by Mack Maloney
The crew braced for a collision. The red light was right on them.
But then, suddenly, it just… stopped.
When the astonished crew finally opened their eyes, they saw a gray cigar-shaped craft right in front of them, flying in unison with the Huey. The craft was enormous.
The red light the copter crewmen had first spotted was on the craft’s bow. A white light was on its stern, and it had a green light underneath. A beam from this green light momentarily enveloped the copter’s cockpit before shutting off.
The giant craft continued pacing them for about ten seconds. Then it took off at blinding speed, first heading west, then executing a sharp turn north before it finally blinked out.
Somehow Coyne regained control of the copter and his faculties and was able to fly to a safe landing in Cleveland.
* * *
As UFO sightings go, this one was very dramatic. But what makes it even more interesting was that there were ground witnesses as well.
As reported by nuforc.com, follow-up research by ufologists located a woman and four youths who’d been driving in the area at the time of the incident. They reported seeing a bright red light flying over their heads at one point, but then they lost sight of it.
The group continued driving and soon after saw two bright lights, these being red and green. The driver pulled to the side of the road, and incredibly, the car’s occupants witnessed the exact moment that the UFO had stopped in front of the Huey helicopter and then begun flying along with it. The five witnesses even reported seeing the green ray of light envelop the helicopter before the UFO sped off.
Many ufologists call the “Coyne Incident” one of the best UFO sightings ever.
And though it was never explained, the copter crew won $5,000 from the National Enquirer for the most “scientifically valuable” report of 1973.
The Rendlesham Affair
It was the East Anglia section of Great Britain that was first haunted by the scareships of 1909.
Above its fields and villages, its cliffs and rugged coastline, the phantom blimps sailed through the night, pointing their mysterious searchlights down at everything and nothing, puzzling and frightening the population and giving the world its first peek at the men in black.
Flash forward forty-eight years, to the night of May 20, 1957—and once again something very strange is happening over East Anglia.
That night, two U.S. Air Force F-86 fighter jets stationed at the RAF base at Manston were scrambled to intercept an unknown flying object that had suddenly appeared over East Anglia. The object had not only bypassed the network of radar stations ringing the UK, it was also seen performing some very unearthly aerial maneuvers, such as flying extremely fast, then suddenly coming to a complete stop, before flying extremely fast again.
Even though this was happening during the Cold War, those bizarre flight characteristics guaranteed this was not a Soviet aircraft probing the British defenses.
This was a UFO.
The scramble flight was led by U.S. Air Force lieutenant Milton Torres. The Sabres had just reached the prescribed altitude of 32,000 feet when Torres received an order he did not expect: The UFO had been judged a security threat, so ground control told him to prepare his weapons to fire at it.
Torres’s F-86 carried both machine guns and rockets, designed to stop incoming Soviet bombers. But now they were going to be used against something from out of this world — literally.
Torres looked down at his radar screen and saw the blip of the UFO. It was glowing extremely bright, meaning the target was enormous.
Within a few seconds, Torres had been able to get in behind the UFO. He armed his weapons and was about to fire when the object suddenly accelerated to tremendous speed. In an instant, it was off the Sabre’s radar screen completely.
Torres later estimated the UFO must have attained at least Mach 10—as in 6,500 miles per hour — in order to make such a quick exit. However fast it went, though, it left the pair of Sabres flying through an empty sky.
(Oddly, a similar incident had happened just a year before, again over East Anglia; this one involved another huge UFO and as many as four jet fighters in pursuit ready to fire. Like the one Torres was chasing, that UFO also accelerated to an astonishing velocity just before its pursuers could unleash their weapons.)
Torres and his wingman landed back at Manston soon after their encounter, only to find that Torres was about to have a Man in Black episode of his own. A man Torres described as looking like a “well-dressed salesman” came to RAF Manston to interrogate him.
This man asked many questions about Torres’s just completed mission. Once he’d got all the facts, the man informed Torres that the whole affair was now considered highly classified and that Torres should not talk about it with anybody, including his superior officers.
The mystery man also made it clear that if Torres said a word to anyone, his air force career would be terminated.
* * *
Flash forward another twenty-three years, to 1980—and again, strange doings in East Anglia.
This time it was in a place called Rendlesham Forest, a vast six-square-mile woodland near the city of Ipswich. The forest shared some interesting real estate. Located close to the coast, a nearby island housed some buildings purportedly occupied by the National Security Agency, America’s most secretive intelligence agency. Also close by was a pair of large NATO air bases, RAF Woodbridge and RAF Bentwaters.
These bases were highly classified installations in 1980. RAF Bentwaters was one of NATO’s largest nuclear weapon storage facilities at the time, and RAF Woodbridge was where the USAF 67th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron called home. This highly specialized unit was under the direct command of the Department of Defense and flew radically adapted HC-130 aircraft used for satellite recovery.
