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March 12, 2023 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
01:25:43
Edition 709 - Rendlesham Exclusive!
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Across the UK, across continental North America, and around the world on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes, and this is The Unexplained.
Hope everything is okay with you.
Further north than where I live, they are gripped by snow, including one of the people I'm about to speak with, Gary Heseltine.
You will know Gary, of course, because I've spoken with him many times on TV, radio, and on the podcast.
Former police detective, vice president of ICER ISA, the international UFO extraterrestrial organization, and of course editor of UFO Truth magazine.
He's been affected by the snow, so his internet is down, and we're doing this on 4G.
We've tested it.
The results are pretty good.
So we're up for a conversation here about his new book, Non-Human, a totally new take on the events at Rendlesham Forest at the end of 1980.
Twin air bases in Suffolk, remember?
One American, one British, and events possibly of an extraterrestrial and highly bizarre nature that happened there that seem to have been covered up for decades.
There's a forward to this book, Non-Human, by Don Schmidt, of course, who is very, very well-known legendary in the Roswell panoply of material.
So, you know, this is a good book that is just out, and I think this may be the first interview about it that Gary has done.
I like the book.
It has the methodical touch of a police officer.
You know, my dad was a copper, so I know these things to it.
And, you know, I would recommend it.
People's views of the events at Rendlesham Forest, of course, vary.
And there have been over the years a number of controversies, people believing one thing, people believing another, people believing one person, people not believing another.
I'm not going to any of those things.
This is the account.
This is the new information that Gary has got.
And that's what we'll talk about.
And at the end of this, in the second part of this, I'll be speaking with somebody who actually says that he served, and Gary has his service records, at the American base just before those events.
But something that happened to him, I think will be new to you.
I know will be new to you.
And I think is highly significant.
He was there right up to January 1980, and he went back in 1984 and spoke to some of the people, as far as he could, who were involved in those events in 1980.
So I think James Stewart, his recollections are pretty valid here.
And this will be something new.
There's a lot of new material that you're going to hear in the next very nearly hour and a half or so on this extended version of the Unexplained Edition 709.
I think that's all I have to say.
Thank you very much to long-suffering Adam for publishing my podcasts and, you know, making sure the website cranks over like a well-oiled Swiss watch, if Swiss watches are oiled.
Thank you, Adam.
Thank you to you very much indeed for all of your communications.
The latest word on the television show is that it won't be coming back to television in the future that I can foresee.
But in the near term, as far as I can see, it will remain on the radio.
That is all that I know for right now.
So I'm going to be watching the situation as closely as you have been.
And thank you for all of your support.
You know, I don't think I'd have got through any of it, certainly the last few months, without all of the support that you've given me.
So it means a lot to me.
And do know that all of the comments that you make on the official Facebook page of The Unexplained with Howard Hughes, the ones that you send me by email through the website, theunexplained.tv, I get to see them all.
Don't forget, if you can, to help this independent 17 years of work to continue, if you can make a donation to it through the website, theunexplained.tv, please do.
And if you have already, thank you so much.
Okay.
I think that is everything.
When you get in touch with me, tell me who you are, where you are, and how you use the show.
You know the form.
Let's get now to Yorkshire, Snowbound, and Gary Hesseltine is with us.
Gary, thank you for doing this show.
You're welcome.
You're speaking to me at the moment, and we know that by the time people hear this, bearing in mind this is the UK, Gary.
It's going to change.
But you're snowbound at the moment.
Yes, I'm in a suburb of Barnsley called Mapplewell, and it's about four inches of snow, and it's beautiful to look at.
Just nice, clear skies now, so it's beginning to melt a bit.
Holy button and you lost your internet for a while, which is why we're doing this on Girls.
Oh, G, still down.
Gee, where's that?
It's just wet and miserable where I am at the moment.
But let's see.
Another week from now, people will be talking about something else.
The book that you've written, Non-Human, why that title?
Because that's based on the conclusion.
And the conclusion basically said that after a five-year reinvestigation of the entire Reynolds and Forrest case, which I believe is probably the most complicated UFO case in history because there's so many moving parts and different people, different nights involved, the title comes from the conclusion, which was 17 different incidents over a three, possibly a four-day consecutive period in late December 1980.
And all of the objects that were seen were generally seen at close proximity.
They did not resemble any kind of man-made terrestrial object.
You're talking about, it ranges from red glowing spheres, the size of a basketball, to larger white spheres, the side of a car, to triangles, a black triangle on the ground that's glass-like,
three meters by three meters, to several accounts now of entities being corroborated by two military witnesses who describe another landing where entities are seen.
So it's a whole gamut of things, but none of which can be explained in what I would call a terrestrial normal explanation.
So when you rule out everything, you're left with, you're probably dealing with something that is very strange.
Whether it's extraterrestrial, I don't know.
I say this in the conclusion.
But we're dealing with 17 incidents sustained both on the forest, on the bases that were encountered by many military personnel, US Air Force military personnel, and there's just no terrestrial explanation that can explain it.
So, having been in this subject for a long time and believing that a small proportion of UFO sightings are probably extraterrestrial, that struck me as being the right way to describe the conclusion.
Non-human.
We're dealing with some kind of intelligence that we're not quite sure what it is.
Probably extraterrestrial, but it might be interdimensional.
Who knows?
That's what the quantum physicists are saying to us these days.
They are.
You're used to me saying strange things to you, Gary.
You've known me long enough.
So here's something that comes out of Leftfield.
On the way home last night, I witnessed an accident.
I saw a car knock a cyclist off a bike.
It was pretty clear-cut.
There were about four people around, and we all went to help and see that the cyclist was okay, which thankfully she was.
But there are four witnesses to that incident, should they be required.
And we know, because you were in the police and my dad was in the police, we know that people give different accounts.
Do you think that is the reason people's varying recollections, that there are so many different stories connected with the events at Rendlesham Forest and around it?
Yes and no.
As a former detective for a long time, you've got to realize that let's just go back to your incident.
Four people have seen an incident and what they may describe will be slightly different.
Their perceptions of the event will be slightly different.
But what is central to that, which doesn't change, is that there was some kind of an incident with a bike and a cyclist.
And that's the difference.
They may describe the person, the car that hit the cyclist as being red, green, blue.
And it may be totally different to that because it's based on their recollection.
But the broad story is a car was in collision with someone and somebody came off the bike.
So that doesn't change.
And this is where the skeptics in the UFO debate really try to say, oh, well, witness descriptions are so varied and perceptions are so, you can't rely on anybody.
Well, that's not true.
It's a misnomer.
The general story is correct.
If you've seen somebody running out of a house carrying a TV, then people are going to say, well, yeah, the description of the person may vary, but broadly, the incident was somebody carrying something from a house.
So that will be the central theme.
That doesn't change.
So this is, for me, a misnomer.
And going back to Rendlesham Forest, I actually don't think, because people aren't police officers, they're just lay people, and they're not used to breaking down incidents bit by bit, especially in a chronological way, say, for example, for court, that people don't look at things the way I would look at them as a detective.
And so I think that with Rendlesham, with so many different accounts over so many different nights, very few people have a real handle on really what occurred.
And I think what I tried to do with the book is to step away, put my former detective's head on and say, look, I'm going to re-evaluate from day one after the incident and look at the best evidence.
Because when you go to court, you don't go to court with your worst evidence.
You go to the court with your best evidence.
So you weed out all the stuff that's irrelevant or just not needed and you go with your best prosecution case.
And that's what effectively I've done.
I've gone back to day one and stripped it bare and said, let's see what is the meat and bones of this case.
And I've gone back to old historical transcripts of little known interviews that I didn't even know.
And I thought I knew the case well.
But I found a lot of older material that I thought was evidential that the public should read about.
But they don't ever get reported in documentaries or discussions on the radio or anything.
