{"id":48268,"date":"2016-07-25T00:10:39","date_gmt":"2016-07-25T07:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=48268"},"modified":"2016-07-24T16:25:39","modified_gmt":"2016-07-24T23:25:39","slug":"englands-roswell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/englands-roswell\/","title":{"rendered":"England’s Roswell"},"content":{"rendered":"
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n

\"ufo\"<\/a>Most Americans are familiar with the legend of the UFO landing near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947<\/a>. But what about the \u201cIncident at Rendlesham\u201d that took place near Ipswich, England, the day after Christmas in 1980? It\u2019s been cited by UFO buffs as one of the most credible sightings of the 20th century.<\/em><\/p>\n

NOT-SO-SILENT NIGHT<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just before 3:00 a.m. on the morning of December 26, 1980, a bright light was seen racing across the night sky over Rendlesham Forest, which separates two Royal Air Force bases: RAF Bentwaters to the north, and RAF Woodbridge, which juts out of the forest\u2019s western edge. The strange light made no noise, but the sight was so startling that the airmen who saw the light thought that an aircraft might have crashed in the forest. They asked for permission to investigate.<\/p>\n

Three U.S. Air Force airmen who were patrolling Woodbridge \u2014Staff-Sergeant Jim Penniston, Airman Edward Cabansag, and Airman First Class John Burroughs\u2014were dispatched into the forest to take a look. Nearly 30 years later, they still can\u2019t agree on what they saw among the trees\u2014except for one thing: They all saw a lot of lights. Big lights. Little lights. Colored lights. \u201cBlue, red, white, and yellow,\u201d Cabansag wrote in a report several days later.<\/p>\n

(SOMEWHAT) CLOSE ENCOUNTER <\/strong><\/p>\n

In his report, Penniston stated that he thought they had come within 50 yards of the source of the flashing lights. \u201cIt was definitely mechanical in nature. This is the closest point that I was near the object at any point. We then proceeded after it.\u201d They moved closer to where they thought the object was, but they never seemed to get any closer to it\u2014it appeared to move farther away as they approached. \u201cIt moved in a zig-zagging manner back through the wood and then [we] lost sight of it,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Even creepier than the unexplained lights were the noises. \u201cStrange noises,\u201d Burroughs wrote in his statement, \u201clike a woman screaming. Also the woods lit up and you could hear the farm animals making a lot of noises, and there was a lot of movement in the woods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The airmen were in the forest for about an hour before it became clear that whatever they were seeing and hearing, it wasn\u2019t the result of an airplane crash. They were ordered back to base.<\/p>\n

At 4:11 a.m., an airman named Chris Armold called the local police, the Suffolk Constabulary, and asked if they\u2019d received any reports of a downed aircraft. They hadn\u2019t, but they sent two officers out to examine the scene anyway. The officers saw nothing unusual. A short time later, Armold accompanied Burroughs on a second trip into the forest. \u201cWe could see lights in the distance, and it appeared unusual as it was a sweeping light,\u201d Armold recalled in a 1997 interview. \u201cWe also saw some strange colored lights in the distance but were unable to see what they were.\u201d<\/p>\n

MAKING AN IMPRESSION <\/strong><\/p>\n

Then after daybreak, more airmen went into the same part of the forest. They found three small indentations in the ground, each one roughly 1\u00bd\u201d deep and 7\u201d in diameter, laid out on the ground in a triangular pattern. Were they made by the landing gear of a UFO? The airmen also noticed some strange marks in the surrounding trees: The bark had been removed and the sap had crystallized in the wound. Were they burn or scrape marks made when the UFO lifted off?<\/p>\n

A second call to the Suffolk Constabulary brought another officer to the scene\u2026but he didn\u2019t note anything particularly unusual about the marks on the ground or in the trees.<\/p>\n

D\u00c9J\u00c0 VIEW <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>That might have been the end of the \u201cIncident at Rendlesham\u201d were it not for the fact that on the following night (December 27), airmen on guard duty at the back gate of RAF Woodbridge, which faced Rendlesham Forest, again saw strange lights coming from the forest. When word of the sighting reached the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, he organized another team of airmen and sometime after midnight led them into the forest to investigate. This time the party brought a Geiger counter and a tape recorder, into which Halt recorded nearly 18 minutes of live observations as the group examined the site over the next four hours.<\/p>\n

