SUSTO SWAP-A-THON: Somewhere In The Skies

On this episode of Somewhere in the Skies, Ryan dives deep into the iconic 1980 Rendlesham Forest UFO incident, unraveling the chilling encounters that unfolded between U.S. Air Force personnel on the edge of the Cold War. With rare audio interviews and chilling on-scene tape recordings from the military witnesses at the time, he breaks down the key players, the dramatic nights in the forest, and the decades of controversy that followed. From mysterious lights and craft to military cover-ups and so much more, this episode pulls apart one of the world’s most enduring UFO mysteries piece by piece.

Please take a moment to rate and review us on Spotify and Apple.

Book Ryan on CAMEO at: https://bit.ly/3kwz3DO
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies
ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ
PayPal: [e-mail]
All Socials and Books: https://linktr.ee/somewhereskiespod
Email: [e-mail]
SpectreVision Radio: https://www.spectrevision.com/podcasts
Opening Theme Song by Septembryo
Copyright © 2025 Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved.


Want to hear your story on Susto? Fill out the Letters From the Beyond form or visit SustoPodcast.com to be shared on the show!

Become a Patron here! Subscribe to Susto's YouTube channel!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey, a girl friends, It's me Adrian or Aiden. Either way,
I am still your host, but you are not listening
to SUSTO this week. Welcome to the twenty twenty five
Sustal Swapathon. That is right, I feel like I primed
you already for this. I gave you all the heads
up in the month of December. I am taking time
off from the production cycle of Sustal and I am

(00:47):
bringing to you shows that I think that you will
enjoy as much as I do. So I'm sorry you're
probably gonna get sick of hearing this specific introduction for
these next couple weeks throughout December, but I just wanted
to make sure to mind you all about what is
going on, so that when you hear this, you're not like,
what the hell?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Where is Aiden? Did he ghost us? You get it kidding?

Speaker 1 (01:07):
I would never do that to you. However, I would
like to introduce you to some more content and more
creators that I really think that you would enjoy. If
you do, please make sure that you go to these
shows pages, that you follow them wherever they are available.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
And yeah, I will be.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Back in twenty twenty six. I hope that you are
having a wonderful holiday season. As I mentioned before the
break started, I listen. I'm still online, so just because
there are no new Sustal episodes, believe me, y'all know
I'm chronically online, so you can find me on there.
Feel free to send me a message, send me an email.
I love hearing from you all, and continue to send
in your letters from the beyond by visiting sustalpodcast dot

(01:42):
com or my link tree so that we can have
some fun stuff to talk about come twenty twenty six,
which I can't believe that this year happened already. That's
wild to me. Anyway, we're gonna go ahead and get
into today's feature. I really hope that you enjoy it
and I will see you all in the next year.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Bye.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Hello, CISTO podcast listeners. My name is Ryan Sprague and
I'm the host of the Summer in the s Guy's podcast,
where every week we tackle the UFO subject from every angle,
whether it's through case histories, interviews, call in shows where
you tell your UFO stories, and so much more. We

(02:37):
attempt to get to the heart of this mystery, one UFO.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Sighting at a time.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
So today I want to bring you a special episode
of the Summer on This Guy's podcast where we cover
the Renders from Forest UFO incident where over sixty military
personnel witnessed a craft of unknown origin land in a
forest in England back in nineteen eighty. It's by far
one of my favorite episodes we've ever done, and I

(03:04):
really hope you enjoy it. My special thanks to see
Stow podcast for letting us drop this on their feed,
and you can find a special episode of se Stowe
Podcasts right on the Summer in the Sky's feed as well.
Super honored, super excited for you guys to give our
show a try. And if you like it, you can
subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, Spotify, Apple, you name it.

(03:29):
It's their YouTube as well. I hope you'll click subscribe,
I hope you'll click follow, and I hope you'll join
us as we continue to probe these mysteries somewhere in
the skies. RAF Woodbridge in RAF Bentwater were known as

(04:01):
the Twin Bases, separated by an area of woodland called
Rendalshum Forest. The two installations in Suffolk, Southeast England, were
perhaps the United States' most important military complexes during the
Cold War. And they held a dark secret. Even today,
it's not officially acknowledged that nuclear weapons were being stored

(04:25):
at the basis, a complete violation of the US and
UK's treaty obligations. But another secret was being held in
that forest, and almost forty years later it remains one
of the most famous UFO cases of all time. This
is the story of the incident in Rendelshrom Forest.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
While our government's official position is not to speculate on
this subject, we can choose to let our minds explore
other possibilities. The usual reminded. For if we consider the
astroscientists agree on one point that the possibility of life
elsewhere is not only quite probable in some field, that
is there without a doubt. Let us suppose then, that

(05:13):
these objects are wheeled space vehicles extraterrestrial origin.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
And not an illusion of the mind.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
I'm Ryan, spread and you are now somewhere in the skies.
It was a rather quiet and cold night in nineteen eighty.