So what I did was just basically a kind of forensic reinvestigation of the most pertinent points that I thought the public would want to know.
And in the process of doing my own personal research, which I've been doing into the case since December 2007, I've gone back to people, I've re-interviewed military witnesses.
And because of my training as a former advanced interviewer of suspects and witnesses, I was able to adapt some of the techniques I'd been taught and elicit more information that they'd given before.
So a combination of old material that I think is pertinent, that threw up some really interesting things, which we'll maybe talk about, and then interviewing maybe 15 or 20 military people over the time, some new, entirely new, but many re-interviewed through my eyes as an advanced interviewer.
And it elicited a lot of new stuff.
And I don't think, and certainly if you see the reviews that I'm getting, they're very much saying that it's a forensic breakdown and there's little or no sentiment in it at all because it's just done on a purely evidential basis.
And that's the way that I wanted it to be.
I wanted it to, in a sense, be a UFO book seen through the eyes as a detective and the evidence interpreted in such a way.
And so far, the feedback I'm getting from well-known researchers and even a chief inspector came back to me yesterday and read the book and he said this is a brilliant forensic re-examination of a case.
And he agreed literally with the approach that I'd taken and praised what I'd deduced.
So that was a real nice thing for me, unexpected.
You talked about a five-year investigation.
Is that partly connected with the work that you did and were involved in with the Capel Green documentary, which is due out later this year?
I know we're talking about the book, but that was connected.
Yeah, I mean, my personal research, obviously I was aware of it because I had an interest in the subject from the age of 16 when I had my own childhood sighting.
But literally, I did not go Public in the UFO world until I launched the police database for British police officers to report UFO stuff, and that was in January 2001.
In 2007, I went public saying, Look, I've got a big interest in Reynolds and Forest, not least because I'd served six years in the Royal Air Force Police, and for three of my six years, I'd been involved in guarding tactical nuclear weapons storage areas.
And effectively, the people involved at Bentwaters and Woodbridge, RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge, were engaged in doing exactly the same job, protecting a weapon storage area at RAF Bentwaters, which was held tactical nuclear weapons.
And so I kind of had a unique insight into the numbers of people who would be involved in that security, which were broadly the same as what it were for the RAF, approximately 40 people per shift, 24-7, 365 days of the year, because you get added nuclear weapons.
It's serious business.
And I had a bit of an insight.
And so I went public with my research into Rendlesham in December 2007, which was coincidentally when I first met Lieutenant Colonel Holt, then Colonel Holt, retired.
And it was part of a UFO Hunters TV program with Bill Burns, who's an American guy who's got a magazine over there.
And so that's how I got involved.
I'd been doing bits of private research after that.
But then when I was approached in September of 2017 to get involved in this proposed documentary, I thought, well, if I'm going to put my name to it as a researcher, it best be totally accurate.
So I thought, well, you know, why not?
I'll go back and start reinvestigating everything.
And it was a surprise to find some of the stuff that I did.
But I thought, if I'm going to do it, I best give it at 100%.
You know, you can't do it half-hearted.
So I wanted to do as good a job as I could do.
And that's what I did.
So indirectly, the documentary prompted me to do that reinvestigation.
But it was also a lot of my own private research.
And what happened during the research phase was that I would see something or read something and then make inquiries.
I would interview the person and then I'd then, so like do my own research, my own audio, sometimes video.
And then I would say to the director, this might be a good person for you to interview.
And then they would arrange to get the person filmed.
So I never used any of their stuff.
It was all based on my own private research from the interviews that I'd done.
So yeah, the documentary was a catalyst for me embarking on the five-year re-investigation.
Okay, the book is out now.
We have to say that as far as I'm aware, the documentary is likely to be out later this year.
Colonel Holt is pivotal in all of this.
He was the deputy base commander.
He's been much in the media.
He's spoken to a lot of people, including me.
You say in the book, Colonel Holt has confirmed in several TV documentaries and to me personally that something extreme happened to Lieutenant Laurie Tamplin that was so distressing that she had to be relieved from duty.
I thought that was pretty significant.
It is a significant, and if you want me to tell you about what happened to Bonnie Tamplin, in a sense, from your perspective on the radio, this is unique because it's never been told in the UK or around the world.
It's unique.
And that's because we only knew prior to two, three years ago, we only knew a bit of the story.
And it turns out we only knew a bit of the story that was actually wrong.
It all stems from this incident that we would now say is night two.
We're talking about three confirmed consecutive days, the 25th into the 26th of December.
That's the first night.
That would be the Holt Penniston, the Penniston Boroughs landing, initial landing.
That's night one.
Night three is considered the night when Lieutenant Colonel Holt went out with his team.
But now over time, and we're talking 42 years down the line, we've now established that there was almost certainly a second consecutive night.
And this was very much, pretty much unknown.
What we did know from a number of military personnel is that they'd heard her going over the radio, Lieutenant Bonnie Tamplin, seemingly terrified of something had spooked her.
What was her job?
Gary?
She was the shift commander.
She was a lieutenant.
Very well thought of.
And she was one of the shift in charge of the shift, basically.
And she was very popular by all accounts.
And what happened was that after the first night, which we think of as the landing where Jim Pennerson sees his triangular craft on the ground and he's with John Burroughs, I think to a certain extent the base was put on an alert of some kind.
And various people were stationed at various places around the twin bases as like extra security guards.
And these were generally US Air Force security police.
And one of them was actually at the East Gate, the famous East Gate for people that know about the case, which was the rear perimeter gate of REF Woodbridge.
And at the gate, which was a locked gate, perimeter gate, shall we say, there was what was called a guard shack.
And it's basically just a little sentry post.
And for inclement weather, it's just a little box, like a telephone box, in a sense, that shape.
And you go inside and you're protected from the cold and the rain, etc.
And it would usually have a telephone box, a telephone.
And inside there, you could contact central security control.
So on this second night, there is a person there called Laurie Bowen, who was a female officer.
She was at the gate and she saw what she described as a red glowing Ball of flame descending from the sky into Rendlesham Forest, which was approximately 300 meters away from the gate.
So she saw this ball of flame, red flame, drop into the forest.
So she used the telephone, contacted Central Security Control, and told them what she'd seen.
Now, because it, well, as it happened, Lieutenant Bonnie Tamplin was on a mobile patrol driving from RAF Bentwaters to Arif Woodbridge, and it's separated by Rendlesham Forest.
If you think about it in that sense, you've got the back gate at REF Bentwaters, which was called the Butley Gate, and then you've got Rendlesham Forest, public roads, and then you eventually get to RAF Woodbridge and by the back gate.
Well, it turns out that she's on her way back to Woodbridge when Laurie Bowen reports this incident.
So she, I think, must have said, well, I'm on the mobile patrol.
I can go there quickly and I'll investigate.
Little realizing what she was going to come across.
Well, in terms of the story, what we knew prior to the book and the recent research is, well, all we know is that something happened to her and she was heard screaming over the radio.
Laurie Bowen, who was at the Eastgate with others, heard her coming over the radio, help, help, help.
And she seemed terrified.
And then we later, it was acknowledged by Holt and others that she'd been taken off shift, something that traumatised her so much.
But here's now the story.
And the story resolves around a sergeant in the US Air Force Police called Michael Stacey Smith.
And he'd actually had a UFO sighting earlier in the year in 1980.
And he's listed in the book as one of three what we call precursor cases.
These were important UFO events in the run-up to the late December events.
Well, it also turns out that Michael Stacey Smith, by a chance remark to me, alluded that he knew more about Bonnie Tamplin.
And when I interviewed him privately, he then told me this story.
And I've no reason to doubt Michael Stacey Smith, you know, very honourable person, and incidentally, is suffering some ill health that he believes is associated with the close proximity of an object he saw.
So there are health issues associated with people and UFOs, especially in Reynolds Forest.
