Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
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Dispatch Ajax! Podcast
Holiday UFO: Rendlesham Forest Part 1
The Rendlesham Forest incident is a cornerstone of UFO lore, marked by a series of mysterious lights and encounters experienced by U.S. Air Force personnel in December 1980. As investigators described the craft's details and effects on their health, profound questions were raised about the nature of the phenomena and the implications of what was witnessed that fateful night.
Join us as we recount the spine-tingling experiences of Sergeant Jim Penniston and his team, who were drawn by enigmatic lights into the heart of the forest. There, they encountered a mysterious triangular craft, igniting a series of bewildering events—like Penniston's urge to touch the craft, leading to visions of binary code. Through the lens of this gripping narrative, we delve into Penniston's notebook filled with cryptic symbols, a source of fascination and debate within the UFO community for decades.
Over multiple nights, witnesses reported glowing crafts zigzagging through the forest and star-like objects executing bizarre maneuvers in the sky. We untangle the timeline of these events, acknowledging the complexities and mysteries that linger. So, tune in and prepare to journey into the unknown with us, as we piece together one of the most compelling UFO encounters ever recorded.
Armus comes for all of us, gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 1:Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative All the weapons Now Charge the lightning field. So let's go back to a time when things were sane, All right, and even then barely I had talked about doing a UFO incident before that I think we should talk about at some point. I didn't realize that it happened around Christmas.
Speaker 2:What is that Skip?
Speaker 1:Well, the British Astronomical Association Meteor Section Newsletter Number four.
Speaker 2:I'm well aware I get it all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this comes to our door daily. My dog brings it to me.
Speaker 2:It's the only thing it's trained to do. It's a dagget. Oh, one of those chimps and cyborg bodies, eh.
Speaker 1:Exactly, which is really cruel if you think about it. And the issue number four, which was from February 1981, contained a brief report of a fireball seen on Boxing Day 1980. And for those of you who don't know Boxing Day, which by that I mean America it's December 26th.
Speaker 2:Also known as the day after.
Speaker 1:Starring Steve Guttenberg. The Goot has returned by four witnesses, seemingly in Suffolk England, who had all estimated its brightness comparable to a three-quarter moon and lasting three to four seconds. The four witnesses in question were Fred Skip Burren. There's one everywhere. John Burrows, ed Kavinsag, jd Chandler and Jim Pedenson. Now, sergeant Pedenson, burroughs and Cabinzag were a three-man United States Air Force security police team stationed at RAF Woodbridge called to investigate the possibility of a landed craft of unknown origin in the surrounding Rendlesham Forest.
Speaker 2:Oh, there we go.
Speaker 1:Drop the mic bitch.
Speaker 2:So was it Santa.
Speaker 1:I guess we can wrap it up, so please subscribe.
Speaker 2:Give us a five daggits on podcast app of your choice.
Speaker 1:They're monsters. They're horrible monsters. So Reddleship Forest is located between two US Air Force bases in the UK, Woodbridge and Ben Waters, which are near England's east coast. The bases were long considered strategically vital to NATO and therefore paid close attention to by both UK and US militaries. Only Peddison and Burroughs went into the woods to investigate the supposed landed craft. Cabin Sag stayed near the truck as a relay for the radio. Cabin Sag stayed near the truck as a relay for the radio and, by the accounts of everyone involved, it was a harrowing experience that changed the course of their lives.
Speaker 1:Cabin Sag watched the mysterious multicolored lights in the forest pulsating while his two team members headed out on foot. As Penniston and Burroughs approached the unusual lights, they noticed abnormal sensations. It seemed as though the air was electrically charged. According to the men, time seemed to slow down and physical movement became labored Eerily. Everything was silent. When they reached the site, the craft itself was sitting in a slight clearing. The craft itself was sitting in a slight clearing. Penniston cautiously approached the craft, which he described as a triangular, black and which he described as triangular.
Speaker 2:Jesus Christ, I spent all day writing this.
Speaker 1:He described it as Jesus Christ, only the Penniston men come past.
Speaker 2:I'm going to bookmark that.
Speaker 1:He described as triangular, black and glassy. It had patterns of blue, yellow and red colors running through the surface as though part of the craft like a lava lamp. The sight was baffling. Considering Sergeant Penniston was versed in all types of aircraft. He was a United States Air Force trained crash investigator. As part of his advanced training he studied both the NATO and Warsaw Pact inventories of aircraft, so he was extremely familiar with this stuff. At least he should have been.
Speaker 1:His close-up investigation of the craft included photographs. He took measurements, drawings, which he wrote in his USAF-issued notebook. He took special note of strange pictorial-type markings on the side of the craft. Now this notebook will become an increasingly important element of the story and of the UFO community as a whole as the mystery unfolds over the next 40 years. More on that later Quote, and this comes from Penniston as we got to the tree line it became apparent that it wasn't an aircraft crash.