(05:56):
It's probably not much fun to be on security duty
on Christmas night, thousands of miles from home in a
cold British military base in England. Twenty year old American
patrol sergeant John Burrows had the short straw that night
guarding RF Woodbridge's lonely East gate, which edged into the

(06:16):
dark woods of the neighboring Rendosham Forest. As the twenty
fifth turned into the twenty sixth, Burrows looked out into
the darkness and saw something strange. Colored lights appeared to
be hovering and dancing over the trees. Was this some
sort of Christmas display? Burrows had an uneasy feeling that

(06:38):
it was something unusual and drove back to the gatehouse
to inform the security controller. Security policeman Jim Penison joined
Burrows at the gate to observe the lights. In his
two years of working at the base, the twenty six
year old Peniston had never seen lights in the Rendosham
Woods before, but had witness said small aircraft crashes during

(07:02):
his career and felt that this might explain what the
men were seeing. Relating this possibility to the security tower,
at around three am, Penistin, Burrows, and fellow airman Ed
Cabanseg were given permission to venture out into the forest
to investigate.

Speaker 6 (07:19):
I then ordered Derman cabanzac a one Ce Burrows to
respond with new off site. When we arrived to the
spected crash site. They quickly became apparent that we were
not dealing with a plane crash, or, for that matter,
anything else we've ever responded to. There was a bright
light emanating from an object on the forest floor. As

(07:41):
we approached it on foot, a silhouette triangle craft about
nine feet long six and a half feet high came
into view. The craft was fully intact and sitting in
a small clearing just inside the woods. As the three
of us got closer to the craft, we started experiencing
radio difficulties. I then asked airman Combansac to relate the

(08:03):
radio transmissions back to our control center. Burls and I
proceeded towards the craft.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
The air around them, according to Peniston, seemed to be
filled with electricity. It was surging through them as they
approached the object.

Speaker 6 (08:18):
When we came up on the trangler shaped craft, there
were blue and yellow lights swirling around the exterior as
though they were part of the surface. Nothing in my
training prepared me for what I was witnessing. After ten minutes,
without any apparent aggression, I determined the craft was non
hostile to my team and to the base. Following the

(08:41):
security protocols. We completed a thorough on site investigation. This
included a full physical examination of the craft, which included
photographs and my notebook entries I had at the time,
and relays with the radio through aramic Banzac to our
control center. On one side of the craft, there were

(09:03):
symbols that measured three inches high and there approximate about
two and a half feet long. The feeling I had
during the encounter was like no type of aircraft that
I've ever seen before. It was in Jane's book of
Known Aircraft or anything I've seen since.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Peniston scrupled furiously in his notebook, drawing as best he
could the shape of the object, but found it increasingly
difficult to write, as if some strange force was weighing
him down.

Speaker 6 (09:33):
The light from the craft again to intensify Burls and
I then took a defensive position away from the craft
as it lifted off the ground without any noise or
air disturbance. It maneuvered through the trees and shut off
at an unbelievable rate of speed. It was gone in
a blink of an eye. In my law book, I

(09:54):
wrote speed Impossible. That night over eighty Air Force personnel
all trained observers assigned to the eighty first Curity Police
Squadron witness to take off.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
What on earth had the men witnessed? Whatever it was,
All three were reluctant to go back to their commanding
officers and say that they'd seen a UFO. Rumors had
long circulated around the Twin basis of lights in the sky,
but most airmen preferred to keep such reports to themselves
for fear of ridicule. On returning to the base, the

(10:32):
men relaid what Peniston described as a sanitized account of
the encounter to their commanding officer, Lieutenant Fred Beeren, and
were informed that the nearby radar base had also reported
an unusual blip on the radar earlier the previous night.
Was this the object the men had seen? Like so
much of the Rendership incident, we have official documents that

(10:55):
confirm that this incident did indeed occurs. A Britain report
dated January two, nineteen eighty one, confirms Burroughs and Peniston's sighting.
Fred Buren affirms that the men are reliable and mature
individuals and appear convinced that Peniston had indeed experienced something

(11:16):
out of the realm. Of explanation for him at the time.
By now, the strange lights over Randelsham had also been
reported to the local police. Returning the next morning, the
two officers from the Suffolk Constabulary, Burroughs and Peniston, tried
to find the location of their mysterious nocturnal encounter. Happening

(11:37):
upon what they believed was the same clearing, the men
saw three indentations in the ground, often seized by skeptics.
The subsequent police report states that these indentations were actually
nothing more than rabbit burrows. Peniston, however, is adamant that
they were not stating that the ground was frozen and

(11:58):
it was impossible for that to have happened. Peniston believes
the officers were reluctant to state what the marks really were,
as like him, they were worried that they'd be ridiculed.
Supportive of Peniston's integration was the fact that the three
indentations formed an exact equilateral triangle when measured out. Burrows

(12:20):
and Peniston's encounter in the woods might well have been
dismissed as a mistake or even just Christmas hijinks if
it wasn't for the events of the following two nights.
Although the rendals from Forrest incident is usually reported as
two nights of UFO activity, the twenty fifth through twenty
sixth and the twenty seventh through twenty eighth, there was

(12:41):
actually a lesser reported sighting the following night, twenty hours
after the Burrows and Peniston sighting. Eighteen year old basic
airman Laurie Riefeldt recalls her own series of events that night.

