This is Unreal

Picture yourself as a young airmen on R. A F. Bentwaters, one of the twin air bases bordered by Rendell shamp Forrest. It's late December. You and more than ten thousand other Americans are divided between these two bases on the North Sea coast, seventy miles northeast of London, de east. About a hundred and fifty miles across the water are the Hague and Amsterdam. Jimmy Carter is in his last days as president. The struggle for human rights overa it's all

differences of color or nation or language. Leonard Bresnev is still in the Kremlin, shoeless in terms of world events. In late of course, The big thing hanging released the United States would have been they around hostage crisis that that's still going on and nobody knows how it's going to end. I'm Kirk Droisley. I'm a chair of the history department the University of New Hampshire, and I specialize

in US foreign policy and US environmental history. Reagan had just been elected, and so he had run this campaign on the United States being far weaker than the Soviet Union, being vulnerable to Soviet expansion. It can happen at any point, and therefore we are the only ones that can preserve the peace, and to do that we must have strength. It was not clear when or how the Cold War

would end. The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan the previous year in late December, in their greatest show of four since the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. They are lifted thousands of soldiers into the Kabul area and moved tens of thousands more overland across the border into northern Afghanistan. It seemed as though they had gained an upper hand on the world stage. What would happen if they made an aggressive move in Europe? How would the US respond? If you

were at Bentwaters or Woodbridge. This was not an idle question. You were on the front lines, because it is is our legacy at failure in the nineteen seventies into and of course Britain also was now under Margaret Thatcher's control as Prime Minister, and she had very similar rhetoric about ramping up the Cold War in good versus evil. It is fashionable for some commentators to speak of the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, as though there

were somehow of equal worth and equal significance. Mr Speaker, that is a travesty of the truth. The Soviet Union has never concealed its real name. In the words of Mr Bresner, the total triumph of all socialists all over the world is inevitable. For this triumph, we shall struggle with no lack of effort. Indeed, there has been no lack of effort. So I think that on that base in December they would have been hearing a lot of rhetoric about this new, more intense Cold War, that the

Soviets might come across Europe. It was the height of the Cold War, so tensions were high. This is Jim Peniston again, in he was a sergeant in the U. S Air Force and was one of the witnesses to the first night of the reynoldshom Forest Encounter. Looming over any conflict during the Cold War was the knowledge that the US and the Soviet Union had nuclear arsenals adequate

to annihilate each other. This led to a US doctrine of mutually assured destruction, that knowing the devastation that would result in retaliation, would prevent each side from launching a nuclear strike. The acronym, of course, is M A D. We had nuclear weapons that were stored at Dent Waters.

I can say this today. We also had five squadrons of a ten tank killer aircraft and their mission was to go ahead and deploy during the first few days of imaginary war and go to forward operating locations in Germany el Horn, Light Pine Home a few others. We had a different type of terrorists threat at the time. We had groups like the r A Black, September, Bottom Line Hoff Group, Red Brigade, those type groups, and our perimeter was always either being observed or tested while we

were there. Mainly it's because that we were about three miles from Felix So and Loosoft. There were two ports right on the North Sea where we frequently had Russian trawlers and stuff like that go there. So the situation

was tense. And things that we look back on through the comfortable lens of history, the release of the hostages in the US embassy in Tehran, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of left wing terrorists groups in Europe, all were uncertain and at this base would have held potential for real trouble. It's in this atmosphere that Airmen first class John Burrows, another witness to the encounter on

the first night, went back to base. It was the morning of December twenty four hours after that initial encounter, got up on the desk before the night shift was relieved. When I went in there, the death sargeants at ours was the guy that was chasing UFOs in the woods the night before. The desk sergeant was talking about Burrows and Peniston, of course, but then he added something, you're not gonna believe this. We had an incident last night. What he told me was the shift commander I had

an interaction with some kind of a blue light. They went through her vehicle shut it down. And ended up getting really the duty because it shook her up so much. So that was night too. The incident that Burrows refers to here involves Lieutenant Bonnie Tamplin. There doesn't seem to be any documentation, and her account mostly comes to us second or third hand. But briefly, the story is that there was a report of lights that Tamplin and probably

another person went to investigate. During the investigation, as Burrows said, a blue light of some sort entered their vehicle and shut off the engine and radio. What happened to money Gamp and the lieutenant was on the second night she disappeared from the base and immediately this is Chuck Halt, who at the time was a lieutenant colonel and the deputy base commander. He's not implying by the way that she was abducted by aliens or anything like that, she

was transferred. I'm tried to track her down and I was told Fining she was in Italy. I have found her, but she will not respond. I know where she lives, I know her address, but she does not want any involvement. They scared to you know what I don't. And this is the extent of what happened on the second night. For us, it mostly serves as a bridge between the events of the first night and the events of the third night, to which Chuck Halt would be an important witness.