And he's not the only one, is he?
No, no, Adrian Bostenza, Larry Warren, Jim Penniston, John Burroughs.
So that's at least five who've reported medical ailments from close proximity.
So Michael Stacey Smith is suddenly, he's at REF Bentwaters and suddenly he's told to go to the back gate of R.E.F.
Bentwaters, Bentwaters, which is called the Butler Gate.
Open up Butley Gate.
So off he goes and then he suddenly sees several vehicles, police, US Air Force police vehicles, moving in a convoy, apparently in a hurry.
And they come to the gate.
He opens the gate and he's kind of like, what's going on?
And he doesn't know what's going on, but he's just been told, get to the gate, open up the gate and let these vehicles out.
So off these vehicles, I'm not quite sure how many, but several, two or three, I would think, go out from Arif Butler Gate, from the Butler Gate towards Woodbridge on the public roads.
Well, he's there.
He doesn't know quite what's happening, but there's a sense of panic or whatever.
And then a few minutes later, not absolutely certain how long, but probably 10 or 15 minutes at least after they'd gone, suddenly a military vehicle turns up and it's been driven by Sergeant Robert Ball, popularly called Bobby Ball.
And in the passenger seat was a very distraught, a disheveled, shaken, from his point of view, direct witness saying that he saw Lieutenant Bonnie tampling without her hat, a beret, looking really disheveled as if she'd been kind of roughed up, very emotional, you know, and in a bad state.
And in she comes and he's thinking, well, I wonder what's going on there.
But she's not in her vehicle.
It's another vehicle.
Bobby Baller gone out after her call, distressed call, and must have reached her first.
Then probably a few minutes later, it turns out that another military vehicle comes back to his position at the Butler Gate.
And this time, it turns out that it's the vehicle that Lieutenant Bonnie Tamplin was driving.
And yet this vehicle had sustained considerable roof damage as if it had been rolled, as if you'd gone off the road, rolled in a ditch and crumpled part of the upper part of the vehicle.
And it was still drivable, obviously, but it had sustained damage.
In that comes, and he's thinking, what's going on?
As you would.
Then, once the gate is closed and he's told you can go back to the control, he has a word with the sergeant that he knew.
And the sergeant said, if I tell you what happened to her, you must promise me you will never, ever release my name.
And because he liked the sergeant and he respected him, he said, yeah, I promise I will never do that.
I'll now divulge your name.
So he told him the story.
So this is where we go into the hearsay part of the account.
So we've got the direct witness testimony of seeing Bonnie Tamplin coming back looking disheveled and terrified and her confirmation direct testimony, visual testimony that he saw the vehicles had sustained damage and that was the vehicle she'd been driving.
So that's the first hand testimony.
And then we go into the hearsay account of the sergeant.
But there's no reason to doubt what Michael Stacey Smith is telling me or what he was told by the sergeant.
And the story goes that when she's driving on the public road from our area of Bentwaters, bear in mind this is a UK public road.
It's not a military road.
It's not on the bases.
It's on a rural country road between the two bases.
A UFO, a sphere, believed to be a red coloured sphere, pulls alongside of her vehicle at hedgerow height, Which I think for most people we would be pretty alarmed by that, and it stayed alongside her, like running parallel with the vehicle.
And then, because she was so scared, as you would be, she lost control of the vehicle and ended up running off the road into a ditch, rolling the vehicle.
Now, here's the kind of incredible part is that when the vehicle comes to a stop, she's rolled the vehicle in a ditch on a public road.
She climbs out and the UFO, the red sphere, is hovering close by.
It's stopped.
So, there's an intelligent control aspect there.
He's been following her.
She's run off the road, come to a stop.
And then basically, she is confronted by this red object.
And she's then so distraught that she picks up her M16 and then starts discharging several rounds at it.
She shoots at it.
And why wouldn't you?
Probably anybody would have done the same thing.
And that's really the story that was told from the sergeant to Michael Stacey Smith.
And that's an incredible thing.
Literally, a UFO has run this poor lieutenant off the road.
And there it is.
It's still looking at her.
She shot several rounds towards it, and then it's gone off.
Now, what we also know is that the sergeant told Michael Stacey Smith that they'd replaced the rounds that had been fired.
And the implication of this is part of the cover-up because nobody's heard of this until now.
When you talk about replace, you mean replace in the ammo store.
Correct.
Now, and again, this comes back to my unique insight, is that when I was in the REF and guarding nuclear weapons, like if I was on the nuclear weapons storage area, which in the REF it's called a supplementary storage area,
an SSA, not a WSA, it's called an SSA, you would sign out 60 bullets for simple layman's terms, 60 rounds, and they would be in three blocks of 20.
So if you can imagine you've got a drilled hole in a piece of wood and the bullet just sits there.
So when you get it from the armourer, they give you a tray of 20 bullets stood up.
So then you take them out, put them in the magazines and load up.
And so you got three of these at REF Hollington and RAF Larbrook in what was then West Germany when I was in the Air Force.
So you signed out a number of bullets and you were expected to sound back the exact number at the end of your shift.
Well, of course, she'd discharge several rounds.
And for anybody that's been in the military, they will attest to the fact that if you fire off your weapon without authorization or accidentally, which is called a negligent discharge, that can land you in very serious hot water because obviously there is a potential for something to go wrong and somebody to get killed or seriously injured.
So the fact that she'd fired several rounds meant that when she would have come to hand in her bullets at the end of the shift, she wouldn't have had it.
She'd have been two or three, four rounds, however many she shot.
But they were replaced.
And this is all part of the subtle deception, which was we're going to cover up this incident.
I mean, you think about it.
Nobody until now on this show has heard of this.
And now this is 42 years on.
So what a headline that is.
You know, UFO runs a lieutenant off the road and she fires at it.
I mean, and it's all covered up.
And I don't care what anybody says.
The base commander would have found out about this and the deputy base commander would have found about exactly what happened.
So I'm pretty certain that just because of my knowledge of the Air Force, that everybody who was senior would have had to known what had happened to her.
And I don't think anybody has really come clean about this at all until now, until basically and accidentally, Michael Stacey Smith saying something.
And through interviewing, this came out.
But what a story.
And it was all covered up.
So that's one aspect and one part of the book.
She's got a chapter on her own.
Now, in my inquiries, I have tried over the years, probably for the last 10 years, I've made some inroads into tracing some of her family.
And I won't divulge any more than that.
Suffice to say that they never reply.
And I can't blame Bonnie Tamplin for doing that because anybody looking in from afar, you know, it's a big and complicated.
And we don't know whether the emails went into spam, whether those addresses still exist.
So we've got to make that point in the interests of fairness.
Absolutely.
And so in essence, I know what country she lives in, or I believe I know what country she lives in.
But I'm not going to say any more than that.
Suffice to say that I wonder that if she ever becomes aware of this book and the fact that other people have now started to come forward who are less well known, that it may encourage her at some point, hopefully, to approach me and say, maybe it's a cathartic experience to tell me.
But if she doesn't, she doesn't.
And I respect her for that.
But it's an extraordinary account.
I have no reason whatsoever to believe that Michael Stacey Smith is lying to me.
And he talks about it in a deadly serious tone.
And I have no reason to disbelieve.
And I can totally understand why it would be covered up because this is a huge story.
And it will be interesting to see if the press are interested because I have an ongoing thing about the press, not you, because you've always been a supporter of this subject and of my work.
and I thank you for that, but the general what I would say, the mainstream press, they they're not going to But it'll be interesting to see whether they do become headline stories because they should.
Well, it will, Gary.
I think they will be reported in due course.
I think the difficulty about it is whether it's going to be reported as something that is a buy-the-by story.
In other words, a story that you'll find buried in the paper somewhere at some point, sometime.
And then just, you know, this was referred to in so-and-so.
