Close encounters of the blurred kind

JENNY RANDLES says a new theory about Rendlesham might throw new light on nagging questions

Beings that mess with human minds have been part of folklore for centuries, but ufology has paid them less attention than they deserved, given that researchers like Jacques Vallee and John Keel saw this link early on. These tricksters, though, were not usually of the human variety.

Nick Redfern has published a book about Britain’s best-known case in the year of its 40th anniversary, and in The Rendlesham Forest UFO Conspiracy he finds dark themes underscoring that event and documents sinister forces causing civilians and USAF witnesses to claim weird time loss and physiological experiences during that Christmas weekend.

I got involved in the affair just days after it occurred. I’ve long wondered whether its ‘alien’ nature was created to obscure something else. Just weeks after the event, I noted how it seemed to have been spoonfed to the UFO community, as if we were pawns deployed to spread disinformation. I considered all sorts of reasons why intelligence forces might use ufology to suggest aliens had landed – one being a cover up of an accident involving a nuclear weapon then secreted on the US Bentwaters airbase. Or perhaps it was side effects from over-the-horizon radar research that had been carried out around Rendlesham. Could this have had physiological and psychological impacts on witnesses?

I mused about this to the science journal OMNI in 1982, before Rendlesham was popularised as an alien contact case by the world’s media. Nobody took my idea seriously. But years later, via the Freedom of Information Act, I saw how the British Liaison officer had reported this interview to the MoD. He felt it fortunate that UFO enthusiasts would not accept my theory, implying the idea of an alien contact was too big a lure for them. He was right – but why was the MoD relieved? Did they know what really caused the experience of those USAF airmen in the forest? If so, my ‘wrong’ suggestion would not unravel the cover-up or cause credible media to start digging.

I never went so far as to suspect an experiment in which SAS operatives went rogue, using drugs, lasers, holograms to disorient troops new to the country. Redfern’s evidence suggests this was a revenge mission for alleged rough treatment by US forces. But if it was such an unofficial ‘experiment’ it makes me ponder things that happened during the case. I’m sure that something strange happened in Suffolk; perhaps it was neither just a misperceived lighthouse nor an alien contact, though both factored into the psychological equation of deception for sure. The Orford Ness lighthouse, long blamed by some researchers, does look odd from within the forest – especially so to young airmen unfamiliar with local geography. Moreover, the very same lighthouse was put forward as a cause for UFO sightings by RAF and USAF staff around East Anglian bases, including Bentwaters, in a famous case from 1956. Perhaps it was another useful patsy to help ‘manufacture’ an alien invasion.

However, there are other reasons why I’m not dismissing Redfern’s theory of an ‘experiment’ that got out of hand – not least the baffling behaviour of the MoD. It seems impossible to believe that the first they knew of the Rendlesham events was when briefed three weeks afterwards. The entire base was agog within hours; local civilians reported things, too, and Suffolk police were called to the site by base officers on the night and logged this. The MoD could not have been in the dark for a month.

Local UFO researcher Brenda Butler was told of the case within hours, and I learned of it via a radar operator at an RAF base called up by Bentwaters. This was all before the MoD got started; which, given what was being alleged and the evidence (ground traces, radiation readings, photographs and radar data), beggars belief. Either our Cold War defence readiness was disgraceful or the MoD suspected the truth and merely went through the motions of an investigation. It also makes more sense that the rapid leaking of this case to Brenda and me was part of a plan to involve the UFO community; after all, ufologists are pretty good at chasing phantoms and talking about it a lot. If something that could embarrass the MoD had taken place, then seeding UFO researchers into the mix may have been part of a strategy of plausible deniability. Distract attention. Make a pretense of interest.

That the MoD were aware early on that things were not what they seemed is also suggested by events that seemed odd at the time but might now make sense. Why, given radiation levels detected in a forest by USAF airmen, was no attempt made to investigate or close off a picnic area frequented by locals? I hope the MoD chose not to do so as they knew it was unnecessary. They were informed early on that photographs of the ‘UFO’ had been taken by airmen and a live tape recording made by senior officers – almost unprecedented evidence that UFO enthusiasts had spent years pursuing. So why did the MoD make no effort to secure this data, even though it stayed on base for years? Knowing the true cause and its embarrassing repercussions might make sense of this obfuscation. It also puts in a new light reports from a Navy man soon after the case that British crew off the coast that night were ordered below decks when the incident occurred. Did someone in authority know that these sailors should be kept apart from what was going on?

Awareness of UK complicity would also explain why I had interactions with ‘security’ in unprecedented ways. When Brenda, her colleague Dot Street and I joined forces to investigate the case, we became subject to regular phone intercepts and odd vans parked outside. It might also explain why I had mail intercepted by what I was told was ‘Special Branch’ and why a mysterious prankster was sending out letters and tapes, trying to get researchers into trouble by pretending to be them. Special Branch ended up ‘investigating’ these people too. We were even later told that Brenda, Dot and I were suspected of being part of the Women’s Peace Campaign protesting nuclear weapons on airbases. Was it an excuse to keep us under investigation in case we got close to the truth?

Much that was baffling about this affair would make sense in the context of what Redfern argues; even that what witnesses experienced on the night was oddly personalised, as might be expected if it were caused by a ‘drug attack’. Was it a ‘coincidence’ that the events occurred on a holiday when a Soviet rocket was predicted to cross the skies, adding a readymade back-up explanation to steer media away? A local farmer at the time of the events reported that his cows ran in front of a passing car and were injured. But he then disappeared. We traced him, after much effort; he had moved far away after receipt of compensation for the ‘incident’. I got the impression that he was under a nondisclosure agreement. But why would he be, if this was just a UFO case? None of these things proves Nick Redfern’s new argument about a rogue experiment, but they pose interesting questions now worth asking.

For Jenny’s account of the Rendlesham affair, see FT336:24-25, 337:28-29, 338:2627, 339:26-27, 340:28-29.