January 2, 2026 • 41 mins
Nick Pope joins Captain Ron to celebrate the 45th Anniversary of the December 1980 Rendlesham Forest Incident as they discuss one of the most well-documented UFO cases in history!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast DAM
Paranormal podcast network, where we offer you podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural,
and the unexplained. Get ready now for Beyond Contact with
Captain Rong.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast AM, employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
(00:41):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Hey everyone, it's Captain Ron and Each week on Beyond Contact,
we'll explore the latest news in ufology, discuss some of
the classic cases, and bring you the latest information from
the newest cases as we talk with the top experts.
Welcome to Beyond Contact, and today we are speaking with author,
journalist and TV personality Nick Pope. Nick worked for the
(01:13):
British government for twenty one years, including the UFO Desk
at the Ministry of Defense from ninety one to ninety four,
where he researched and investigated UFOs alien abductions. Crop circles
and other strange phenomenon. He has even written five best
selling books, including Encounters in Rendalscham Forrest, the inside story
of the world's best documented UFO incident, making him the
(01:36):
perfect person to discuss the Rendalsham incident with us today
as we are at the forty fifth anniversary of that
incredible case.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Hey, Nick, how are you sir?
Speaker 5 (01:45):
Yes, good, thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Today marks the forty fifth anniversary of this very famous case.
It's one of my favorites, like Roswell. In fact, it's
often called the British Roswell. And it's incredible because we
have multiple witnesses who are of high credibility, and we
have such strong contemporaneous documentation of the event. There's some
(02:08):
other newer claims about this event, which we'll get into later,
but for now, Nick, would you mind walking us through
this incredible case and tell us what happened that night?
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Certainly, and I think you hit the nail on the
head when you said about it being so well documented.
It's almost like the perfect storm of a UFO incident.
What would you want, Well, I'd want multiple witnesses. I'd
want them to be military witnesses, including some senior ones,
I'd want it to be over three consecutive nights, so
(02:38):
it's not just a one off. And I don't just
want lights in the sky, I want a landing. And
that's exactly what happened, of course, a landed craft, certainly
on the first night, to the witnesses got up close
and personal. Why this is important, of course, is that
we don't just have that eyewitness testimony, important though it is,
(02:58):
we have physical evidence, evidence from the ground because afterwards
they found indentations in the hard frozen ground and they
ran a Geiger counter over it. And the declassified UK
Ministry of Defense file. You know another reason why this
is a strong case. We've got that paper trail. The
(03:18):
declassified file states in one of the documents from Defense
intelligence staff that the radioactivity levels seemed significantly higher than
the average background. Well, there's a lot more to it.
The witnesses included the deputy based commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Holt.
But it is an incredibly strong case.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
I've always felt that way. And the fact that he
in real time talked into a voice recorder, I mean,
when do you have that, nick, right, I mean, that's unprecedented.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
Well only only in twin Peaks. I guess agent Dale
Cuper was it did that, But joking aside, Colonel Holt
was a very meticulous officer, and of course the reason
he carried this handheld cassette recorder with him was in
his role as deputy based commander, he kind of was
(04:11):
really responsible for just about everything. So he went around
one morning he would be with the cooks, the next
he'd be with the security police, the next he'd be
with the accountants, and every step of the way he
documented his observations and his thoughts, and if he thought
anything needed fixing or wasn't as good as it could be,
(04:33):
he addressed it. So he was a very good hands
on officer. And because of that, as you say, we've
got this great contemporaneous, real time audio recording of his encounter.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
And you know, there's a lot of other evidence with
this physical evidence. You mentioned the depressions, the one and
a half inch deep steven inch impressions in the ground
that Peniston found. They had the radios and other electric
onyx malfunction. Animals went quiet. There's also reports of the
radar being recorded where at the base they saw objects
(05:09):
going sixty miles an hour or no, excuse me, sixty
miles in two to three seconds. Has that ever been released?
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Well, we've got not the original radar tapes. I spoke
to a Royal Air Force officer who who was handling
radar at the time, and he said, absolutely, we had
an uncorrelated target over the base on the radar screen
at the time of the encounter. And subsequently, you know,
(05:36):
I don't want to sound too conspiratorial, but almost literally,
some men in black swooped in afterwards, were more like
men in gray gray suit and said we'll we'll take those.
They're needed for some sort of national security investigation. Colonel
Holt subsequently spoke to two different US Air Force officers.
(05:58):
These were of course US basis on military soil, which
is why you've got both British and Americans involved. But
Colonel Holt spoke to two people who also had detected
the UFO on a different radar system, actually at the
control tower at this facility. So we've got multiple radar
(06:20):
operators stating that this happened. But the original radar tapes
and indeed some of the log books have either been
confiscated or went missing.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
These Air Force guys are shocked by this craft. What
makes it seem that this might be you know, extraterrestrial
and nature.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
I think a couple of things stand out. Firstly, Jim Peniston,
one of the witnesses on the first night, was very
familiar with all NATO and WARSAW packed aircraft. It was
one of his specialisms. He could look at a flashcard
of a silhouette and tell you immediately, oh that's a
rush and Meek twenty nine or whatever it was, and
(07:03):
he said, look, this is like no aircraft that I've
ever seen before, and just the parameters. This thing landed briefly,
then it took off vertically, cleared the tree tops, and
accelerated a way in an instant with no sonic boom.
Of course, later on Luelizondo was to describe this behavior
(07:25):
as one of his so called five observables, but it
was extremely significant and mysterious at the time. No sonic boom,
and Jim Peniston just wrote in his police notebook speed impossible.
And you know, for all the people saying, and it's true, Look,
some UFO sightings do turn out to be secret prototype aircraft, drones, that.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Sort of thing.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
But this is forty five years ago. If this was
a prototype in nineteen eighty, it should be operational now,
should have been operational years ago. Where is it? Where
is something that can do this? We don't have it.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
I love that that corresponds with a lot of other
UFO accounts that we have this instant acceleration and that
was back in nineteen eighty, as you mentioned, and it
was just gone. So that's a really incredible part of
this story. Well, how did Jim and the others, how
was the craft described? You know, it was like smooth
glass and all that. Can you tell us exactly what
(08:23):
they saw?
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Yeah, there are some disparities in the description, and you know,
skeptics sometimes say, oh that's suspicious. Quite the opposite. As
a government UAP investigator, I always say that if everyone
comes out with an almost identical description, it smacks to
me of collusion and the people having gotten together. You know,
any cop will tell you. I mean, it's the classic thing.
(08:47):
If you see a I don't know, a collision between
two cars at a busy intersection, and you interview ten
witnesses in the real world, you'll get ten rather different descriptions.
And that's kind of what happened with Rndalston. But the
broad consensus is that this thing was triangular in shape,
sort of not a flat triangle, more like a lunar
(09:10):
landing module something like that, about nine feet across, nine
feet tall. Strange markings on the side of this thing,
and you know, a very strange touch, almost ceramic. I
think at one point Jim Peniston said he got closest
and he touched it, which he now thinks probably wasn't
(09:31):
a smart move, but at the time heat of the moment.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
So he felt wasn't the hieroglyphics type drawings on there.
Those were rough like sandpaper, and the rest of it
felt ceramic or glass. I believe right, that's correct.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
Yes, yes, it was almost raised and he felt it
definitely reacted to his touch as well, which is interesting.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
I think it's brilliant what you just bought up, because
most people don't think about that. It's right. It's actually
more suspicious if they all have the exact same story
down to a t. The fact that they have generally
the same story with slight discrepancies is just human nature.
We're all going to see things differently, and of course,
in today's world, as you know right now, what's happening
(10:18):
here is they're congress people that are looking at these
tapes that have been excuse me, from the bombing of
the boats in Venezuela. And you get two different accounts
from two different congressmen on each side of the aisle.
One sees guys struggling in the water and the other
sees them, you know, preparing to attack or whatever. There's
different interpretation of the same incident, right.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
Yes, people see what they want to see, they see
what they expect to see, and you're right, different witnesses.
