Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In last week's episode, in
Speaker 1: the Shadow of the Mountain, we roamed the Berwin Mountains
Speaker 1: in North Wales in search of a mysterious object that
Speaker 1: some believed crashed there one rainy night back in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four. The incident has become known rather unimaginatively as
Speaker 1: the Welsh Roswell. However, this isn't only because it dovetails
Speaker 1: as a supposed UFO event. There are some who say
Speaker 1: that not only did an alien spacecraft to crash into
Speaker 1: the Berwin Mountains, but similar to what some believed occurred
Speaker 1: at Roswell, the craft was recovered by the British military
Speaker 1: and remains in their custody to this day. It's a
Speaker 1: far fetched story, perhaps, but does lead us to some
Speaker 1: very interesting and enigmatic military installations to point towards some
Speaker 1: very mysterious goings on. Indeed, perhaps none are more enigmatic
Speaker 1: than r F. Rudlow Manner, considered by some to be
Speaker 1: Britain's answer to area fifty one. At some point following
Speaker 1: the incident on the Berwin Mountains, a rumor began to
Speaker 1: spread in ufologist circles that a mysterious craft had been
Speaker 1: taken from the mountain and transported under cover of night
Speaker 1: to a secret underground military facility. A similar claim had
Speaker 1: been made as far back as nineteen fifty five, when
Speaker 1: journalist Dorothy Kilgallen alleged that a British government official revealed
Speaker 1: to her that the British government had recovered a downed
Speaker 1: alien spacecraft during World War Two and were in the
Speaker 1: process of examining it by the nineteen ninety perhaps owing
Speaker 1: to it being situated in the mystical county of Wiltshire,
Speaker 1: but also its proximity to porton Down, the Ministry of
Speaker 1: Defenses top secret Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, only thirty
Speaker 1: miles away. The rumors had begun to center on r
Speaker 1: F Rudlow Manor as a possible location. At the time,
Speaker 1: Like most top secret military facilities, little was known about
Speaker 1: what actually took place at Rudlow and the wider facility
Speaker 1: of mod Caution of which it was a part. Despite
Speaker 1: not much appearing to happen there, The high Chain link
Speaker 1: defencing surrounding the site and its heavy security presence, not
Speaker 1: to mention the peculiar artificial mounds dotted about the place,
Speaker 1: complete with small doorways that disappeared into them, suggested otherwise.
Speaker 1: The fact that the facility was known to be sitting
Speaker 1: above a vast network of underground tunnels only added to
Speaker 1: the mystery. But what really gave R. F. Rudlow an
Speaker 1: air of almost cinematic intrigue was the beautiful seventeenth century
Speaker 1: manor house around which it was built. With its imposing
Speaker 1: facade and grand stone pillared entrance gate overlooking the gentle,
Speaker 1: rolling hills of the Wiltshire countryside, it was hard not
Speaker 1: to wander just what secrets were being kept and discussed inside.
Speaker 1: What was known was that the facility had been set
Speaker 1: up sometime in the nineteen thirties after the British War
Speaker 1: Department commandeered the nearby tunnels for use as ammunition storage
Speaker 1: and later for weapons manufacturing. The tunnels, some of which
Speaker 1: dated back to eighteen forty nine, were originally part of
Speaker 1: a quarry network from which a distinct yellow colored limestone
Speaker 1: known as bath stone had been extracted. The stone has
Speaker 1: been used in buildings throughout the country, most notably in
Speaker 1: the town of Bath during the Second World War. The
Speaker 1: site also housed an ground operations room responsible for directing
Speaker 1: RAF aircraft on their missions, as well as a filter room.
Speaker 1: Staff assigned to the filter room were responsible for filtering
Speaker 1: whatever intelligence they came across regarding the movements of opposition forces.
Speaker 1: In two thousand, though the wider site surrounding it remained
Speaker 1: in operation, RAF Rudlow Manor was officially closed down. As such,
Speaker 1: what exactly had gone on there was destined to disappear
Speaker 1: into the midst of history, along with the echoes of
Speaker 1: all the many women and men who'd worked there over
Speaker 1: the years. But then in twenty ten, thanks to the
Speaker 1: arrival of the full provisions of the Freedom of Information
Speaker 1: Act in two thousand and five, came a startling revelation.