Speaker 1:It was mainly a white light inside the woods. Maybe 15 feet was inside there, maybe 20 feet. Penniston described a craft measuring approximately 9 feet by 7 feet, so 9 feet long by 7 feet high, from which the light emanated. Upon closer inspection there were globular colored lights running through the object and it was covered in places with pictorial glyphs which had a rough etched texture, pictorial glyphs which had a rough etched texture. Peniston, like an idiot, instinctively reached out to touch the etched symbols. I mean, come on, don't touch it, don't fucking touch it it's like the, the scientist in prometheus yes, why would you do any of the things you're doing?
Speaker 2:stop it, just stop it joe man, I bet that movie are you an expert on things that have never, ever happened?
Speaker 1:He described them as feeling like sandpaper compared to the rest of the smooth surface. Upon touching it, he claimed, the entire object became illuminating, which blinded him. When his eyesight finally returned, he was standing next to the craft facing the pictorial glyphs. Then the craft started to turn a vivid, bright white, even more intensely, so bright, in fact, that Penniston thought it was going to explode. So he took cover nearby as the craft became completely enveloped in brilliant light. The craft then lifted approximately four feet from the ground and maneuvered between the trees. The soldiers chased it into a field where it abruptly shot upward, shining light down on them. At that moment they all lost consciousness. When they came to they were back in the forest. Other troops sent to rescue them found tripod landing marks where the object had rested landing marks where the object had rested. The following day, back in his bunk, jim reported seeing flashing images of ones and zeros as a result of touching the glyphs. So he dictated them all in his notebook.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of crazy uh, yeah this incident is considered widely to be the UK's Roswell incident and a lot of that comes from its similarity in that it happened near an Air Force base, it had some corroboration officially from both the US and UK military at the time and that it was considered to be covered up after the fact, but that these things were taken very seriously by obviously both the UK and US governments, mostly because they were really important NATO bases. So what did the other soldier say that went in with him into the forest Quote it was about three o'clock in the morning when I was riding around with my supervisor and we saw some strange lights. He originally saw something coming out of the sky into the forest that got my attention and it was in the forest. We drove off base to get a better idea before we called anything in and when we got to the end of the road it was where you were forced to go left or right. I got out of the vehicle and everything seemed strange. There was a static electricity in the air. Things didn't seem right. We returned to the gate and when we had to report it we called it in. They sent a security supervisor down because we were law enforcement. Security was sent down to evaluate. They took a look and they saw the same stuff, saw strange lights. There were some blue, green and yellow lights and a white light. They contacted some radar sites which confirmed that there was something seen on the radar that disappeared into the forest.
Speaker 1:Burroughs would approach the strange lights on two separate nights Quote. I remember. The only thing I can tell you is that on the first night and the third night out, both people I was with claimed that I was gone. It was the first night that the object was over me. They could see the light on me, you know, affecting me. The third night, another soldier here, adrian Bustinza. Another soldier here, adrian Bustinza. Yeah, adrian Bustinza said that I had disappeared, but I don't recall either time, nor do I remember touching it. I remember getting close to it both times. So in the aftermath of this encounter, burroughs explained that his health started taking a horrible turn. Quote.
Speaker 1:Regarding my injuries, I didn't feel well. Afterward I was looked at and they didn't understand other than it could be a virus or something. I had some throat issues. They treated it like they usually would and sent me on my way. I went back to the States and that's when I got sick one day and I couldn't get back to the base. When I needed to be At the emergency room, they found a heart murmur. He couldn't have entered the service with a heart issue Quote this doctor says I have a massive heart murmur. I found out later. I couldn't have even gotten into the military with this heart murmur, so all of the sudden I had a heart murmur. When I returned to the base they immediately brought in a doctor from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and he came in and evaluated me and had me immediately go to Wright Patterson. The next day they ran all sorts of tests on me and then he said well, you have an issue with your heart, we're going to monitor it, but it's nothing that needs to be addressed immediately. And then I went on my way. But then Burroughs later said that his heart condition should have been fatal but it wasn't due to an quote anomalous tissue growth in his heart, which is odd. Quote I had a heart problem that should have killed me, but it didn't because I had this anomalous growth tissue. He also then later said that he had increasing visual problems, worsened over the years because of this incident, leading to him asking a specialist if he had been exposed to radiation.
Speaker 1:So the first piece of evidence to come about from this incident into the public was essentially years later, because nobody really took it seriously at the beginning. And this was made to the public in a memorandum written by Deputy Base Commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles I Holt to the Ministry of Defense with a C that's the British way. This is known as the Holt Memo. This was first publicly available in the United States under the Freedom of Information Act in 1983. So this memorandum is dated January 13th 1981. It's referred to as Unexplained Lights. Now, the two-week delay between the incident and this report might account for some of the errors in dates and times that they say, but that's something to be debated. So I'm going to just quote from the actual memo.
