it levitated six feet in the air and backed away. Theyfollowed it for almost an hour through the woods and across afield Wltil it took of f at phenomenal speed.''

Acting on the reports made by his men. Col Conrad began abrief investigation of the incident in the morning. He went intothe forest and located a triangular pattern obviously made by thetripod legs. He claims he never obseT'IIed any aliens, but didinterview two of the eyewilllesses, and concludes, ' 'Those ladssaw something, but I don't know what it was ."

The "fateful night" referred to is specified earlier inthe article as ' 'the night ofDecember 30, 1980.' ' It is notclear whether this means the night of December 29-30 orthe night ofDecember 30-31. 1do not know whetherMishara got the date from the Randles' 1982FSR articlewhere it is given as "December 30, 1980," or fromConrad himself.

A t the time of his interview, Misbara was unaware thatthere reposed in the files of the British Ministry ofDefense a document containing another description of whatis almost certainly the incident Conrad described to

Mishara. This document, a memorandum for the BritishMOD, was made public in June 1983, shortly after it wasreleased by the U.S. Air Force to Robert Todd, an investiga tor who specializes in using the provisions of theFreedom of Information Act to obtain documents squirreled away by various government agencies. DatedJanuary 13, 1981, the memo was composed by Lt. Col.Charles I. Halt, Deputy Base Commander at Bentwaters/Woodbridge. Halt's version of the incident is given in itsfirst paragraph.

Early in the morning of 27 Dec 80 (approximately 0300L),two USAF security police pa.trolmen saw unusual lights outsidethe baclc gate at RAF Woodbridge. Thinking an aircraft mighthave crashed or been forced down, they called for permission togo outside the gate to investigate. The on-duty flight chief responded and allowed three patrolme.n to proceed on fooL Theindividuals reported seeing a strange glowing object in the forcsLThe object was reported as be.ing metallic [sic] in appearance andtriangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across thebase and approximately two meters high. It illuminated theentire forest with a white light. The object itselfhad a pulsingred light on top and a bank(s) of blue lights underneath. Theobject was hovering or on legs . As th.e patrolmen approached theobject, it maneuvered through the trees and disappeared. At thistime the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy. The object

lUR - Stpttmbu/Octolnr 1988 S


5/17

was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near lhe backgate.

It is natural to conclude that. discrepancies aside, Haltand Conrad are describing the same incident. A major(and still unresolved) discrepancy is the date of theincident. Halt's memo states that it happened "early in themorning of27 Dec 80," while Mishara implies that ithappened on the "nightof December30." The newtestimony presented in this article does not settle thequestion of when the incident happened. but it does givecompelling reasons for excluding December 27 as apossibility.The opportunity for more testimony on the Bentwatersarose when in 1985 CUFOS, following up on a letter fromJohn Lear, arranged for me to interview an Air Force A-10pilot who had been at Woodbridge in late December 1980.The pilot was on the wing staff of the 81st Tactical FighterWing. Because of this, he anended a staff meeting duringwhich the Wing Commander was told of an incident whichhad taken place the preceding night and which involvedwhat was described as a UFO. I interviewed the pilot fivetimes by telephone. He did not object to my using his realname in this article, but I choose not to. I call him Maj.EverettI draw the following conclusions from these inter-views:

(1) On the night before the staff meeting, securitypolicemen sent into Rendlesham Forest in search of alight that had been seen to descend into the forestencountered a brightly lighted object which eludedthem as they approached i t The object was believedto be a UFO.(2) Wing Commander Gordon Williams was in chargeof the staff meeting. The UFO incident was related bythe Base Commander, Col. Ted Conrad.(3) Col. Halt, the Deputy Base Commander, went intoRendlesham Forest in an attempt to find the object thesecurity police had sighted. He was described ashaving spent the night "tramping through the woods"anned with a "brick" (walkie talkie).(4) A tape recording was made during the incident(5) In the course of a conversation which followed thestaff meeting, Everett was told that the object had beentracked at a radar base located at Watton.(6) There is uncertainty about the date of the incidentI t is probable that it took place on the night of December 29-30, 1980. The nights of December 26-27 and27-28 can be ruled out The night of December25-26cannot

I began the first interview by introducing myself andconfirming that Everett was willing to be interviewed.I asked him to describe his involvement with the Bentwaters incident His reply:Each morning, in a fighter wing, the Wing Commander gets

6 IUR-SeptemiHr!October 1988

together with his staff members, and they go over the highlights,basically, of what happened during the previous day. I justhappened to be filling in for one of the nonnal staffmembers onthe morning they discussed the events that happened the nightbefore. The events that were related were basically !hat someonesaw something come down in Rendlesham Forest betweenBentwaters Ai r Force Base and Woodbridge. They're basicallytwo airfields that are operated by lhe same fighter wing -- they'reno more than three miles apart, and in between is theRendlesham Forest. According to what came ou tat the staffmeeting lhe following morning, the security police were alertedto go out into lhe woods where they claim to have seen and comequite close to an object which was very bright and sitting on theground in the forest itself. The Base Commander was called out,and he also went tramping off through Rendlesham Forest.Although I don't believe he actually arrived at the scene, thesecurity policemen that were called out.did claim to havedefinitely seen something which was described as a UFO there inthe forest.

Who was in charge at the staff meeting? Who told ofthe incident? Which staffofficer was reported to have"tramped through the forest" in search of what wasdescribed as a UFO? Were it not for the fact that Everettwas trying to remember details of a staffmeeting held sixyears before the interview, he could have answered thesequestions right away, and I could simply list the threenames. But Maj. Everett 's recollection of the peopleinvolved was notas vivid as that of the events described.It took some time to come to the conclusion that Conradhad related the incident and that Halt had been out inRendlesham Forest the night before.

Some of what follows reqrures that the reader knowsomethingabout the upper levels of the chain of commandat Bentwaters/Woodbridge, as well as what a "stand-up"staff meeting is. First in command is the Wing Commander. Second in command is the Vice Commander.Third in command is the Base Commander, who isresponsible for, as Everett put it , the ' 'base security,basically,just the running of the physical plant" Fourthin command is the Deputy Base Commander.During the first interview, Everett stated that. eachmorning in a fighter wing, the Wing Commander getstogether with his staff members. The basic purpose of sucha meeting is to go over the highlights of what happened theprevious day. Later in the interview, however, heremarked that there were no staff meetings on weekends, andthat Mondays were often partially given over to preparation for the frrst "stand-up" meeting of the week onTuesday. As he described it to me, a "stand-up" is a typeof meeting in which each person who presents materialliterally stands up and goes over what has happened in hisarea of responsibility since the last stand-up meeting.Attending a stand-up are the Wing Commander (or hisrepresentative), and the Deputy Commanders for Operalions (DCO), Maintenance (DCM), and Resources (DRN),or their representatives. The function of each of these


6/17

Deputy Commanders is to "find out what has happenedduring the time period since the las t stand-upand encapsulate i t - boil it down into a few briefstatements- and relayit to the Wing Commander- an upward flow of information." These summaries entail the preparation ofviewgraph slides that are shown on an overhead projector.Also in attendance is the Base Commander, or his representative. As Everett said. ' 'The Base Commander isresponsible for reporting on any items having to do withthe physical security or status of the base."