On the third night, there was a social function at the base and awards ceremony. My name's Nick Pope, and I worked for the British gown him and for twenty one years at the Ministry of Defense for much of the early nineties. Pope's duties included researching and investigating the UFO phenomenon and determining if it posed a threat the United Kingdom or if it was of any defense or scientific interest. He was in the desert when I spoke with him, and so coverage was not great, so I

apologized for the quality of the audio. Anyway, Chuck Halt was at the ceremony and his night was interrupted by a report. The Stingy based commanders were there and burst open. A junior officer went up saluted it and said, sir, it's back, and and one of the officers, deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Holt, said what are you talking about? What's by? And the young officers said the uf post

it's it's come back. The third consecutive night with the UFOs sighting well, Holt and one of the other senior commanders conferred and decided someone had better go and deal with this and see what was going on. So Colonel Holt drew the short straw, really threw together a team of about half a dozen people and went out into the forest, in his own words, to debunk this UFO nonsense. The small group Halt assembled included an on duty airmen

named Morgan Nevill's. But I knew he had a camera and he had done some work for Photo Lapp and he was pretty good photographer. I said, have him made me a disas preparedness office in about thirty minutes and we'll go out and take see what this is all about. So I went home and change master. Starting ball came by in the cheap several people in it, driven by an Lieutenant uh England, on duty cop. We went found

disaster for parents. We had to wait for nimals because his wife was at the Catholic Women's program with the chapel and he was mayby city. He finally showed up and I said, don't want you to bring your camera at the gagger Conner. The only reason I saiders two things, because I wanted the document was not being air while this was going on. John Burrows, one of the witnesses to the encounter, on the first night, was on base

talking with friends. I went over to the dorman, talked to some of the guys I worked with that we decided to go out there. Me and a couple other guys went out into the forest and end up with me meeting up with Colonel Hall on night three. So two groups entered the forest, one determined to find nothing and the other hoping for a repeat of the sighting forty eight hours before. One of these groups was not ready for what was about to happen. Strange arrivals will

return in a moment. On the night of December, two separate groups headed into Rydalshow Forest. The first, more or less official group was led by Deputy base Commander Chuck Halt, who made it clear that the base didn't at the time take the sighting very seriously. The second group was John Burrows and his two friends, hoping to catch a glimpse of what Burrows had seen on the first night. Chuck Halt, sorry went on into the forest, and I was shown the site. We were something that supposedly landed

the first night. There were three indentations eight or ten feet apart, and we definitely got radiation readings, and they're both on the ground higher in the center of the triangular formed by the three objects and the three sides towards the landing site and higher readings all more the background and not enough to be dangerous. Halt made an audio recording to document anything that happened to them that night. It is the one real time document of the events

over these three nights. To preserve battery power, he turned the recorder on when there was something that needed to be documented and off when there wasn't. This is from the cassette tape made that night. The first voice you hear is Colonel Halts, the second is Lieutenant England, and the third is Morgan Nevill's Yeah, I see it too. What is it? We don't know? Strange small red light. Let's see on maybe a quarter and half before they're at and I think it's gone now it was approximate

add twenty degrees through. Is it back again or splash? Light? Said, so I can get a better look at it and see if you get the Spanish coop on it. All the animals have gotten quiet. Now we haven't got to undertain on the twenty degrees inside through to the plarry. Now still getting reading on the meter, got two clicks. So Halt and his companion saw a light in the distance that disappeared and then reappeared. They turned off their flashlights and found a better vantage point at the edge

of a clearing. They looked through a star scope night vision goggles to try to get a better view. At this point, Burrows's group joined up with Halts. We met up with them. Halt kind of told me what was going on. Showed me some blue lights in the sky that were flying around, and then all of a sudden in the distance, an orangeish hue type of flight or whatever started coming towards us. He asked me, if that's what I dealt with the first night? And did it