It's human nature. We look at everything whoever we are,
through the lens of our own personal language, culture, and
belief system, and so we interpret things in very different
ways sometimes.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
When do you take a break there, Nick, When we
come back, we're going to ask you about the three
principal witnesses in this case, and about some of the
other witnesses who have come forward recently and have come
forward over the years that you may not have heard
about yet. And then we'll also get into the binary
code written down by Jim Peniston. You're listening to Beyond
Contact on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast am Paranormal
(11:24):
podcast network. We are back on beyond contact speaking with
Nick Pope about the rundelscham forrest UFO case. Nick, so,
Jim Peniston seems to be the main, primary guy in
(11:44):
all of this. He's the one who actually walked up
to the craft. He's the one who actually touched the craft.
Can you tell us about who he is and his
of course, his significance in this case.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
Yes, he was, you know, a sergeant and and he
therefore you know, had a lot of responsibility on him
as one of the key links between the senior officers
at the base and the more junior airmen, so really
pivotal role. He also had one of the highest security
(12:18):
clearances of any of these people. He was in the PRP,
the Personal Reliability programs sort of you know, extra clearances,
top secret code word, that sort of thing, you know.
Obviously officer of great integrity, good observational skills. I mentioned
(12:39):
earlier that aircraft recognition was one of his particular skill sets,
you know, and also not in any way a sort
of extra boastful character. I mean, for example, you know,
we'll get on, I'm sure to talk about the binary code,
but aspects of this he kept to himself for decades
(13:01):
after the incident, and for some significant time he stayed
in the US Air Force, and so it was okay
for him to talk about the UFO inquiry and the
sighting and things because his own deputy based commander had
seen it and was a witness too. But some of
the more far out aspects of the case he absolutely
(13:22):
didn't discuss because he was worried about the effect on
his career.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Which is very, very plausible and makes sense to me.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
I also like the fact that he had the presence
of mind to document much of this himself. He took
notes right in front of the craft. He drew the
hieroglyphic looking symbols that were on the craft, he wrote
those in his notebook. He also went back out and
made casts of the impressions in the earth. Isn't that right?
Speaker 5 (13:49):
That's correct? Yes, And I should say I should backtrack
one step further and say he actually shot off a
role of film of the UFO, but was subsequently told
by the base processing laboratory that the film had been fog. Well,
that may or may not have been true. Perhaps it
was radiation that was We know there was radiation at
(14:10):
the landing site, but some people put a more sinister
explanation on that. You know, same with the radar tapes disappearing.
But yes, you're absolutely right. He then returned to the site.
He poured plaster of Paris mixture into the indentation. This
was December and England, so it was pretty cold. The
ground was frozen hard. Colonel Holt later estimated that the
(14:31):
object must have weighed several tons to have made these marks.
But Jim had the presence of mind to think of
pouring this plaster of Paris mix in and then when
it's set, pulling it out. So and there's actually two
of those. I think Charles Holton John Burrows may have
done something similarly. I can't quite remember the sequence, but
(14:51):
there's two of these things out there somewhere.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
It's incredible. I love that these guys thought to do that.
I don't even think I would think to do that.
If something like that happened, you'd be so distraught over it.
What about this account later that you touched on Nick
where Jim sort of had this download. I think it
was after he touched the craft. He felt like he
saw these ones and zeros and he didn't really go
(15:17):
back to it, but he at one point then wrote
down all these ones and zeros in his notebook, and
then thirty years later he rediscovered them and had the
binary code looked at. Don you wanna tell us about that?
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Certainly, yes, when he touched the craft, he felt a
sort of jolt and and he sort of thought, maybe
I shouldn't have done that. But a few days later
he had what he described really as a compulsion, and
he reached for his police notebook and he wrote, almost
as if he was in a trance, sixteen pages of
(15:49):
ones and zeros, and then promptly set the whole thing aside,
as you said, for thirty years. You know, look, if
this was a hope, he would have been shown it
from the rooftops trying to sell it. He was actually
embarrassed about it, as I said earlier, concerned about adverse
career consequences. He put it away only when he was
(16:13):
cooperating with one TV program in twenty ten for the
thirtieth anniversary. He was showing his sketches of the craft
that he'd made after the film ran out. He then
sketched the craft and the symbols on the side, and
Linda Malten, how was there, and she almost like literally
(16:33):
walked behind him, looked over his shoulder and said, Hey, Jim,
what's that? And Jim looked very embarrassed and cheapish about that.
And it took quite some coaxing to get the story out.
And he's turned down way more interviews about this, including
paid ones, than he's ever accepted. So this is not
somebody trying to sell a story. This is someone kind
(16:55):
of still I think, embarrassed and mystified by all this. Well,
they gave the ones and zeros to a computer programmer
years later, and he translated it at binary code. Of course,
Jim had no idea, and the message apparently was continuous
exploration for planetary advance eyes of your eyes origin year
(17:16):
eight thousand, one hundred, and then some latitudinal and longitudinal
coordinates that match up with some ancient sacred sites, including
the Great Pyramid at Giza, Sedona, the NASCAR lines and
so forth.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Yes, and also exploration of humanity was the other translation there.
But also it does seem to correlate. In nineteen eighty,
I don't think any of us knew what binary code
was unless you really worked in that field. Right By
twenty ten, we all knew computers were ones and zeros, right,
so that sort of lines up. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
Again, he had no idea what it was. He was
embarrassed by it, slightly ashamed, I think, and just locked
it away literally for thirty years.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Are you aware of these guys like Luciano and this
Osborne golden cut, these guys who have studied this code
and they find that there's cutting edge interpretations would seem
embedded in these coordinates that we may not have known
about nineteen eighty, so they find it very credible. Have
you looked into that?
Speaker 5 (18:16):
I have, yes, And in fact I've met Gary Osborne.
I met him a few times when I lived in
the UK, and so I'm aware of his work, and
Joe Luciano. I think you mentioned a couple of others
as well. I had often wondered whether there's particularly this
list of coordinates. It was almost too good to be true.
(18:37):
It was almost like an attention getter, and I had
often speculated, what if there's a code within the code
hidden deeper? And that's certainly what Gary Osborne believes. And
I know he's done some very complex mathematics and cryptography
and things to try and get to the bottom of that.
I've kind of lost track of where things are because
(18:58):
it's not my area of expertise, but I'm glad people
are doing it.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Be interesting to see what AI could do with this. Now,
maybe there's some even more computation they could dig into,
you know.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Yes, and every year, you know, one of the British
intelligence agencies GCHQ has a code breaking competition. I'd love
the GCHQ folks to take a look at this too.
Maybe they already have.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
It's perfect for them. You know, it's quite remarkable to me.
It's well beyond chance that this would all line up
like that and this code would work according to these
statistical guys. Either this guy, Jim Peniston, is a hoaxer
and he knew somebody that could create that for him,
or we have quite an incredible story of information given
(19:45):
to him in binary code that certainly has a very
intriguing translation.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Yes, I mean to the hoaxing point. I know a
few hoaxes, and they're usually in it for either money
and or attention. Jim, as I said, has to and
down more paid interviews than he's ever accepted, and if anything,
he's shied away from the limelight. So the opposite of
what I see when I see hoaxes.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
You know, of course, just because this code works, does
it make it alien necessarily, And it would also seem
odd to me, you know, maybe not that they write
in binary, but that it would translate so well into
the English language.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
Well, this is where the origin year eight thousand, one
hundred comes in, because, of course Jim has come to
believe that this perhaps isn't extraterrestrial at all, but might
involve time travel, and so in our future, in say
the year eight one hundred, I'm sure the people in
the future will know what binary code is, even if
(20:46):
they've moved on to other things. But it will be
a matter of historical record, of course. So that's another
intriguing sign of this. And it's why it's interesting that
when you get these whistleblowers coming forward, I'm shifting a
little bit, but they use now the phrase non human intelligence,
which of course doesn't lock you into the extraterrestrial hypothesis,
(21:08):
leaves the door open for you into temporal ideas, into
dimensional ideas and such forth.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
I love it. When we come back, we're going to
ask Nick about the other two witnesses and maybe some
other possible explanations for what happened at Rendelsham. You're listening
Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Paranormal podcast network. We are back on Beyond Contact speaking
(21:42):
with Nick Pope about Rendalsham. Nick, what about John Burrows.
