UFOs Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record (30 page)

The drawing I made of the landed craft for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations
. Collection of James Penniston

After roughly forty-five minutes, the light from the craft began to intensify. Burroughs 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 shot off at an unbelievable rate of speed. It was gone in the blink of an eye.

In my logbook, which I still have, I wrote “Speed
Impossible
.” I subsequently learned that other personnel based at Bentwaters and Woodbridge, all trained observers, had witnessed the takeoff.

At that moment, I knew that this craft’s technology was far, far above what we could ever engineer. When it took off, I felt alone, knowing now what John and I knew. Suddenly, there was no doubt. I realized that it was 100 percent certain that we are part of a larger community beyond the confines of our planet.

My drawing of the symbols, based on my logbook entry and my recollection of their placement. Their texture was rough, like sandpaper
. Collection of James Penniston

Two original logbook entries made while I observed the craft. Top: On one page I sketched the symbols. Bottom: When I watched the object take off, the speed was so shockingly fast that I wrote “Took off … unknown … Speed
Impossible
.”
Collection of James Penniston

After returning to CSC headquarters, we were debriefed and then advised to return to the landing site in daylight to look for physical evidence. After turning in our weapons and signing off, Burroughs and I went back and discovered broken branches scattered at the landing site. It appeared they had been forced down to the ground when the craft landed. There were scorch marks on the trees facing the site. But most importantly, we discovered three indentations in the ground, marks left by the UFO landing gear in the three corners of a triangle. I was relieved to find proof that this had really happened. I took photos of the landing site and, along with the ones I had taken of the UFO, took the film to the base laboratory. After taking Burroughs home, I went back to the site alone and made plaster casts of the three indentations left on the ground by the object.

The information acquired during the investigation was reported through military channels, and my team and other witnesses were told to treat the investigation as Top Secret. No further discussion was allowed. We were debriefed by First Lieutenant Fred Buran, on-duty shift commander at CSC; Master Sergeant J. D. Chandler, flight chief; and day shift commander Captain Mike Verano. In the days following, additional interviews were conducted by Colonel Charles Halt and then the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI). This was a very hard time for me, as I was in shock by what I had witnessed.

I went back to the base photo lab, since I was the one who filled out the work order for the development of the two rolls of 35 mm film taken of the craft and landing site. I was told that the photos were apparently overexposed or fogged, and that none of them had come out. However, Senior Master Sergeant Ray Gulyas took six photographs of the site forty-eight hours after the event, which he developed off base and which survived; two of them show a British police officer and Captain Verano examining the site, and the three indentations are clearly marked with upright sticks.

I am still not sure about everything that may have happened during that night back in 1980. This event and its implications still weigh heavily on me. When all pieces of the puzzle are finally put together, then, hopefully, we can put the whole thing to rest. Until then, I will keep trying to find answers to the many questions that remain.

II. Colonel Charles I. Halt

In 1980, I was the deputy base commander of RAF Bentwaters, the large twin-base complex in East Anglia, England. As such, my duty was to provide support and backup for the base commander and to act as commander in his absence.

In late December 1980, I was called upon to investigate a strange event that was distracting our security police from their primary duties. Just after midnight, very early on December 26, 1980, our police patrolmen discovered strange lights in the forest east of the back gate of RAF Woodbridge. Three patrolmen—Staff Sergeant James Penniston, Airman First Class John Burroughs, and Airman First Class Edward Cabansag—were dispatched into the forest to investigate. They reported discovering a strange triangular craft sitting on three legs. The craft was about ten feet on each side, with multiple lights. It rapidly maneuvered and quickly left the area.

I was not immediately aware of the details, only being told of strange lights, and assumed there was a reasonable explanation.

Two nights later, the family Christmas party held on the 27th was interrupted by the on-duty police commander. He told of strange events and claimed that “it” was back. Since my boss had to present awards, I was tasked to go out and investigate. I fully expected to find an explanation.

I grabbed my pocket tape recorder and a cassette tape, and took four others with me into the forest: Bruce Englund (flight commander), Bobby Ball (flight superintendent), Monroe Nevilles (disaster preparedness NCO), and another young security policeman, Adrian Bustzina. John Burroughs, who had witnessed the event of two nights ago with Jim Penniston and was off duty, hitched a ride out and kept calling me on a borrowed radio. Neither he nor any of the other security policemen (at least fifteen or twenty) were allowed to come forward past the forest service road where the trucks and light-alls—motor-generated portable lighting systems—were parked. I was really upset that so many cops were out in the forest. It was a public relations nightmare just waiting to happen.