And there are loads of stories in newspapers that refer back to books that are already published.
And they say, this is what you'll read.
But do you not think that that kind of story that I've related to you should make the six o'clock news?
I do.
And of course, if you're doing it on mainstream news, if you're doing it anywhere, in my opinion, you have to balance these things and they would have to refer to the fact that there were people who claimed that the lights on those nights were generated by a local lighthouse, which has since been by a lot of people technically and in every other way refuted that it couldn't have been the lighthouse.
I mean, the lighthouse wouldn't have caused that story.
If that story is 100 percent bona fide, it could not have caused that, I don't think.
Well, absolutely.
Well, the lighthouse story, if you read my book, is absolutely shot to bits, because when you actually break down many of the incidents, they're moving away from the lighthouse.
And the lighthouse did not shine like a torchlight beam, like a sweeping beam that you see of a sweeping lighthouse.
It was blocked off.
And that was proved in the UFO Hunters program that I was in in 2007.
They actually spoke to the lighthouse keeper and he said, no, yes, it will flash every five seconds, just a quick bright flash.
But there was no sweeping inward beam in towards land because there was a metallic barrier blocking that off.
But this is the battle that you have with the media because they still want to talk about something that was ludicrous from the beginning.
None of the witnesses ever said it was a lighthouse and of.
from day one holtz never said it was a lighthouse pennyson's never said it was a lighthouse etc but this was something that i think is part of an endemic play this incident down because it had the potential with so many people and so many events to become a national headline story and i think that the government uh and the u.m military etc and with the upper echelons of certain media at the very highest level a
decision was taken to downplay it because they don't want to report on the fact that these all these incidents were going on at what was britain's uh highest tactical um strike base in in in in the event of soviet aggression yeah and i think people are more sophisticated now and they can read through an awful lot of stuff but you can understand that in those days it was easier to control information and that's now look one of the things that i've talked with you about and many researchers on this.
A lot is
is the the operation that happened around the events okay so we talk about the u.s the raf uh we talk about maybe security services but we mostly don't talk about suffolk police and you do and you say one of the officers who attended on the second occasion visited the alleged landing site and later publicly stated that the marks he saw were of no determinate pattern and could have been made by animals unofficially the story goes that when the police officer was questioned about the ground
depressions he made it clear to captain mike verano and sergeant ray gullias that there was quotes no way he was going to put into his official police notebook that the depressions in the ground may have been made by a ufo um i mean that's probably been around before but it's interesting it is interesting and i've been a former raf policeman and a former police officer then i entirely would think that that's a logical thing why the police officer said that because i know that with my work
with the uk police officers since 2001 that the the two reasons why people don't come forward are fear of ridicule and a perceived risk to their career well if you're the the the ridicule element is very powerful uh and and maybe you'll understand this because your father was a police officer is that you uh when you're in the police you have a certain credibility amongst your colleagues or you'd like to think you have a certain credibility
and nobody would want to see their career blighted by being labeled a ufo nut or whatever and and it's a very powerful uh kind of a um reason why people naturally would be reluctant to to write that down i mean but this is also ties up with what something that uh chuck de caro now chuck de caro was the american investigative journalist who made what is arguably still the best uh documentary ever
made about rendlishman it was it was released over three consecutive nights in uh 1985 and that was cnn it was a three-part special 20 minutes each time and uh basically he reinvestigated the case in late 84 uh and got a lot of the military witnesses to go out on camera uh in shadow they wouldn't give you know they wouldn't be seen uh as they
normally are they were kept in shadow to protect their identity but they confirmed that they were involved in various incidents but we didn't really know too much at that time but there was about five or six that were listed in the documentary and chuck de caro said that at one point during his research for that program he was he had spoken to a suffolk police officer who'd said you know i knew what happened there and apparently at first he was more than willing to go on camera and
he actually talks about this uh and you can see in documentation uh and eventually he when it was all set up that the chuck de caro was going to meet this suffolk police officer who was never identified that at the last minute the police officer got spooked and for whatever reason and refused to do it so we kind of it hints that suffolk police knew more and i i i read in between the lines uh my gut feeling is that there are some police officers who knew a
lot more more and it'd be nice if they come forward now because they'll be in retirement you know we're talking a long time ago so before they die yeah if they're here then it'll be easier for a lot of them to speak and you've only got to think about what Alan Godfrey went through at Todmodon which is not that far away from where you live in 1980 And you can understand it's a difficult thing to come forward and talk about these things.
You know, my dad was very aware of the culture, and that's what the culture was like.
Okay.
Is there anything else in the book that you need to draw my attention to that maybe hasn't been discussed as widely as it might?
There's actually a lot of things, just little things that are actually enormous.
When I re-interviewed Sergeant Adrian Bastinza, now I think that Sergeant Adrian Bastinza, who is arguably the most important witness in the whole, in my opinion, the whole most important witness in the whole of the Ari Reynolds Forest incident.
And the reason why I say that is because I regard him as a linking person.
And what I mean by that is that he was involved in several events, which I can describe.
But the first event that he was involved in was on the Holt night.
And he basically would say that he was a part of Holt's team and they saw these objects whizzing around and the beam coming down to the feet, etc.
However, Adrian Bostinza would also talk about another incident, another landing, which he now has confirmed to me in a four and a half hour transatlantic call.
He said to me, I was involved in another incident.
And basically, what he's saying is that there was a second landing and that the base commander had been there and it was all being filmed and there were lots of other security people around and that he was corroborating this very controversial witness whose testimony stood alone for a long time, Larry Warren.
Well, Adrian Bastenza said no, Larry Warren was there.
But what he told me in this interview that I did with him is that he said, this was another night that I was with Larry Warren.
His second night.
So this was entirely new.
Nobody knew this until I did this four and a half hour call.
And he basically said, this is another night.
And yes, Larry Warren was in front of me and approached the craft literally 10 feet away.
And I was 10 feet away back from him.
So that was very interesting.
Well, interesting and interesting for me because I met and spoke at the Radio City Tower in Liverpool with Larry Warren because he lives in Liverpool.
I think he still lives in Liverpool.
Yeah, he still lives in Liverpool.
Well, you know that there are different views of all of these things and there's a lot of controversy and I certainly don't want to open up any of that.
Well there isn't now.
Adrian Barston.
All right.
But I would.
Because of Adrian Bostinza, okay.
Yeah, and not just because of Adrian Bastinza.
So this debate that had run foul of recently was based on hearsay and manipulation of the facts.
I'm not interested in that.
I'm only interested in what I would call evidence.
And you know that I don't want to get involved in any of that rough and tumble.
But I just had to refer to that.
I met Larry.
Adrian Bastinza tells you, just to quote from your book, quote, I think today my memory is sharper.
Maybe my memories are not, but the truth is certain things I can't remember.
I don't know why I can't remember.
I'm going to say there is a handful.
Why can't I remember who exactly were the guys with me when we got the light balls?
Why can't I remember who the guys were beside me in the forest?
How come I can't remember getting back to the barracks?
Well, I mean, those are questions for him, and they must have interested you.
Yeah, they did, because actually three people talk about that.
John Burroughs couldn't remember how he got back to the dorm after his incident or how he got off shift.
Adrian Bostinza said that and Larry Warren said that, that they couldn't remember.
They gave accounts, but at various times they've said they can't remember.
And with Adrian Bostinza, he remembers the incidents absolutely crystal clear because they're kind of like ingrained into his memory.
But when I think he was given very hard interrogation, and if you read in the book, there is a very palpable section where he talks about when he was interrogated for several hours and his life was threatened by actually members of the U.S. Air Force, the officers of special investigation and perhaps other agencies, but they were trying to say, no, you saw a lighthouse and he was saying it wasn't a lighthouse.
And they're saying bullets are cheap and things like that.
And they put the fear of God on him.
