WEBVTT - The Lighthouse 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:05.240 Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heart three D 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:13.600 audio for full exposure. Listen with headphones. You want miss 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.079 changed for me two twenties. Check the other tires for it. 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:26.080 They look okay. Anything wrong? Oh no, nothing's wrong. I 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:37.200 was just looking at that hitch shaiker. What hitchhiker. He's 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:43.400 gone now. I guess he got picked up. Probably, It's 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:45.080 funny though I saw him a little while ago while 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.839 you were changing the tire. Hey, you probably got a 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:57.520 left right after we passed him. Probably In the days 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:03.640 following December, Lieutenant Colonel Chuck Halt, the deputy base commander, 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.800 was asked to write a memo describing the events of 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:09.360 the three night encounter to give to the Royal Air 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:13.680 Force representative at R A. F. Bent Waters. The memo 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.880 was sent up to the Ministry of Defense, but Halt 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:21.520 never heard anything back. I was relieved to be very 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.120 honest with you, and that was I thought at the 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.560 end of it until two or three years later, whenever 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.320 the memo got released. And then it hit the fan. 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:48.360 I'm Toby Ball and this is Strange Arrivals Episode three, 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:56.000 The Lighthouse. It hit the fan on October two in 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.840 the English newspaper called The News of the World under 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:05.200 the headline UFO lands in Suffolk and that's official, the 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.440 article began, a UFO has landed in Britain and that 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:14.720 staggering fact has been officially confirmed. Despite a massive cover up. 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.680 News of the World investigators have proof that the mysterious 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.320 craft came to Earth in a red ball of light 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:28.280 at three am on December. You might have noticed that 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:32.600 they have the date of the first night wrong. Not 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.680 and we'll get to that later. In addition to the article, 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:41.480 the paper ran the text of Chuck Halts memo. The 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.200 Rundel Shim encounter was now publicly known. Even if the 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.520 News of the World's journalistic standards weren't always of the 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:53.840 highest quality. The News of the World Sunday tabloid a 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.800 bit like the National Inquiry when they're not quite as bad. 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:01.960 I'm in mid Path, I'm in English. Amateur astronomers, science 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:10.440 writer and UFO skeptic. Redpath read the article and became 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:16.040 perhaps the leading investigator into the encounter. Now, as an 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:20.720 amateur astronomer, I always like to try and explain things 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:26.240 with some celestial event. Because the investigations show that the 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:30.200 great majority of UFO cases are actually caused by natural 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:33.600 and man made objects, and the biggest culprits are usually 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:39.480 bright stars and planets, satellites, meteors, sometimes aircraft as well. 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:44.960 But I couldn't find anything to explain what this flashing 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:48.600 light might be that the airmen had seen among the 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:53.720 trees out in Randols from forest. Unable to find an explanation, 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:58.920 he decided to go to a local source. The area 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.280 is a forest. It's a cultivated forest run by the 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.640 British Forestry Commission. So I rang their office and I 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.840 spoke to the forester, who at that time lived in 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:14.120 a cottage not very far away from where the m 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.560 and had gone out to investigate. And he said to me, 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:19.680 you know, I don't know of anyone around here thinks 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.440 anything strange happened back then. And so I said, well, 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:25.320 what do you think it was that must have seen something? 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:28.960 And he said to me, I think it was the lighthouse. 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.520 And I nearly fell off my chair, because despite all 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:35.960 the talk in the press and everywhere else, no one 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:41.680 had ever mentioned a lighthouse. This was the Orfordness Lighthouse 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:45.279 on the North Sea coast, about five miles from the base. 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:50.240 It was built in the last of a series of 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:55.200 beacons dating back to sixteen thirty seven. It's not there anymore. 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.719 It was torn down in the summer of so I 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.680 thought I have to go out and see this for myself. 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.279 At the time, Ridpath was doing some work for BBC Television. 