Everett did not attend staffmeetings on a regularbasis. He said he was at the staff meeting at which theUFO incident was related because "I just happened to befilling in for one of the normal staff members that morning.'' The meeting he attended was a stand-up. He wasfilling in for the DCO.Doring the flrst interview, I raised questions aboutwho was at the staff meeting:Jamison: Who was the Base Commander?Everett: The Base Commander was Col. Ted [slightpause] Conrad ..! don't recall Col. Conrad being at the staffmeeting because of it had something to do with his beingup quite late during the night -- involved with the incidentJamison: Do you recall who was giving the report?Everett: Probably tbe Assistant Base Commander, orwhoever his [the Base Commander's) number two incommand was. Jamison: Do you recall who he was?Everett: No, I sure don't. It was a long time ago.Jamison: I'm going to mention the names of a fewofficers whose names have come up as being involved inth.e incidentEverett: Okay.Jamison: One of them is Col. HaltEverett: Halt. [pause] [spelling out his name].Jamison: Yes.Everett: As a matter of fact, now that you actuallymention the name, it may well have been be who actuallydebriefed that incident in the staff meeting. It may havebeen.Jamison: Would he have been the one to suggest that thisperhaps be reponed? (1be reference to a report will bepursued later.]

Everett: Tfhe was the individual who did debrief thecommander on the happenings of the night before, then itseems logical to me to assume that he would make thesuggestion that it be passed up-channel or a report made ...I f he had debriefed the commander, then be or one of theother people on the staff would have asked the question" shall we make a formal report, or pass it up the line?" Idon't recall at this time who briefed it and I wouldn't havementioned Col. Halt's name had you not mentioned i tJamison: Another name mentioned was Gordon Williams.Everett: He, of course, was the Wing Commander.

At this point I asked Everett i f he could recall thename of the Vice Commander. He could not. I went on:J ~ o n : Can you say whether Gordon Williams was atthe staff meeting?

Everett: No, I can'tAfter going over some more names, I returned to Col.

Halt:Jamison: The person doing the briefing might have beenCol. Halt?Everett: I f Col. Conrad wasn't, then Col. Halt would havebeen the guy relaying the information.

From later in the f1tst interview:Everett: There was a humorous part of the briefing ...Col. Halt, i f t was Col. Halt, relaying stories of ColConrad out tramping through Rendlesham Forest in themiddle of the night with a brick, trying to get to the sceneof the crime, so to speak. We probably had a goodchuckle over that - the mental image of him trampingthrough the forestJamison: With a brick?Everett: A portable radio . a walkie talkie.

Most of what I said about staff meetings and stand-upmeetings Everett told me in the second interview. At onepoint during my brief lesson on the staff structure of afighter wing, Everett interrupted himself to assert

Before we get into that, I've got to tell you that, on thinlcingback, I can't really be sure that it was Halt telling that it was TedConrad out tramping through the bush or Conrad teUing thatabout Col. Halt tramping through the bush.

After Everett flnished telling me what a stand-up is,we got back to the questionsof who was doing what at theIUR- Septembu/October 1988 7


7/17

staff meeting and whether it had been Halt or Conrad outin the field the night before:Everett: Itwas the Wing Commander in charge of thestand-up. Gordon Williams ran the stand-up.Jamison: Are you deducing that it was Gordon Williams,or did you actually remember that it was Gordon WiUiamsthere?Everett: [pause] I am about95-percent certain that it wasGordon Williams who said, " I don't believe that we wantto make any official statement about what happened thepast evening. ' '

Note that . according to Everett's account, Williamsdescribed the past evening as the time of the incident Tocontinue:Everett: It seems more logical, thinking back to the waylhe pecking order works, that it would be Conrad, the BaseCommander, talking about something the Deputy Commander had been doing - out running through the woods ...Naturally, i f you've the option of calling out the BaseCommander or the Deputy Base Commander who is one8 IUR-Septun/Hr/Oaobu 1988

Civilian witnesses at various localions around here

rank lower, you 'r e going to call the Deputy. It 's morelogical to me, though I can't remember, but it might havebeen Halt out there running through the forestAfter transcribing the above message and reading itover a few times, I decided I wanted to be certain of whatEverett meant by " it' s more logical to me." I brought upthe point in a later interview.

Jamison: Let's suppose that the BaseCommander gets astaff call early in the morning saying that something isgoing on in the forest Back in the third interview [actuallyit was the second interview] you say that i f you have boththe Base Commander and his deputy available to go outinto the forest to investigate, it is more logical to send outthe deputy.Everett: Rank has its privileges.

I return to the second interview. Everett's nextmention of the roles played by Conrad and Halt followedmy bringing up the issue ofCol. Halt's tape recording. Atape recording of Halt out in lbe field does exist and basbeen circulated among investigators. It is that recording towhich I refer in what follows:


8/17

Jamison: There's a tape recording out. with Col. Haltspeaking,and on this rape recording he is callingof f timesevery once in a while, and the last time he calls of f a timeis about 4:00 A.M ... I was going to ask if the personrelating [the account] at the staff meeting seemed a bi ttired. What time was the staff meeting?

Everett's answer shows that he was still consideringwhether i t was Halt or Conrad who had attended the staffmeeting:Everett: Normally, about 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning. So[continuing the train of thought I had just broken] I think itwas Conrad who relayed the story of Col. Halt out there inthe forest. I do recall, now that you mention it. that therewas actually a tape recording made of the conversations onthe brick - the walkie-talkie.Jamison: Was the infonnation that rape recordings weremade something mentioned at the meeting or somethingyou heard later- or perhaps you heard some of therecording?Everett: They d.idn t play the recording at the briefing.However, it was mentioned at the briefing that there was atape recording that had been made.

Later in the second interview Everett remarks:I think it more likely lhat it was Ted Conrad running the

staff meeting.Up to the time I first ca lled him, Everett had neverread anything on the Beotwaters incident. After the ftrsttwo interviews, I sent him a copy of theOmni article. He

then obtained a copy of S/cy Crash. By the third interview,he had read both the article and the book. The following isfrom the third interview:Jamison: Somebody at the staff meeting was reportingthis [the incident of the night before], and the last time youweren ' t absolutely sure whether it was Conrad or HaltEverett: I believe it was Col. Conrad who was reportingit, and I also believe it was Col. Williams who was runningthe stand-up.Jamison: That would have been the person with the"brick"- is it your impression that it was Col. Halt?Everett: Yes, it is. I' m almost certain it was Col. Halt

From later in the interview:Jamison: Is it still your impression that the personreporting the incident at the meeting was doing so because

someone e lse who might otherwise have been reportingwas sleeping because he had been ou t [late]?Everett: Yeah, ihe comment was that he was out trampingthrough the forest al l night. chasing lights throughRendlesham Forest

The officer second in command in a fighter wing is theVice Commander. His name had not come up in any of theinterviews; indeed, Everett could not remember i t I fWilliams had not been in charge at a stand-up meeting, thenatural replacement for him would have been his secondin-command, the Vice Commander. During the fourthinterview I asked Everett why he hadn' t mentioned thepossibility that the Vice Commander ha d been in charge ofthe staff meeting.Jamison: At on e point in the second interview - althoughyou 'v e now been pretty we ll convinced that the WingCommander himself, Gordon Wmiams, wa s running themeeting- you suggested that it might have been Te dConrad running the meeting. Now, it seems to me that i fGordon Williams weren' t running the meeting, the logicalperson to run it would be the Vice Commander.Everett: That's true.Jamison: Nowhere do you suggest that the Vice Commander was even present at this stand-up.Everett: I've been giving this some thought. About a yearafter I got there, there was a change in Vice Commander,and in fact for a time there was no Vice Commander.Then I believe ted Conrad became the Vice Commanderfor a while, and Sam Morgan became the Base Commander.Jamison: Might this meeting have been at a time whenthere was no Vice Commander?Everett : I think i t probably was. Otherwise I wouldremember who he was.