And his family were being surveilled in the United States.
His father worked for the military.
His father was getting pressure at work.
And their house in America was being watched.
And there were lots of things.
And he basically was so disgusted.
He wanted to get out of the Air Force at that point because he was a proud U.S. Air Force military guy and went on to have a 30-year policing career.
And in fact, he's still working in correctional facilities with prisoners, still in the legal system in the United States, because I've stayed in contact with him.
But he is such a nice guy, a genuine guy, 30-plus years of policing experience, absolutely as straight as they come, as your dad would probably know, people like that.
And I have absolutely no doubt he's telling the truth.
And he would say that he was kind of like really terrified by this ongoing investigation taken underground to a facility and given a hard time.
And when you read that in the book, I think it's one of the most powerful sections of the book.
It's palpable because I let him just do free recall.
I'm not interrupting him.
And there's a big long section in there where when you read it back, in a sense, like an actor, when you're proof in the book, you think, Jesus, that is powerful.
And if you're interrogating people like that, the question is, why would you do that?
If everything that happened there was perfectly explicable and it was just an unusual event, but there was a perfect explanation to it, why would you need to do that?
Correct.
And that is the whole point is that not just him, at least four or five others were given.
Jim Pennyson says he was interrogated for many times, many different agencies, he believed, but certainly the Office of Special Investigation, which was like the plainclothes CID in terms of policing terms, they were the main people that were responsible.
He was given an injection, sodium pentothal, and he was basically told, no, it's a lighthouse, that kind of thing.
The truth.
Yeah, yeah, truth serum.
And Ed Kabanzak, who was with Jim Penniston on that first night, he was the driver who drove him out into the forest.
He will say that he was given a hard time.
And he was told, you sign this, sign this.
And he says, that's not my statement.
I've given a statement.
No, sign this.
And it's saying the statement that he's been asked to sign is, this is the lighthouse that you saw.
And he's saying it in the lighthouse.
So they were given a hard time.
Larry Warren and Adrian Bastinza were given hard times.
And Holt has confirmed that he feels kind of ashamed that several of the people involved were given a hard time using dubious methods, I think he said.
I mean, you know, there's debriefing and there's debriefing, isn't there?
We know that.
Okay.
Now, I think we have to say that if people want to know more of the detail, then I think it's worth their time and their money to read the book.
So, you know, let me say that rather than you say that.
So I've said it for you.
You introduced me to somebody around this who adds a little color to this story because we've been hearing recently, in recent years anyway, that there were more events at this location.
Events before and events after those dates in 1980.
So you introduced me to James Stewart.
And to conclude this, we're going to hear a 35 or so minute conversation that I recorded with James Stewart.
And thank you for introducing me to him.
I found him very interesting.
I mean, I take his word that he actually served at the airbase.
He doesn't.
That's all his records, yeah.
Right.
There you go.
And he talks to me about his records in the conversation.
And I have no reason whatsoever, having talked to him, to doubt what he tells me.
And he tells me, and, you know, we won't spoil it for people by telling them what's going to be in what they're about to hear, but he tells me that there was an event in 1979.
He left the base at the beginning of 1980.
So he wasn't part of what happened in 1980.
But we did think originally in the book, I just need to emphasize this, that this change of date is literally only a week old.
And you were the first person to know because he told me, he said, I've been checking my service records and it wasn't 1980 because originally he thought it was a part of the late December 1980 events.
And as the story goes, you'll understand why he thought of that because how many events are there like this?
But he then said to me, I've checked my service records.
I was shipped out on the 6th of January 1980.
So my incident occurred in late December 1979, which takes him out of the 1980 event, but throws up this whole new conundrum of this incredible event, which we won't spoil, or I won't spoil now for you, that takes place in late December 1979.
So it throws up a whole new event that I'm going to have to delve into.
A whole new event.
I'll hand back to you now.
Very professionally done, Gary.
But also the great thing about him, and let's not spoil it for people, was that it wasn't just 1979.
Apparently he went back there in 1984 and spoke to some of the people, tried to, and tried to are the words that I'm using here, tried to speak to some of the people who went through what happened in 1980.
And what you hear about that, I think, is excellent.
So it's not part of the 1980 events.
Is it important to the whole story?
I think it's going to become so.
Congratulations on the book, Gary.
I think it's great.
Give people the title so they know.
It's called Non-Human, and the subtitle is The Reynolds from Forest UFO Incidents.
And I've added an extra S to incidents because we're talking about 17 breakdown different incidents over three possibly four consecutive days, 42 years of denial.
And it's 42 years of denial because I believe that the authorities and the media have played this incident down and you should be told the truth.
So if you really want to find out a lot of my new shy and a lot of interesting new information, please read the book.
I'm going to hand you over now.
That's you, Gary, and my listener, to James Stewart.
And this is a conversation that I recorded with him a couple of days ago about what he says he went through at the airbase, the twin air bases, in 1979 and what he also experienced in 1984.
I think you're going to be interested.
Gary, thank you.
You're welcome.
As we both know, many people served at Bent Waters and it's Twin Base Wood Bridge, commonly known in UFO parlance as Rendlesham Forest because that forest is nearby.
Talk to me about your service.
Yes, sir.
I enlisted in 1977.
I went to tech school at Shepherd Air Force Base to become a crew chief.
Then I had orders to be stationed at R.F. Bentwaters, which was my first assignment.
And what did you do?
I'm the actual crew chief that maintains the aircraft, far as repairs that has to be done on it, any maintenance replacement, far as, you know, aircraft parts, anything from brakes to landing gear, flight controls, and to be able to maintain it and keep it fiable to be able to make this flight each day.
Now, as you will know, a lot of people over the years have talked about this.
This was during the Cold War at its height pretty much in the 1970s when you started.
Yes, sir.
Were they keeping, storing, and ready to deploy the most crucial and serious of weapons there?
Yes, sir.
During that time frame when I was there, they did.
They were storing it, yes, sir.
Right.
And how did you feel about being tip of the spear?
Well, you know, I took the oath to serve my country, and I felt honored to be in that position, to serve, and to be in the front lines if I needed to be, to do what I needed to do.
What was it like being an American serving at a base in the United Kingdom?
How did that feel?
What was it like?
It was definitely a new experience for me.
I'm sort of an old-fashioned guy.
I was raised on a farm, you know, and when I got to the UK, it was very unique to me.
The people were wonderful.
The culture was just amazing.
The output of how people felt about what they call the Yanks, which I had a hard time understanding that back then, what they meant by Yanks, because I was just a Southern boy.
I wasn't considered a Yank.
But anyway, that being said, as I had worked there and lived off base, I really got to know the community and the people, and they were just wonderful.
I mean, they taught me a lot.
I learned a lot.
I met a lot of the guys that served in World War II for the British Army and the British Air Force, and they taught me a lot of stuff, and I really do appreciate those times that I was able to learn.
Was there anything strange about that location that you were aware of?
Well, I thought it was unique.
One thing that I was told when I got there before they started building the Tavis was that it was a B-17 crash base during World War II.
They wouldn't land the aircraft that was shot up during flight.
They would land them at Woodbridge.
And I was told by a lot of the guys that were there that a lot of the planes that they had in the Baryon there where a lot of the Tavis are built now.
But it was just a unique place, and I loved it because of the area it was located.
It sort of took me back home a little bit, and I just loved it.
You know, if I could have served my whole career there, I would have done it.
When you heard, if you did, that there were newspaper reports and a lot of flap and fuss over here about a so-called UFO encounter, to put it in its mildest form, in 1980, the year that you left.
You left in the January.
All of this happened 11 months or more later.
But when you heard about that, assuming that you did, what did you think?
Well, I know that the incident that happened to me was in 79.
And then when I left in January, I didn't have an opportunity to learn much more.