He's had some ongoing health issues that seem to have
come from this incident. Tell us about his rule.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
Well, John Burrows, and I mean this in a nice way.
He's been described as like the bull in the China shop.
The guy is six foot at six tall, big with it,
and so he was an intimidating and commanding presence on
the base. Just what you want from somebody who's like
security police. You know. He's a very full on character
(22:14):
as you can imagine. And again he's straight down the line.
What you see is what you get, and you get
this big guy who was just thrown into this impossible situation.
And you're right, he and some others believe that some
health issues that they currently have. And even though we've
collaborated on a book of course, myself, John Burrows and
(22:37):
Jim Peniston, I need to be very very careful because
of HIPPA and other data protection personal privacy things. So
if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to be fairly
general about this. Yes, health issues that they believe result
from their close encounter with this, and actually that they
were in kind of dispute with the VA about this.
(23:00):
VA said, well, you know, don't be ridiculous that there's
no such thing as UAP. We're not engaging on this.
And then the British government, the Ministry of Defense, declassified
an intelligence assessment of the phenomenon as a whole that
I'd been involved in setting up, although I'd moved on
(23:20):
by the time it was actually done on the final
report was written up, but there's a throwaway line in there,
and I was amazed they hadn't redacted it, but it
was declassified and it said the well reported I'm paraphrasing,
of course, the well reported Randall Sham Forest incident is
a case where it might be suggested that witnesses were
exposed to UAP radiation for longer time periods than normal.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Well.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
I gave that to a lawyer, Pat Frasconia, who was
doing some pro bono work for some of the Rendalshim witnesses,
including John Burrows. Senator John McCain was involved. Senator John
Kyle was involved. There was one of John McCain's key aides,
Cheryl Bennett, did some amazing work on that, and I
(24:07):
remember discussing it with Cheryl and she said, I'd never
seen medical records classified like this before. It's crazy. But finally,
again I'm not going to go into details, of course,
but the VA confronted with that in a declassified British
intelligence assessment, had to settle in at least one and
(24:27):
probably some other cases too. So there's real. Like you
said right at the beginning, there's some really good, well
documented evidence here from the government's own files, British and
American incredible.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
What about Colonel Charles.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Holt Halters is a fascinating character. I mean I made
that Special Agent Dale Cooper comparison because of the way
he carried this handheld audio cassette recorder with him. I
think he was the first person in his family to
go to college. He he joined the US Air Force,
rose up and retired as a full colonel. Because of
(25:06):
his background, he understood the ordinary men and women under
his command in a way that perhaps some of the
other officers didn't. And he was very hands on. He
always wanted to know what is everyone doing, what are
they feeling, what are they thinking? How can I make
their lives better? How can I make the base run smoother?
(25:26):
So he was a meticulous guy. He was very skeptical
about UFOs. When he was told on the third night
that the UFO had returned, his plan was, and again
I'm paraphrasing, to go out and debunk all this UFO nonsense,
to put the whole story to bed for once and
for all. Well, of course he didn't. He walked out
into history because he encountered it himself.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
You know, there's this big issue here with him, which
is that there's been eighteen minutes of his recordings has
been released to the public, but supposedly he recorded over
five hours that night. Who's holding that back? Is that
the government? Is it him? Why aren't we hearing the
full recording?
Speaker 5 (26:05):
You know, again, I'm going to have to choose my
words really carefully. I mean, maybe he kept some as
an insurance policy, if he had concerns. Maybe some of
it is sitting in some basement office in the Pentagon somewhere.
I'm hoping that with the current congressional inquiries, we haven't
really had Randalsham. Of course, we've been too busy concentrating
(26:27):
on things like the tic Tac incident. And I get
that obviously. You know, to get congressional engagement, you have
to really start with the US cases. But I hope
that some of the British cases, like Randalsham, like some
of the other things I've been involved with, will have
their day in Congress too.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Nick, I want to ask you about these other guys.
There's these other purported witnesses, and even a new documentary
coming out which features some of those witnesses who have
an entirely new account of the event of their own.
Do you have any thoughts on these guys I'm speaking about,
like Larry Warren and Steve Loungero. These guys are featured
(27:07):
in this new documentary called I Think It's Capel or
Capel Green by Johnson. Do you put any stock in
their claims? Have you looked at their accounts?
Speaker 5 (27:16):
I don't know Steve, so I can't really talk about
his testimony. What I can say about Larry Warren, and
again I'll choose my words carefully, but Holt, Peniston and
Burrows all say that he wasn't there all say that
he picked up the story Sancond hand afterwards and wrote
himself into it. But he did play a role as
(27:38):
a whistleblower by getting the story out, but in doing
so used, whether with their permission or not, or a combination,
used other people's stories and then transposed it onto himself.
I know there are big problems with his testament.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And Peter Robins has said that as well. Peter Robin
had come out about Larry Rock because they wrote a
book as well.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
They wrote a book together, and not only did Peter
Robbins disassociate himself with Larry when when the truth came out,
but the publishers actually withdrew the book, which is very
rare and to me is very telling.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Yes, but this new documentary, this seems like Larry's claim
is that his stuff happened on a third night, like
Jim's thing happened on the first night, and then Colonel
Holt went out on the second night, and then there's
an additional night, and there's all these other ancillary guys
out there. There's that Lieutenant Bonnie Tamplin I believe is
(28:35):
her name, who apparently had some incident, and Bud Stephens
and Adrian what's it Bustinza.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
Yeah, Bonnie Tamp and Adrian Bestenza, Bud Stephens. They're all
mentioned in the book that John Burrow's, Jim Peniston and
I collaborated on, the only book, by the way, Little
Piece of Trivia, the only UFO book ever to have
needed security clearance both from the US and the UK government.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Wow. Cool. I'm just really curious about these other ancillary guys,
Like you know, there seems to be these discrepancies as
to the dates and times and location and who was where.
It feels to me like this is a classic example
of government intentionally trying to muddy the waters and add
confusion to the accounts in order to discredit it. The
more I dig into the case, the more I feel
(29:24):
like we really need an investigator to go get all
these guys together, get them officially on record and or
in the same room, and get a clean narrative. You know,
we can't do it for Roswell because that was from
nineteen forty seven and ninety five percent of those witnesses
have passed, But we could do it for this case
because it was forty five years ago. These witnesses are
only sixty five seventy years old, you know, and now
(29:46):
that the UFO topic is less vilified, maybe some of
these witnesses would come forward. If I had the time
and money, I'd love to do this with my life.
You know. Maybe there's a guy like Nick Pope out
there who'd like to do another book ten years after
his last book. Well, we could send Don Schmid and
Tom Curry on it. What do you think I think.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
I'm done with the case now. I think I've said
what I want to say. But I think the people,
of course who should be looking at it and doing
exactly what you just articulated is Congress. And I would
love to see congressional staffers call in all the witnesses,
interview them, get written statements, just as we've had from people,
(30:28):
for example, like David Fravor from the tic Tak incident,
Ryan Graves, Lou Alizondo, David Grush. Get those written statements,
get them onto the Congressional record, and then get them
under oath in public hearings to tell their story. I'd
love to see a Congressional hearing on the Randall shim
Forest incident. I think it would be great.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
I would love it. Let's push for that. Nick, Okay,
when we come back, we're going to ask you about
some other possible explanations that may have accounted for what
happened at Randall Sham. You're listening to Beyond Contact on
the iHeart Radio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal podcast network.