Having presented the evolution of Everett's recollections on who was running the staff meeting (conclusion:Gordon Williams), who was relating what had happenedthe night before (conclusion: Ted Conrad), and who hadbeen out the night before tramping through RendleshamForest in search of a UFO (conclusion: Charles Halt), Ireturn to the incident itself. In the third in terview (recallthat by then he had read both the Omni article and S/cyCrash), Everett recalled more of what had been said at thestaffmeeting:

Also, I 've done a bit of thinking about it , and, to the best ofmy recollection, I distinctly remember [the security police] goingthrough lhe forest after these lights that they ha d seen descend. I

IUR- S11ptember/October 1988 9


9/17

remember talk of their getting close to i t - within 100 or so Ceet- and then the lhing taking off, going a bit farther through thewoods, and coming down again -1 distinctly remember Lbatevent as having taken place the nighi before. I also rememberthati t was mentioned in the staffmeeting -I don't recall bywhom- there is a tape recording of lhe whole thing taking place.

The last sunement reinforces what he had said aboutthe tape recording during the second interview.After reviewing the earlier interviews, I wanted to getmore detail, i f possible, on the apparently elusive behaviorof the object. In the fiflb interview I asked Everett if heremembered anything else said at the staffmeeting about thebehavior of the object He replied:

What was mentioned at lhe staff meeting was that a brightobject was observed coming down somewhere outside theperimeter of the base at Woodbridge and the the security policehad pursued it through Rendlesham Pore6t., and when they gotwithin a certain distance of it . it moved beyond their view, andthey ba d to continue following iL

From later in the interview:Everett: That aspect [taking off when approached] wasdefinitely discussed in the meeting as having happened justthat way: when they got within- I remember SO feer... butSky Crash puts it about 100 or 150 feet- it elected bysome means to move, and they continued following itaround.J a ~ o n Did you get the impression that the objectrepeated that son of behavior when it was approachedagain?Everett: Several times.Jamison: Several times?Everett: That 's the impression I got from the story thatwas related at the staff meeting.

The description of the incident given at the staffmeeting is very similar to that given by Col. Conrad in theOmni article. I emphasize that many of the detailsEverettprovided were given during the first two interviews, beforehe had read that article.During the first interview, Evereltmentioned apossible radar tracking:

I believe it to be true, although I couldn't definitely say it is,that the English military radar, which in that part ofEngland iscalledEastern Radar, tracked the object i!Self on radar as far asthe vicinity ofBentwaters, where it went below theirradarcoverage- 1 don tknow how it [IZ'St appeared or how it disappeared.

I 0 ruR-September/Octobu 1988

Atlhe beginning of this article I mentioned that JennyRandles first heard about a possibleUFO incident atBentwaters from the writer Paul Begg. Begg had heardwhat he told Randles from a radar operator at Watton. Iquote the beginning of the radar man's story from SkyCrash ((1], page 25-26):The date was 27 December and on that day on their

screen an unusual target was picked up heading in from thecoast. After a few minutes' debate as to what it might be,and following standard procedW'e, they notified other radarsystems along the eastern seaboard. Checla were made tosee iC it was any military traffic that they did not lcnow about.,but nothingwas discovered. Watton lost the traffic about 50miles south to lhe eastof Ipswich and in the vicinity ofRcndlesham Forest. They did not know how it was lost, but itmay wt:U have gone below lhe minimum height for theircoverage at that range.

Also from Paul Begg' s account ([1], foo111ote on page27):He further claimed that RAP Bentwaters had called Watton

and asked for radar information of a visual sighting on that nightas il was lu:Jppening...

Now, the radar man who spoke to Begg was not onduty at Watton at the time, but was told about it by acolleague who had been. No investigator has been able toLalk with the original source for the story, but Randles didinterview Begg's infonnant by telephone in February 1981([1], page 27). What is most intriguing about the story isits account ((1], page 27) ofentities repairing a landedUFO. As fro- as l know, this is lhe only known corroboration of that aspect of Steve Roberts' story.As soon as Everett relaled that he had heard about aradar tracking of the object, I asked whether he had heardit at the staff meeting. Everett replied that the staffmeeting had been a long time ago, and that he couldn't besure that the source of the report of the radar tracking wasthe staff meeting itself. Then he added:

I recaU having come away from the staff meeting with theimpression that this object had been tracked by 8astem Radar.Their location is relatively close to Bentwaters., and they areresponsible for military radarcoverage in that part of England.

later in the first interview, however, he expresseduncertainty as to whether he had first heard the radartracking repon at the staff meeting or in the course of ''bartalk" during the days following the meeting. We discussed this again during the third interview. Before thar...during the second interview (w hich preceded Everett'sreading of Sky Crash), I told him that in Sky Crash mentionis made of a radar tracking "at a base called WattOn inNorfolk.'' He had been unable to recall the name of theradar base he had refered to as ''EasternRadar'' in the first


10/17

interview, but his response to my promptingwas quiteemphatic:RAP Watton. Exactly. That's where EasternRadar iJ

located. Th e name of the base I kept coming up with wasWattisham, bu t I know it wasn't Wattisham. Watton iJ definitelyiL

By the time of the third interview he had changed hismind aboutwhether he had first heard the radar trackingreportat the staffmeeting:I've given that [the question ofhi s source for the radar

report] some thought also. I think: that this was probablysomething I picked up after the fact. I don't think that n y o n ~ : [Illthe staff meeting] talked about specific objects being tracked byEastern Radar. I can't be sure whelher it was brought out 111 lhestaff meeting or later on, but i f ha d to pu t my finger on it oneway or lhe olher, I would sa y that i t happened later on. Peoplethat I talked to said. "Yeah, we also understand that somethinghad been tracked by Eastern Radar."

