Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In last week's episode, in the Shadow of the Mountain, we roamed the Berwin Mountains in North Wales in search of a mysterious object that some believed crashed there one rainy night back in nineteen seventy four. The incident has become known rather unimaginatively as
the Welsh Roswell. However, this isn't only because it dovetails as a supposed UFO event. There are some who say that not only did an alien spacecraft to crash into the Berwin Mountains, but similar to what some believed occurred at Roswell, the craft was recovered by the British military and remains in their custody to this day. It's a far fetched story, perhaps, but does lead us to some very interesting and enigmatic military installations to point towards some
very mysterious goings on. Indeed, perhaps none are more enigmatic than r F. Rudlow Manner, considered by some to be Britain's answer to area fifty one. At some point following the incident on the Berwin Mountains, a rumor began to spread in ufologist circles that a mysterious craft had been taken from the mountain and transported under cover of night
to a secret underground military facility. A similar claim had been made as far back as nineteen fifty five, when journalist Dorothy Kilgallen alleged that a British government official revealed to her that the British government had recovered a downed alien spacecraft during World War Two and were in the process of examining it by the nineteen ninety perhaps owing to it being situated in the mystical county of Wiltshire, but also its proximity to porton Down, the Ministry of
Defenses top secret Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, only thirty miles away. The rumors had begun to center on r F Rudlow Manor as a possible location. At the time, Like most top secret military facilities, little was known about what actually took place at Rudlow and the wider facility
of mod Caution of which it was a part. Despite not much appearing to happen there, The high Chain link defencing surrounding the site and its heavy security presence, not to mention the peculiar artificial mounds dotted about the place, complete with small doorways that disappeared into them, suggested otherwise. The fact that the facility was known to be sitting above a vast network of underground tunnels only added to
the mystery. But what really gave R. F. Rudlow an air of almost cinematic intrigue was the beautiful seventeenth century manor house around which it was built. With its imposing facade and grand stone pillared entrance gate overlooking the gentle, rolling hills of the Wiltshire countryside, it was hard not to wander just what secrets were being kept and discussed inside.
What was known was that the facility had been set up sometime in the nineteen thirties after the British War Department commandeered the nearby tunnels for use as ammunition storage and later for weapons manufacturing. The tunnels, some of which dated back to eighteen forty nine, were originally part of a quarry network from which a distinct yellow colored limestone known as bath stone had been extracted. The stone has been used in buildings throughout the country, most notably in
the town of Bath during the Second World War. The site also housed an ground operations room responsible for directing RAF aircraft on their missions, as well as a filter room. Staff assigned to the filter room were responsible for filtering whatever intelligence they came across regarding the movements of opposition forces. In two thousand, though the wider site surrounding it remained
in operation, RAF Rudlow Manor was officially closed down. As such, what exactly had gone on there was destined to disappear into the midst of history, along with the echoes of all the many women and men who'd worked there over the years. But then in twenty ten, thanks to the arrival of the full provisions of the Freedom of Information Act in two thousand and five, came a startling revelation. Are you a proud cat person? You love your cat, but there doesn't mean you love having a litter box
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dot com and entering promo code unexplained. Just go to kittiepooclub dot com and enter promo code unexplained to get twenty percent off when you set up autoship that's k I T t y p ooclub dot com and enter promo code unexplained a checkout. According to journalist doctor David Clark, since the Freedom of Information Act was ratified in two thousand before coming fully into force in two thousand and five, the subject of UFOs were the third most popular subject
of inquiry to the Ministry of Defense. In two thousand and eight, under the sheer weight of FOI requests, the mod made the startling decision to release every last UFO file it had ever collated over the years to the National Archive. With the release of the files staggered over the next few years, one set made public in twenty ten immediately caught the eye. One report detailed the story of a scientist whose grandfather had worked as one of
Winston Churchill's bodyguards during the Second World War. After the war, the man's grandfather claimed that he'd witnessed Winston Churchill and U S President Dwight D. Eisenhower agreeing to cover up a u FO sighting. A mysterious craft had apparently been seen by an entire ra F crew on their way back to the UK from a bombing raid in Germany.
The metallic, unidentified object had reportedly approached their plane as they drew near to the English coast, with some of the crew believed to have even taken photos of it. Churchill had allegedly insisted on covering the story up due to his concerns over mass panic and the effect it
might have on people's religious beliefs. For what really drew the attention of uthologists and other conspiracy theorists was the document revealing that not only had there long been a government department set up to investigate UFO sightings, a fact long denied by the British Ministry of Defense, but that the department had been based at none other than ra
F Rudlow Manor. The department, known as the Flying Complaints Flight or FCF, was a unit of the RF Police that formed part of Provost and Security Services, whose principal responsibilities were to provide security vetting for numerous government departments. Although the FCF was primarily involved in dealing with complaints of low flying aircraft or reports of possible aviation accidents,
its remit inevitably strayed into UFO sightings. Things only became even more intriguing when in two thousand and four, Burlington Bunker, a vast thirty five acre complex located one hundred and twenty feet under Rudlow Manor and MO Decaution, was declassified, revealing that the supposed tunnel network under the site was far more substantial than previously thought, comprising roughly sixty miles of tunnels and two point two million square feet of space.
The bunker, virtually a town in itself, had been built to accommodate up to four thousand people for up to three months in the event of nuclear fallout in what would have comprised an emergency headquarters for the British government. The bunker also included a fully operational hospital, as well as a BBC broadcasting studio. To date, the Ministry of Defense claimed to have released most, if not all, their
UFO files to the National Archive. However, as many have noted, a large number of files from the nineteen fifties and sixties have apparently been destroyed. When eighteen files relating to the Rerendelsham Forest incident, one of the UK's most well known apparent UFO encounters, were discovered to be missing from the National Archive, the MOD promised to locate them. Although the files were later added, some were said by the
MOD to have been inadvertently destroyed. Today, although r F Rudlow Manor is no longer in operation, Modcuum remains fully active, with a large part of its underground network now home to the intriguingly blandly titled Cautionum Computer Center, which is described rather vaguely as a center for processing data in support of the Royal Navy. The Rudlow Manor House was put on the market for two million pounds and has since been sold off. It isn't known who bought it.
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