But when I returned back in 84, there were some of the guys that were still there that I served with at that time that were there that we had a chance to talk, but never made a real concern on their part.
You know, I felt like that there was a lot of things that were being, that were, that did happen that they were not saying, and I pretty much just let it go with that.
Isn't that interesting?
What happened to you in 1979?
Well, in 79, you know, we were phasing out the F-4s.
All the F-4s that were left that we had at Bentwaters were sent to Woodbridge.
We had that particular time that I was working in December, getting ready to get, you know, get the last three out.
We had three left.
And the other guys that were with me at the AMU, or at the Tech Fighter Squadron, had been transferred over to Woodbridge to go to school.
So we only had a skeleton crew.
Okay.
So they, when I had went in and worked that night, you know, I, my master started, master started all day.
He was Mark and saw, he was a six foot three guy, flat top.
I mean, he was nothing but country all the way through.
And, uh, he had told me that some, you know, don't, don't be concerned with yourself, but what goes on at night.
And I thought that's what I knew for him telling me that he said, just go do the job, get it done.
So I didn't get these aircraft out of here.
Cause I had to be out of there, but you know, before, before January rode around.
So, you know, that being said, when he told me that that's when I had, uh, went in that night and I love working the night shift because before three or four o'clock up morning, you got such a full moon at night.
It's just beautiful out working out, you know, out on the flight line at night.
But, uh, that's, that's when, when he mentioned that to me, I wouldn't expect anything.
And then when I went out there to do my job, that's when I started seeing what I had seen and sort of just blew me away.
But, uh, you know, I was just going by what I was told cause I was only airman and I trusted my supervisor and I knew he had my back.
So you were kind of prepared for odd things to happen there by what that guy said to you, you know, to pay no mind to what happens here at night.
So what is it?
And this is a full year before the events of that, uh, following Christmas, the following December, what is it that unfolded in front of you?
Well, on that particular night, it was on the, it was boxing day, uh, on 26, 27.
We had a last, we have one of the last F4s go out there, just got through phase dock.
And the phase dock is where they completely break the aircraft down.
They replace, uh, landing gear, hydraulic systems, actuators, flight controls, whatever.
And, and, uh, you know, install new parts that do flight control rigs and things like that and put new engines in and new canopies and stuff like that.
So the F4 was sitting out of the trim pad, which is on the East gate side.
And it's, it's not very far.
I'm probably 30, maybe 40 yards from the, the East gate itself.
And, uh, so when I gave, uh, when I came in that night, I came in around, uh, I think it was 2300 hours, about 11 o'clock at night.
And the, uh, expediter, which drives the van, transports us around the flight line to get us to our location.
They're taking me down to the end of the trim pad to get this aircraft.
Engine doors had to be installed back because the aircraft can't be told unless the engine doors are up and secured to be moved back to the parking space.
So when I went out there, you know, I got, I got out of truck, got unloaded, got underneath the, uh, the, you know, the aircraft.
And, and I think it was around 12, 12 to 1230.
Uh, when I was trying to install the doors that I noticed a, uh, an, an, an object, uh, three, 400 yards, about 200 feet up.
And it was descending and it caught my eye because of the lights was rotating counterclockwise.
Uh, which we don't have aircraft that does that.
It has that, uh, type of lighting system.
So I had looked at it and, uh, it was definitely unfamiliar to me because I never seen anything like it before.
The only person out there at that time that I can remember was the security officer at the gate.
Uh, there's nothing that goes on back and forth on that gate anyway.
It's just, it's pretty much bare.
And I was the only one out there.
And, and, uh, so as they, this particular object was descending, I was paying attention to it probably about 40 yards from my location because the, you know, the perimeter fence around Wirbridge at that time, you had what I, I think I would call them lily pads.
I don't, you know, I don't think they're lily pads, but your small brush, it comes up to your knee.
Okay.
So from the gate, from the fence out to the edge of the forest, it's like 50 yards.
So it's wide open.
And at, and at that particular morning or that particular night, when the moon's out full, you can just about see everything.
Okay.
It's, it's real clear out there.
So I, you know, I watched it for about 15, 20 minutes and I went back to work, not thinking anything about it, you know, because of what my supervisor told me.
Did you not think the base might be under attack?
No, because if it was under attack, I'm sure I'd have known, you know, because they wouldn't have sent me out there on the end of the, end of the, uh, the trim pad out there by myself, you know, and I wasn't armed.
Uh, we wasn't allowed to carry arms back then.
Uh, if the base was under attack, are getting to be attacked, then there would have been alarm.
It went off.
And, uh, my expediter would, wouldn't hesitate to come back and get me, you know, a lot quicker than what he did.
Right now, after what had been said to you about pay no mind to what happens here at night, did you just think to yourself, well, maybe it's something the guys are doing.
Maybe it's secret.
Maybe I shouldn't be knowing about this.
I need to be getting on with my job.
Correct.
That's exactly what I was thinking.
Yes.
Yes.
What happened?
Well, when the, when the aircraft, when I watched it 15, 20 minutes, uh, as it was gradually descending, I just went back underneath the aircraft to get the doors installed.
So when we get the thing pulled back to the, to the pad, at that point, uh, I went back to work on it.
And then as I'm sitting there trying to tack up the door, they call it tack, tack up the doors, the spacer installed upon the, the door, the chapter installs, or it doesn't, uh, rack it, you know, to make it to where it wouldn't install back.
There was always something, uh, a shutter movement on top of aircraft.
And they're thinking of what indicator could be up there at this time of morning, you know, and not thinking anything of it.
So, you know, curiosity.
So when I come out of the aircraft, the, uh, the ladder was already extended out.
It was already up on the aircraft.
So I started to walk up the canopy.
And at this time, there's no pneumatic air system on the canopy.
So you'd have to manually unlock it to raise the canopy.
So I didn't do that.
So I just went ahead and started walking up the, the ladder.
And then when I did, I noticed the aircraft shuttered again.
I said, man, this is just, it's weird.
Okay.
I had a little bit of things going through my mind, but staying focused on my job.
But before I went up there, uh, one thing I did meant, did not mention was I heard a screeching noise, like somebody trying to scratch glass.
That's what really drawed my attention after the, after the first incident, when something jumped on the backbone, it shuttered the aircraft.
Then I heard a screeching noise.
So that's, and then I went ahead and climbed up it.
So when I did something jumped off, like I just said, and as I climbed up towards, I looked at canopy and it actually had, it was from the front of the canopy to the back, a complete scratch.
Yeah.
It was three scratch marks all the way from the front of canopy, all the way back.
And these are brand new canopies, brand new canopies.
And as I look back, there was dew on the backbone.
I could see impressions where something was on the backbone of the aircraft, but it, it went to the vertical tail and then it, it jumped off, whatever it was at the vertical tail.
Now, whether it went through the fence or over the fence, I don't know.
But as I'm, as I'm there, I'm looking out over, over the, the perimeter fence out towards the, the field area and the forest out there, I started seeing the, the, the, you know, the bushes move.
And, uh, the, whatever was on the backbone had jumped out and went towards, see if it was North, so if I'm the face in the gate, East, it'd be going back West towards the guard shack.
So when it went out West towards the guard shack, that's when I, when I heard the fire, uh, the officer, the, the, the security police that was there had fired off his weapon.
So what, what is it as far as you're aware that had been on the aircraft and that caused those scour marks in the canopy and also, you know, caused a problem with the, the spine of the aircraft.
What, what, what had been there?
What had you seen?
Well, you know, I didn't climb up there before I got there because the aircraft had not been worked on since that afternoon.
So we're talking probably six hours, seven hours later.
So there was nothing on the aircraft, but the, the, the dude was settling down.
Uh, you know, it was misty that night, that more, uh, yeah, that night.