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.440 He asked them if he could go investigate. So I 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.080 went out there with a film crew. We filmed the 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.960 light flashing between the trees and we interviewed the forester, 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:23.400 who was man called Vince the Kettle, and I came 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:28.799 back pretty much convinced that this explained at least part 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:33.760 of the sighting, which was the flashing light seen between 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:38.640 the trees on both nights of the event. So this 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:42.440 was the first indication that maybe there was another explanation 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:47.280 for what had happened over those three nights in But 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:49.800 of course there was more to the encounter than the 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.560 flashing light. So Ridpath began to look at more of 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.240 the details of the encounters reported by Jim Peniston and 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:00.680 John Burrows on the first night and our Halt and 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:05.080 the others on the third night. He wondered what could 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:08.840 John Burrows as supervisor Bud Stephens, have seen on the 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.920 first night to make him think that something had landed 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:17.880 in the forest. John Burrows from episode one, we were 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.600 driving down towards the skate when he saw something strange 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.320 in the sky that he said whened for the forest 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:27.520 later was quoted as saying it landed. I contacted a 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:31.680 friend of mine in the British Astronomical Association and he said, 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.480 oh yes. At about three am on that same morning, 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:41.080 a bright fireball had been seen over southern England. Now 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.480 this was a natural's piece of space debris burning up 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.919 high in the atmosphere, and we know from plenty of 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:53.240 past cases that bright fire balls give the impression of 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.560 something coming to Earth much closer than they really are. 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.479 The firebar was miles up in the sky, probably out 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:06.120 over the North Sea, but to Stephens it would have 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.960 looked much closer, and when it disappeared in the sky 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:13.800 behind the trees, it probably looked as though it disappeared 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:18.560 into the trees. Remember the confusion caused by Stephen's claims 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.000 that the object had landed in the forest and Peniston's 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:24.880 confusion because the forest was too dense for anything to 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:29.840 land this fireball explains that as well, there was no 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.640 indication of a crash because the fireball was never anywhere 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:38.440 near the forest. It was an optical illusion. So they 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.880 went out looking for something because they thought that something 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.240 had crashed in the forest. They saw something they didn't recognize. 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:50.640 He's talking about the light from Orfordness Lighthouse. It was 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.960 one of the brightest lighthouses in the country out on 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.880 the coast, and from that part of the forest where 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.920 they saw the flashing light, the line of the lighthouse 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.800 could be seen. I know because I went there. How 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:08.320 nice to weep myself. But bros and Peniston saw another 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.720 light as well, one that could not have been the lighthouse. 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:19.000 I'm James mcgahey. I am trained as an astronomer, retired 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:23.440 United States Air Force pilot, was also in the army 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:29.840 during Vietnam. I've flown around the world. I have studied 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:35.480 UFOs for over forty years and debunked the number of 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:41.680 UFO cases and appeared on television. The one thing that 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:46.040 did come up originally when they were out there the 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:50.040 first night at the end of this time period, when 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:54.400 they were out there, they saw a white and blue 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:59.320 bank of lights through the forest trees from John Brows 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:03.640 has written statement following the encounter, read by an actor 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:06.920 we had just passed a creek and we're told to 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:08.920 come back when we saw a blue light to our 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.560 left in the trees. It was only there for a 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:16.320 minute and just streaked away. At four eleven in the morning, 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.480 there was a police car out there. British police cars 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.079 are not like US police cars. They have a bank 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.800 of flashing white and blue lights on the top which 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.120 were flashing through the forest as they were driving around 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.640 these forest roads out there. When Burrows and Dennison were 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.319 out there looking around at lights, and then all of 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:38.840 a sudden