We went to the site where something had landed, and found the three indentations 1.5 inches deep and approximately 12 inches across on the ground in a triangular pattern. We took readings and discovered mild radiation and physical evidence, including a hole in the tree canopy above and broken branches. There were abrasions on the sides of trees facing the landing site. While documenting this examination by speaking into my tape recorder, I noticed some very strange sounds, which I thought were the nearby farmer’s barnyard animals. “They’re very, very active, making an awful lot of noise,” I recorded on the tape.

Only seconds later, one of my men first observed a bright red-orange oval object with a black center in the forest. It reminded me of an eye and appeared as though blinking. It maneuvered horizontally through the trees with occasional vertical movement, zigzagging around the trunks as if under intelligent control. Here’s an excerpt from my tape recorder as I watched, with some agitation:

Lt. Colonel Halt: We just bumped into the first light that we’ve seen. We’re about 150 to 200 yards from the site. Everything else is just deathly calm. There’s no doubt about it, there’s some kind of strange flashing red light ahead.

Sgt. Nevilles: Yeah, it’s yellow.

H: I saw a yellow tinge in it, too. Weird. It appears to be making a little bit this way?

Nevilles: Yes, sir.

H: It’s brighter than it has been … It’s coming this way. It’s definitely coming this way.

Sgt. Ball: Pieces are shooting off!

H: Pieces of it are shooting off.

Sgt. Ball: At about eleven o’clock.

H: There’s no doubt about it—this is weird!

When approached, it receded silently into the open field to the east. We watched in amazement for a minute or two. I recorded more on the tape:

H: Strange. One again left. Let’s approach the edge of the woods at that point. Can we do without lights? Let’s do it carefully, come on … Okay, we’re looking at the thing, we’re probably about two to three hundred yards away. It looks like an eye winking at you, it’s still moving from side to side and when we put the star scope on it, it’s sort of a hollow center right, a dark center, it’s …

Lt. Englund: It’s like a pupil …

H: It’s like the pupil of an eye looking at you, winking … and the flash is so bright to the star scope, err … it almost burns your eye.

The reflection from the object flickered brightly on the west windows of a farmhouse across the pasture, on the side facing us, and I was concerned for the residents’ safety. We could see the Orford Ness lighthouse farther to the right and a mile or so away, on the far side of the farm house, throughout the event.

Suddenly, the object exploded into five white lights that quickly disappeared. We went into the field and looked for residue, but found nothing. We then observed several objects with multiple red, green, and blue lights in the northern sky, which changed in shape from elliptical to round and moved rapidly at sharp angles. Several other objects were seen to the south and one approached at high speed, and then stopped overhead. It sent down a concentrated white beam—a small, dense pencil-like beam, like a laser beam—very near to where I was standing. It illuminated the ground about ten feet from us, and we just stood there wondering whether it was a signal, some type of communication, or maybe a warning. We really didn’t know. The beam switched off, and the object receded, back up into the sky. I reported on this, once again, into my pocket tape recorder.

An object also sent down beams that night near or into the weapons storage area. I was several miles away, but we could see a few beams, and they were reported on the radio from the location. Later, others from the weapons storage area told me they had seen the beams. That caused me a great deal of concern. What was it doing there?

The whole time we had difficulty communicating with the base as all three radio frequencies—command, security, and law enforcement—kept breaking up. This activity continued for about an hour. During this entire event, I taped the various sightings as they unfolded on my pocket tape recorder, turning it on and off, and accumulated about eighteen minutes of recorded information.

The day after the incident, I ran into Colonel Gordon Williams, Wing Commander of the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing at RAF Bentwaters, in the common hallway. He had heard my radio transmissions the night before, and I played the tape for him. He asked to borrow it and took it to the Third Air Force staff meeting, where he played it for the staff, and for his boss, General Robert Bazley.

Williams told me that nobody had any ideas at the meeting, and they responded with silence. But he instructed me to contact the British RAF liaison officer, Don Moreland, stating that since this happened off base, General Bazley had declared it “a British affair.” It turned out Don was on vacation, but when he returned, he asked me to file a memo (his absence explains the delay in the date of the document). I wrote up the details in my January 13, 1981, memo, “Unexplained Lights,” and a copy was sent to the British Ministry of Defence and to the Third Air Force. The memo described the sighting of Penniston and the two patrolmen of the triangular object on the ground; the depressions and other physical evidence we found at the landing site; and the various lights and objects that I and numerous others witnessed subsequently.