Speaker 7 (12:55):
So I was on control at the time, and I
had a colleague with me, airman his airman Dufffield. We
were both airman first class, which is the E three
at the time, and and we had just checked the
lock on the gate and we were just filling out
our check sheet and making sure everything and we're just
sitting there and it was about two three o'clock in
the morning, and it was just really it was a

(13:17):
it was a clear night, wasn't raining out, and we
were just kind of, you know, bored figuring out we
got about four or five more hours left, and we're
just sitting there talking and all of a sudden we
see this light approaching that it was coming from the
area the North Sea, so it's coming west to east,
and at first it looked like it looked like we

(13:41):
thought it was just regular aircraft coming in and and
and we looked over at the at the runway, waiting
good lights to go on, figuring all of the aircraft
coming in, and and then as it got closer and closer,
and now it's about maybe two hundred it wasn't really
that far. It was just this it was a bit
light and just stopped. And this guy and I were looking.

(14:03):
We noticed that the that the runway lights aren't on.
We see this light and then and then all of
a sudden, it just stops in mid air. And then
all of a sudden, it moves up down, left right,
and then it breaks into like three pieces and speeds
across the runway. And now we're stunned. We're like, what
the we you know, what was that? So we immediately

(14:24):
got on I got on the radio because we you know,
we were thinking, what is that? And we get on
the radio and and I mean we were kind of
excited about you know, police control, this is police sport,
be advised. But we couldn't see the aircraft itself, the speed,
the rate of speed that it was moving when it
when it when it went across I mean, it was

(14:44):
moving in like a regular aircraft. Then when it stopped,
and then when it did its movement, and then when
it split into three, and then when it went sped
across the runway going it was going west, you know,
it was just going out of phenomenal speed. And the
only other thing that really it caught our attention was
that it didn't make any noise. There was no sound
to it at all, and we were like, you know this,

(15:06):
we just you know, we just didn't know what it was.
And as for the size it, you know, from the
distance we were, I guess I'd say it was probably
about the size of a car or small truck or something.
It was probably about maybe two football length football field
lengths away.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
News of the UFO sightings had by now reached the base.
As Deputy Commander Colonel Charles Halt Well attending a Christmas
awards party at the base on the night after twenty seventh,
Lieutenant Bruce England rushed into the room. Untild Colonel Charles
halt We've got to talk. It's back. Halt then, a

(15:46):
forty one year old veteran of Vietnam and Korea, had
no patience for tales of UFOs, and was irritated that
his men were getting distracted from their duties with such nonsense.
Determined to find the source of the lights once in
for all, Halt led a search party into Rendoshum Forest
to look for answers.

Speaker 8 (16:07):
I took two senior patrolmen with me and disasked preparedness
expert and the reporting on duty police officer. But the
site we find three one and a half inch indentations,
triangular and pattern. We discovered mild radiation and evidence of
broken branches on the trees. We suddenly observed a very
bright red orange object. It was oval and with a

(16:30):
black center. It reminded me of an eye, and it
appeared to be winking or blinking. It maneuvered horizontally through
the trees with an occasional vertical movement. When approached, it
receded and silently broke into five white objects. We moved
out of the forest and onto a pasture and observed
several objects in the sky. Multiple objects to the north,

(16:52):
They changed shape from elliptical to rhyme. Several other objects
were seen to the south. One approached at a very
high speed and sent down a strange beam right at
our feet. It was different than an ordinary light, and
it didn't radiate. It was more like a laser beam.
Another object sent down beams a light into the weapons
storage area. The whole time, we had difficulty communicating with

(17:15):
the base, as all three radio frequencies that we were
using kept breaking up. This activity continued for about an
hour during this entire event, I was fortunate to have
with me at my small pocket recorder. It's a little
a near recorder that I carried around the base. Hues
need to take notes because I didn't like to write much,
so I recorded all the significant events that happened that night. Unfortunately,
the tape recorder is no longer functional, but I do

(17:37):
have a tape and a good copy of it. I
have no idea what we saw that night, but I
do know with great certainty it was under intelligent control.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
More on the Halt audio tape in just a little bit.
From this point on, many of those present during this
search believe a vast cover up had begun, even under
the nose of a senior officer like Colonel Charles Salt.
While Halt himself tried to find out from his men
what had happened, other agencies swooped in to interrogate the

(18:06):
men about the events of the previous three nights. Jim
Peniston recalls being repeatedly grilled about the incidents by the
Air Force's Office of Intelligence, even being administered truth drug
sodium pentanol. On one occasion. Sergeant Adrian Bestenza claims he

