It's funny how one thing can lead to something entirely different. In earlySeptember 1993 we were handling a possible abduction case here in Nottingham,and this indirectly led us to a visit to Rendlesham forest, in Suffolk.
his all came about because we wrote to Budd Hopkins for advice on abductioncases. Instead of getting a reply from Budd, one of his assistants answeredour letter, by the name of Peter Robbins. Peter was very helpful, and sent usan audio tape and literature about abductions. After a couple of letters backand forth, he mentioned that he would be visiting England in March to do moreresearch for a book called "LEFT AT EAST GATE", which he was co-authoringwith Larry Warren, and that if we cared to join them in Suffolk they would bepleased to take us around Rendlesham Forest.
In 1980, Larry Warren had been in the 81st U.S.A.F. Security Police, andstationed at Bentwaters Air Force Base. He was one of the eye-witnesses tothe UFO activity in nearby Rendlesham forest.
Peter also offered to come to Nottingham during their stay, and give a talkabout the Rendlesham affair at one of EMUFORA's meetings. We were quiteexcited at this prospect, and hurriedly wrote back agreeing to their offer.Letters went back and forth trying to arrange a convenient meeting. We hadprovisionally booked for the meeting to take place on 12th March, but after a phone call to and fro, New York, the date was finally set for Sunday 28thMarch.
EMUFORA hold a staff meeting each month, and Peter's invitation wasdiscussed. Four members decided to take up Peter's offer and go down toSuffolk - these were Tony James, Tom Ruffin, Dave Smith, and Barrie Kerry.
Tony made enquiries about accommodation and managed to book two twin rooms ata cottage near Woodbridge. Arrangements were made. and it was agreed thatthey would start out early Saturday 12th March, and return late the followingday.
A hitch occurred when Barrie had to cancel out at the last minute. So I(Carole James) went along in his place. I wasn't really looking forward to itat all - but I'm glad now that I did go.
After a long tiring journey, we pulled up outside a pink coloured cottage,which turned out to be a renovated 200 year old building, and it waseverything I could possibly expect from a traditional country cottage(actually it was two cottages knocked into one) complete with low beamedceilings, inglenook with hanging pans and kettle, and even old latched doors- superb. Sylvia Hall, who owns the cottage, welcomed us with a tray of teaand coffee, and shortly after we had arrived, Sylvia's husband joined us, andin no time at all we were chatting away like old friends. I've stayed in somebed and breakfast establishments before, but nothing compares to the Hall'shospitality and friendliness, and for anyone wishing to visit Woodbridge, thenI can highly recommend staying with them.
We explained who we were and why we were there, they appeared veryinterested. Sylvia explained that she works in a community home for care ofthe elderly, and that several years ago an old gentleman, who had since died,told the staff that he'd witnessed the UFO from his cottage which wassituated near Woodbridge airfield, and that he'd also had visits from highranking Military officials. I took notes to pass this snippet of informationon to Peter and Larry.
After dropping off our overnight bags in our rooms, Tony rang Peter andarranged to meet them at 1.00pm, which gave us time to check out the localpub. Tom Ruffin arrived as we were ordering lunch, and together we ate ahearty meal - and judging by the amount we were given, they must of thoughtwe Townies needed fattening up. At 1.00pm we set off for Eyke, the nextvillage along, where we were warmly greeted with handshakes all around andmore tea and coffee. It was quite amusing really, because we all haveNottinghamshire accents and Larry thought we were from Liverpool, he evenasked if we'd ever met the Beatles (he's a great fan of theirs) we set himstraight that we were from Robin Hood country and not Liverpudlians.
Eventually we got round to the interview about the Rendlesham Forest affairand their fourth coming book. Tony video recorded them and Dave recorded themon audio tape throughout the afternoon. Larry related the events and retracedhis footsteps of the night of 28th December 1980, except this time EMUFORAstaff were tagging along, and unfortunately no UFO appeared for us.
We were shocked by the devastation of most of the forest, which had beendestroyed by a freak storm (with no rain) in 1987. We also noticed thatalthough the forestry commission had replanted a small part of the forest,there were hardly any birds to be heard.