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Speaker 1: since the Freedom of Information Act was ratified in two
Speaker 1: thousand before coming fully into force in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: the subject of UFOs were the third most popular subject
Speaker 1: of inquiry to the Ministry of Defense. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, under the sheer weight of FOI requests, the
Speaker 1: mod made the startling decision to release every last UFO
Speaker 1: file it had ever collated over the years to the
Speaker 1: National Archive. With the release of the files staggered over
Speaker 1: the next few years, one set made public in twenty
Speaker 1: ten immediately caught the eye. One report detailed the story
Speaker 1: of a scientist whose grandfather had worked as one of
Speaker 1: Winston Churchill's bodyguards during the Second World War. After the war,
Speaker 1: the man's grandfather claimed that he'd witnessed Winston Churchill and
Speaker 1: U S President Dwight D. Eisenhower agreeing to cover up
Speaker 1: a u FO sighting. A mysterious craft had apparently been
Speaker 1: seen by an entire ra F crew on their way
Speaker 1: back to the UK from a bombing raid in Germany.
Speaker 1: The metallic, unidentified object had reportedly approached their plane as
Speaker 1: they drew near to the English coast, with some of
Speaker 1: the crew believed to have even taken photos of it.
Speaker 1: Churchill had allegedly insisted on covering the story up due
Speaker 1: to his concerns over mass panic and the effect it
Speaker 1: might have on people's religious beliefs. For what really drew
Speaker 1: the attention of uthologists and other conspiracy theorists was the
Speaker 1: document revealing that not only had there long been a
Speaker 1: government department set up to investigate UFO sightings, a fact
Speaker 1: long denied by the British Ministry of Defense, but that
Speaker 1: the department had been based at none other than ra
Speaker 1: F Rudlow Manor. The department, known as the Flying Complaints
Speaker 1: Flight or FCF, was a unit of the RF Police
Speaker 1: that formed part of Provost and Security Services, whose principal
Speaker 1: responsibilities were to provide security vetting for numerous government departments.
Speaker 1: Although the FCF was primarily involved in dealing with complaints
Speaker 1: of low flying aircraft or reports of possible aviation accidents,
Speaker 1: its remit inevitably strayed into UFO sightings. Things only became
Speaker 1: even more intriguing when in two thousand and four, Burlington Bunker,
Speaker 1: a vast thirty five acre complex located one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty feet under Rudlow Manor and MO Decaution, was declassified,
Speaker 1: revealing that the supposed tunnel network under the site was
Speaker 1: far more substantial than previously thought, comprising roughly sixty miles
Speaker 1: of tunnels and two point two million square feet of space.
Speaker 1: The bunker, virtually a town in itself, had been built
Speaker 1: to accommodate up to four thousand people for up to
Speaker 1: three months in the event of nuclear fallout in what
Speaker 1: would have comprised an emergency headquarters for the British government.
Speaker 1: The bunker also included a fully operational hospital, as well
Speaker 1: as a BBC broadcasting studio. To date, the Ministry of
Speaker 1: Defense claimed to have released most, if not all, their
Speaker 1: UFO files to the National Archive. However, as many have noted,
Speaker 1: a large number of files from the nineteen fifties and
Speaker 1: sixties have apparently been destroyed. When eighteen files relating to
Speaker 1: the Rerendelsham Forest incident, one of the UK's most well
Speaker 1: known apparent UFO encounters, were discovered to be missing from
Speaker 1: the National Archive, the MOD promised to locate them. Although
Speaker 1: the files were later added, some were said by the
Speaker 1: MOD to have been inadvertently destroyed. Today, although r F
Speaker 1: Rudlow Manor is no longer in operation, Modcuum remains fully active,
Speaker 1: with a large part of its underground network now home
Speaker 1: to the intriguingly blandly titled Cautionum Computer Center, which is
Speaker 1: described rather vaguely as a center for processing data in
Speaker 1: support of the Royal Navy. The Rudlow Manor House was
Speaker 1: put on the market for two million pounds and has
Speaker 1: since been sold off. It isn't known who bought it.
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Speaker 1: the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never
Speaker 1: before been covered on the show, is now available to
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