We have seen that Misbara's article and Halt's memogive differentdates for the incident Any hopes I had thatEvereu would quickly resolvethis conflict were soondashed. In the first interview, he narrowed down the dateto March 1980at the earliest to March 1981 at the latest,which wasn' t to o helpful. He did mention that the meetingtook place around the time ofa "tac-eval" -tacticalevaluation - "the NATO equivalentof an operationalreadiness inspection.'' In thesecond interview, he said, ' ' Ilooked for any notesor records to narrow down the timeframe, but I couldn't find any." We also had the followingexchange:Jamison: As of now, I'm 99 1!2percent certain that,although youcan' t remember the date, the incident thatyou're recounting is thesame as oneof the incident- orperhaps the only incident- that forms the subject matter ofal l these books and articles.Everett: Well, it's the only instance I know of when thesubject was discussed. I'm sure you andI are talking aboutthe same [incident]. There just aren't that many timeswhen relatively high-rankingofficers with waJkie-talkiesand tape recorders go runningoff through RendleshamForest in search of something that was tracked by a radarfacility and pinpointed in that location.

Between the second and the third interview I saw to itthatEverett gotSkyCrash and theOmm article. I beganthe third interview by asking i f he had read them.I sure did. [pause) l think it was the29th ofDecc:mbcr. The

way I came to lhat conclusion was that we used to have aThesday stand-up, so I go t ou t a calendar for that year and lookedat iL The night of lhe 27th is a Saturday night, and the 29th is a

Monday night, which would have made the 30th- the day Iwould have gone to stand-up - a Tuesday. I f t bad oc:cum:d onthe 27th -that 's the day afterBoxing Day-lhat's the weekend. Idon't recall ever having any staff meetings on the weekend.. So itwould have ha d to have beenduring the week. Therefore, by theprocess of elimination, I think lhe 30th was the da y I was at thestaffmeeting when they talked about the events of he nightbefore.

I then raised thepossibility that there might have beenaUFO incident on thenightof he 27th as well as the 30th.I was there when they spoke of lhe events of he 29th. He

[CoL Halt) says that he was out on the 27th. [Actually, althoughHalt's memo has the incident occurring on the morning of the27th, it doesn't state that he was present.] I can' t say lhat isn'ttrue. I don't recall getting the impression !hat this thing hadbeen goingon for the whole weekend. I got the impression thatit ha d justhappened the night before.

I broughtup the possibility of earlier incidents oncemore in the fourth interview:Jamison: Do youstill stand by your statement that theevents discussed at the staff meeting were events that tookplace the nightbefore, and not earlier that wee.kend?Everett: Thatis my distinct recollection. I still believethat. I don 't believe that they were speaking of events overthe weekend. I think they were speaking of eventsof theprevious night

All in all,Everett's testimony offers no groundwhatsoever fo rquestioning theassumption that theincidentsdescribed (1) in the staff meeting, (2) by Misbara(and presumably by Conrad) in the 01Mi article, and byHalt in his memo,are the same.

E verett's selection of the 30th as the date for the staffmeeting is based on it s having been a stand-upmeeting. It seemed reasonable that stand-ups weren' t heldon weekends. But why couldn't there have been a stand-upon the morning ofMonday, December29? I asked aboutthis during the fourth interview:Jamison; Some of the staffmeetings are called stand-upmeetings, and you told me what a stand-up meeting is. Arethere also staff meetings which take place in the morningswhich are not stand-up meetings?Everett: Yes. There are more meetings that go on in therunning of a "tac" fighter wing than I care to even thinkabout Too many meetings.Jatniwn! Yoo said that Tuesday used to be a day whenthey had stand-up meetings.

IUR - Sqtvrtbu/Octobu 1988 11


11/17

Everett: That's the best of my recollection.Jamison: Does that mean, in a succession of weeks, theTuesday meeting would be a stand-up meeting?Everett: The stand-up is a "how-goes-it" -what happened over the weekend- what do I [the Wing Commander] need to know about it? Usually he would have aTuesday meeting to get apprised of what happened overthe weekend, and another one to fill in the time sinceTuesday. He is a very busy man. He is responsible for alot of nformation.Jamison: I f he wanted to be apprised of what happenedover the weekend, why wouldn't he have the stand-up on aMonday?Everett: I don' t know. Maybe no one likes Mondays.Jamison: Were there in general, though , sl.aff meetings ofsome sort on Mondays?Everett: I suppose so, but nonnally, after the weekend,most people will come to work. Messages will have comein over the weekend, and all this stuff will be sitting inyour "in" basket. You spend Monday filtering through it- basically answering the mail that has come in over theweekend - so it takes you a day to get your stuff al l inorder. Then on Tuesday morning you can come in and say, This is what happened over the weekend.' '

A stand-up meeting can require a Jot of preparation.Information about what has happened on the base since thelast stand-up has to be collected and summarized, andoften viewgrapb slides have to be prepared. It does seemappropriate to hold such meetings on Tuesdays rather thanMondays.

Between the third and fourth interview I happened toreread the account of what the radar operator of Wattonhad told Paul Begg. The following passage ([1], page 27)caught my eye:

...he recounted how the Intelligence Officers had informedthat the Base Commander and several officers had been calledout into the forest from a party on base which they wereattending.

Wouldn't it be more likely that a party would havebeen thrown on Saturday the 27th than on Monday the29th? I took this up with Everett during the fourth interview:Jamison: JennyRandles' footnote has the radar operatorsaying that some of the officers had been called ou t of aparty. Do you think it likely that there could have been aparty on Monday night?

12 IUR-September/Oclobu 1988

Everett: Keep in mind that [this happened] over theholiday season, between Christmas and New Year's. Theway the military works it is that every individual unit inthe wing likes to have a Christmas or New Year's party.As far as the use of the officer's club for th.e nights of thattime period is concerned, it's a fairly full agenda. Al-though I don't specifically remember there being a party atthe club that Monday night, it wouldn't surprise me at all i fthere were a party at the club every night of the week priorand up to New Year's Eve.

Ofcourse, ifparties were being held every night, theinfonnation that officers were called out of one on thenight of he incident is of no value whatsoever in fixing itsdate.

T he British science journalist Tan Ridpath ([4]) and thewriter Steuart Campbell ([5]) have suggested that theevent that began the incident, the observation ofa light apparently descending into Rendlesham Forest, was actuallythat of a bright meteor early in the morning of December26. It is not unusual for someone who observes the descentof a meteorite from a distance of several miles to report it scoming down only a few hundred feet away from him. ABritish police report supports their contention that theincident did indeed take place on the morning of December26. In the fifth interview I asked Everett i f he staffmeeting could have been on the morning of the 26th. Hereplied that the meeting might well have taken place on theday after Christmas, and added:

It' s usually the general practice to try to give as much complimentary time of f during the holidays as yo u ca n. WithChristm.as falling on a Thursday, it would be fairly standard tohave Friday off. However, the people who go to staff me etingsarepretty much at the beck and call of the commander 24 hours aday, seven days of the week. So i f he saw the need of a meetingon Boxing Day, he would have had one.

Later in the interview he said:My having been single at the time, and the guy that I

worked for having been married, I could easily argue that if herewas a staff meeting that Friday morning, I would have goneinstead of him so he could stay at home with his family. Icouldn't st ate unequivocally that [the meeting] was no t onBoxing Day.