looked like but it was farther away. While where were there? Kind of I want to do? I saw a small, I say basketball size maybe the larger beach ball size, going orange object directly from out of the forest toward the farmer's fears, a farmer's field to the east of us in a farmhouse. The objeck was out in the field. It was glowing and the equivalent of dripping metal or sparks for coming off it. We watched it for several minutes,

just so let's get close to it. As we started to the object move into the forest in front of us, between us and the farmer's size. It moved horizon lea bombing up and down through the trees. Again from Halt's tape, its coming this way. It is definitely coming this way. Shoot, leather is no down of bias. This is weird. The last different two nights, one light to the lift, take splash lights off. There's something very very strange. I can okay,

this is from my interview with Chuck Halt. The particulars obviously under intelligent control and some kind of sensors to avoid things if they got close. It moved back out into the field between us and the farmer's house. At that time I can see the windows in the farmer's house glowing bright reflection. Oh my, look like the house was on fire. I was kind of concerned about, you know,

an issue for the people in the house. On Halt's tape, you can hear as they walk to the edge of the woods, flashlights off to get closer to the object. Halt thinks it looks like a winking eye, and when he looks at it through the star scope, it seems to have a hollow center and when the lightest flashing right at them, it almost burns his eyes. Okay again, but it just moved to the right hand, got the right strange. Oh that's how much to answer the woods up there? You want to do a lot lights and

still carefully come on. Okay, looking at the thing. We're probably about two or three hundred guys away. It looks like an eye winking at you, still moving from side to side, and we put the star scoop on it. It starts star dark sars and I looking at it and the flashes so bright to the star scope that was burned dry. Burrows asked Halt for permission to move closer to the object. I wanted to see what it was. Anyway.

We were trying to figure out what was going on, just like everybody else, because it just didn't make sense. Halt okay, Burrows and another Air Force cop to proceed. We started running towards it. As we got closer and he went to the ground. I kept going. I remember getting close to it, and then the next thing I know, I was gone. But he said that I went into it and I disappeared for a while, then he saw

me come back. In the course of interviewing Rendelsom witnesses and researchers, I was not able to find the person accompanying Burrows during this event. No one else mentioned anything about Burrows being taken up to the craft. Throughout the Rendelsom case, there are a number of situations like this

where one witness's account is not corroborated by the others. Again, Deputy Based Commander Chuck Halt, the objects suddenly exclently exploded like fireworks into five white going objects and they disappeared. So we went either to the field looking for traces of from whatever was coming off the object, and the only thing we find evidence of was that cos there accalpies.

So while we're going around looking, we noticed pre objects in the north and the sky, multi killer objects moving together in synchronizations and they're doing a great search or some type of performation flying away a bizarre three or five. We see strange stroke like flashes to the fish sporadic that there's definitely something that some kind of phenomenal three

or five about ten degrees horizon directly north. We've got two strange objects, half moon shaped, dancing about with color lights on them, but guests to be about five to ten a lot maybe less the half those and turned in the full circles because all of those elimp eclipse or something there for a mere two. So here they are seeing colored lights that are some distance away from them, starting off shaped as half moons and then appearing to

become circular. They're very fifteen. Now we've got an object about ten degrees directly and once an aay're moving once moving away from us. The lights are moving away from them now north here he comes from the song. He's coming toward us. Now appear to be a beam of coming down to the ground. Here, Halt says that he sees a light beam coming down from the craft to the ground. This will be important later side of farmers the second farmers field, and they deciding again about degrees

after the coast. It's right on the horizon, loos about a bit and flashes from time to time still study new color. Halt uses radio to call the command post to see if they had anything on radar. They reported back to him that they did not. This report would be disputed later, but at the time the response he received Eaved was that there was nothing unusual on radar. We decided to go go further out to get a

better view. Can we see objects of the found going white options one of the objects because overhead is very high speed probably dry, high abound and being elevations above us, that sens a laser light. Being that our fate attending me away, the veins about and dang pain diameter of sirs andand and are rather wondering what is that a weapon to communication some kind of worry and this is suddenly some being appeared disappeared. The group kept moving. Halt

had his radio on. He says he could hear people at the weapons storage area who are looking at the objects through binoculars, and that they were reporting that the objects were triangular and that there was a larger object that had sparks coming off of it. But despite all of this that Halt described, there still seems to be little interests from the base and they can hear the

people and weapons starge carry or seeing the objects. We saw in the sky were actually triangular, and they can see an equivalent of what we would call a mother ship with small objects coming off, with sparks or whatever emanating from them. Again, you get the sense that no one at the base was taking this very seriously. We were out there for several hours watching this. Nobody seemed to get excited at the command post, did seem to

secure too much. So finally we were wet and tired and cold temperature of summer air free scene, and we must blowing off the coast. So we packed it in and went home. I didn't know what else to do. I've expected somebody to come out and respond with me. Burrows leaves the story here. Over the next few days, he would return to base and write the document we heard from earlier describing his experiences. On the first night,