(31:17):
We are back on Beyond Contact and we're speaking with
Nick Pope about Rendelsham. It's fascinating case. Nick. You know,
there's been many people trying to poke holes that this
a is there, always is. All of the accounts over
the years have been challenged, of course, you know, I
do like to check off the more practical explanations at first,
you know, then maybe let's get to something extraordinary otherworldly.
(31:39):
From what I've seen, the plausible explanations don't seem to
really add up. Instead of seeing a craft shooting a
beam down, they just saw a lighthouse in the distance.
That seems so implausible and ridiculous to me, for all
of these military guys that work at that base to
make such a mistake. What do you think about those such.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
Yeah, they're clearly nonsense. Anyone who's actually been to the site,
and I've been there multiple times, both at day and
at night, and I've got boots on the ground, and
I've literally with the witnesses walked the path that they trod,
so there's absolutely no doubt about it. And what I
can tell you is is a couple of things. Firstly,
(32:22):
there was a lighthouse, but where you can see it
at all, it's basically a tiny pinprick of light on
the distant horizon. Also, anyone living at the coast, which
is still several miles away, doesn't even really see it
because there was a shield that obviously so that people
didn't get woken up at night. The beam rotates when
(32:45):
it shines out to sea, where it's supposed to obviously
you can see it. When it swings round to the land,
there's a shield. But as if that wasn't enough, the
topography of the ground is such that even if under
certain meteorologic conditions you get a sort of glow, even
that really isn't visible from much of the path that
(33:06):
these witnesses actually trod because the ground dips down. So
anyone who's actually spent five minutes with boots on the
ground as opposed to pontificating from the comfort of their armchair,
realizes that's nonsense straight away.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Okay, so you've looked at this case, you've been writing
a book with the mean guys in the case. Today,
where do you sit what's your gut feeling that you
think what happened here?
Speaker 5 (33:32):
Well, it's a difficult question. I can tell you what
it wasn't. It wasn't some sort of prototype aircraft or drone.
It wasn't the lighthouse. It wasn't a bright fireball meteor.
It wasn't a practical joke that got.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
Out of hand.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
It wasn't a test of the Guard Force to see
how they would react. It wasn't the lights from a
police car pulsating in the fog. It wasn't any of
those things. But what it was that I can't. If
I could, we would have concluded the book by gladly
telling you that we think we've solved the mystery. But
(34:07):
you know, hopefully I'm humble enough to say I'm really sorry, wrong,
But no, I haven't solved the mystery at all, and
I'm sitting here on the anniversary still scratching my head.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
I'm afraid, you know, Jim seems to have a feeling
because of that translation from the binary code that perhaps
it's humans from the future, because it does say the
year eighty one hundred, so maybe that's it. He leans
that way, Do you lean that way or do you
lean perhaps off world craft?
Speaker 5 (34:37):
You know, I don't rule any of this out. And
I mean, you know, extraterrestrial into temporal. I mean, another
theory that's doing the rounds, of course, particularly with some
of the other witnesses coming forward, is the idea that
there are some sort of non human intelligence intruding from
other dimensions. A few years ago, I'm sure we would
(34:58):
have all thought this was something out of the tour
twilight zone, you know. But now, of course theoretical physicists
talk quite seriously about these other dimensions, these hidden dimensions,
and in fact, for string theory equations to actually work,
you need the existence of these equations. So theoretical physicists
(35:19):
like michi Okaku, someone ten times smarter than me at least,
are actually looking for these so called hidden dimensions using
the Large Hadron Collider, the big particle accelerator run by
certain in Europe. I mean, this is a billion dollar
piece of scientific equipment. You don't just get on to
(35:42):
it to follow up some sort of hobby or a
little personal fancy. This is theoretical physics cutting edge. This
is some of the smartest people on the planet saying
other dimensions, hidden dimensions may be real. So who's to
rule out the idea that something might come through occasionally?
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Listen, that's so far above me exactly, and I just wonder,
you know, imagine even being able to transverse them. It's
one thing to believe that they exist. It's another that
they could build a craft that could go from one
to another. That's wow, another level. You know. Nick, you
mentioned that we're having these hearings in the US, of course,
which I think is fantastic. It gets the word outs there,
(36:25):
it adds credibility to the topic. It's nice to see
Congress taking it seriously. Do you have anything like this
happening in the UK.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
No, we don't. We have a few members of Parliament
who are interested in this, but really to get the
sort of engagement that we have in the United States,
it's going to need the Defense Committee in British Parliament
to take an active interest in this and to do
a proactive investigation into it. Now. I have had some
(36:55):
discussions with at least one I think, you know, some
probably some more members of Parliament have bouilt this. But
you know, again, someone's got to go first, someone's got
to put their head over the parapet And there is
still some stigma in the UK, not so much in
the US, but a sadly at the moment it doesn't
(37:15):
read across. I hope that will change, but at present
it's rather behind where we are in the US.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
I'm somebody who does not see disclosure coming, not official,
big D government disclosure anyway. I just don't think that's
going to happen in the next hundreds of years. You've
worked in the government, you've been studying this stuff longer
than I have. What is your sense about that?
Speaker 5 (37:39):
I tend to agree with you. If disclosure was easy,
we'd have done it by now, right, and yet we
haven't had it nearly eighty years into the modern UFO phenomenon.
So if disclosure isn't easy, because we'd have done it,
you know, we know that it's hard, and so generalizes
(38:00):
what makes it hard to disclose? And the answer may
be all sorts of things. I mean, it may be
you know, you look around the world and you look
at the deaths, the wars, the hatred's caused, for example,
by differences over religion. And then you think what would
happen if you threw an extraterrestrial or non human intelligence
(38:20):
presence into that already explosive mix. So maybe the authorities
are wary of that. But maybe, as I've sometimes speculated,
In fact, I think I gave a presentation at Contact
in the Desert along these lines a year or two ago.
Maybe there's something about the phenomenon in and of itself,
(38:41):
which I term a secret too terrible to be told.
That is the impediment to disclosure. But like I say,
if it was easy, we'd have done it. So therefore
we conclude that it must be very hard, and there
must be some very good reason, not just secrecy for
secret's sake, because things leaking out all the time, and
people blow the whistle, and people are blowing the whistle,
(39:04):
but there's still no smoking gun. We're still nowhere near
I think, you know, overal officed live my fellow Americans,
people of the world. We are not alone. That's disclosure,
and I'm not sure we're getting that yet.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Yeah, I don't think we're going to get it either,
But I do like that idea that maybe there is
something so categorically horrifying that, you know, maybe best that
this doesn't get out. You know, we just don't know
what's being hidden. But of course there's a lot of
speculation that it's even things like free energy, for example,
and that that's part of the reason that they you know,
(39:40):
that would change the world immediately. You know, most of
these wars are over resources, so maybe it ties to that.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
You know, we don't know, yes, and also the fact
that almost any advanced technology, particularly that which involves high energy,
can be weaponized.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
Right. You know, supposedly these different countries have obtained craft
as well, and we wouldn't want to show our hand
to them what we've uncovered. Maybe they have uncovered something different.
You know, there's a lot of legitimately good reasons to
keep this close to the vest. It would be nice
if they at least acknowledged that it was in fact real.
If it is in.
Speaker 5 (40:16):
Fact, yeah, maybe you could. Sure, maybe you could ring
fence the tech and say we're not telling you anything
about that, but hey, just say, you know, there's a
non human presence. But I think I like the analogy
of this being a high stakes poker game where the
United States is alongside say, China and Russia and maybe
some others too, And of course the last thing you
(40:37):
ever want to do is show what cards you're holding.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
Exactly Well, Nick, thank you so much. I really appreciate
all your insights. Are always great to see you. We
see you every year at Contact in the Desert. You've
been a staple there and we appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (40:50):
Thank you very much. I've enjoyed this chat.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
You can find Nick at Nick Pope dot net. You
can find me on Twitter and Instagram at CID Underscore
Captain Ron acted by checking out Contactoddesert dot com. Stay
open minded and rational as we explore the unknown right here.
iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast am Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost
Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iHeartRadio dot com
You're listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast DAM
Paranormal podcast network, where we offer you podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural,
and the unexplained. Get ready now for Beyond Contact with
Captain Rong.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast AM, employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
(00:41):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Hey everyone, it's Captain Ron and Each week on Beyond Contact,
we'll explore the latest news in ufology, discuss some of
the classic cases, and bring you the latest information from
the newest cases as we talk with the top experts.