(18:26):
was interrogated for hours in an underground part of the
base by unnamed agents, possibly from the CIA at Cabansac,
who had accompanied Burroughs and Peniston on the first night
of activity, says he was ordered to sign a false
statement that concealed what he really saw. Wing Commander Charles Gabriel,

(18:46):
in charge of all USAF forces in Europe, made an
unprecedented impromptu visit to the bases, seizing much of Halt's evidence. Unbelievably,
Halt was then told the United States had no official
interest in this incident. Unsure of just exactly what to do,
and with jurisdiction over the matter officially shared between the

(19:10):
US and UK, Halt was told to hand the matter
over to the British Ministry of Defense. Halt's January thirteenth,
nineteen eighty one memo, entitled Unexplained Lights, summarizing the events
of the weekend was sent to the British government, but
received a similar lack of interest. For all those involved,

(19:30):
this seemed to mark the end of the matter, and
life on the base seemingly went back to normal. Outside
of a bit of gossip among thefologists, events of that
amazing weekend would probably have faded into obscurity. That was
until a sensational tap light scoop nearly three years later
blew the whole thing wide open. UFO lands in Suffolk

(19:54):
in That's official. This was the headline in the UK's
News of the World. The paper had managed to obtain
Halt's top secret memo. Soon news outlets begin to pick
up on the story, CNN being one of the first
networks to report.

Speaker 9 (20:11):
CNN began asking the Air Force for information about the
vent Water's UFO incident six months ago. Throughout the Air
Force has been slow to respond, and when it did reply,
the answer was usually quote unknown end quote, or in
some cases apparently misleading. For example, when CNN asked are
there any photographs, tape recordings, videotapes, drawings, or descriptions of

(20:32):
any kind in Air Force files, the official US Air
Force reply was quote there was no audio visual documentation done.
End quote. If it is a cover up, then the
American public may never know what those airmen saw at
Bendwaters in nineteen eighty if they were merely Keystone cops
who were hallucinating, as one critic suggests from one of
the national security implications of those same airmen guarding a

(20:54):
strategically important airbase where nuclear weapons are reportedly stored, if
they weren't hallucinating, and one of the implications of what
they actually did see. When CNN recently asked the Air
Force about the possible existence of movie film of the
bent Water's UFO, the official Air Force response was the
United States Air Force stopped investigating UFOs in nineteen sixty nine.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
Inconsistencies with witnesses is something that needs to be addressed.
Larry Warren, a former American security officer, was the first
person to come forward about what happened in the forests.
Warren had originally been anonymously leaking stories about Rendoshum to
the UFO community for years, and his remarkable account of

(21:36):
what he saw would prove to be very divisive amongst
the other witnesses. According to the then nineteen year old Warren,
it wasn't just lights or a craft that was seen,
but actual beings as well. Warren would also make some
startling claims about how men in black style agents had

(21:57):
interrogated him and messed with his mind, simply planting false
or distorted memories. Rendoshum Forest was starting to move from
a well documented encounter with a mysterious light to a
full on craft and now full scale science fiction. The
integrity of Larry Warren's testimony is still up for debate

(22:18):
until today, but it does need to be addressed in
the overall picture of the rendoschrom Forest incident. Despite inconsistencies
and controversy, this UFO incident had something most cases did not,
the words of a senior American Air Force colonel in
an official memo. The credibility of the document even led

(22:40):
to questions being asked of the then Conservative government in
the UK Parliament. Over the next few decades, competing claims
would emerge about what happened over Christmas nineteen eighty at
the Twin basis. More witnesses would emerge, often with incredible claims.
Skeptics would pounds on inconsistencies and try to find rational

(23:04):
explanations for what happened. Some have even suggested that the
whole thing was a hoax, or that the airmen had
had a bit too much Christmas cheer, or perhaps it
was simply a mistake the nearby Orfordness lighthouse bouncing its
powerful illumination amongst the trees. Regardless of the attempts to

(23:27):
debunk Rendoshow, the original witnesses, the documents, and the physical
evidence all attest to something very genuine occurring. The most
cited piece of evidence in the Rendersrom Forest case, the
Halt Memo, provides a rare direct piece of contemporary documentary
UFO evidence, signed by a senior member of the US military.

(23:51):
Some critics have questioned the dating of this memmo January thirteenth,
supposedly more than a week and a half after the
incident occurred, but this appears to be explained by the
general confusion over the jurisdiction of the incident. As such,
Colonel Holt was told by his own commanders to hand
the matter over to the British with the basis British

(24:13):
Liaison Donald Morland don leave Halt elected to wait to
act until he had discussed it with Morland, with no
further activity and no evidence of any threat, Halt no
longer regarded the incident as especially urgent. The Halt Memo
was released to the public in nineteen eighty three after
the American Citizens Against the UFO Secrecy Organization successfully launched

(24:37):
a freedom of information backed request to release the document.
Both the USAF and the Ministry of Defense have consistently
stated the activity detailed in the Halt Memo is of
no defense interests, but former UK Defense chief and Chairman
of the NATO Military Committee, Lord Hill Norton thinks differently.