Larry gave us running commentary which went roughly like this, (although amore exact account can be found in his book "LEFT AT EAST GATE", which is dueout later this year.) R.A.F. Bentwaters and R.A.F Woodbridge are separated bya thick, dense forest (or were in 1980) called Rendlesham forest. Over threeconsecutive nights in late December 1980, UFO activity was observed in thesewoods by Military personnel and also civilians.
On the night of 28th December, Larry was on guard duty, the time wasapproximately 1.30am. An army truck pulled up and he was ordered to get intothe vehicle. There were other guards in the truck, but none of them knew whatwas happening or where they were going. They were driven from the Bentwatersbase towards the Woodbridge base, they turned left at east gate (hence thetitle of the book).
The truck stopped at a clearing in Rendlesham forest, which is owned by theforestry commission. It crossed Larry's mind that they were violating atreaty with the British Government, because they were not supposed to carryfirearms outside the Military base. He was armed with a loaded M16 all thetime. The men were ordered out of the truck and told to hand their weaponsin. There were other small groups of soldiers already there, and they set offinto the woods in small groups.
When they arrived at the edge of the woods, which backed onto a farmersfield, they saw a large patch of white mist over the field known as CapelGreen. The mist was about two foot from the ground and approximately fiftyfoot in diameter, suddenly they noticed a red light silently approaching fromthe far side of the field, it went into the mist and there was a blindingflash of light which was so bright that they had to shield their eyes. WhenLarry looked again the mist had disappeared and in it's place was a largetriangular craft with a white light on top. As he looked at the object, itseemed to distort slightly.
The soldiers were told to close in and surround the craft, which they did -at this point Larry noticed that their shadows were cast onto it's surfaceand that they were very large. It was as though they had light shining behindthem throwing their shadows onto the craft, but apart from one of thespectators who was filming the event, there was nothing but the darkness ofthe woods behind them. Larry also noticed two cows that had wandered overfrom the far side of the field, which stood watching the craft. Larry'sattention was suddenly diverted from the cows, as a shaft of light came fromthe craft. Inside this light there were three beings, which he described assmall with enlarged heads and large dark eyes. They seemed almostsemi-transparent in appearance.
The beings approached Larry's Wing Commander, Colonel Garden Williams, whoalso stepped forward to meet the beings. There didn't seem to be any verbalcommunication or gestures on either part - if there was any communicationthen it would have to have been telepathic. They held a face to faceconfrontation until a noise in the woods made the beings withdraw slightly.After a short while, they resumed their positions.
One of Larry's senior officers ordered Larry, along with a number of othersto go back to the clearing where they had left their weapons. During theretreat, according to Larry, all hell broke loose. A triangular object,smaller than the main craft appeared in the clearing where the trucks wereparked. There were many officers in the area and one of them literallygrabbed hold of the object. which carried him approximately ten metres beforehe let go of it.
None of the men spoke whilst on their way back to camp, Larry said they justlooked at each other without saying a word. They were probably suffering fromshock. The next day they began to discuss what had happened. The driver ofone of the trucks said that one of the beings passed through the glass of hiswindscreen. Terrified, the driver had kicked out with his boot and kicked thewindscreen out. Others reported seeing small probes which passed through oneside of the truck and came out of the other side.
Larry remembers seeing British policemen at the scene, they were takingphotographs of the craft, until one of the American officers confiscatedtheir cameras. He also remembers seeing someone filming the event, which heheard later, had been flown to a USAF base in Germany. He also learnt thatColonel Charles Halt, who had also been present, had recorded a runningcommentary of the event on a small tape recorder, which was over four hourslong.
The men who had been present in Rendlesham forest, were sent for debriefing.They were shown film footage of UFOs which had been filmed dating back to thesecond world war and up to present day. They were instructed not to speakabout this to anyone, or they could make life hard for them. They were alsomade to sign a pre-written statement about the previous nights events.
Later that day Larry used a public pay-phone to call his mother in America,he reversed the charges. When his mother came on the line, Larry started totell her about the UFO, but before he could mention it, the line went dead.He called the operator and told her that he had been disconnected. She askedif he was calling from the Airbase, and when he replied yes, she said thathis call had been cut off from the base. Larry realised that all calls werebeing monitored. He was sent for and questioned about his phone call, whichLarry denied making. They then played him a recording of his telephoneconversation. He was given the choice of a fine or losing one of his stripes- he chose the fine.