Welcome to Beyond Contact, and today we are speaking with author,
journalist and TV personality Nick Pope. Nick worked for the
(01:13):
British government for twenty one years, including the UFO Desk
at the Ministry of Defense from ninety one to ninety four,
where he researched and investigated UFOs alien abductions. Crop circles
and other strange phenomenon. He has even written five best
selling books, including Encounters in Rendalscham Forrest, the inside story
of the world's best documented UFO incident, making him the
(01:36):
perfect person to discuss the Rendalsham incident with us today
as we are at the forty fifth anniversary of that
incredible case.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
Hey, Nick, how are you sir?
Speaker 5 (01:45):
Yes, good, thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Today marks the forty fifth anniversary of this very famous case.
It's one of my favorites, like Roswell. In fact, it's
often called the British Roswell. And it's incredible because we
have multiple witnesses who are of high credibility, and we
have such strong contemporaneous documentation of the event. There's some
(02:08):
other newer claims about this event, which we'll get into later,
but for now, Nick, would you mind walking us through
this incredible case and tell us what happened that night?
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Certainly, and I think you hit the nail on the
head when you said about it being so well documented.
It's almost like the perfect storm of a UFO incident.
What would you want, Well, I'd want multiple witnesses. I'd
want them to be military witnesses, including some senior ones,
I'd want it to be over three consecutive nights, so
(02:38):
it's not just a one off. And I don't just
want lights in the sky, I want a landing. And
that's exactly what happened, of course, a landed craft, certainly
on the first night, to the witnesses got up close
and personal. Why this is important, of course, is that
we don't just have that eyewitness testimony, important though it is,
(02:58):
we have physical evidence, evidence from the ground because afterwards
they found indentations in the hard frozen ground and they
ran a Geiger counter over it. And the declassified UK
Ministry of Defense file. You know another reason why this
is a strong case. We've got that paper trail. The
(03:18):
declassified file states in one of the documents from Defense
intelligence staff that the radioactivity levels seemed significantly higher than
the average background. Well, there's a lot more to it.
The witnesses included the deputy based commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Holt.
But it is an incredibly strong case.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
I've always felt that way. And the fact that he
in real time talked into a voice recorder, I mean,
when do you have that, nick, right, I mean, that's unprecedented.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
Well only only in twin Peaks. I guess agent Dale
Cuper was it did that, But joking aside, Colonel Holt
was a very meticulous officer, and of course the reason
he carried this handheld cassette recorder with him was in
his role as deputy based commander, he kind of was
(04:11):
really responsible for just about everything. So he went around
one morning he would be with the cooks, the next
he'd be with the security police, the next he'd be
with the accountants, and every step of the way he
documented his observations and his thoughts, and if he thought
anything needed fixing or wasn't as good as it could be,
(04:33):
he addressed it. So he was a very good hands
on officer. And because of that, as you say, we've
got this great contemporaneous, real time audio recording of his encounter.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
And you know, there's a lot of other evidence with
this physical evidence. You mentioned the depressions, the one and
a half inch deep steven inch impressions in the ground
that Peniston found. They had the radios and other electric
onyx malfunction. Animals went quiet. There's also reports of the
radar being recorded where at the base they saw objects
(05:09):
going sixty miles an hour or no, excuse me, sixty
miles in two to three seconds. Has that ever been released?
Speaker 5 (05:16):
Well, we've got not the original radar tapes. I spoke
to a Royal Air Force officer who who was handling
radar at the time, and he said, absolutely, we had
an uncorrelated target over the base on the radar screen
at the time of the encounter. And subsequently, you know,
(05:36):
I don't want to sound too conspiratorial, but almost literally,
some men in black swooped in afterwards, were more like
men in gray gray suit and said we'll we'll take those.
They're needed for some sort of national security investigation. Colonel
Holt subsequently spoke to two different US Air Force officers.
(05:58):
These were of course US basis on military soil, which
is why you've got both British and Americans involved. But
Colonel Holt spoke to two people who also had detected
the UFO on a different radar system, actually at the
control tower at this facility. So we've got multiple radar
(06:20):
operators stating that this happened. But the original radar tapes
and indeed some of the log books have either been
confiscated or went missing.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
These Air Force guys are shocked by this craft. What
makes it seem that this might be you know, extraterrestrial
and nature.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
I think a couple of things stand out. Firstly, Jim Peniston,
one of the witnesses on the first night, was very
familiar with all NATO and WARSAW packed aircraft. It was
one of his specialisms. He could look at a flashcard
of a silhouette and tell you immediately, oh that's a
rush and Meek twenty nine or whatever it was, and
(07:03):
he said, look, this is like no aircraft that I've
ever seen before, and just the parameters. This thing landed briefly,
then it took off vertically, cleared the tree tops, and
accelerated a way in an instant with no sonic boom.
Of course, later on Luelizondo was to describe this behavior
(07:25):
as one of his so called five observables, but it
was extremely significant and mysterious at the time. No sonic boom,
and Jim Peniston just wrote in his police notebook speed impossible.
And you know, for all the people saying, and it's true, Look,
some UFO sightings do turn out to be secret prototype aircraft, drones, that.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Sort of thing.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
But this is forty five years ago. If this was
a prototype in nineteen eighty, it should be operational now,
should have been operational years ago. Where is it? Where
is something that can do this? We don't have it.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
I love that that corresponds with a lot of other
UFO accounts that we have this instant acceleration and that
was back in nineteen eighty, as you mentioned, and it
was just gone. So that's a really incredible part of
this story. Well, how did Jim and the others, how
was the craft described? You know, it was like smooth
glass and all that. Can you tell us exactly what
(08:23):
they saw?
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Yeah, there are some disparities in the description, and you know,
skeptics sometimes say, oh that's suspicious. Quite the opposite. As
a government UAP investigator, I always say that if everyone
comes out with an almost identical description, it smacks to
me of collusion and the people having gotten together. You know,
any cop will tell you. I mean, it's the classic thing.
(08:47):
If you see a I don't know, a collision between
two cars at a busy intersection, and you interview ten
witnesses in the real world, you'll get ten rather different descriptions.
And that's kind of what happened with Rndalston. But the
broad consensus is that this thing was triangular in shape,
sort of not a flat triangle, more like a lunar
(09:10):
landing module something like that, about nine feet across, nine
feet tall. Strange markings on the side of this thing,
and you know, a very strange touch, almost ceramic. I
think at one point Jim Peniston said he got closest
and he touched it, which he now thinks probably wasn't
(09:31):
a smart move, but at the time heat of the moment.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
So he felt wasn't the hieroglyphics type drawings on there.
Those were rough like sandpaper, and the rest of it
felt ceramic or glass. I believe right, that's correct.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
Yes, yes, it was almost raised and he felt it
definitely reacted to his touch as well, which is interesting.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
I think it's brilliant what you just bought up, because
most people don't think about that. It's right. It's actually
more suspicious if they all have the exact same story
down to a t. The fact that they have generally
the same story with slight discrepancies is just human nature.
We're all going to see things differently, and of course,
in today's world, as you know right now, what's happening
(10:18):
here is they're congress people that are looking at these
tapes that have been excuse me, from the bombing of
the boats in Venezuela. And you get two different accounts
from two different congressmen on each side of the aisle.
One sees guys struggling in the water and the other
sees them, you know, preparing to attack or whatever. There's
different interpretation of the same incident, right.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
Yes, people see what they want to see, they see
what they expect to see, and you're right, different witnesses.