Speaker 10 (25:00):
Only two conceivable explanations for what happened. Either a uphoe
landed there causing the damage and collateral business, or the
deputy commander of a United States nuclear armed air base
in Britain and several hundred of his men were hallucinating.

(25:21):
Now I put it to you, I put it to
anybody with an atom of common sense, either of those explanations,
and they are the only two possible explanations must be
of defense interest.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
In the early nineteen nineties, while head of the mod's
UFO Desk, researcher Nick Pope conducted a cold case review
into the Rendosham incident. According to Pope, the reality was
that the MOD were unable to find any credible explanation
for the incident and classified it as unexplained. Pope thinks

(25:58):
the original investigation was hobbled by confusion over jurisdiction, the
wrong day quoted in Halt's memo, delays, and some destruction
of evidence. Suspiciously, Charles A. Gabriel, the commander in chief
of the USAF in Europe, made an unscheduled trip to
Bentwater shortly after the incident. Gabriel was briefed about the

(26:22):
incident and removed a large amount of evidence, much of
which was never seen again. Nick Pope reveals that Gabriel's
intervention caused disconnection at the MOD. It directly contradicts the
official USAF line that they had no interest in the
incident and that it should be handed over to the British.

Speaker 10 (26:43):
In fact, the.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
MOD was never made aware of Gabriel's visit, what evidence
he took, and the results of any subsequent investigation. Skeptics
have long struggled to dismiss the Halt memo. Colonel Halt's
credibility is difficult question, as he had a distinguished forty
two year military career and retired in nineteen ninety one

(27:08):
with the highest peacetime award given by the Secretary of Defense.
Halt never spoke publicly about the incident until he retired.
He is therefore the most reputable senior military figure for
which we have direct contemporary documentary evidence discussing an encounter

(27:29):
in a UFO case. Halt's memo rules out the idea
that the incident may have been some kind of joke
fueled by Yule type spirit. A deputy commander of a
nuclear facility like Halt would clearly never escalate such a
hoax to the British government. While his memo cannot easily

(27:49):
be dismissed, the deputy commander is also the source of
arguably an even more convincing piece of evidence in the
form of an eighteen month minute audio tape of a
real live UFO encounter. Halt's eighteen minute tape of the
party's seven hour expedition in the woods is unique amongst

(28:11):
all UFO cases, and that it contains Halt and several
other military personnel's live reactions to UFO phenomena occurring around them.
The officers featured on the tape are Halt, Sergeant Monroe,
Neville's Sergeant Robert Ball, Sergeant Adrian Pastinta, and Lieutenant Bruce England.

(28:31):
The men could be heard inspecting the original landing site
Burrows and Peniston found two nights earlier, and as they
survey the area, things start to get interesting.

Speaker 11 (28:42):
Yeah, one of these trees that in the blacks, but
we assume as the landing site all ab an abrasion
facing in the same direction towards the seventh circle. Say
it back down here, pickure that time of the collection.

Speaker 5 (29:02):
Let me see that.

Speaker 11 (29:03):
Well, I wanna see the funny that's that's you're wording
about the oprasion and all I never see it's uh,
they never see a point? Is the damnage? React that
I have a bottle to put that in. Yeah, if
you gotta say it a bottle his head or the
tell itself. Uh yeah, here a Cititi size drap tall
I don't like, about four feet off the ground, about

(29:24):
a hundred ten degrees getting lean of about four clicks. Yes, Uh,
I mean it. Uh, it's the that's there. I think
it's something on in the ground. I think it's something
that's something valuable. Tree right on plays about the first light,
but we've seen or about a hundred and fifty two
hundred yards from a fight. Everything else is just.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Breactly calm, there's no doubt about it.

Speaker 11 (29:45):
There's some type of strange flash and red light. It
has the h I saw y'all attending it too weird
it it appears that you make a move little.

Speaker 12 (29:53):
Bit this way.

Speaker 4 (29:54):
Yes, it's light and has that they'll it's.

Speaker 5 (29:56):
Coming his way.

Speaker 11 (29:57):
It's definitely coming his way a bus. This is weird.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
Hey, guys, Ryan spread here from somewhere in the Skies.
The podcast has always been and always will be completely
free for you to listen to, but creating it every
week takes a lot of time, research and resources, and
to be honest, it's just never been free for me
to create. That's why we've built a few simple ways
for you to help support the show and keep it

(30:30):
going strong. You can join us over on Patreon or
through Apple Premium. Both offer the same awesome perks, add
free episodes, early access to new content, exclusive bonus shows,
and even priority to ask our guests your listener questions.
It's a quick and easy way to support what we

(30:50):
do for just a few bucks a month, and right
now you can even try Patreon for free for a
week to see if it's right for you. To learn
more and a joy, head over to patreon dot com
slash somewhere skies. That's patreon dot com slash somewhere skies,
or hit that subscribe button right at the top of

(31:11):
your Apple podcast feed. Thank you so much for listening,
for supporting, and as always, keep looking up. As mentioned before,
one popular suggestion from skeptics to debunk what is captured
on this tape is that the men were observing light

(31:33):
from the nearby Orfordness Lighthouse. Vince Thurkettle, the local forester
who's familiar with this site, explained his theories on both
the lights that the officers had witnessed and the physical
trace marks believed to have been left behind from the craft.