they see this bank of white and blue 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.880 lights flashing, which was nothing more than that police car 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:46.239 in the forest. So for the first night, by this accounting, 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:50.760 you have three different elements, the fireball in the sky, 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:57.000 the Orfordness lighthouse and finally the police cars. The first 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:02.079 night also left physical evidence. Remember Umber Jim Peniston returned 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.520 to the scene just hours after the encounter and made 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:10.040 plaster casts of imprints in the ground. On the third night, 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:12.720 Chuck Halt and his group went to the scene with 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:17.720 a radiation detector and picked up some radiation. First the 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:22.400 marks in the ground. Now, my friend the forest who 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:24.920 I spoke to Vince the Kettle said, well, yeah, he'd 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.360 seen these marks as well. They looked to him like 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.800 rabbit diggings. They weren't very deep, they weren't even in 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.959 an evenly space triangle, and they were covered with pine needles, 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.480 so they were clearly quite old. There was nothing new 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:41.199 or unusual about it. It's soft, sandy soil, so it's 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.000 quite easy for rabbits to dig in, so he didn't 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:48.320 see anything unusual about that either. At the time, the 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.360 local police concurred that the markings on the ground had 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:55.080 been made by forest animals, but Halt didn't know this. 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.079 On the night of when he led a party into 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:01.760 the forest. Now Colonel Holt was taken up and showing 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.960 these knocks. He took a guangacounter and a guyac counter 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:09.199 operated with him. I just trying to meter. Don't say 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:16.439 that he can about under ten degrees. The readable about 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:20.679 cold clicks, it's a normal background radiation that they were 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.840 picking up. It's quite clear from Colonel holtz tape. People 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.400 were trying and tell you that they were elevated readings. 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:32.360 They weren't. Nick Pope, among others, disputes that these readings 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:40.360 were insignificant. On June the physicist Frank Close, who was 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:44.880 now an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, appeared 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:49.440 on a show called Strange but True Live broadcast by 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:54.360 the British TV network i t V three. On it, 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:58.560 he addressed claims about the radiation levels detected by Halt 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.480 and Nevill's. In this clip, he has a Geiger counter 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.520 similar to the one used on the third night of 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:11.559 the Ryndshum Forest encounter. This is the British equivalent of 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.000 the standard US Air Force issue, which is used usually 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.080 for measuring huge amounts of radiations like in nuclear blasts 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.240 and so forth. All you need to notice is is 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:22.160 a dial on the front here, and it looks very 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.000 much like the speedo in your car. Now, the speed 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.080 in your car is great for measuring whether you're exceeding 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:28.720 the speed limits or not. But you know what it's like, 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:30.400 You're stuck in the traffic jam doing nothing, but it's 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.120 still flickering at the bottom. We know from the report 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.800 that Colonel Holt made at the time that the amount 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:38.560 of radiation they thought they were detecting on their machine 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.760 was very very small, not point one. And we've checked 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.199 with the makers of the U S equivalent, and they said. 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.679 Their quote is that this measurement was the bottom reading 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.080 of the machine and was of little or no significance 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.679 at all. So it was not possible with the device 0:12:54.760 --> 0:13:00.679 to measure that small amount. So the radiation readings are explainable. 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:05.520 Halt also brought the star scope, which was essentially a 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:10.679 set of night vision goggles. He clearly didn't understand the equipment. 