Nothing Everett said throughout the interviewsprovides any objective basis for choosing between December 26 and December 30 as the date of the staff meeting heauended. At one point he did say that it was hi$ "gutfeeling" that it was the 30th. His recollections that themeeting was a stand-up and that the events related all tookplace the night before are ftrm. That a staff meeting wouldhave been called on a weekend is a possibility; that itwould have been a stand-up a near impossibility. I concur


12/17

with Everett in his exclusion of December 27 as a possibledate for the staff meeting.

Was a repon of the UFO incident made. and i f so towhom was it made? Ofcourse Col. Halt 's memo was sucha report. but i t was made to the British Ministry of Defense. Was there a report made to a U.S. military level ofcommand above the Wing Commander Gordon Williams?D ring the first interview Everett said it seemed logicalLo him that, after the accountof the incident had beenpresented at the meeting, someone would have suggestedthat ' 'it be passed tJIKhannel or a repon made,'' or wouldhave asked the question "shall we make a formal report,or pass it up the line?" Later in the interview, EverettStated:

Whoever it was n:co\D\ting the incident of the night beforesaid, "Do yo u think we ought to make 11 fOIID.al report on this?",and the Wing Commandersaid, No, I don't think we shouldsay anything further about it...." My distinct impression wBBthat the Wing Commander was not in the posjtion where hewanted to lend hls name or any credence to the Stor}' itself,although I don't think there was any doubt in hismind thatsomething ofsignificance had occurred lhe evening before.Jamison: Wben you are told something like this, is itmentioned or understood that you wiU be discrete intalking about it, or is there no restriction on what you cansay?Everett: At the time, I don't think it was briefed in anysortof security classification. As I recall, it was justmentioned at the briefing that you might not wamtodiscuss this with the press or anybody else who mightcome around asking, because you don't want to lendcredence to what may be no more than a serious rumor. Iwas never contacted.

In the course of the next (second) interview, I toldEverett that some reports placed Gordon Williams inRendlesham Forest during the events of the nightof the29th {I did not mention to him that these reports haveWilliams conversing with entities repairing or hoveringnear a landed UFO). I asked i f Gordon Williamshadinany way indicated at the staff meeting some previousknowledge of the incident Everett began his reply byonce more bringing up Williams' response to the suggestion that a repon bemade:Everett: I think the reason I remember the incident is thatit surprised me that, faced with the amount of informationin that short period of time, he [Williams] would have thepresence of mind to say, " I don't think we should releasean official statement'' That might suggest that he hadsome prior knowledge of the incident. That is not myopinion - that was not the impression I took away from

that particular discussion. I think be weighed the infoonation,thought about it, and.said, "No, I don' t think weshould lend credence to this story -regardless of howmucb fact and confinnation there might be behind it. ' 'J ~ o n : He wasn 't saying it was unbelievable.

Everett: Ob, no. No. By no means did be say, "This is animposSible story and I don't believe it for a minute." Infact. the impression that 1have is that he said. "Well, a lotof reliable people saw something which they are willing togo on record as saying they have seen.' ' His official pointof view, as Wing Commander of the 8lst, was that "Idon't believe that we should release any official statementwhich would lend some official substance to the sightingitself."

J a m ~ o n : Was he asked whether an official statementshould be released, or whether it should be sent up thechain of command?Everett: Every wing has an Office of Public Affairs, aPA. They are responsible for the publicity: when peopleget awards and decorations, and when the wing doessomething out of the ordinary, it's the PA's job to write thestory, factually and accurately, and release it to the press.An official report, on the other hand, would be out in acompletely different form and forwarded up-channel. Idon' t know whether any official report was made, but lassume that it was. That's the Wing Commander's job. Iam fairly sure that the comment was to the effect that thestory should not be released to the public. Period.Jamison: I t seems to me -I 'm just guessing and maybeI'm trying to force on you a version which I would like tobelieve- that I can see the Wing Commander's subordinate asking the Wing Commander whether the story shouldbe given to Public Affairs., but I do not see it as his part lOask the Wing Commander whether be is going to send it upto the chain of command.Everett: The point is well taken - it 's a very good pointI think probably the crux of the issue is that GordonWilliams said, "I don't think we should release this to thepublic [Le., to the PA]. I don't think this is something weshould release from the Air Force to the general public as astory.'' I am sure that be took this information and passedit up-channel. He also took the decision not to release it tothe general public.Jamison: There was a very strong probability that it wassent up the chain of command?Everett: It would have to be. That' s his job. Our job inthe military is to report any unusual circumstanceappearance, sighting, whatever - tJIKhannel to see whatthey want to do with it at the top. We work: foT them,

IUR-Seplcmbu/Octobcr1988 13


13/17

whoever they are. and wherever they work. They'U thenpass the information back down, saying this is what wewant you to do. In the meantime, we keep it in - I don'twant to say classified - in confidential, closed, militarychannels.

W ba t about Roberts' account ofentities repairing theirdamaged ship and even communicating with theWing Commander? I have mentioned that, as far as I candetennine, his account is uncorroborated by any additionalwitness interviewed by an investigator or journalist Earlyin 1983, however, Larry Warren decided to relate hisexperiences at Bentwat.ers to Larry Fawcett. a UFOinvestigator associated with the group Citizens AgainstUFO Secrecy (CAUS). Warren bad served as a SecurityPoliceman in the U.S. Air Force and had been stationed atBentwaters before leaving the Air Force in 1981. The verydetailed account he provided Fawcett suggests that theincident described by Steve Roberts is a composite of twoincidents, one of which started several hours earlier thanthe other. Th e one which started earlier is the inc iden tdescribed by Ted Conrad in the Mishara article. Warrenwas not involved in that incident but did participate in thesecond one.

According to him, he was picked up by truck while onguard duty at Rendlesbam and dropped of f near the eastend ofWoodbridge. He proceeded on foot with otherainnen to a clearing in Rendlesbam Forest Jn this clearingwere other airmen around a circular patch of green fog. Ared baU of light then flew over the trees at the edge of theclearing, carne to a stop directly over the green fog, andburst into a cascade of multicolored needles of lightSuddenly the lights were gone, and in the clearing was alarge, wedge-shaped object The airmen were ordered tosurround it. Three beings, floating and enclosed in an orbof light. came around from the side of the object oppositeWarren. An entourage of h.igh-ranking base personnel,headed by Wing Commander Gordon Williams, thenanived. On e of the beings separated from the other twoand approached the Wing Commander. Williams and thebeing were not seen or beard to conversefu the briefencounter that foUowed but slight hand gestures byWilliams suggested communication of some sort. Themeeting ended. The airmen were ordered to withdraw andwere taken back to base.

This brief account of Warren's experience is based oninterviews with him. Versions of his story ar e in ClearIn1ent [6] and Sky Crash. In these books he is given thepseudonym " ArtWallace." Wben he first came forward,Warren claimed that no be ings appeared. or that others sawthem bu t he did not. He bas named other wiblesses - infact most of the witnesses interviewed by Americaninvestigators. None of them bave confirmed that beingswere present Interviews with one of them support thecontention that something like what Warren described didoccur, that itoccurred on the same night as the incidentdescribed at the staff meeting, and that Williams was on14 rnR- s ~ p U m b u O c t o b u 1988

the scene ([7], pages 47-48). Some of his witness' testi-mony is in Appendixes A and B.