It's human nature. We look at everything whoever we are,
through the lens of our own personal language, culture, and
belief system, and so we interpret things in very different
ways sometimes.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
When do you take a break there, Nick, When we
come back, we're going to ask you about the three
principal witnesses in this case, and about some of the
other witnesses who have come forward recently and have come
forward over the years that you may not have heard
about yet. And then we'll also get into the binary
code written down by Jim Peniston. You're listening to Beyond
Contact on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast am Paranormal
(11:24):
podcast network. We are back on beyond contact speaking with
Nick Pope about the rundelscham forrest UFO case. Nick, so,
Jim Peniston seems to be the main, primary guy in
(11:44):
all of this. He's the one who actually walked up
to the craft. He's the one who actually touched the craft.
Can you tell us about who he is and his
of course, his significance in this case.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
Yes, he was, you know, a sergeant and and he
therefore you know, had a lot of responsibility on him
as one of the key links between the senior officers
at the base and the more junior airmen, so really
pivotal role. He also had one of the highest security
(12:18):
clearances of any of these people. He was in the PRP,
the Personal Reliability programs sort of you know, extra clearances,
top secret code word, that sort of thing, you know.
Obviously officer of great integrity, good observational skills. I mentioned
(12:39):
earlier that aircraft recognition was one of his particular skill sets,
you know, and also not in any way a sort
of extra boastful character. I mean, for example, you know,
we'll get on, I'm sure to talk about the binary code,
but aspects of this he kept to himself for decades
(13:01):
after the incident, and for some significant time he stayed
in the US Air Force, and so it was okay
for him to talk about the UFO inquiry and the
sighting and things because his own deputy based commander had
seen it and was a witness too. But some of
the more far out aspects of the case he absolutely
(13:22):
didn't discuss because he was worried about the effect on
his career.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Which is very, very plausible and makes sense to me.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
I also like the fact that he had the presence
of mind to document much of this himself. He took
notes right in front of the craft. He drew the
hieroglyphic looking symbols that were on the craft, he wrote
those in his notebook. He also went back out and
made casts of the impressions in the earth. Isn't that right?
Speaker 5 (13:49):
That's correct? Yes, And I should say I should backtrack
one step further and say he actually shot off a
role of film of the UFO, but was subsequently told
by the base processing laboratory that the film had been fog. Well,
that may or may not have been true. Perhaps it
was radiation that was We know there was radiation at
(14:10):
the landing site, but some people put a more sinister
explanation on that. You know, same with the radar tapes disappearing.
But yes, you're absolutely right. He then returned to the site.
He poured plaster of Paris mixture into the indentation. This
was December and England, so it was pretty cold. The
ground was frozen hard. Colonel Holt later estimated that the
(14:31):
object must have weighed several tons to have made these marks.
But Jim had the presence of mind to think of
pouring this plaster of Paris mix in and then when
it's set, pulling it out. So and there's actually two
of those. I think Charles Holton John Burrows may have
done something similarly. I can't quite remember the sequence, but
(14:51):
there's two of these things out there somewhere.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
It's incredible. I love that these guys thought to do that.
I don't even think I would think to do that.
If something like that happened, you'd be so distraught over it.
What about this account later that you touched on Nick
where Jim sort of had this download. I think it
was after he touched the craft. He felt like he
saw these ones and zeros and he didn't really go
(15:17):
back to it, but he at one point then wrote
down all these ones and zeros in his notebook, and
then thirty years later he rediscovered them and had the
binary code looked at. Don you wanna tell us about that?
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Certainly, yes, when he touched the craft, he felt a
sort of jolt and and he sort of thought, maybe
I shouldn't have done that. But a few days later
he had what he described really as a compulsion, and
he reached for his police notebook and he wrote, almost
as if he was in a trance, sixteen pages of
(15:49):
ones and zeros, and then promptly set the whole thing aside,
as you said, for thirty years. You know, look, if
this was a hope, he would have been shown it
from the rooftops trying to sell it. He was actually
embarrassed about it, as I said earlier, concerned about adverse
career consequences. He put it away only when he was
(16:13):
cooperating with one TV program in twenty ten for the
thirtieth anniversary. He was showing his sketches of the craft
that he'd made after the film ran out. He then
sketched the craft and the symbols on the side, and
Linda Malten, how was there, and she almost like literally
(16:33):
walked behind him, looked over his shoulder and said, Hey, Jim,
what's that? And Jim looked very embarrassed and cheapish about that.
And it took quite some coaxing to get the story out.
And he's turned down way more interviews about this, including
paid ones, than he's ever accepted. So this is not
somebody trying to sell a story. This is someone kind
(16:55):
of still I think, embarrassed and mystified by all this. Well,
they gave the ones and zeros to a computer programmer
years later, and he translated it at binary code. Of course,
Jim had no idea, and the message apparently was continuous
exploration for planetary advance eyes of your eyes origin year
(17:16):
eight thousand, one hundred, and then some latitudinal and longitudinal
coordinates that match up with some ancient sacred sites, including
the Great Pyramid at Giza, Sedona, the NASCAR lines and
so forth.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Yes, and also exploration of humanity was the other translation there.
But also it does seem to correlate. In nineteen eighty,
I don't think any of us knew what binary code
was unless you really worked in that field. Right By
twenty ten, we all knew computers were ones and zeros, right,
so that sort of lines up. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
Again, he had no idea what it was. He was
embarrassed by it, slightly ashamed, I think, and just locked
it away literally for thirty years.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Are you aware of these guys like Luciano and this
Osborne golden cut, these guys who have studied this code
and they find that there's cutting edge interpretations would seem
embedded in these coordinates that we may not have known
about nineteen eighty, so they find it very credible. Have
you looked into that?
Speaker 5 (18:16):
I have, yes, And in fact I've met Gary Osborne.
I met him a few times when I lived in
the UK, and so I'm aware of his work, and
Joe Luciano. I think you mentioned a couple of others
as well. I had often wondered whether there's particularly this
list of coordinates. It was almost too good to be true.
(18:37):
It was almost like an attention getter, and I had
often speculated, what if there's a code within the code
hidden deeper? And that's certainly what Gary Osborne believes. And
I know he's done some very complex mathematics and cryptography
and things to try and get to the bottom of that.
I've kind of lost track of where things are because
(18:58):
it's not my area of expertise, but I'm glad people
are doing it.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Be interesting to see what AI could do with this. Now,
maybe there's some even more computation they could dig into,
you know.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Yes, and every year, you know, one of the British
intelligence agencies GCHQ has a code breaking competition. I'd love
the GCHQ folks to take a look at this too.
Maybe they already have.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
It's perfect for them. You know, it's quite remarkable to me.
It's well beyond chance that this would all line up
like that and this code would work according to these
statistical guys. Either this guy, Jim Peniston, is a hoaxer
and he knew somebody that could create that for him,
or we have quite an incredible story of information given
(19:45):
to him in binary code that certainly has a very
intriguing translation.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
Yes, I mean to the hoaxing point. I know a
few hoaxes, and they're usually in it for either money
and or attention. Jim, as I said, has to and
down more paid interviews than he's ever accepted, and if anything,
he's shied away from the limelight. So the opposite of
what I see when I see hoaxes.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
You know, of course, just because this code works, does
it make it alien necessarily, And it would also seem
odd to me, you know, maybe not that they write
in binary, but that it would translate so well into
the English language.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
Well, this is where the origin year eight thousand, one
hundred comes in, because, of course Jim has come to
believe that this perhaps isn't extraterrestrial at all, but might
involve time travel, and so in our future, in say
the year eight one hundred, I'm sure the people in
the future will know what binary code is, even if
(20:46):
they've moved on to other things. But it will be
a matter of historical record, of course. So that's another
intriguing sign of this. And it's why it's interesting that
when you get these whistleblowers coming forward, I'm shifting a
little bit, but they use now the phrase non human intelligence,
which of course doesn't lock you into the extraterrestrial hypothesis,
(21:08):
leaves the door open for you into temporal ideas, into
dimensional ideas and such forth.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
I love it. When we come back, we're going to
ask Nick about the other two witnesses and maybe some
other possible explanations for what happened at Rendelsham. You're listening
Beyond Contact on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Paranormal podcast network. We are back on Beyond Contact speaking
(21:42):
with Nick Pope about Rendalsham. Nick, what about John Burrows.
