1995 01 - ufo magazine uk - halt lecture

7/30/2019 1995 01 - UFO Magazine UK - Halt Lecture

1/14

lLFFOLK, ENGLANDON SURFACES!


2/14

10


3/14

11


4/1412

F ourteen years ago, an incredibleUFO encounter took place outsidethe perimeter fence of RAFWoodbridge, Suffolk, England. Theevents of some 48 hours of intense UFOactivity has seen numerous books,articles, and television documentariesrelate the strange goings-on.Debunkers have argued vociferouslyever since that all of the many incidentsreported by USAF personnel, couldeasily have been attributed to either adistant lighthouse and/or lightship; theplanets Jupiter and Saturn; three or fourbright stars; a flaming fireball.In order for these theories to have anycredence, the senior officers and men onthe ground at RAF Woodbridge/Bentwaters had to be amongst the moststu.pid within the entire United States AirForce. Incredibly, debunkers believe thatwas the case.Rumours of any major UFO incidentusually come to the surface very quickly,and before long, localised or nationalUFO investigative bodies quicklydescend on the scene. Th is did not occurwith the Woodbridge case. ln fact,several weeks went by before local UFOinvestigators first began to learn of theincident.Possible ground traces for example,which may have cast further light on thematter, disappeared for good as theweather took its toll on the terrain inquestion.Local BUFORA (British UFO ResearchAssociation) investigator Brenda Butlerwas first told of the incident by a US AirForce security officer in January 1981.He alleged that a UFO had crash-landedon the outskirts of RAF Woodbridgeamongst the pine trees of RendleshamForest on the night of 27 December1980. He further claimed that he hadwitnessed three aliens, dressed in silversuits, linger around their craft over aperiod of several hours.There were further astonishing claims bythis man: Many witnesses had beenpresent: senior officers bad apparently'communicated' with the aliens; filmfootage and photographs had been takenthroughout Independent confirmationthat something may well have happened

at the base came from anunexpected source onlyweeks later. UFO investigator Paul Begg. had been toldby a radar operator at RAFWatton, Norfolk, that on thenight of 27 December, an'uncorrelated target' hadbeen tracked and lost on theirraqar screens in the vicinityof Rendlesham Forest.It was alleged that radartapes of the object recordedby RAF Watton, weresubsequently confiscated bysenior USAF intelligenceofficers shortly after theIncident. Working in closeunison with her friend andfellow investigator, Do tStreet, Brenda began to seek out otherpotential witnesses to the incident. InOctober 1981, they obtained further .corroborative information from anothersecurity official based at RAFWoodbridge.James Archer (pseudonym) told bo wsecurity guards had seen several descending Hghts disappear into thesurrounding forest at 2.00am whilstpatrolling the East Gate sector of thebase. Both be and another securityofficer, John Burroughs, drove to thearea in their jeep, but because of therough terrain, entered the forest the restof the way on foot.Both carried personal two-way radios.but these soon went ' dead' as they cameacross a triangular-shaped object on theground, supported by three landing legs.James told Brenda and Dot that theobject was some twelve-feet in diameterand eight-feet high. He describedcoloured lights - blue on top, red andwhite in the centre. A much brighterwhite ljgh t was visible underneath themain structure of the craft.James wasn ' t sure whether he actuallysaw alien beings, but was convinced the'robot' shapes he did see, were nonhuman. Furthermore, he claimed theshapes were inside the craft. He andBurroughs followed the noiseless UFOon foot as it manoeuvred amongst thepine trees, and at on e point came withina few feet of it. The craft appeared to bethe cause of panic amongst a nearby

North Sea

Norwich

E!) WattonLakenheath RendleshamMildenhall Forest

Bentwaters IWoodbridge

N

herd of cows. Eventually , th e objec tfinally rose a few hundred feel, anddisappeared skyward in a blaze of whitelight at tremendous speed.The release of an official memorandumby Lt. Col. Halt (Deputy Commander ofRAF Woodbridge) to the British Ministry of Defence, via the Freedom ofInformation Act in the United States in