By coming forward, Warren provided no t only a newtwist 10 the Bentwaterscase and names-of previously unidentified participants, but the impetus fot CAUS' investigation of the case. That investigation led to CAUSmember Robert Todd' s obtaining the Halt memorandumfrom the Air Force. Had Warren stayed out in the cold.Halt's memo would most probably have stayed in the files.

Everett's testimony bas some relevance to Warren'saccount of the incident he observed. There was nomention of alien beings at the staff meeting, and Williamsgave no indication of baving been out in RendlesbamForest the previous night I did consider attempting in thisarticle to assess the impact ofEverett's testimony onWarren's account To do so , however, would requireintroducing a large amountof material to which Everett'stestimony is irrelevant Since the main purpose of thisarticle is to introducenew testimony on the Bentwaterscase to fUR readers, I have decided not to. Warren bastold me that be intends to present his experiences-bothduring and following the incident he witnessed- in a bookof his own. I and surely everyone else interested in theBentwaters case hope that he does.

Everett's testimony place s Halt in Rendlesharn Forestthe night of the incident Also, Everett recalls an assertionat the .staff meeting that there is a tape recording of thewhole thing taking place." I have mentioned a taperecording supposedly made by Col. Halt. Everett'stestimony suggests that this tape recording was in factexcerpted from a tape made during the incident describedin the first paragraph of Halt's memo. Halt's tape, bowever, contains clear references to events which, accordingto the memo, didn't bappen until one or tw o days after thatincident. A discussion of the questions raised by hisconflict would also require the introduction of a lo t ofmaterial to which Everett's testimony is irrelevant

I close by thanking Maj. (now Col.) Evereu forconsenting to the interviewsand for his good-humoredwillingness to go over some points again and again.References1. Brenda Butler, Dot Street, and Jenny Randles , SkyCrash (London:Neville Speannen, Ltd., 1984).2. Jenny Randles, The Rendlesha:m Forest Mystery,''Flying Saucer Review 27 , 6{1982):4-8.3. Eric Mishara, "UFO Update," Omni, March 1983.4. Ian Ridpath, "A Flashlight in the Forest." TheGuardian, January 5, 1985,pp . 8-9.5. Steuart Campbell, "Throwing Light on Rendlesham.''.Magonia 21 (December 1985):15-18.


14/17

6. Lawrence Fawcett and Barry J. Greenwood, ClearIntent (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice Hall, 1984), 217.7. Raymond W. Boeche, "Bentwaters-WhatDo WeKnow Now?", MUFON 1986 UFO Symposium Proceedings (Seguin, Tex.:Mutual UFO Network, 1986),44-61.

8. "UFO: The Bentwaters Incidents," Cable NewsNetwork, broadcast January 22, 23, 2A, and 25, 1985.

APPENDIX AAirman A's suppor t for the incident descr ibed byWarren

Three of the witnesses named by Larry Warren werelocated and interviewed by Ray Boeche and Scou Colburn.The one on whose testimony we draw was, like Warren, aSecurity Policeman stationed at BentwaterS/Woodbridge inDecember 1980. Boeche and Colburn interviewed him bytelephone four times. Boeche gives excerpts from lheseinterviews in an article on the Bentwaters case whichappeared in the proceedings of the 1986 MUFON symposium ([7], pages 46-48). In this article the securitypoliceman is referred to as "Ainnan A." Boeche has beenkind enough to send me a copy of the one interview hetaped. Appendix D consists of some excerpts I transcribedfrom this copy.

Larry Fawcettof CAUS has also interviewed AirmanA. I have been toJd that he was also interviewed for theCNN documentary on Bentwaters ([8]). These interviewswere not aired. As far as I know, Airman A has not givenany more recent interviews. He did not answer a letter Isent him.

The excerpts in Appendix D show that an airmanunder the command of Airman A noticed an "object ofsome sort." otherwise described as lights that " lookedlike a fire in the forest area," and that Airman A, hissuperior, and others "checked out the situation." Missingfrom these excerpts is a description of the object theyencountered and its behavior. In Boeche's article, however, is the following excerpt from one of the interviews([7], page 46):

The lhing had a pulsating red light on top of it, and severalblue lights underneath iL Every time we gotclose to it, it wouldmove away from us through the trees, then we'd II) ' and catch upto it again.

There is little doubt that Airman A 's testimonyinvolves him in the incident described by Everett, Conrad,and HalLDuring the regional MUFON symposium held inAugust 1985 in Beverly, Massachussetts, Larry Warrengranted two interviews. Robert Bletchman was theprincipal interviewer for the first one, held during the

morning session. The principle co-interviewers for thesecond one, held during the afternoon session, were thelate Allen Hynek and Willy Smith. In both of theseinterviews Warren went over what he experienced on thenight of the incidentSeveral aspectsof Warren's account also come up inAirman A's interViews with Boeche and Colburn. I listthem along with relevant excerpts from the interviews ofWarren and Ainnan A:Going back Jo Bentwaters to get light-ails, which don'twork properly. (A light-all s a portable twin spotlightwith a generator powered by a gasoline-motor .)Warren (from the Hynek-Smith interview):I was on the post itself [atBentwaters] maybe a half hour.

A vehicle, a pick-up truck, pulled up, and there was [Airman A]in the driver's seat and an officer who I thinkmade a comment toCNN. I'm not sure. I was told immediately to just "get into theback, we're going to the motor pool." I jump into the back ..wegona go al l the way down this end [pointing to a map which Ihad], around here, and themotor pool was down in this area. Wewere told that we were going to hook up light-ails and I'd neverdone anything like that before, but apparently they were gas-run.

We gota gas can from the garage, filled it up, and then therewere some funny things going on .. [Airman A] went over andfilled one of these light-alls before hemounted up to anothertruck. He filled it up, and this is an odd part of his that no one'sgone into. One of th.e officers that was involved in this -ourcommanding officer was out there with us at the time - wentover to the vehicle and they have a meter on it deten:n.iningwhether the gas tank s full. But [unclear] looked at it andargued among themselves that this thing wasn't full and he said," I ust filled it up!" And they went on for about five minutes ....We hooked them up to the back of the truck, and at this time wehad five people in thebaclc of the pick-up truck I was in,

Warren (from the Bletchman interview):I stayed on thepost very briefly when a vehicle pulled upand I knew one guy in it and the other was an officer. "We'regoing to the motor :pool. Get in the back.'' Off we went to the

mo tor pooLFi.rst of all, there were some problems even with thereadings they were getting on the light-alls. It was strange. Theyweren't registering.... So, as we were hooking them up, they saidwe're going over to Woodbridge. I said, "Pine."This was the Bentwaters motor pool. Bentwaters motorpool had the light-alls which were always brought to Woodbridge . They didn't have a motorpool area because they were too

small. Off we went.They turned these light-ails back on here [pointing to a map

I had brought along]. And they turned off every time. Theyweren't even going. You could hear them start up, and then:boom. Nothing.