Speaker 13 (31:50):
Twenty odd years of playing in woods taught me what
to see, and this site was ordinary. It was just
ordinary and natural. Nothing strung unusual had happened there. Sure enough,
the landing site had some sticks marking three of these
which were roughly in a triangle, but as a forester

(32:11):
to me, there were nothing more than rabbit scrapes. They
certainly weren't the feet marks of some craft having landed.
Every single shred of physical evidence I'd seen could be
explained away naturally. Just off to the side is where
the allage landing happened, So the American patrol would have
come through here somewhere and out to the edge of

(32:31):
the forest, which is out on our right, from where
you look out over the fields, over the few houses,
and out towards the lighthouse. I've been jogging down this
track at night, and the first time I saw the lighthouse,
I really thought it was poachers with a lamp in
the forest. So I knew that to people who weren't
ready for it, the lighthouse really appeared to be a

(32:52):
pulsing light within the forest. That I knew that from earlier.
And I think the fact that the lighthouse can only
be seen from very certain parts of the forest, and
one of them is exactly where the or the alleged
landing happened.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
While Thurkettle's theory should obviously be considered, there are some
serious issues with his theories. The most obvious is that
the lighthouse pre dates the then thirty eight year old
military bases. Yet none of the thousands of men and
women who had served at the base during the time
had ever mistaken the lighthouse for a UFO before. Indeed,

(33:29):
since these were US Air Force bases with military aircraft
coming in and out multiple times a day, it seems
somewhat unlikely that trained airmen would make such an obvious mistake. Furthermore,
the beam from the orpheredness is deliberately dimmed when shining
inland by a blocking plate fitted around the lens. A

(33:50):
lighthouse's beam also fails to match the actual nature of
the observations made. Colonel Charlesholt himself also dismissed the lighthouse theory,
stating that quote A lighthouse doesn't move through the forests.
A lighthouse doesn't go up and down. It doesn't explode,
doesn't change shape, size, doesn't send down beams of light

(34:11):
from the sky end quote. Some of the military witnesses,
such as Jim Pettison and Fred Buren, had already stated
they had heard over the radios that radar stations had
trapped an uncorrelated target or a bogie on the radar.
In her book You Can't Tell the People, author Georgina

(34:33):
Bruney fond former radar operators who claimed that a strange
object had been tracked in Rendoshum on the night of
the first sightings. More recently, two USAF air traffic controllers
at bent Waters have come forward with similar accounts. In
an interview with author and UFO researcher Robert Hastings, James H.

(34:55):
Carey and Ivan R. Barker gave their own testimony for
the very first time, having seen the objects on radar
and then with their own eyes.

Speaker 12 (35:06):
I was just sitting there and I happened to see
a dot come on the scope and it just went
like one dot at beginning to another dot, another dot,
and it was gone. So the scope is one hundred
and twenty miles across. It was just phenomenal me to
see it go that fast all of a sudden hear
it come back across again. It went one, two, and
then it made the immediate right hand turn and came

(35:28):
right towards the base. You know, I just said, that
can't be one of ours. No jet at that speed
can make an immedia right hand turn. Just absolutely phenomenal.

Speaker 14 (35:37):
It's not like any radar target I've ever seen. When
they sweep would hit the target, you would have the
entire back of it would be like a solid line
traveling in the extremely high rated speed. It passed over
the control tower and then it stopped. I've never seen

(35:57):
anything in my life like maneuverability that happened with this object.
Was an orangeish color. Sort of popped into my mind
at the time that somebody's flying a basketball out here.
There were lights around the center of it, but it
wasn't like running lights or navigational lights.

Speaker 15 (36:18):
It was more like portholes.

Speaker 14 (36:20):
And then you were seeing the light from the inside
coming out. It wasn't, you know, flashing lights or anything.
But it over momentarily reversed its horse and went back
out at a high ratus.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
B The MOTS released UFO files do demonstrate that they
sought to corroborate the radar readings, but were hampered by
the fact that records had been destroyed and some of
the cameras used to record the radar ratings were conveniently
not working during the days in question. Well, there are
countless witnesses with highly credible backgrounds that witnessed the events

(36:57):
in Rendo from forest. They're simply will always be those
who want to attribute prosaic answers to what happened. And
besides the lighthouse theories, there are a few other explanations
that should at least be brought up. It's notable that
the period of the twenty fifth and twenty sixth of
December coincided with a confluence of unusual atmospheric phenomena. Shortly