And, uh, the impressions, I couldn't tell what the impressions were because it was sort of smeared, you know, but the, the claw marks is what really got to me for the fact that, uh, whatever it was, was, I would assume that this is just my speculation.
was trying to either touch or get into the canopy.
I don't know.
I don't know.
That's my speculation.
Of course, that that's, that's about like me drinking coffee, you know, but the thing is, when I looked down the backbone, I didn't see any damage to the backbone at all, uh, down to the backbone of the fuselage at all.
It was just so unusual.
And for something to jump from the backbone, Oh, either over the fence or through it.
I mean, you're talking eight foot up.
Okay.
that's, you know, from the ground to about to the backbone is about eight foot, maybe nine foot.
So that's, that's a good size height, you know, for somebody to jump and not get hurt.
But anyway, that's, that being said, that's, that's what surprised me what it was or what it might've been.
But what really, really got me was the fact that when the, the security police said, had fired a couple of rapid rounds and then, uh, and then started talking about, you know, what is it?
What is it?
What is it?
Get away.
I think I said a little bit different in the book, but something similar to that.
And then he fired two more rounds.
Well, then I got down and got underneath the aircraft because I didn't, you know, I don't want to get shot.
I didn't know what was going on.
But then after he did that, after that happened, the object that, that, that was on top of the aircraft went towards the guard shack, went back towards the forest in one direction.
And another object just on the other side event went straight back towards there.
Whatever was parked down and landed down on the side of the forest line.
So I don't know what it was.
You're describing it as an object though.
Yeah.
I'm saying the object, it had to be something to move.
So I'm saying, uh, it could, it's unexplainable.
Was it human?
I doubt it was human.
Was it flesh?
I don't know if it was flesh.
You know, I don't say, I say an object for the simple fact of way.
And it was moving things, moving the leaves and running.
I mean, you could actually hear the bushes as they're breaking, as they're running, you know, running through it like a deer.
When you're, when you jump a deer and it running through the forest, you can hear it as it's breaking limbs.
That's what I'm kind of thinking.
I'm thinking, I mean, we have reports in this country of big cats.
Okay.
I think you probably have heard those reports.
Many countries have those reports.
And you know, those are animals that we're not supposed to have here, but we certainly do.
And we have had for a very long time.
Did you suspect something like that?
Or had you already leapt in your mind to it being something completely unexplainable?
I left in my mind, it was completely something unexplainable.
I did.
And these security people there at the gate had fired shots off at it.
Mm-hmm.
I'm thinking that, well, now, now I can't say that whether he fired the shots or not.
I mean, well, he did fire the shots, but whether he was shooting at that, I don't know.
But was it usual for shots to be fired in the nighttime?
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Not at that time.
So there was something to be shooting at or around, wasn't there?
Yes, yes, yes.
Okay, what did you do about that?
Did you report that to somebody?
Was some, was deputy base commander, holt serving then when you were there did you report it to him no sir uh deputy commander holt didn't get there to after i left uh colonel williams was had gotten uh he was in charge of command he got there in 79.
So there was no report.
There was nothing that I know of.
I mean, this just happened with an amount of minutes.
And what's so funny about it, and the reason why I say this, okay, is because after the shots were fired, the expediter was on the other end of the taxiway, down at the old section where we used to park the aircraft.
He heard it.
So he came back, which I forgot to tell Gary this, but that was the reason why he responded so quick back to me.
And when you say, let's just clarify this for our listener, when you say expediter, what is that?
The expediter is the one that drives the van.
He keeps documentation of all the aircraft.
He picks us up with our tools and our equipment, and he delivers us to the location.
So this is a kind of logistics person.
Right.
It's like a logistics person.
But, see, I didn't have a radio.
I did not have a radio on me.
Okay.
He was on the other end checking out the other aircraft that we had to get ready that had to be launched out to.
So that's when he came.
I wasn't even expecting him.
But that's when he came up and stopped where I was at, and he asked me what was going on.
And I told him, so that's when he climbed up the ladder, seen the canopy, and told me, I started to get your tools back in the truck so I can take you down at the other end to pick up the tow truck.
Now, usually when we tow the aircraft, we usually got the driver and two wing walkers.
We didn't have any two extra guys.
It was just me.
So I went down and he took me down at the other end.
I picked it up.
And he says, when you pick the aircraft, when you hook up the aircraft, you take it to the phase dot where it comes from, and I'll be there and we'll back it in.
And that's what we did.
And that was in a matter of minutes.
So, you know, he had to hear that to be there so quickly when he did.
So this is a catalog of weirdness, isn't it?
This is stuff that I'm presuming from everything you said hadn't happened before there.
You'd seen these lights.
They were rotating in a way that no military aircraft has lights that rotate in that way.
Then something had caused some damage to the actual aircraft, including scour marks on the canopy.
And those things are designed to because they've got to go up thousands and thousands of feet into the air.
They're tough.
Something had scoured that.
And then shots may have been fired at something exiting after that damage was done.
Have I got that right?
Yes, sir.
Did anything else happen that night?
After the expediter came to pick me up, when he took me back to the other end of the flight line to pick up the tow truck, and I came back down to pick it up, the light was already gone.
Whatever was out that landed in the forest was already gone because I didn't see the lights anymore after that.
Did you make a report?
Did anybody make a report about this?
No, sir.
I had told my master started about it all day, and he said, no, no report.
Don't even worry about it.
He says, I'll take care of everything.
I'll take care of everything.
Okay.
Yeah.
And, you know, I know that my father was in the military before he was in the police.
You do your duty.
And if somebody says, don't worry about that, you know, forget about it, I'll deal with it, then that's what you do.
And that's what you did.
Yes, sir.
is is that i mean i'm saying is that all that's that's quite A lot.
Is that all until you left the base and then returned in 84?
Yes, sir.
After I talked to my sergeant about it, he told me, he says, forget it.
It never happened.
I'm going to get you out of here quickly.
It was not my time to leave.
I still had two more years to serve over there.
You were not due to go.
You should have been going in 81, not the beginning of the year.
Exactly.
So what did you think about it all?
Well, the thing is that over the years, you know, we're talking over 40 years.
I never forgot this.
I might have forgotten some of the dates and maybe the time and the hour, you know, but it had really, it had bothered me, you know, but not to a point to where it had consumed me to change my lifestyle.
But I knew that being over there during the Cold War, you know, one of, you know, a lot of us did a lot.
And the guys I served with, my master sergeant was from Vietnam.
A lot of the guys I served were prior Vietnam vets.
And they had told me some things that they had experienced that they never would have thought in Vietnam.
Okay, so when I, when, when this incident happened, I was thinking about what they had told me and I just let it go.
But it was really hard to over the years.
And even today, I've even, I might have disclosed it maybe to a couple of people, you know, this prior military.
But you did your duty.
You did your duty.
But I did my duty.
Yes, sir.
I did my duty.
And, you know, when I got back in 84, that's when I had heard the fact that some of the folks were taken.
And that's one thing my sergeant told me.
Yes, people experience something unusual.
They're taken by government facility or whatever, you know what I'm saying?
I think it's something to do with the military because my supervisor told me, he said, I'm going to get you out of here because I don't want you to go through what these guys are going to go through.
All right.
So people who'd been experiencing those things were taken away to be, what, debriefed or kept away from everybody else?
Yes, sir.
So you're back there in 1984.
Did you know in the years between 1980 when you left at the beginning of 80 and you went back stateside, had you heard about the events of, you know, so-called events of Rendlesham Forest then?
Or did you only hear about it when you went back in 1984?
There was a British newspaper editor that when I was back over here, I had, there was something he sent.
I can't remember where I found it, but I had made contact with him on my email, one of my old emails.
And I spent a few years back.
And when I had written him just certain little bits of an event that happened, he was trying to contact me back.
And then all of a sudden, I was no longer able to make contact with him anymore.
Do you know what newspaper that was?
No, sir.