Airman A (from Appendix B):

IUR- Stptunbu/Octo#Hr 1988 15


15/17

We [on the basis of lhe portion of lhe interview up ro thispoint. I take ' 'we' ' as referring to Airman A himself, a LtEnglund, and pethaps others] went back to Bentwaters base-,grabbed the light-a.lls, had a patrol refuel same, and once re.fueledlhem ..go t out to [location] A -the site of lhe object. We hadtrouble turning the light-ails on - we turned them in the directionwe saw an object. We couldn'tge t them on. Our truckwouldn't go on either. It wa s kind of like the energy had beendrained out of both the units.The green fog

Warren (from the Bletchman interview):It wa s dark ou t there but this Hght was on the ground. This

green fog, as I ' l l call it. Th e mist was about three feet in heightIt was attached to the ground probably about three feet in heightfrom the ground up. It was no t hovering. It had no shape to i tIt could have floated away for all I know.

Warren (from the Hynek-Smith interview):The first thing that struck me was this kind of fog on the

ground. Yo u could see through it at one point. It had a greenishyellow hu e to i t I t was a mist on the ground about a foot high..It wasn't a defmite shape. It was almost 20 feet around and justin an area and almost circular.Bletchman: Could you visually penetrate the mist to seethe interior?War ren : I could see the ground through it at differentintervals.Bletcbman: There was apparently no form within themist?War ren: No. You could have walked through it. Iwouldn't have wanted to.

Airman A (from [7], page 47):We kept searching the area, trying to find the object as it

moved through the trees. In the process, we came upon a yellowmist on the ground. It was like nothing I' d ever seen before.The cows

Warren (from the Hynek-Smith interview):Two cows that I believe belonged to tha t fanner walked up

to this mist [the yellow fog] and were looking at it with no fearof the people. [Airman A] verified lhiB. [B y the ,;ummer of1985, Larry Fawcett had also interviewed Airman A, and Warrenhad been informed of what he had said.) In fact, he said, AskLarry i f he remembers the cows.'' He said that to Lany Fawcen

16 I U R - S r p t t ~ r / O c t o 1988

-and they were staring at this. An d no one was saying anything.They were just kind of loolcing arotmd.

Warren (from the Bletchman interview):Well, funny enough, there's cows ou t here. There's a

number of cows. Well, two cows walked up ..see this site[pointing to my map], this landing site here [my map was a copyof the one on page 39 of SkyCrash, and the ' 'landing site"Warren was referring to is the oval marked "UFO landing spot"on that map], they've encompassed about half a mile in the circlethere. Two cows came walking over from this side of the house.There' s a farm over here ... They came walking over. [AirmanA) has said to Larry [Fawcett] over the phone, As k Larry i fheremembers the cows." This was an off thing; these cows cameup to the fog. People were doing their thing. I wa s no t told to doanything at this time. I was just standing there. No one's givingorders, but there were other people running around, doing theirthing. These two cows came up very close to the people I wasnear - about five people away from me -and stared at this thing.I don't know i f his guy is missing cows, but. I tell yo u., I didn'tsee them again.

Airman A (in response to a question by Boeche):Yeah, I remember the animals. I was kind of glad that

happened. It gave me back a sense of reality.The object

Warren (from the Bletcbman interview):It was a solid metallic spaceship .. ike an arrowhead. It hadthree- the best way to describe them are like delta wings ... I

don't know i f t had landing gear or not.... It wa s so dark and thebottom side was almost flush to the ground. It flattened a lot ofarea, and it may .have made a ring. I don't know. It could have,because the bottom was,like, convex.

It was convex on this side [pointing ro the original of adrawing copied on page 96 ofSky Crash]. And these [pointing tothe picture again] are to represent .no t really panels, but raisedsurfaces and rough boxes; you have pipes and valves as havebeen described by other witnesses. Again, the same configuration of ights, though. Red, blue - but not light glowing, likeneon almost. Phosphorescent. but no t set - like i f yo u tu m alight on, yo u can't see the source of the light. It was just verydistinct. Like the metal was giving off. The rest was a whitish,yellowish silver. Like heat bands ..

[It was] about25 feet [around], safe to say. Height 15 feetbecause it was larger than it was tall. It was taller th.an me,though. I 've done a picture of it with a six-foot man standingnext toiL

Warren (Hynek-Smilh interview):The thing I saw was a triangular-shaped object. It was very


16/17

low to lhe ground. It had a concave bottom and it would havehad la nding gear of some sort on it . but it was so low. I did this[showing thedrawing referred to above] in the very beginning,but it isn' t so accurate. It is on that principle, but it was a partextending here [pointing to lhe picture) to more of a niangularappearance. And this [referring to the picture again] is just to.ndicate that it had a very rough surface to it.

It was solid. And this had to leave some traces, tOO, but I'venever seen them, either. [It) bad a reddish- I won't say light atall, becauseI can't really describe it. The closest could pu t to i tis a neon light. Just the top pan was a bright red, bu t you couldsee the structure of the ship through the red.

[A] white, yellowish, silver glow came from it and, again,there were no real lights blinking. I t was just alight. .. Therewas a blue band across the bouom, b\11 again it wasn'tlights.

Airman A ([7), page 47):Suddenly, the object was just there: it was a dark, silver

colored metal, with plenty of rainbow-colored lights on it. Icouldn't tell i f something was breaking the light up, like a prism,into rainbow colors, i f ha t was the actual color of the lights ... I twas a lreme.ndous size. It even surprised me that it was able tofu into the clearing - a tremendous size. and I use tru: word "tremendous" carefully. It was a round, cireular shape; I hate to saylike a plate, but it was thicker at the ceruer than it was at theedge.Surrounding tbe object

Warren (Bletcbman interview):We watched this thing [the object]. They made a perimeter,

what is called Security Option Three. A guy kept yelling like ajackass, "Security Option 1nreel" That's in the event ofanuclear disaste r. I didn't know how that applied to this. A bunchof idiotic security policemen surrounded [it] ...

There were about30 people in the whole immediate area ...They had about 30, I would say, to go around this thing. Now,Air Force policy -if ou ever had a nuclear bomb, you have torope it of f and surround it while it's defused. They went into thisthing, and did this with this! It's the most ridiculous thing I everheard.