Halt\u2019s tape recording makes for compelling listening: He and the search team examined the impressions in the ground and the marks on the trees, carefully taking radiation readings as they went. The strongest reading was from one of the indentations, which gave a reading of 0.07 millirems per hour. The men also noticed small branches that had been freshly broken off nearby trees about 15\u2019 to 20\u2019 off the ground, and reported hearing strange animal noises just like the first team had the night before.<\/p>\n

WITH THEIR OWN EYES <\/strong><\/p>\n

Then, around 13 minutes into the 18-minute tape, Halt and the men suddenly saw a strange, flashing yellowish-red light in the forest. \u201cIt\u2019s coming this way. It\u2019s definitely coming this way! Pieces of it are shooting off,\u201d Halt says into the tape recorder. \u201cThere is no doubt about it. This is weird!\u201d<\/p>\n

Halt and his team followed the strange light out of the forest, through a field, and past a farmer\u2019s house into another field. \u201cNow we have multiple sightings of up to five lights with a similar shape and all,\u201d he says on the tape, \u201cbut they seem to be steady now rather than a pulsating or glow with a red flash.\u201d<\/p>\n

They crossed a creek as they pursued the lights, which were now considerably farther away. \u201cMade sighting again about 110\u00b0,\u201d Halt says. \u201cThis looks like it\u2019s clear off to the coast. It\u2019s right on the horizon. Moves about a bit, and flashes from time to time. Still steady or red in color.\u201d The men saw strobe-light flashes, and then two \u201cstrange objects\u2026with colored lights on \u2019em\u201d to the north, and a similar object to the south, about 10 degrees off the horizon. \u201cHey, here he comes from the south, he\u2019s coming toward us now,\u201d Halt says. \u201cNow we\u2019re observing what appears to be a beam coming down to the ground. This is unreal!\u201d<\/p>\n

Halt and his men watched the strange lights for another 15 minutes, until 3:30 a.m., then headed back to base. At 4:00 a.m., Halt ends the tape by reporting, \u201cOne object still hovering over Woodbridge base at about 5 to 10 degrees off the horizon, still moving erratic and similar lights and beaming down as earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n

ON PAPER <\/strong><\/p>\n

In the days that followed, Halt had several of the witnesses to the events of December 26 submit written statements describing what they saw and experienced. He used these statements, along with his own recollections from the night of December 27, to write a one-page official memo titled \u201cUnexplained Lights.\u201d In it he describes the object that some witnesses claimed to have seen as \u201ca strange glowing object\u2026metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two meters high.\u201d<\/p>\n

EXTRAORDINARY<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two separate sightings in the same place two days apart, each witnessed by numerous credible witnesses. Written statements describing what was seen, backed by police logs that confirm the dates and times. An official Air Force memo written by the deputy commander of the military base where the events took place. Physical evidence, in the form of indentations in the ground and marks on nearby trees. An actual tape recording of the second encounter as it unfolds. That\u2019s a lot of evidence. Rarely\u2014if ever\u2014has a reported UFO encounter been documented as thoroughly as the Incident at Rendlesham.<\/p>\n

NOT SO FAST <\/strong><\/p>\n

For the witnesses of the strange goings-on in Rendlesham Forest, convincing themselves that they\u2019d seen a UFO was one thing\u2014convincing the locals was another. When the story finally broke in the pages of the News of the World<\/em>, a British tabloid newspaper, in October 1983, the farmers and foresters who lived around Rendlesham Forest didn\u2019t believe a word of it. They hadn\u2019t seen or heard anything unusual on the nights in question, and when a reporter from the Times of London<\/em> visited the area the day the News of the World<\/em> story broke, he had no trouble finding locals who were already laughing off some of the key elements of the story.<\/p>\n

DUMB YANKEES <\/strong><\/p>\n

Had the American airmen ever even been in a forest before?<\/p>\n