(37:22):
before the first cluster of sightings at Rendelschem, a Russian
cosmo's seven forty nine satellite burnt up over western Europe
and was widely reported as a UFO by multiple civilians.
Another rare event, the burning up of a meteor in
the atmosphere, occurred in the early hours of the twenty
sixth of December. This meteor produced an unusually bright fireball

(37:47):
and was visible throughout southeast England. There are pros and
cons to these alternative possibilities. It's certainly a striking coincidence
that the period of the observed UFIL activity corresponded in
time and location with at least three viable sources of
false positives meteor satellites and of course the lighthouse. These

(38:12):
clearly cannot be overlooked and must surely account for at
least some of the lights people claimed to have seen
during that Christmas weekend. If these mistaken sightings could be
eliminated from the list of observed UFOs at Rendoshum, then
the incident might start to look a little less impressive. However,
the rocket and the meteor are both short lived events

(38:34):
and don't adequately explain the nature of most of the observations,
nor the fact that they were spread out over several
hours over three separate nights. Likewise, the lighthouse cannot account
for the majority of the sightings as it simply was
not visible in the locations. So besides these alternative explanations,

(38:55):
I want to focus again on two of the primary
witnesses meant earlier who seemed to be keeping this case
alive with developing stories. Those witnesses are Jim Peniston and
John Burrows. Jim Peniston now says he spent forty five
minutes examining the craft he observed in the first night,

(39:17):
noting symbols on the body of the craft. He also
says he touched the skin of the craft and received
a telepathic message in binary code.

Speaker 6 (39:28):
Oh, it's absolutely was telepathic. It wasn't like I could
see it in front of me like visually it was.
It was like it was a pictorial that was running
a movie in my in my brain, you know it
was it wasn't. It was a mind's eye kind of thing. Yeah,
it wasn't. I couldn't physically actually see something all and
uh it was flashings of zeros and ones. And later

(39:50):
we find out some type of binary code, which I, uh,
be honest with you, I have trouble with algebra or
I'm not a math person by no means on computer.
And in nineteen eighty I don't think we even had
computers that we used, so it was foreign. I did
record the the glyphs at the scene, but when I

(40:11):
went home in the following day, I know I can't
get these images. I mean, they're just like, they're ones
and zero zero, They're all in my head. So I
felt compelled through round now. So I grabbed my notebook,
flipped it open, and then I did the most crazy thing.
I thought, no world, I wrote these ones in Cerio's
all the way down. It's like twelve fourteen pages of them.

(40:34):
And anyway, at a certain point when I got done,
I had no more imaging. Now I'm not at the craft,
I'm at home. I go back to Ipswich and this
is what this is happening. And then once I'd done it,
though the imaging was gone, so I thought, great, now
can I tell somebody that that I went? It was

(40:54):
imaging in my living room, went home in Ipswich, and
I had to rhyme down. I'm okay now I did
not tell anybody that happened.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
Since coming forward with these theories, Jim Peniston had this
binary code deciphered and it apparently picked up the message
quote exploration of humanity continuous for planetary advancement end quote.
There are also some coordinate points in the binary code
to high Brazil, the location of a legendary advanced and

(41:26):
highly moral ethical Earth civilization, now the location of a
submerged island west of Ireland. This and several other coordinates
were found as well. This will be explored in an
upcoming book by Jim Peniston called The Rendoschump Enigma. Jim
Pedison's claims are intriguing, but many do question its veracity.

(41:50):
In fact, there is no mention of this binary code
in his original witness statements, nor is there anything remotely
resembling this version of events in his radio communications with
his commanders at the base. John Burrows also does not
remember Peniston making any notes during the entire period they
observed the object, but there are missing gaps in time

(42:11):
between the two witnesses when the event occurred. So I
guess for now we'll just have to take Jim's word
for it. The next string of events is much more
grounded in official documentation and just pure fact. It involves
John Burrows, the officer who accompanied Peniston that night, but
it also involves a legal battle, the help of a

(42:34):
sixth term American Senator, and perhaps an entirely new outlook
on the render t from Forrest Instinct and what it
may have been. But let's get back to John for
just a moment, because he was one of the officers
that got closest to the craft, and as the years
went on, he became more and more sick from what
he believed was due to the event that night in

(42:56):
the forest. In twenty eleven, John Burrows begins to offer
during periodic life threatening atrio fibrillation, also known as aphib
a quivering or irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood cloths, stroke,
heart failure, and other heart related complications. He filed for
Veterans Administration medical benefits, but was denied when the VA

(43:20):
staff said there was no record of his serving at
RIF bent Waters and Woodbridge. John sought legal help in Jackson, Mississippi,
and hired attorney Pat Frescogna. John's VIA case then went
to the office of Arizona's U S Senator John McCain. Eventually,

(43:40):
the VA admitted knowledge of John's service at RAF bent Waters,
but found those medical records were classified. By twenty thirteen,
needing open heart surgery to repair seriously damaged valves, John
was angry and frustrated at not being able to get
VIA medical disability coverage, which it was at this point

(44:02):
when he learned of a former top secret UK restricted
project called Project condemn It had been quietly declassified in
two thousand and six, and it contained information that directly
linked exposure to radiation to possible unexplained lights in the sky. Here,

(44:22):
former UFO Desk official Nick Pope describes Project Condegn for
US and its relevancy to this case.