The Military hierarchy wasted no time in sending most of the witnesses to newpostings in Egypt, until things had calmed down in Suffolk. On Larry's returnhe was given office duties. He felt that his superior officers regarded himas a trouble maker and that they could keep a close eye on him if they kepthim on indoor duty. Little did they know that Larry was busy acquiringdocuments pertaining to that fateful nights events. Also by asking questionshe found out that on one occasion a machine of undetermined origin hadremained motionless above a storage area where nuclear warheads were kept. Abeam of light had shone down and had penetrated the bunkers, rendering thenuclear weapons useless.
In May 1981 Larry received an honourable discharge and left the Air Forcebehind, but unfortunately he couldn't forget what he had witnessed thatnight.
Eventually Larry contacted a UFO organisation and told them all that he knew.They in turn went public with the story, giving Larry the pseudonym of ArtWallace. Larry didn't ask for this, but they assured him that it wouldprotect him from ridicule.
Time and time again Larry feels drawn back to this particular corner of the world, he even spent his honeymoon in Woodbridge. It may be that he's stilllooking for answers - or maybe he's hoping that one day the strange visitorswill return.
EMUFORA'S VISIT
As I've mentioned earlier, we were shocked by the devastation caused to theforest by a supposed freak storm in 1987. Local people remarked that they'dnever experienced anything like it before - there had been no rain, and ithad centred mainly around the dense forest. One of the peculiarities was thatinstead of uprooting the tall pine trees, they had been snapped off, leavingthe same effect as a broken matchstick. It filled us with great sadness towalk through what was left of it. Larry mentioned a weather weapon which themilitary had. This was used to disperse clouds for aircraft to land and takeoff - maybe this went out of control - who knows ? we can only speculate.
Another unusual aspect was Capel Green, this is the field where Larryactually saw the craft. The field backs onto Rendlesham forest. In the farcorner stands a farmhouse, obviously the farmer who had lived there in 1980had been re-located elsewhere. The unusual thing was that half the field (thefarmhouse side) was lush and green, and yet the half nearest the forest wasbrown coloured scrubland, and the soil was just dust. Needless to say thatthis was the area where the UFO had landed.
Larry took us to the perimeter fences of Woodbridge and Bentwaters Airforcebases, we saw the storage areas which once housed nuclear warheads, and thebuildings which were home to many American Airmen not many years ago, nowdesolate and empty. A comment from Larry has stuck in my mind - "There weremany secrets behind those locked gates".
We said our goodbyes the next day, and headed back for Nottingham. Peter andLarry were going on to visit London and surrounding areas before returning toWoodbridge, where they were to meet a Central TV crew, who were making adocumentary film about UFOs.
During the following two weeks, we were kept busy organising the meeting,although we did notice that we hadn't received any mail for EMUFORA since ourreturn from Suffolk - which was very unusual. We had hired a room from theNottingham County Leisure services, and requested an extra forty chairs andcups to be delivered for the meeting - these never appeared. I also contactedtwo local newspapers and informed them of the intended meeting (they areusually fairly good at advertising our meetings for us), but this time theyseemed to drop the subject like a hot potato.
Larry and Peter arrived on Saturday afternoon in a Chauffeured Volvo, whichCentral TV had provided to bring them to Nottingham. Later we took them toour local haunts and a good time was had by all - I think! on Sunday we tookthem on a very quick sightseeing tour, took a few photos with Robin Hood, andthen back home, where Tony interviewed each of them on video.
The lecture was a great success despite some of the audience having to stand.Over a hundred and twenty people attended, I feel that the audience werecaptivated by their great personalities as well as the contents of thelecture. At the end of the meeting Larry signed nearly fifty autographs,(which reminds me, I never got mine). By the time we arrived home, we wereall exhausted. Tony and I retired to bed, leaving Peter and Larry trying torepack their already overfilled cases. They left Nottingham the next day withpromises to come back and visit us for a holiday.
Looking back, and thinking about the things that Larry told us, the memory ofRendlesham forest will haunt me for a long time - was the forest destroyed bya freak storm? I don't believe so, as according to meteorologists, the windswould have to have been over 800 m.p.h. Or was it a military owned weatherweapon? It's a possibility. Or could it possibly have been the strangevisitors? - showing the military just how powerful THEY can be?
Written by Carole James, EMUFORA
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