5/14

13

June 1983. caused a sensation. Fourmonths later, the document was splashedon the front page of the Ne11s of heWorld. heralding the claim 'UFO Landsin S t ~ f f o l k - and thar's Official!Ralph Noyes, who for four years headedDefence Secretariat 8 (DS8) at theMinistry of Defence fa departmentwhich handled UFO reports from the

general public - nowAS2] has no doubt as tothe significance of thememorandum ...TheHalt memorandum isaltogether special inbeing an official - andofficia ll y authenticated- statement.''Further lengthy investigation of the incidentculminated in thepublication of the bookSkycrash in 1984, coauthored by JennyRandles. Dot Street andBrenda Butler. As aresult of this, and othermajor media publicityafforded to the case.more witnesses cameforward to add their

testimony to the growing evidence thatsometh ing quite remarkable had indeedtaken place at RAF Woodbridge.One glaring problem however, wh ichhad troubled the UFO investigators fromthe outset. was the apparent confusionover dates. Depending on who theyspoke to, the crash-landing and subse-quent ac tivity reportedly took placebetween 25-30 Decem

ber 1980.Halt's memorandum tothe British Ministry ofDefence is quite specificas far as his ownrecollect ion of the elatesarc concerned. The mainencounter betweenguards at the base andthe triangular-shapedcraft occurred in theea rly hours of 27December 1980. Haltgoes on to describefurther strange happenings which occurredduring the following 24hours. Despite thishowever. his report ofthe incident invites morequestions than it doesanswer them - a pointagreed by UFO re-searchers. sceptics anddebunkers alike.Numerous statements,claims and counterclaims have appeared


6/14

14

over the years from individuals whoeither investigated the incident, allegedthey played a key-role on the nights inquestion, or flatly denied anythinguntoward took place. As with all majorUFO cases of this complexity, attemptsto define what actually happened somany years ago is extremely difficult,but not impossible, depending on yourpoint of view.There is an abundance of writtenmaterial publicly available, penned bycredible authors. When all of theseaccounts are amassed and consumed byinquisitive readers, there is littledoubting that the case has real substance.LT. COLONEL CHARLES HALT

LECTURES IN ENGLANDOn 31 July this year, Charles Halt gavea fascinating lecture to UFO enthusiastsat a hastily arranged venue in Leeds.Halt was in the United Kingd.om torecord an interview with LondonWeekend Television. He spoke withconfidence, and authority, and detailedhis former military credentials, educational background, and current occupation. He confessed that speakingpublicly about his role on the nights inquestion left him feeling a touchuncomfortable.He did not wish to appear as some kindof UFO expert, merely a private citizenwho had, with some reluctance, agreedto participate in a number of televisionprogrammes that dealt with the extraordinary incidents at RAF Woodbridge.Halt told a hushed audience that RAFWoodbridge was a strategically important front-line NATO base in 1980,occupied by the United States Air Force,whose A -10 'tankbuster' aircraft wouldhave been deployed above Germany inthe event of an attack by Soviet forces.I t did not contain nuclear strike aircraftor similar nuclear ordnance according toHalt. Nonetheless, he concurred that itwas a heavily guarded installation, andarmed security patrols were at a constantstate of readiness.There has always been much debateregarding the actual date of the incident.Halt referred to Christmas week -between 25-27 December, and identified

personnel involved with the firstencounter. "Burroughs and Parkernoticed an object at the end of therunway. Red, blue and white lights wereseen, " he said.Interestingly, the Colonel claimed noofficial record of this sighting wasrecorded, but did acknowleoge that radaroperators at Heathrow Airport; London,had observed two targets over the base.These eventually disappeared off theradar scope.A patrol was sent to the area to investigate. Three officers set off on foot, "togo to the scene of a possible crash," Hal tsaid. As the men approached the forest,their radios suddenly faltered. "Unusualradio interference," was the wordingused.A type of craft was clearly visible.Identification was impossible. Readingfrom a carefully compiled series ofnotes, Halt then revealed what the men

.had reported: .


7/1415

Pcnni!.ton. Burroughs and Kavanasachit the ground. Penni ston said Burroughstri ed to get on the object.Burroughs one side of the objec t

w a invisible . . see through. The objecthad what appea red to be a licence-plate:> IL.1..d vbjcd on the ... I he aft was 9ft tall , pyra1 id-shaped.and had blue li ght s on the anda Jed light on top.''Stea lth technology w al&o mentionedI ll t\.:spect ol the of thc: craft.Some acquired from allege d

c y c : w ~ s s e s , think thi& tounterou:, smaJl ti le-li kt:: plates whichcuvcred the dev ice. (St:t: diagram below).I he w lln6s ..:s daimcd the obj ec tlevitated and h overed as it j ourneyedthrough the forest . Halt also desc ribed a

Adrawing made by one USAFairman following the encounter inRendlesham Forest

physical tri -pod arrangement, whichcou ld havt:: been responsibl e for tracema rks found at the scene during a laterin vestigation. For some ninety minutestht: USAr pauol foll owed th e object as itmanoeuvcrd through the trees.With ome authority, Halt then announced a !>earch party was organised.The subsequent inves tigation proveddecisi ve. "Three definite marks werefound. these were ten fee t apart. And at aheight o f 25ft , surrounding pine treeswere damaged. Th e Desk SergeantdLdn't put that in the log", Ha lt claim ed.