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.800 He didn't understand what he did. He was pointing an 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.640 image intensifier at a tree and said the tree was 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.640 glowing when he had a flashlight on it. An image 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:24.960 intensifier just intensifies the light, doesn't measure anything. It's quite 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:30.599 clear that he pointed the image intensifier at the lighthouse 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:42.160 scope that was burned dry. And of course image intensifiers 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:47.840 amplify the light twenty thirty thousand times, and a beam 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:52.320 every five seconds coming through the image intensifier effectively burned 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:58.080 the image out totally. It had been so bright. Halt 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.360 looked through the star scope at a light source. But 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.679 what evidence is there that it was in fact coming 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:09.640 from the lighthouse. Well orfard this lighthouse had a rotating 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:14.960 light that did a full rotation every five seconds. Now 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:20.440 the men then drew Colonel Holt's attention to the flashing light, 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:25.120 same thing that had been seen on the first night, 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.960 and you can hear the men say, look, there it 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.640 is straight ahead off my flash light. There it is again, 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.840 and there is a five second gap between the there 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:38.560 it is and there it is again, so we know 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:43.440 that the light was flashing at five second indivals. On 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:47.280 an episode of his Skeptoid podcast on the Rundel Shim encounter, 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.080 Brian Dunning sink a portion of the Halt tape with 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.960 a five second tone to show how the appearance of 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:59.080 the light coincided with the lighthouses rotation interval. We are 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:07.040 using this tape with his permission. Where right at this 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:11.320 position here straight ahead and between the sitter it again 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.720 in this case the flashing lights. Well, they never got 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.240 much closer to it. Colonel Halt said, well, it looks 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.560 like it's clear off to the coast. So we have 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:32.320 a flashing light which is in the direction of the 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.000 orford Ness lighthouse, because we know from where he was 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.800 standing the direction he was looking. So although he didn't 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.040 realize what it was at the time, from Colonel Halt's 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:44.480 own words, it seems very clear that he was looking 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:48.200 at orford Ness Lighthouse, as were the m n on 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:52.200 the first night. But this was not the only strange 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:55.120 light that Hal and his group saw. On the third night, 0:15:55.920 --> 0:16:00.120 they also saw colored lights down near the horizon. This 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.600 is from the hot tape three or fire that about 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:10.960 ten degrees horizon dirtly north through that two strange objects 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:17.440 shape colored lights on them that just to be about 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:23.160 maybe less in the full circle. There was an Olympic 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:29.360 eclipse or something there for a negative. Now, what's bright 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.960 star like and flashes colors in the sky? Well? Stars. 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.520 Colonel Hawk was out there until it started getting bright 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.480 in the morning, the dawns started coming up, and they 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.480 were still there, he said. Actually one of them appeared 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:46.480 to be low over the Woodbridge base, which was towards 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:50.480 the southwest of him, which was exactly where serious the 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.920 brightest star in the sky is to be found was 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.320 to be found at that time. And when a star 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:01.000 like Sirius is low down, the air currents in the 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.560 atmosphere make it twinkle. So yes, you will see serious 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:06.840 flashing red. You'll see it flashing green, You'll see it 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:10.080 flashing white, simply because it's light is being broken up 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:15.439 by convection currents in the atmosphere. So just like the 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.160 first night, the encounter on the third night in this 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:24.280 explanation comprises three elements. The lighthouse not understanding how the 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:28.920 specialized equipment they were using worked, and then the misidentification 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:33.600 of the stars. The only thing that's unusual where you 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:37.679 don't often get lighthouses involved in in the UFO cases, 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.280 the first one I've ever come across. Then, as they 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:44.280 moved between the trees, it looked as though the bright 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.880 light was moving away, zigzagging between the trees in front 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:49.639 of them, And it's exactly the same kind of effect 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:51.600 that you get when it seems as though you're being 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.040 chased by the moon when you're driving in in your car. 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:58.240 So it wasn't really the light that was moving, it 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:02.119 was them that will move in which gave the impression 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:07.000 of the lights receding and zigzagging between the trees. This, then, 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.960 is the skeptical explanation for what happened in rundel Shom Forest. 