During the early hours of December 26, 1980, USAF Security Policemen Jim Penniston, John Burroughs and Adrian Bustinza were attempting to discover the source of unexplained lights in Rendlesham Forest when they stumbled upon a landed, triangular-shaped UFO. What happened next has been written about in countless articles over the past 30 years. Less well known is the fact that other SPs, on duty at the nearby Weapons Storage Area (WSA), also reported a UFO hovering near the facility two nights later. At that time, the WSA held the largest stockpile of tactical nuclear bombs—also known as battlefield nukes—in Western Europe.
Just prior to the appearance of the UFO at the WSA, in the wee hours of December 28th, Bentwaters’ deputy base commander, then Lt. Col. Charles Halt, was leading a small group of SPs through Rendlesham Forest in an effort to identify the source of mysterious lights observed moving through the trees—the second such incident that week. In 1997, a retired Col. Halt spoke about the experience in an interview with journalist A.J.S. Rayl, saying,
“[After leaving the woods, our search team] crossed the farmer's field past his house and across the road, stumbled through a small stream, and went out into a large plowed field. Somebody noticed several objects in the sky—three objects clearly visible with multiple-colored lights on them. The objects appeared elliptical and then they turned full round, which I thought was quite interesting. All three doing that. They were stationary for awhile and then they started to move at high speed in sharp angular patterns as though they were doing a grid search.
About that same time, somebody noticed a similar object [in another part of the sky]. It was round—did not change shape—and at one point it appeared to come toward us at a very high speed. It stopped overhead and sent down a small pencil-like beam, sort of like a laser beam. It was an interesting beam in that it stayed—it was the same size all the way down the beam. It illuminated the ground about ten feet from us and we just stood there in awe wondering whether it was a signal, a warning, or what it was. We really didn't know. It clicked-off as though someone threw a switch, and the object receded, back up into the sky.
Then it moved back toward Bentwaters, and continued to send down beams of light, at one point near the weapons storage facility. We knew that because we could hear the chatter on the [two-way] radio.”
Elaborating on this last point during a
1999 interview with author Georgina Bruni, Col. Halt said, “We heard radio conversations on the Law Enforcement frequency, the Security Police frequency, and the Command Network...We could hear talk about one of the objects [being] in the vicinity of the Bentwaters WSA. I heard that some of the beams, or whatever they were, came down into the WSA...[However,] I was several miles away. From my view, a beam or more came down near the WSA. I don’t know for a fact that the beams landed there. I know they were in the area. I was too far away [and so] relied on the radio chatter which indicated the beams landed there. We could see several beams and members in the WSA went on the radio to report them. Several airmen present later told me they saw the beams. I don’t remember any names at this point.”
Halt further discussed the incident at the WSA during a Sci Fi Channel television program,
UFO Invasion at Rendlesham , which first aired in December 2003. After some prodding by the show’s host, Bryant Gumble, a reluctant Halt stated, “The object to the south [of my position in the forest] was actually sending some beams down near, or into, the Weapons Storage Area. That caused me a great deal of concern. You know, what was it doing there? Was it searching for something, was it trying to—who knows what it was trying to do?” For a split second, it seemed as if Halt would say something like, “Was it trying to zap the nukes?” but caught himself before the words left his lips.
In 2007, I interviewed one of the SPs on duty at the WSA that night, Robert “Charlie” Waters. As I write in my book,
UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites:
Waters told me, “There was some commotion in the WSA that night. Someone saw this object, I don’t remember who, and called out to us. I think my ART partner was Rob Isbell, but I’m not certain. But we looked and saw this spinning light—a multicolored light, I can’t really remember the colors—anyway, this craft was hovering and then slowly descended toward the forest. We ran up on one of the berms to get a better view of it. Then we reported it [to Central Security Control]. I remember I used a couple of expletives and was warned not to use profanity on the radio...The next morning, I talked to one of the operations officers who told me that [a small group of SPs] had gone out to the woods and had seen some burn marks on trees, about three feet off the ground. He said it looked like, whatever it was, had bounced from tree to tree coming down. The person who told me that wasn’t our flight’s shift commander. He was another officer, but I don’t remember his name.”
...I asked Waters to describe the UFO he and his ART partner saw, using my standard question, “If you held a dime at arm’s length, was it larger than that?” Waters immediately said, “Yes! I would say it was, when I first saw it, as large as a, uh, cantaloupe held at arm’s length! It was big! It was spinning and, I think, had a light on the bottom of it, but I’m not sure. I also think I saw something sticking out on the bottom, uh, like a rod or something like that.” I quickly asked Waters if he ever saw anything resembling a beam of light coming out of the UFO. “No, nothing like that, at least what I saw. Nothing coming out and going down to the ground, or anywhere else.”
I asked Waters if the UFO had ever been over the Weapons Storage Area itself. He replied, “Not that I saw. It never came directly over our heads. It stayed just over the trees and moved slowly from right to left until it, I think, disappeared behind them. To be honest, I don’t remember where it went, but it was descending when I saw it. It was pretty amazing. I didn’t immediately think “alien”, you know, I was just perplexed. Also, I remember the animals were going crazy. There were cows mooing and, uh, farm animal noises in the distance. It was almost like they were screaming!”
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Originally Posted by newyorklily