I know that from what I understand, he was one of the British newspaper editors that was in Washington, D.C. at the time.
That I do know because that's where he told me he was at.
Did you find him or did he find you?
No, actually, I found him because to be honest with you, I kept reviewing, you know, different papers and stuff like that to figure out, you know, what else has come out in the Renaissance Forest.
And then I heard bits and pieces about it on, you know, on Unsolved Mystery was the one that really caught my eye when I heard Unsolved Mystery on TV.
Then that's when I started looking a little bit more into it.
And then that's when I found that he was actually trying to get information concerning, you know, the incidents at Reynolds and Forest.
Yes.
So whatever had happened to you late 79 bugged you.
Yes, concerned you.
Okay.
Yes.
Now, you're there in 1984 and you served with people who were there at the end of 1980 when these nights of weirdness occurred, it appears.
Yes.
What sorts of stuff did they tell you, James?
Well, there was two of the guys that I served with that were the Vietnam vets that I had, that they had trained with when I first got there.
It was still there getting ready to leave.
And I know we were drinking coffee one day there at the, you know, at Woody, and I didn't recognize the base when I went back over because it changed so much.
But they were telling me about the additional incident that happened in December 80, you know, where Colonel Horton all was involved in it.
And they pretty much told me that the fact is they heard bad things.
They heard things that had happened to individuals.
They didn't stay where the names were.
And one of them actually told me, you know, you left, you left at a good time when you did.
And that was it.
That was all that was ever said after that.
They told you bad things happened.
Yeah.
And what I mean by that is the guys, you know, because he was there when all this stuff was going on and they heard about what happened to the individuals that got involved into that, the forest and security police officers and stuff like that at the base.
And, you know, because some of these guys had contacts back at Bentwaters.
Woody did not have a lot to do with Bent Waters.
We were just actually separate from them back there and with Air Force there.
And just to remind my listener here that Bent Waters was the, there were two halves to this, basically.
You were Bentwaters, which was an RAF base that was handed over during the Cold War to the American Air Force.
And next door to it, they were twin bases, was an RAF base.
But you didn't have a lot to do with the RAF, you said?
No, we didn't have a lot to do with Bentwaters because, see, Bentwaters had their own Special teams and inspections and stuff to be done.
Yeah, sorry, I think I said that you were at Bentwater.
You were at Woodbridge.
Sorry.
I was at Woodbridge, yes.
I was at Woodbridge.
And a lot of the teams will come over from Bentwaters over to Woodbridge to do certain inspections on aircraft and stuff like that.
And my supervisor did not like Bentwaters at all because he felt like that when they come over, start doing inspections, they start tearing things up.
They find this and find that.
And, you know, it's just a lot of work to keep those old aircraft going.
So the popularity between Woodbridge and Bentwaters at the time was Woodbridge was stating, just leave us alone, let us do our job.
And that's what we did.
And, you know, to be honest with you, we only had 24 aircraft.
And there's a lot of times that our sorties were rate higher than Bentwater's because of the way we maintained our aircraft and the way they flew back then.
Okay, so there was a bit of kind of friendly rivalry there.
Yes, sir.
The guys that you spoke with, because you had a lot of time there to talk to people, you weren't always on duty.
The guys that you spoke to in 84, who were there in 1980, can you sum up what they told you about things that happened?
I know you said that some people, you know, were bad things happened to them.
They were sort of interrogated and stuff like that about what happened.
I'm assuming that's what you were telling me.
Yes, sir.
But what were the events?
Can you sum up what were the events they told you about?
Well, the time that that had happened, you know, a lot of them work day shift hours.
They go on at six and they get off at four.
So what they were telling me, they were just hearing things that other people were saying that had worked that night and things that they had passed on to them.
And they knew that themselves that they didn't want to hear too much of what they needed to hear because they were pretty much afraid of being interrogated too, you know, like in a legal system.
Yeah.
I understand.
So they were scared of engaging with it in case it had any consequences for them, I guess is one way to put it.
So did they believe that something alien had landed there and somehow interacted with or made its presence known for the people who were stationed at that base?
Yes, sir.
They did say that, but they said it in a way to where to not, you know, not put them in liability, I should say.
And what I mean by that is the fact that, yes, they were told that something happened.
Yes, they were told that something had occurred.
Yes, they were told that it was something unusual.
Yes, they were told that it was unusual aircraft of not of our nature or American design.
And that was pretty much was it.
That's pretty much what they have stated.
Okay.
And beyond that, a lot of people serving there thought, well, you know, it's better not to talk too much about this because it's stuff that we don't want to be getting involved in because it might have consequences for us.
Why are you talking about this now?
Well, to be honest, we, I want to get peace of mind and peace of heart.
You know, I want it to rest, but I also want people to know, too, that, you know, I don't know if you'll believe or not, but I do believe that God created the heavens and the earth and created man in his image.
But we don't know what's created out there in the universe.
You know, so is it out there?
Yes, I believe it's out there.
But I think people should know, too, that, you know, that they need to know that to understand that there is possible other intelligence beings out there that I'm not aware of.
But I know that if he created the heavens, you know, there's got to be something out there.
Forgive me for saying this if I'm interpreting it wrong, but I understand what it is like to reach a stage in your life where you think, well, I've probably got more miles behind me than I've got miles ahead of me.
And you start to think to yourself, you've got to right the wrongs and say the things that need saying.
None of us knows how many years we've got ahead of us.
Is this why you're doing this?
Yes, sir.
I'm doing this for the fact that I think I'm the type of guy that the truth needs to be told no matter what the incident is of what happened, and people should know that.
And I just don't want this not to be told before my time when it could be a part of something that could be added to other things that have happened.
And I do believe that sometimes our government does hide things that they shouldn't hide, you know, but also understand our security too, you know, understand the security for our country as well as England.
Which is important, especially even if you're not in the military service now, if you have been.
Yes, sir.
You're too keenly aware of that.
Right.
Now, look, I have been doing interviews for many, many years.
I'm a news guy.
I have no reason whatsoever to disbelieve anything that you've said.
But how do I know that you were in the military?
Well, I had sent Gary the copies of the newspaper, which back in that time that my mom sent me.
That's why when I had mentioned to Gary, it was 80.
My mom had sent me some newspaper I sent to her back in 78 and 79, which is called the Phantom Foreman, which is the base paper.
Okay, and it has dates in there.
And I remember some of the dates and I remember some of the times.
And I got to thinking, well, something's not quite right.
If I told him 80, I couldn't have been there.
So then I happened to find my old Airman Performance Reports, which is called EPRs.
And the performance report is given to airmen if they change base or every six months if they change a command.
And when I pulled my old performance reports out, I seen the dates where I had actually been, where I actually had left on the 2nd of January, 1980, en route to my next destination in Texas.
So that's, so I've got APR showing, EPR showing from 78 to 79, 79 to 80.
So that's the proof I've got.
Understood.
And what this is telling us is what other people have said, that that area, that location, experienced things both before and, we are told, after the end of 1980, which I think is very significant.
James, I wish you well.
Thank you very much for talking with me.
It's a fascinating story.
I have no reason to doubt what you've told me.
You sound absolutely sincere about it.
And I hope that by talking about it and unburdening yourself in this way, it helps you, as well as people who are researching these things that apparently have happened in that location.
Thank you very much for speaking with me.
Thank you, sir.
I really appreciate it.
Interesting account, eh?
James Stewart.
I have no reason to doubt him.
Gary Hesseltine before him.
Gary's book, Non-Human, out now through Amazon and may at some point be available through a lot of other sources.
And I think it's worth taking a look at.
More great guests in the pipeline here at the home of the unexplained online.
So until we meet again, my name is Howard Hughes.
This has been The Unexplained.
And please, whatever you do, stay safe, stay calm.
And above all, please stay in touch.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
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