He's had some ongoing health issues that seem to have
come from this incident. Tell us about his rule.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
Well, John Burrows, and I mean this in a nice way.
He's been described as like the bull in the China shop.
The guy is six foot at six tall, big with it,
and so he was an intimidating and commanding presence on
the base. Just what you want from somebody who's like
security police. You know. He's a very full on character
(22:14):
as you can imagine. And again he's straight down the line.
What you see is what you get, and you get
this big guy who was just thrown into this impossible situation.
And you're right, he and some others believe that some
health issues that they currently have. And even though we've
collaborated on a book of course, myself, John Burrows and
(22:37):
Jim Peniston, I need to be very very careful because
of HIPPA and other data protection personal privacy things. So
if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to be fairly
general about this. Yes, health issues that they believe result
from their close encounter with this, and actually that they
were in kind of dispute with the VA about this.
(23:00):
VA said, well, you know, don't be ridiculous that there's
no such thing as UAP. We're not engaging on this.
And then the British government, the Ministry of Defense, declassified
an intelligence assessment of the phenomenon as a whole that
I'd been involved in setting up, although I'd moved on
(23:20):
by the time it was actually done on the final
report was written up, but there's a throwaway line in there,
and I was amazed they hadn't redacted it, but it
was declassified and it said the well reported I'm paraphrasing,
of course, the well reported Randall Sham Forest incident is
a case where it might be suggested that witnesses were
exposed to UAP radiation for longer time periods than normal.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Well.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
I gave that to a lawyer, Pat Frasconia, who was
doing some pro bono work for some of the Rendalshim witnesses,
including John Burrows. Senator John McCain was involved. Senator John
Kyle was involved. There was one of John McCain's key aides,
Cheryl Bennett, did some amazing work on that, and I
(24:07):
remember discussing it with Cheryl and she said, I'd never
seen medical records classified like this before. It's crazy. But finally,
again I'm not going to go into details, of course,
but the VA confronted with that in a declassified British
intelligence assessment, had to settle in at least one and
(24:27):
probably some other cases too. So there's real. Like you
said right at the beginning, there's some really good, well
documented evidence here from the government's own files, British and
American incredible.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
What about Colonel Charles.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Holt Halters is a fascinating character. I mean I made
that Special Agent Dale Cooper comparison because of the way
he carried this handheld audio cassette recorder with him. I
think he was the first person in his family to
go to college. He he joined the US Air Force,
rose up and retired as a full colonel. Because of
(25:06):
his background, he understood the ordinary men and women under
his command in a way that perhaps some of the
other officers didn't. And he was very hands on. He
always wanted to know what is everyone doing, what are
they feeling, what are they thinking? How can I make
their lives better? How can I make the base run smoother?
(25:26):
So he was a meticulous guy. He was very skeptical
about UFOs. When he was told on the third night
that the UFO had returned, his plan was, and again
I'm paraphrasing, to go out and debunk all this UFO nonsense,
to put the whole story to bed for once and
for all. Well, of course he didn't. He walked out
into history because he encountered it himself.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
You know, there's this big issue here with him, which
is that there's been eighteen minutes of his recordings has
been released to the public, but supposedly he recorded over
five hours that night. Who's holding that back? Is that
the government? Is it him? Why aren't we hearing the
full recording?
Speaker 5 (26:05):
You know, again, I'm going to have to choose my
words really carefully. I mean, maybe he kept some as
an insurance policy, if he had concerns. Maybe some of
it is sitting in some basement office in the Pentagon somewhere.
I'm hoping that with the current congressional inquiries, we haven't
really had Randalsham. Of course, we've been too busy concentrating
(26:27):
on things like the tic Tac incident. And I get
that obviously. You know, to get congressional engagement, you have
to really start with the US cases. But I hope
that some of the British cases, like Randalsham, like some
of the other things I've been involved with, will have
their day in Congress too.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Nick, I want to ask you about these other guys.
There's these other purported witnesses, and even a new documentary
coming out which features some of those witnesses who have
an entirely new account of the event of their own.
Do you have any thoughts on these guys I'm speaking about,
like Larry Warren and Steve Loungero. These guys are featured
(27:07):
in this new documentary called I Think It's Capel or
Capel Green by Johnson. Do you put any stock in
their claims? Have you looked at their accounts?
Speaker 5 (27:16):
I don't know Steve, so I can't really talk about
his testimony. What I can say about Larry Warren, and
again I'll choose my words carefully, but Holt, Peniston and
Burrows all say that he wasn't there all say that
he picked up the story Sancond hand afterwards and wrote
himself into it. But he did play a role as
(27:38):
a whistleblower by getting the story out, but in doing
so used, whether with their permission or not, or a combination,
used other people's stories and then transposed it onto himself.
I know there are big problems with his testament.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And Peter Robins has said that as well. Peter Robin
had come out about Larry Rock because they wrote a
book as well.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
They wrote a book together, and not only did Peter
Robbins disassociate himself with Larry when when the truth came out,
but the publishers actually withdrew the book, which is very
rare and to me is very telling.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Yes, but this new documentary, this seems like Larry's claim
is that his stuff happened on a third night, like
Jim's thing happened on the first night, and then Colonel
Holt went out on the second night, and then there's
an additional night, and there's all these other ancillary guys
out there. There's that Lieutenant Bonnie Tamplin I believe is
(28:35):
her name, who apparently had some incident, and Bud Stephens
and Adrian what's it Bustinza.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
Yeah, Bonnie Tamp and Adrian Bestenza, Bud Stephens. They're all
mentioned in the book that John Burrow's, Jim Peniston and
I collaborated on, the only book, by the way, Little
Piece of Trivia, the only UFO book ever to have
needed security clearance both from the US and the UK government.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Wow. Cool. I'm just really curious about these other ancillary guys,
Like you know, there seems to be these discrepancies as
to the dates and times and location and who was where.
It feels to me like this is a classic example
of government intentionally trying to muddy the waters and add
confusion to the accounts in order to discredit it. The
more I dig into the case, the more I feel
(29:24):
like we really need an investigator to go get all
these guys together, get them officially on record and or
in the same room, and get a clean narrative. You know,
we can't do it for Roswell because that was from
nineteen forty seven and ninety five percent of those witnesses
have passed, But we could do it for this case
because it was forty five years ago. These witnesses are
only sixty five seventy years old, you know, and now
(29:46):
that the UFO topic is less vilified, maybe some of
these witnesses would come forward. If I had the time
and money, I'd love to do this with my life.
You know. Maybe there's a guy like Nick Pope out
there who'd like to do another book ten years after
his last book. Well, we could send Don Schmid and
Tom Curry on it. What do you think I think.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
I'm done with the case now. I think I've said
what I want to say. But I think the people,
of course who should be looking at it and doing
exactly what you just articulated is Congress. And I would
love to see congressional staffers call in all the witnesses,
interview them, get written statements, just as we've had from people,
(30:28):
for example, like David Fravor from the tic Tak incident,
Ryan Graves, Lou Alizondo, David Grush. Get those written statements,
get them onto the Congressional record, and then get them
under oath in public hearings to tell their story. I'd
love to see a Congressional hearing on the Randall shim
Forest incident. I think it would be great.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
I would love it. Let's push for that. Nick, Okay,
when we come back, we're going to ask you about
some other possible explanations that may have accounted for what
happened at Randall Sham. You're listening to Beyond Contact on
the iHeart Radio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal podcast network.
(31:17):
We are back on Beyond Contact and we're speaking with
Nick Pope about Rendelsham. It's fascinating case. Nick. You know,
there's been many people trying to poke holes that this
a is there, always is. All of the accounts over
the years have been challenged, of course, you know, I
do like to check off the more practical explanations at first,
you know, then maybe let's get to something extraordinary otherworldly.