General talk on the ba e was nowcentered around th e UFO incident. Lessthan forty-eight-hours later, the USAFhad another opportunity to discover thetruth.During a Chri stmas dinner party attended by forty people. which compu sedof officer:. (pt :SUillably of seniOr HUlk ),an otl ict:r by the name or Bruce En gl didn'twork . Halt then i ssued an order for'Starl ights' 10 be taken immediately lo

th e scene. He wasamo11g everalpersons now observing a du ll glow in theforest ' . 'Let's ge t thisthing sorted out onceand for all.' ' heannoun ce d. Geige rcounters,microcasse tte recorders and cameras weredistributed. Ht: alsoreques ted utilityj ackets'. because itwas very cold.When the teamarri ved at the Ea stGate, there wasalready much activity.Vehicles were moving

around and peo ple were genera ll yexc ited. Through the s tarlight Scope',Halt saw the g low. He al so watched anoran ge-coloured sphere mov ing as i funder intell igent control.Halt recall s what happened when theteam set-off in pur. uit:'Li eutenant England th en noticed abright objec t. 1 thought it looked ju stli ke the Sun. A n oval shape, winking. Ithad a black centre and moved hori zontall y - and dan ced about. We chased theobjec t for two minutes, it was visibleth roughout.


8/14

16

''The UFO appeared to be sheddingmolten metal. It then exploded .. therewere five lights . . then they vanished.''An astrophysicist measured readingstwenty-five times greater than normalbackground radiation near a farmhousewhich appeared to be on fire. "Two rollsof film was also shot. but these didn'tcome out. he recalled.After the li ghts disappeared, twoelliptical objects were observed.According to Halt. "they moved veryfast." The objects shone of lightonto the

Seconds later, a 'UFO ' moved towardsthe US servicemen. Halt earnestlybelieved his men were in trouble.This strange sequence of evems hadbegun at 10.30pm and finally ended at4.00am the fo llow ing morning. Halt hadrecon.led much of the encounter on asmal l pe rsonal cassette. The followingday, the US Colonel presented de tails ofthe incident to his superiors. USAF HQreplied. 'this is a U.K. alTair' . Amazingly.the MoD showed no enthusiasm to talk toHalt.

l t was on the insistence of SquadronLeader M orland, that the Colonel draftedthe now famous 'Ha lt Memo'. This wasforwarded to Whitehall, but st il l nothinghappened. Interes tingly. official, fi lmfootage of the event disappeared at thesame time as news of the Halt taperecording found its way into the publicsdomain.One puzzling event which has mystifiedColonel Halt ever since that fatefulweek, concerns the arrival of anunscheduled C 141 Ga laxy tran


9/1417

just hours after the encounter. Heconfirmed he knew nothing about itspurpose, or why a group of 'specialindividuals' depa1ted the aircraft andheaded immediately out of the East Gateand into the forest.One of the most surprising features ofHalt's revelations in 1994. is his admis-sion that senior USAF and Britishmilitary chiefs appeared to take little or

the events at Woodbridgeinrense UFO act.ivity.

He claimed that reports were filedthrough the usual channels. efforts toconfirm radar sightings independently ofWoodbridge and Bcntwaters were made.but the deafening silence from thoseofficials above him lefl him feelingbewildered at the time. He was invitedmuch later to repeat his Mory to a high-ranking USAF official, but again. nothingof substance came of it. He elected to

convinced that by such means, his role inthe matter was now at an end.The audio cassette recording. describingevents on the night of 29 December1980. was placed in an unlocked drawerin his office desk. Sometimes, whenbored. he confessed he would play the-


10/1418

A p t i o t a ~ ~ r p htaken bY Brttlah UFO...,.RI\1roupSCUFOIUa feWrnontba attar the ~ t W O crashb e ~ o n d the t l n w ~ tRAF WQodbridg.Some ne'WAhlnt llht.6tm be.n rowingthrough 'Jil otbetWIIIbarrert:aria8


11/1419


12/1430

Continued from page 19- but that the cover-up is of ignoranceand unease. (This was certainly the gamewhich I fe l t it necessary to play. myself.during my own term as an official of th eMinistry of Defence from 1949-1977)."Could one argue that Halt. althoughofficially retired from the Air Force, iscontinuing to play the same so rt ofgame? Debunker Steuart Campbellprefers to avoid such speculation ... "Theexperience ga ined by the USAF ininvestigating UFO reports over man yyears appears to have been wasted."