Speaker 15 (44:29):
Project Condeyne was an intelligent study into the UFO phenomenon
carried out by the Defense Intelligence staff in the Ministry
of Defense. Project Condyne was an attempt to do a
proper intelligence assessment of the UFO phenomenon. The Condoine Report,

(44:52):
the final report is arguably one of the most important
UFO documents of all time, and it ran to over
four hundred and sixty eight pages. I think at the
time it's classification was secret UK highs. Only a proper
intelligence assessment attempted to draw together all the data that

(45:16):
we had and really answer the more important strategic question,
what is all this you know? Never mind the case
by case analysis. Put it all together.

Speaker 14 (45:29):
What have we got?

Speaker 15 (45:30):
What are we dealing with? Bear in mind this was
a British intelligence study, highly classified at the time it
was written. It was never conceived that it was going
to be released, and essentially it says, yeah, the witnesses
that encountered the UFO in Rahndlesham Forest were probably irradiated

(45:52):
by it. Once John and Jim's attorney put that document
to the VA and said, hey, wait a minute, you've
denied the US government has denied that this ever took place.
You might want to read this British intelligence assessment.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
Finally, under pressure from Senator John McCain's office, the VA
arranged John's urgent open heart surgery. From mid December twenty thirteen,
he began to recover to more normal health, but without
VA medical benefits or his RAF Bentwaters medical records, and
he didn't believe that to be right, that officers were

(46:30):
not being treated for what presumably happened during this and
several other close encounters with the UFOs and their physical
effects on officers here, John Burrows states, such at the
citizens hearing on disclosure to former Senators in twenty thirteen
at the National Press Club.

Speaker 16 (46:49):
The first night, there were three of us one out there.
The second night you had the shift commander and the
on duty flight chief. On the third night, Connel Halt
took a team out there, and there was also other
personnel in the woods, and different people saw different things.
So that's one of the reasons why we would come forward,
besides our health issues, is I feel it's necessary that

(47:11):
anyone that was even out in that area should have
the opportunity to be checked out medically and be told
what they were exposed to, especially something that's over thirty
years old. What the heck was going on out there
that would draw this much attention from the agencies involved
to this day, what would still be classified and if

(47:31):
it is, what did we have or what we were dealing
with that would still remain silent today. Almost every weapon
we've ever developed back in that time frame has been
exposed that we're aware of, and yet today this is
still classified and we can't even receive medical treatment for it.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
By January twenty thirty, twenty fourteen, John Begon filing freedom
of information requests with the mod and by the spring
and fall of twenty fourteen, the UK Ministry of the
Events finally admitted it withheld at least eighteen classified UFO files.
Upon this happened, John Burrows finally got the news he

(48:10):
wanted all along.

Speaker 17 (48:12):
The United States Government has for the first time ever
acknowledged by the fact of the law suspected reality of
the UFO phenomenon. John Burrow's encountered a craft of unknown
origin in England's Rendolsom Forest in December nineteen eighty and
suffered injury there, fall for which the Veterans Administration is

(48:35):
now recognized by brand EM'SALM full medical disavelopment.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
Since John Burrows and Jim Penison have come forward, many
other witnesses have followed.

Speaker 4 (48:45):
Seat.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
In twenty sixteen, Steve Loungero, who served as a police
sergeant for the USAF stated that he was guarding the
weapons storage area during the event in the highly sophisticated
A line systems had been triggered by something over the base.
He would describe very similar accounts as Charles Holt, presumably

(49:08):
witnessing the same craft at the same time at completely
different vantage points. It is no easy task to cover
this entire event, the detailed testimony of those involved, and
then trying to come out on the other side with answers.
Despite controversy, debates, half truths, lies and documented proof, the

(49:33):
hard evidence from the time remains unengaged. Whatever stories are
told and whatever information continues to develop, Something very real
happened in the woods at Randoshum Forests that, as the
MO defiles themselves now conclude, remains unexplained. This episode was

(50:00):
co written and directly inspired by the Unredacted dot com
Audio clips were provided by countless YouTube channels under the
Fair Use Agreement. Selected audio provided by Jeremy Peasley, the
National Archives, the Disclosure Project, the Citizens Hearing, Exopolitics Germany,
the BBC and CNN special assignments. This episode was produced

(50:24):
by me Ryan Sprague, with special thanks to Peter Robbins,
Nick Pope Jim Peniston, John Burrows, and the many men
and women who served under the US Air Force before, during,
and after the Rendellscharm incident. Remember, keep your feet on
the ground, but never stop searching. Somewhere in the Scots.

(51:26):
Somewhere in the Skies is part of the Somewhere podcast Universe.
Please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on
Apple Podcasts and Spotify. To learn more about all of
our shows, visit the SPU dot com.