(31:39):
From what I've seen, the plausible explanations don't seem to
really add up. Instead of seeing a craft shooting a
beam down, they just saw a lighthouse in the distance.
That seems so implausible and ridiculous to me, for all
of these military guys that work at that base to
make such a mistake. What do you think about those such.
Speaker 5 (32:01):
Yeah, they're clearly nonsense. Anyone who's actually been to the site,
and I've been there multiple times, both at day and
at night, and I've got boots on the ground, and
I've literally with the witnesses walked the path that they trod,
so there's absolutely no doubt about it. And what I
can tell you is is a couple of things. Firstly,
(32:22):
there was a lighthouse, but where you can see it
at all, it's basically a tiny pinprick of light on
the distant horizon. Also, anyone living at the coast, which
is still several miles away, doesn't even really see it
because there was a shield that obviously so that people
didn't get woken up at night. The beam rotates when
(32:45):
it shines out to sea, where it's supposed to obviously
you can see it. When it swings round to the land,
there's a shield. But as if that wasn't enough, the
topography of the ground is such that even if under
certain meteorologic conditions you get a sort of glow, even
that really isn't visible from much of the path that
(33:06):
these witnesses actually trod because the ground dips down. So
anyone who's actually spent five minutes with boots on the
ground as opposed to pontificating from the comfort of their armchair,
realizes that's nonsense straight away.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
Okay, so you've looked at this case, you've been writing
a book with the mean guys in the case. Today,
where do you sit what's your gut feeling that you
think what happened here?
Speaker 5 (33:32):
Well, it's a difficult question. I can tell you what
it wasn't. It wasn't some sort of prototype aircraft or drone.
It wasn't the lighthouse. It wasn't a bright fireball meteor.
It wasn't a practical joke that got.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
Out of hand.
Speaker 5 (33:47):
It wasn't a test of the Guard Force to see
how they would react. It wasn't the lights from a
police car pulsating in the fog. It wasn't any of
those things. But what it was that I can't. If
I could, we would have concluded the book by gladly
telling you that we think we've solved the mystery. But
(34:07):
you know, hopefully I'm humble enough to say I'm really sorry, wrong,
But no, I haven't solved the mystery at all, and
I'm sitting here on the anniversary still scratching my head.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
I'm afraid, you know, Jim seems to have a feeling
because of that translation from the binary code that perhaps
it's humans from the future, because it does say the
year eighty one hundred, so maybe that's it. He leans
that way, Do you lean that way or do you
lean perhaps off world craft?
Speaker 5 (34:37):
You know, I don't rule any of this out. And
I mean, you know, extraterrestrial into temporal. I mean, another
theory that's doing the rounds, of course, particularly with some
of the other witnesses coming forward, is the idea that
there are some sort of non human intelligence intruding from
other dimensions. A few years ago, I'm sure we would
(34:58):
have all thought this was something out of the tour
twilight zone, you know. But now, of course theoretical physicists
talk quite seriously about these other dimensions, these hidden dimensions,
and in fact, for string theory equations to actually work,
you need the existence of these equations. So theoretical physicists
(35:19):
like michi Okaku, someone ten times smarter than me at least,
are actually looking for these so called hidden dimensions using
the Large Hadron Collider, the big particle accelerator run by
certain in Europe. I mean, this is a billion dollar
piece of scientific equipment. You don't just get on to
(35:42):
it to follow up some sort of hobby or a
little personal fancy. This is theoretical physics cutting edge. This
is some of the smartest people on the planet saying
other dimensions, hidden dimensions may be real. So who's to
rule out the idea that something might come through occasionally?
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Listen, that's so far above me exactly, and I just wonder,
you know, imagine even being able to transverse them. It's
one thing to believe that they exist. It's another that
they could build a craft that could go from one
to another. That's wow, another level. You know. Nick, you
mentioned that we're having these hearings in the US, of course,
which I think is fantastic. It gets the word outs there,
(36:25):
it adds credibility to the topic. It's nice to see
Congress taking it seriously. Do you have anything like this
happening in the UK.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
No, we don't. We have a few members of Parliament
who are interested in this, but really to get the
sort of engagement that we have in the United States,
it's going to need the Defense Committee in British Parliament
to take an active interest in this and to do
a proactive investigation into it. Now. I have had some
(36:55):
discussions with at least one I think, you know, some
probably some more members of Parliament have bouilt this. But
you know, again, someone's got to go first, someone's got
to put their head over the parapet And there is
still some stigma in the UK, not so much in
the US, but a sadly at the moment it doesn't
(37:15):
read across. I hope that will change, but at present
it's rather behind where we are in the US.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
I'm somebody who does not see disclosure coming, not official,
big D government disclosure anyway. I just don't think that's
going to happen in the next hundreds of years. You've
worked in the government, you've been studying this stuff longer
than I have. What is your sense about that?
Speaker 5 (37:39):
I tend to agree with you. If disclosure was easy,
we'd have done it by now, right, and yet we
haven't had it nearly eighty years into the modern UFO phenomenon.
So if disclosure isn't easy, because we'd have done it,
you know, we know that it's hard, and so generalizes
(38:00):
what makes it hard to disclose? And the answer may
be all sorts of things. I mean, it may be
you know, you look around the world and you look
at the deaths, the wars, the hatred's caused, for example,
by differences over religion. And then you think what would
happen if you threw an extraterrestrial or non human intelligence
(38:20):
presence into that already explosive mix. So maybe the authorities
are wary of that. But maybe, as I've sometimes speculated,
In fact, I think I gave a presentation at Contact
in the Desert along these lines a year or two ago.
Maybe there's something about the phenomenon in and of itself,
(38:41):
which I term a secret too terrible to be told.
That is the impediment to disclosure. But like I say,
if it was easy, we'd have done it. So therefore
we conclude that it must be very hard, and there
must be some very good reason, not just secrecy for
secret's sake, because things leaking out all the time, and
people blow the whistle, and people are blowing the whistle,
(39:04):
but there's still no smoking gun. We're still nowhere near
I think, you know, overal officed live my fellow Americans,
people of the world. We are not alone. That's disclosure,
and I'm not sure we're getting that yet.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
Yeah, I don't think we're going to get it either,
But I do like that idea that maybe there is
something so categorically horrifying that, you know, maybe best that
this doesn't get out. You know, we just don't know
what's being hidden. But of course there's a lot of
speculation that it's even things like free energy, for example,
and that that's part of the reason that they you know,
(39:40):
that would change the world immediately. You know, most of
these wars are over resources, so maybe it ties to that.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
You know, we don't know, yes, and also the fact
that almost any advanced technology, particularly that which involves high energy,
can be weaponized.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
Right. You know, supposedly these different countries have obtained craft
as well, and we wouldn't want to show our hand
to them what we've uncovered. Maybe they have uncovered something different.
You know, there's a lot of legitimately good reasons to
keep this close to the vest. It would be nice
if they at least acknowledged that it was in fact real.
If it is in.
Speaker 5 (40:16):
Fact, yeah, maybe you could. Sure, maybe you could ring
fence the tech and say we're not telling you anything
about that, but hey, just say, you know, there's a
non human presence. But I think I like the analogy
of this being a high stakes poker game where the
United States is alongside say, China and Russia and maybe
some others too, And of course the last thing you
(40:37):
ever want to do is show what cards you're holding.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
Exactly Well, Nick, thank you so much. I really appreciate
all your insights. Are always great to see you. We
see you every year at Contact in the Desert. You've
been a staple there and we appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (40:50):
Thank you very much. I've enjoyed this chat.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
You can find Nick at Nick Pope dot net. You
can find me on Twitter and Instagram at CID Underscore
Captain Ron acted by checking out Contactoddesert dot com. Stay
open minded and rational as we explore the unknown right here.
iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast am Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Ghost
Day and Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out
all our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going
to iHeartRadio dot com
The Best of Coast to Coast AM News
Host
George Noory
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.