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.879 It seems to offer an explanation for all of the 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:18.439 elements over the course of those nights, but it's not 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:23.600 actually proof of anything. It's an alternative explanation that doesn't 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:28.159 rely on the paranormal. Of course, not everyone accepts the 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:33.760 skeptical explanation that we've just heard. I've heard every explanation 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.760 for the Randal Show inside in and Look, I'm not 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.240 here to prove to anyone that aliens landed in the 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.639 forest and Randell Show post of the Somewhere in the 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:50.359 Skies podcast Ryan Sprague. I'm here to try to find 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:54.320 the truth, and I'm open to any possibility of what 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:57.159 Randal Show was. But I'm not willing to accept is 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:01.760 that it was a lighthouse. Was there another way to 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:06.359 possibly verify what had happened one way or the other? Well, 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.600 this incident involved the military, and where the military is involved, 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:17.359 there's paperwork after the break. Strange arrivals will return in 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:33.200 a moment. The r a F. Bent Waters and r 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:39.679 a F. Woodbridge based complex house nuclear weapons. In a 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:43.960 case where an unknown craft or crafts encroached on that complex, 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.639 you would expect to find a mountain of paperwork. Maybe 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:53.160 that paperwork was classified or remains classified, but you would 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:57.879 expect that it would exist. The written statements by Peniston, 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:02.680 Burrows and others were not in fact official documents. They 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.600 did not find their way into the Air Force official 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:10.359 accounting of this event. The only official document that was 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:14.360 produced from this encounter, which Chuck Halts Memo, and that 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.199 wasn't for the U s Air Force, It was written 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:22.640 for the British Ministry of Defense. In two thousand, Prime 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:26.920 Minister Tony Blair signed the Freedom of Information Act, which 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.120 provided a means for journalists in the public to request 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:36.720 official government information. Sheffield Hallam University Associate Professor David Clark. 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:40.680 At the time, I was working as a news reporter 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:43.160 for one of the big regional newspapers in the UK 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:45.919 and the Freedom of Information was coming in and my 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.359 editor was saying everyone, all you journalists, you need to 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.159 sort of use this is where it's going to be 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:54.720 in the future. It's a great tool for journalists forcing 0:20:54.720 --> 0:21:00.000 the government to release the not released. Before Clark realized 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:02.920 is that he needed to find his own niche a 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:06.040 subject that he could focus his attention on now that 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:10.800 this new information had been made available. So I just thought, well, 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:13.840 what about UFOs. You know, I know that there's this 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:16.439 unit at the Ministry of Defense that's existence since the 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.639 nineteen fifties. I know they've got lots of files on 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:21.480 this thing that in the past they've always stone wall. 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:24.920 So I just thought, well, I'm going to use this legislation, 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:27.399 and the very first thing I went for was the 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.639 file on the Randelstrom Forest incident, because up until that 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:33.640 point they just said the only thing that they got 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:36.840 on file was Colonel Holt's memo one page of A 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.960 four and I just thought that cannot be true. Clark 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:44.920 put in his request soon after this new policy was implemented, 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:50.000 and I really didn't think it would get anywhere. Low 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.119 and Behold, within a few months they said, oh, yes, 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:56.440 we've located a hundred and fifty five page file, and 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.080 we've also gone back and searched to all the other 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:01.760 files covering the period of the sighting, and we've found 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:03.680 a whole bunch of other documents as well, so we've 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:07.080 copied those for you. We've added those to the file. Here. 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:09.720 It is big, thick, brown envelope, just dropped through my 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.879 letter box one morning and I just thought, Wow, I've 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:16.960 hit jack pot here. But despite the size of the file, 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:22.359 the contents were disappointing. The file itself was something that 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.200 was assembled later when the story going into the news 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:30.000 of the world and It largely consists of Holtz memo, 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:32.320 a few other bits and pieces, and then the rest 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:35.440 of it is just letters from uthologists and members of 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.040 the public who's seen the story in the newspapers and 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:40.679 who were writing in to the Ministry Defense saying what 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:42.920 do you know about this? Did the aliens really land? 