Airman A ([7], page 47):We were ordered to fonn a perimeter around the object at

about 15-foot intervals between patrol members.Parallel testimony from both Warren and Airman Asupports the following plll't.ial versions of incidents one andtwo. One of the men under the command of Ainnan Asees an object or light in the forest Accompanied by hissuperior, LL Englund, he goes into the forest to investigate.He and Englundgo back to Bentwaters by truck to getJigbt-alls. They first pick up Warren at his post Then they

get the light-ails, which don't seem to work properly, andreturn to Woodbridge. Airman A and others resume theirsearch for the object seen earlier. They come across anarea ofyellow mist two or three feet off the ground. Afterbeing dropped off, Warren proceeds on foot to a clearing inRendlesham Forest, where be also sees a circular patch ofgreenish fog rising from the ground to a height of aboutthree feet. He observes a pair of cows placidly gazing atthe patch of fog. Airman A sees them, too. As be laterpots it, the sight returns to him a sense ofreality. ' 'Airman A sees a large peculiarly lighted object. So doesWarren. Airman A and others, including Warren, areordered to form a perimeter surrounding the objec t

The testimony of Airman A does support Warren'saccount in certain respects. His testimony also implies thatthe incident described by Warren (or one very similar to it)happened on the same night as the one described byEverett, Conrad-Mishara. and HaltAirman A also reslifies thal Gordon Williams made anappearance. During one of the Boeche-Colbum interviews,

he sLates ([7), page 48):At some point. I don't remember when. Col. Williams

arrived on the scene.In 1983 Williams was interviewed by a Britishnewspaper reporter. According to Sky Crash ([I], page169):Williams denied that he had spoken to any aliens. In fact he

denied that he was present.When Boeche and Col bum confronted Airman A with

Williams' denials, he responded ([7], page 51):I know Williams was there, because I was standing right

neu to him.APPENDIXBSome excerpts from an interview with Airman A

I transcribed these excerpts from a copy of the tapedinterview with Airman A made by Boeche and Colburn:We were in the alert area a mile away over to RAP Woodbridge base. One of my patrols sighted an object of some sort -

said it was lights - looked lilce a fire in the forest area. I notifiedmy commander - acting commander at the time - Ted Englund.He called the commander at night to check out the situAtion.

We proceeded to check out the situation: myself, TedEnglund, and Sgt. Ball. When we got there, he [By ' 'he' 'Airm.an A clearly means Eoglwtd] pointed out the individuals bewanted to go with him. We [Englund and Ainnan A. perhapsothers] went back to Bentwaten base, grabbed the light-alls, had

continuedon page 21

lUR-S11pttmbutOcw1Hr 1988 11


17/17

It is also reasonable to assume that, once the projectdetermined from the evidence in it s possession thatextraterrestrial visitation is occurring, it would seek tolearn everything it could about the nature and motives ofthe aliens. Moreover, it would institute procedures forimmediate response to future crashes, ensuring that trainedand securi ty-conscious personnel would be on site tocollect remains and to keep inquisitive ~ (includingreporters) away.

I f other crashes took place, conceivably some of theoccupants could have remaine d alive. These survivorswould be taken into custody an d interrogated. Throughthis process, perhaps, or ano ther (such as electroniccommunication) direct contact between the U.S. government and extraterrestrials could be established, as pan ofan effort to learn what the aliens' motives are. Meetingscould be arranged.

Meanwhile, al l th is could be kept secret, more or less.That is, those who knew, perhaps by accident. some o r al lof the story would not be believed i f hey related theinformation to the press or even to ufologists. After all,stories ofcrashed discs and recovered bodies were incirculation from the early days o f the UFO age on, andeven in the UFO community they were not taken seriously.Those in the know could not prove what they were saying.How could they? They could only repon what they saw orheard, an d that was so fantastic as to be literally incredible.T he secret is such that it keeps itselfby virtue of itsunbelievability.

As all this is going on, some people within the coverup may have grave doubts about the wisdom of keepingthis from the American pe ople. TI1eir motives are various:an idealistic sense that in a democracy citizens have a rightto know, or a simple pragmatic concern that people shouldbe prepared in order to prevent panic and confusion, shouldevents spin out of the control of the handlers of the coverup. So some individuals begin to leak stories and documents to ufologist s and journalists, hoping perhaps to forcethe government eventually to tell what it knows. Orpe rhaps the leakers areworking with the knowledgeandcooperation of thei r superiors , who plan to educateAmericans to a reality they must face - bu t slowly.

None of his is impossible; al l of it follows logicallyfrom theRoswell incident. All of it, of course, is preciselywhat we are being led to believe bas happened and ishappening. We are being told not only that UFOs havecrashed bu t that EBBs have been kept at highly securemilitary and intelligence installations, that contact has beenestablished, thatcertain persons within the cover-up havebeen leaking its secrets to ufologists and media peoplesince the early 1970s.

Unfortunately , while these claims make a certainhypothetical sense, the evidence supporting them is all bu1nonexistent I f hey were not coming from militaryofficers and intelligence agents , nobody would be payingany attention to them. Even so , contrary to what criticshave charged, ufologists have responded with caution and

good sense to these tales. Everyone agrees they're interesting; everyone- that is, everyone sensible- also agrees thatso far there is no reason to think they are true. At themoment we need be neither atheists nor believers bu tagnostics. We should doubt, bot no t flatly deny, as weseek: the evidence that will provide solid confirmation ordisconfumation. I f he stories tum ou t to be true, we havethe answer to the UFO mystery. I f hey' re false, we havean almost equally interesting issue to ponder. wh y didpeople with official connections go to al l this trouble toconcoct wild tales for no obvious reason ?

(Incidentally, none of this has anything to do with"conspiracy theories," as some of the more frivolouscritics would have us believe. Conspiracy theories areparanoid visions in which political, economic and socialevents are held to be secretly controlled by vastly powerfull , vastly sinister, nearly always invisible forces. Seriousurologists who think there ma y be acover-up harbor nosuch beliefs; they simply work from the undeniablepremise that governments keep secrets, and they go on tosuggest that information about UFOs may be among thosesecrets. That doesn't mean, naturally, that at ufology'sfringes paranoid fantasies aren' t being p u n ~ they are,always. We are writing here , however, of the issue as it isdefined by ufology's rational proponents.)

I f he cover-up exists, we would expect thatat somepoint evidence of it wo uld come to the attention of responsible writers and journalists with no lies to the UFOcommunity. That seems at last to have happened. Ahighly regarded investigative journalist- a former NewYork Times and Village Voice reporter, author of severalbooks on political and intelligence matters, and a two-timenominee for the Pulitzer Prize in journalism - is now onthe story , having learned of t from intelligence sourceswhom he met while engaged in research for an earlier bookhaving nothing to do wi th UFOs.

The story is not going to go away. To thecontrary, i l s likely that it will be with us more than everin the weeks and months ahead. After four decades, thequestions linger. Are the answers imminent? We ' ll see.- J erome ClarkA ftre in the forest -continued rom page 17a patrol refuel same, and once we refueled them [inaudible).When we got out to A. !h esite of the object. we had troubleturning the light-ails on . We turned them in the directionwe sawthe object, but couldn't get them on. Our truck wouldn't go oneither. It was kind of ike all the energy had been dragged ou t ofbolh the units.

After that, we were told to wait at pointA. Col. Halt wascontacted. He said he was on the way with individuals from thetower. Later we went there and started to search. On e individualsaid he had spotted the object on the ground. We proceeded tolook and in the process found kind of like triangular tripod[marks] quite a distance from each other. They were like it was aheavy object [and) made quite a dent on !h e ground. They took aradiation reading on the hole and got quite a reading, I recall.

IUR - SeptembuiOctobe.r 1988 21

1988 09 - IUR - Benton Jamison

Documents

Transcript of 1988 09 - IUR - Benton Jamison