One of the more tangible arguments thatshould be raised with and manyother UFO incidents that involvemilitary personneL is the curiouwillingne son their part to divulgeconfidential matter!> to civilian UFOresearchers which may compromisenational ecurity.Unless that is. they have been specifically instructed to do so. What prompteda security guard to !>peak l>O openly toBrenda Butler just weeks after theRendlesham Forest incident? Was itmere co in cidence that radar confirmation transpired shortl y afterwards?Such claims from people who havesworn binding allegiance to eith er theirsovereign or nag must be trea ted wi thcaution. Reti rement from the armedforces does not au tomatica lly dischargepeople from their previous responsibilities. particularly when they have beeninvolved with security .. and UFOs.References:Skycrash: A Cosmic Conspiracy -Brenda Butler. Dot Street. JennyRand le - Sudbury, Spearman.The UFO Mystery: So lved - SteuartCampbell - Explici t Books.The UFO Report 1990 - Timothy Good-Sidgwick & Jackson.Above Top Se


13/1431

SOMETHING UNEXPLAINEDHAPPENED OUT THERE''Just after Christmas, about5.30am, 16 December 1980, Iwalked into police headquarters[on the base] and the desksergeant started to laugh. He saida couple of the guys had been outchasing UFOs. Nothing,however, was in the blotter (logbook]. I told him to put it in."When our base commandercame in, we both chuckled.Neither of us believed in UFOs,but we did decide to look into it.Before we had the chance. twonights later, the duty tlightcommander for the securitypolice unit rushed in to a belatedChristmas party white as a sheet.'The UFO is back,' he sa id.

of the men got slightly higherreadings on the Geiger counterthan he did outs ide. He photographed the area, and I took a soilsample. Meanwhile, I recordedthis activity o n my micro-cassetterecorder."We knew the Orford Nesslighthouse beacon beamed fromthe southeast. All of a sudden,directly to the east. we saw anunusual red , sun -like light, ovalshaped, glowing, with a blackcentre - I0 to 15 feet of f theground, moving through the trees.Beyond the clearing was abarbed-wire fence, farmer's field,house, and barn. The animalswere making a lot of noise.

responsible for air defence of thatsector. Twice they reported thatthey didn't see anything."S uddenly, from the south , adifferent glowing object movedtowards us at a high rate ofspeed, came within severalhundred feet, and then stopped. Apenci l-like beam, six to eightinches in diameter, shot from thisthing right down by our feet.Seconds later, the object rose anddisappeared."The objects in the north weresti ll dancing in the sky. After anhour or so, I finally made the callto go in. We left those things outthere."The film turned out to befogged; nothing came out. But astaff sergeant later made plastercastings of the indentations, and I

To RAF jBentwaters I

Woodbridge on a routine securitycheck. He saw lights in the forest,specifically a red light, andthought maybe an airplane hadcrashed. He radioed a report,which was ca lled into the tower,but the tower reported nobodywas flying."Eventually, a group headed outto the forest. They reportedstrange noises - animals,movements, like we heard twonights later."As they approached the clearing,they reported seeing a largeyellowish white light with ablinking red light on the uppercentre portion and a steady bluelight emanating from underneath.The tower again reported nothingon radar."A few of the men moved to

Allegedlanding site

"I was asked to investigate. Ichanged into a utility uniform,then headed out in a jeep to theedge of the forest [Rendlesham].About a dozen of our men werealready there. Our light-ails[large gas-powered lights]wouldn't work, and there was somuch static and constan tinterference on our radios that wehad to set up a relay. There wasincreas ing commotion. I wasdetermined to show them thiswas nonsense.

"We ran towards the light upto the fence. It shot over thefield and then moved in a 20to 30 degree horizontal arc.Strangely, it appeared to bedripping what looked likemolten steel out of acrucible, as if gravity weresomehow pulling it down.Suddenly, it exploded - not aloud bang, ju st booompf and broke into five wh iteobjects that scattered in thesky. Everything except ourradios seemed to return tonormal.