Halts Night, however, was not over. So I showered and cleaned up because it was I was went dirty, good sleep. So I went into the office and my boss, Colonel Williams, met me on the steps. They said, ever, some night you had, because he had monitored by radio conversations and I see I made a type of quarter open. Colonel Williams asked for the tape and Halt reluctantly handed it over. This was Sunday. There was a meeting of top staff on the coming Wednesday and the Colonel said that he

would play the tape at that meeting. Halt was horrified by so oh my god, there's the end of my career. I waited all week and of course when he came back Wench and the after lunch, I was waiting at the door. First thing I said to him, a boss, still I have a job? Am I still gonna be here? And he asked throw me the tape. I said, what do we He said, well, I played the tape for the General of Staff and the general said, well, anybody

staff have comments? Nobody said anything is infinite wisdom. He said, well we have them off the base. It's a British affair case closed. So I said, I mean the end of it and he said no, you get with Squadrone or Morland who was to the A zone from the RF of the base, and see what he wants to do. So I had to wait about tender Halt base because Don Morton was in Wales at his family home to the hall Christmas holidays. So when he came back. I briefed him and played the tape, but he didn't want

to do either. So about two weeks past between halts uf O encounter and his meeting with the squad leader Don Morland, a Royal Air Force representative at the bases. In this meeting, Halt was to tell the British authorities about the three nights of the encounters. David Clark has interviewed any of the people involved in the Ryndalship encounters, including Don Morland. I'm David Clark. I'm associate professor at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK and my specialist subjectives footlow.

This is how Donald put it to me when I interviewed in Chuckhole. Invisted him into my offit and said, oh, by the way, while you've been on holiday, Don, the the aliens landed. But I thought I'd wait until you came back off holiday to tell you about it. And he thought he's pulling my leg. This is a joke, and then he came out with all this fantastic story about wizards and bangs and lights flying around in the forest. As you would imagine, Don Morland was unsure what to

do about this. He told Halt that if they gave an official account of these sightings, it would lead to a big inquiry. So Moreland suggested that Halt write it down in a memo, and he actually did that, almost as like an ex roment, because he didn't think the whole would actually commit this to writing. He said, put it down any much and I'll send it to the Ministry Defense. And he didn't think you would take the bait and the behold. He did. He produced that one

page and that's gone down in history. He made a lot of phone calls and I don't know what all else, as give me a memo to talk from. So I wrote the infamous memo who was never supposed to go anywhere. It was supposed to be a document for him to read it and talk from. You can easily find the Halt memo on the internet. It's just one page with three numbered paragraphs and is signed at the bottom. The first paragraph is a brief account of Penistin Burrows and

Coban SAG's encounter on the first night. It puts the time at three am, so it was consistent with burrows timing, not Penistan's. It also describes a craft quote the object was described as being metallic in appearance and triangular in shape, approximately two to three meters across the base and approximately two ms high. This is based on Peniston's account, which

we will look at in a later episode. The second paragraph relates the field investigation undertaken the next day and reports that depressions were seen in the ground the following night. As we heard earlier, moderate radiation readings were recorded. The third paragraph summarizes halt encounter later that night, but the memo gets the dates wrong. The first night is identified is December and the last as December. As we will see in the next episode, this mistake complicated efforts to

verify information. There's also no mention of Lieutenant Bonnie Tamplin's encounter of the second night. Morelands sent the memo up the chain of command to the Ministry of Defense, and we waited and waited and waited, and nothing had happened. I was relieved to be very honest radio, and that was I thought the end of it. I told two or three years later, whenever the momo got released, and then I hit the fans next time on Strange Arrivals. Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart Radio and

grimin Mild from Aaron Mankey. This episode was written and hosted by Toby Ball and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Josh Thame, with executive producers Alex Williams, at Frederick and Aaron Mankey. Special thanks to our voice actors Joe McCormick and Jeff Williams. Learn more about the show over at Grim and Mild dot com. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.