Speaker 1:Early in the morning of 27 December 82, usaf security police patrolmen saw unusual lights outside the back gate at RAF Woodbridge. Thinking an aircraft might have crashed or have been forced down, they called for permission to go outside the gate to investigate. The on-duty flight chief responded and allowed three patrolmen to proceed on foot. The individuals reported seeing a strange glowing object in the forest. The object was described as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two meters high. It illuminated the entire forest with a white light. The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank of blue lights underneath. The object was hovering oar on legs. As the patrolman approached the object, it maneuvered through the trees and disappeared. At this time the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy. The object was briefly sighted approximately an hour later near the back gate.
Speaker 1:The next day, three depressions one and a half inches deep and seven inches in diameter were found near the object, near where the object had been sighted on the ground. The following night the area was checked in for radiation. Beta and gamma readings of 0.1 millirohngens were recorded, with peak readings in the three depressions and near the center of the triangle formed by the depressions. A nearby tree had moderate readings on the side of the tree. Later in the night, a red sun-like light was seen through the trees. It moved about and pulsed. At one point it appeared to throw off glowing particles and then broke into five separate white objects and then disappeared. Immediately thereafter three star-like objects were noticed in the sky, two objects to the north and one to the south, all of which were about 10 degrees off the horizon. The objects moved rapidly in sharp angular movements and displayed red, green and blue lights. The objects to the north appeared to be elliptical through an 8 to 12 power lens. They then turned into full circles.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing from the next day, right, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:From the 27th. Yes, the next night, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because they went back out. Well, different people holt did.
Speaker 1:I'm just reading from his memo right, right, I just like it.
Speaker 2:It doesn't delineate that. I think it's probably it. It helps like there's an incident on the 26th and then holt, who's like I'm going to investigate this, he went out, look for himself with other soldiers and they solved these other incidents as well.
Speaker 1:Right, I know I had a very difficult time trying to figure out how to structure this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good to point out that there were like two actually entirely separate incidents over two days. That's all this one big event.
Speaker 1:Or three days, depending on who's correct in how they date things.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And that becomes a real problem later. As it turns out, the objects to the north remained in the sky for an hour or more, and then the object to the south was visible for two or three hours and beamed down a stream of light from time to time. Numerous individuals, including the undersigned, witnessed the activities in paragraphs two and three, signed Charles I Holt. Lieutenant Colonel, usaf Deputy Base Commander. So just a brief recap. Four witnesses at one base saw a fireball in the sky, thought it landed in Rendlesham Forest. Three of them were dispatched to go investigate one of encounter, come back report to their higher up, who then, like you say, sends other officers out to investigate the situation.
Speaker 2:Along with himself the next day.
Speaker 1:Along with himself and then experiences all sorts of other crazy shit.
Speaker 1:Has a tape recorder with him during that event and records the whole thing, him experiencing it halt will become maybe the most important character in this as years go by, because you will have the holt memo obviously, this which we just read, but then the later halt tape, and then the halt affidavit, which he does in 2009, I want to say. And then he does a series of different things over time that talk about this and though he was a witness to the second night of incidents and possibly third, he isn't the biggest driver of the story that ends up becoming Penniston, because he's the one, the only one, who claims to have actually made physical contact with the craft.
Speaker 2:The movie the Craft yeah.
Speaker 1:Would not have anything to do with that reboot.
Speaker 2:Same here.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the end of part one. I just wanted to end it there, oh nice.
Speaker 2:Alright, please do check out next episode to see where this Rendlesham Forest story goes, but until the meantime, because no one knows, until the meantime, check out previous episodes. There's a lot of cool stuff More UFOs, comic books, all types of geeky stuff. Please like, share, subscribe. If you know anybody who might be interested in what we're talking about, share it with them. Give it a grandpa. Give it a grandpa. Give that a grandpa.
Speaker 1:Come back to me, grandpa.
Speaker 2:For this podcast. If you wouldn't mind, rating us perhaps five New Jersey drones on the podcast app of your choice, ideally Apple Podcast. That is the best way for us to be seen and then heard. It really spreads the word out for us and what we do. And hey, thanks, thank you. We appreciate you for listening. We hope you stop back by and see what's going on with these crazy cats here on Dispatch Ajax, but until that time, skip. What should they do?
Speaker 1:Until we are replaced by drones from New Jersey, they should probably clean up after themselves to some sort of reasonable degree, make sure they've paid their tabs, tipped their KJs, their bartenders and subsequent wait staff, and make sure they support their local comic shops and retailers. And from Jake and I, both from Dispatch Ajax, we would like to say Godspeed, fair wizards, please go away.