. . . . 1Trace . i ~ Orford Nes sUghthouse,4miles

"I took half-a-dozen of the menand headed into the woods onfoot to a clearing where theinitial incident had supposedlytaken place. We found threedis tinct indentat ions in theground eq uidistant apart andpressed well into the sandy soil."They were supposed ly causedby the object seen two nightsbefore, but I didn't see anythingsitting there that night. Nei therdid anybody else there."Inside the triangular areaformed by the indentations, one

marks - -= ~ ~~ t

To Runway,RAF Woodbridge 112mile

"We went to the end of thefarmer's property to get adifferent perspective. Jn thenorth, maybe 20 degrees off thehor izon, we saw three whiteobjects - elliptical, like a quartermoon, but a little larger - withblue, green , and red lights onthem, making sharp, angularmovements. The objectseventually turned from ellipticalto round."I called the command post,asked them to call Eastern Radar,

Tangham Woods &Forestry CommissionOffices 1/2m/

had the soil sample."Around New Year's Eve, I tookstatements and interviewed themen who had taken part in theinitial incident. The reports werenearly identical."Basically, they reported this; inthe early morn ing hours of 26December, one of the airmendrove to the back gate at

~

Based on the book:SKYCRASH, byJenny Randles,Dot Street andBrenda Suiter.Grafton, 1986

within 20 - 30 feet. Each said thesame thing independently - atriangular-shaped metallic object,about nine feet across the base,six feet high, appeared to besitting on a tripod. They split up,walked around the craft."One of the men apparently triedto get on the craft, but, they said,it levitated up.


14/14

"All three of the guys hit theground as the craft movedquickly in a zig-zagging mannerthrough the woods toward thefield, hi tting some trees on theway. They got up and approachedagain, but the object rose up, andthen it disappeared at great speed. "Finally, on 13 January 1981, lwrote a memo to the BritishMinistry of Defence. Despite myefforts, to my knowledge, no onefrom any intelligence or government agency ever came on thebase to investigate."I have never sought thelimelight, nor have I hidden. Istand to receive no financialbenefit from this interview, butconsented because it's time thetruth came our. 1 don' t knowwhat those objects were. I don'tknow anybody who does. Butsomething as yet unexplainedhappened out there."Credit: OMNI - April 1994

The Adual AUdio Tape Recording made byCharles Halt during his reconnaissance ofRmdlesham Forest! This classic 18 minute recording is accompanied by numerous newsclippings of the period,plus official documents and correspondence

g l e ~ e d from UFO researchers on both sides ofAtlantic.is the offic1al Halt

making this classic report a mu$!of the subject.

RENDLESHAM - UFOA CRITICS UIEWPOI/UT

to the undercarriage, responded to atelephone report and was driving onthe dirt road through the forest. UFOinvestigator James McGaha, is atechnical consultant to the Committee

they saw two objects in the north, one in thesouth. On that night, three of the brighteststars were visible - Vega, and Deneb in thenorth, Sirius in the south. And clearly, thestrange red light mentioned on the audio tapeis the Otford Ness lighthouse beacon.American debunker Philip Klass is of one

mind concerning the Rendlesham incident:"The UFO you hear described on theaudiotape was almost certainly the light-house beacon in my opinion, because thepeak interval between their descriptions of itgetting brighter, then dimmer, is the t{me ofrotation on th e beacon, which was about tenmiles away.

"Even though they said they saw numerouslights in the night sky, one of every threeUFOs reported turns out to be a-:brightcelestial body. e..

fo r the Scientific In vestigation ofClaims of he Paranormal. A retiredAir Force pilot, he hastravelled to England,surveyed the area, andinterviewed severalpeople:"This is a case ofmagical thinking -a situation where abunch of people gotexcited aboutdifferent thin8!"they correlated" n

- - - - ~ " ' " " " ~ '

: ' W I I i J . I D . ' . ~

" C o ~26 m b e r ~ atCos 46 rp_,.,,,,r . 1E11gland andbright object.fireball

"Beyond that, the morningafter the first night, Britishofficers identified theindentations as rabbitdiggings. The Geigercounter readings wereofbackgroundradiation. Nothingappeared on radarthat night, eithe1; andno one in eitherbase tower reported

anything unusual.Furthermore, no

civilians reported seeingor hearing anything. "

1995 01 - ufo magazine uk - halt lecture

Documents