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:45.720 And their response every time is just the standard, Well, 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.120 all we've got is Colonel Halt story. We looked into 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:52.640 it at the time, our air defense experts decided that 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:54.600 there was nothing to be worried about because they didn't 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:56.840 see anything on radar. So that's the end of it 0:22:56.880 --> 0:22:59.880 as far as we're concerned. So that the entire file 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.879 just a repetition of that statement whenever they received a 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:08.280 letter or an inquiry from the media. In other words, 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:13.480 there was nothing. Later, though, Clark became the official spokesman 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:16.960 for the government effort to organize and release the UFO 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:21.480 files that it had. In this capacity, he was able 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:25.480 to access all of the surviving files. This let him 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:30.040 take another approach to Reyndlssom documentation. He asked to see 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:33.160 the general file of UFO reports for the whole year 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:37.720 of Clark says it was a huge file about a 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:40.920 foot thick. And the interesting thing from my point of 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:44.760 view as an arcadist historian, journalist, is the report from 0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:47.399 Colonel Holt was just filed with all the rest of 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:50.560 the lights in the sky in that file. So his 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:56.480 original memo is in the general UFO file alongside all 0:23:56.520 --> 0:23:59.240 the other Mr Son So coming out of a public 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:01.520 house in London and saw lights in the sky. The 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:05.119 next story is Colonel Hall. Then another story and the 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:07.120 guy who was the UFO desk officer at the time, 0:24:07.160 --> 0:24:09.600 Simon Weed, and I spoke to him about this and 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:11.879 he remembered it clearly and he just said, well, it 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:16.280 was just another story. We didn't take it seriously. And 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:18.760 this is a critical point when looking at the Rundall 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:23.920 Shim encounter. As we've mentioned before, if a craft, any 0:24:24.000 --> 0:24:27.600 craft had appeared around R A F. Bent Waters and R. 0:24:27.680 --> 0:24:31.680 A F. Woodbridge basis with nuclear weapons during the Cold War, 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:36.919 it should have caused great concern and an intense official reaction, 0:24:37.680 --> 0:24:41.479 but it didn't. Chuck Halt talks about how we never 0:24:41.520 --> 0:24:43.960 heard back from the U. S. Air Force or the 0:24:43.960 --> 0:24:49.480 English Ministry of Defense about his encounter. Why why didn't 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:52.480 the Ministry Defense take this seriously? And There is a 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:56.040 two page briefing in the files about this, and basically 0:24:56.200 --> 0:24:59.040 what they said was, we didn't take it seriously because 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:02.720 Colonel Halt and take it seriously. We looked at his memo. 0:25:03.080 --> 0:25:04.960 Why did he wait two weeks to report it to 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:06.920 us in the first place, and why did you get 0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:09.520 all the dates wrong? If he thought when this was 0:25:09.560 --> 0:25:12.439 happening that the base a nuclear arm base, was under attack, 0:25:12.920 --> 0:25:15.440 you wouldn't wait until the British based commander came back 0:25:15.440 --> 0:25:18.960 from his Christmas holidays two weeks later. I mean none 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:22.080 of what I've said here. It says that something didn't happen. 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:26.879 Clearly something did happen, but the time to actually do 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:29.879 a thorough investigation of it has passed. You can't investigate 0:25:29.960 --> 0:25:33.159 something that happened forty years ago when all the records 0:25:33.200 --> 0:25:35.920 have been destroyed, and when such elementary mistakes were made 0:25:35.920 --> 0:25:40.560 at the time. He's talking about radar records that were destroyed, 0:25:41.240 --> 0:25:47.840 leaving that question forever unresolved. We've heard the accounts of 0:25:47.880 --> 0:25:51.679 the encounters at Ryndoldshop Forest, and in the next episode 0:25:52.000 --> 0:25:55.960 we'll hear more from the witnesses. We've also heard the 0:25:56.000 --> 0:26:00.639 skeptical explanation for what happened. It's safe to say that 0:26:00.760 --> 0:26:05.679 neither the original nor the skeptical account have become universally accepted. 0:26:06.840 --> 0:26:10.640 The public understanding of what happened is still up for grabs. 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:16.639 So you've got this inconclusive situation where people come in 0:26:16.640 --> 0:26:22.719 with other types of explanations when something seems just completely incomprehensible. 0:26:23.240 --> 0:26:26.159 And so I think that when you don't have a 0:26:26.240 --> 0:26:31.040 cultural narrative to explain what happens, then you will often 0:26:31.160 --> 0:26:35.920 have different types of explanations coming forward. My name is 0:26:35.960 --> 0:26:39.959 Deborah Lotonzi Shutka. I am a folklorist and professor at 0:26:39.960 --> 0:26:44.439 George Mason University in Fifex, Virginia. I have been teaching 0:26:44.480 --> 0:26:49.280 folklore for over twenty years and my area of specialty 0:26:49.640 --> 0:26:56.680 is narrative analysis. Those types of stories are obviously really 0:26:56.680 --> 0:27:00.960 great interest to folklore's because it tells us basically how 0:27:01.000 --> 0:27:04.000 a community or a person is thinking about a set 0:27:04.040 --> 0:27:08.280 of circumstances. So this is an important point for the 0:27:08.320 --> 0:27:12.120 rest of the season. In a situation such as Rendall shown, 0:27:12.640 --> 0:27:15.440 where there are two or more narratives about what happened, 0:27:16.359 --> 0:27:20.720 why does one narrative eventually become accepted and what does 0:27:20.760 --> 0:27:24.200 that tell you about the culture at the time. These 0:27:24.240 --> 0:27:27.479