On the night of December 26, 1980, a blip appeared on radar screens at RAF Watton in nearby Norfolk. This blip fell off the radar right in the area of Rendlesham Forest. The same unidentified object was also spotted by radar at RAF Bentwaters — and its track also ended over Rendlesham. Two U.S. Air Force policemen, John Burroughs and Budd Parker, were manning the east gate at RAF Woodbridge at the time. Around 2 A.M., they saw an object fall into the forest nearby. They thought it was one of the base’s planes crashing, despite the fact that it was the Christmas holiday and no planes were supposed to be flying that night.
Then they saw lights coming from the dense forest. Not flames — instead they described them as looking like bulbs on a Christmas tree: A large yellow light was glowing above the trees, a red blinking light was in the center, and near it, a steady blue light. The lights were about a mile and a half east of the east gate.
What the policemen were looking at didn’t make sense. First, they’d thought something had crashed in the woods — but now it was as if something had landed there. But how could something land safely in a thick forest?
The policemen called the base headquarters, and their sergeant was quickly on the scene. His name was Jim Penniston.
Penniston saw the lights in the forest as well and listened when his men insisted this was not a crashed plane. Whatever it was, Penniston knew it had to be investigated.
So, while Parker stayed at the gate, Sergeant Penniston, Burroughs and Penniston’s driver set out for the woods.
But almost immediately the small search team’s radios went on the blink. Something in the woods seemed to be interfering with them. Penniston ordered his driver to stay behind near the road, so he could shout messages to him if need be. Then Penniston and Burroughs went into the woods alone.
They noticed right away that strange things were happening. The forest animals were running around wildly, and the air seemed filled with electricity. They could feel the static on their skin. They heard strange noises, too. Burroughs reported hearing something like a woman screaming. Some farm animals nearby were making a lot of noise as well.
The two men started walking toward the li
ghts, knowing if it was a downed aircraft, it would have lit the forest on fire by now or at the least filled the woods with the stink of spilled aviation fuel. Yet they could neither see nor smell anything along those lines. So Penniston and Burroughs stayed focused on the multiple colored lights, which were getting brighter as they approached.
They eventually reached a clearing, where they found the source of the strange illumination. It was a shiny object, shaped like a cone about five to six feet high. It was floating a couple of feet off the ground with a strange mist around it. It was so brightly colored that it was hard for the two men to make out any distinct features beyond that. But one thing was for certain: They were sure this was not something of this world.
Penniston eventually walked right up to the object. There appeared to be some strange writing etched on the side of it, but when he ran his hand over these impressions, the light on the top of the object suddenly grew brighter. Both men hit the dirt, and the object started moving away from them.
They watched as it made its way through the dense forest, finally reaching a spot a short distance away. At this point, the object ascended to about 200 feet above the ground, paused a moment, then took off at such high speed, both men said it was gone literally in the blink of an eye.
* * *
Thus began the haunting of Rendlesham Forest — and a real rarity: an almost indisputable UFO case.
And it was not over.
Penniston and Burroughs returned to the woods the next morning to find the local police on hand. The nearby constabulary had also received reports about the strange lights the night before, and they were investigating. At some point, the two airmen discovered indentations in the clearing where they believed the object had set down. Penniston and Burroughs measured the distance between these ground markings and found that they formed a perfect triangle, made, they were sure, by the undercarriage of the strange object. But the police did not agree with their conclusion. They insisted on describing these holes as animal diggings simply because they didn’t want to put anything too crazy into their report.
But other signs of the UFO’s presence were found as well. Many trees in the area had their tops broken off, and weird serrations were found on some tree trunks, too. Plus, a U.S. Air Force aircraft had flown over the area at sunrise and reported that infrared radiation was “pouring” out of the forest.
The base’s top brass was made aware of all this, but typically, the U.S. Air Force refused to address the events. Their stance was that whatever happened had taken place outside the gates of the Woodbridge base. Therefore, it was not their place to comment.
* * *
The following night there was an officers’ dinner party at RAF Bentwaters.
No sooner had dinner begun, though, than a junior officer appeared and reported to the base commander that the UFO had returned to nearby Rendlesham Forest. Because the base commander was scheduled to make an after-dinner speech, he asked his deputy commander to handle it. This man was Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt.
Halt gathered up some airmen and headed for the east gate. On arrival, Halt learned that an hour earlier a security patrol had spotted more strange lights floating above Rendlesham Forest. But the lights had quickly disappeared.
Still, Halt planned to go into the woods, fully intent on debunking all talk of a UFO. By his own words, he was convinced whatever was happening in Rendlesham had a rational explanation.
In addition to radios, Halt and his men had gas-powered lanterns called “light-alls” with them. Halt had also brought a small tape recorder with which he planned to record his thoughts and actions during the search.
He went into the forest with his men shortly after 1 A.M. The woods had been sealed off by this time; a security perimeter had been established so any curious locals or airmen wouldn’t interfere with Halt’s mission.
Once inside the forest, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, at least at first. But then the light-alls started cutting out, and soon after, the search party’s radios began working only intermittently.
Then around 1:48 A.M., everything changed.
At that point on Halt’s tape, the officer can be heard insisting his men slow down and take it easy. Why? Because they’d spotted the mysterious lights again.
At first, to Halt’s eyes it looked like a glowing light resting on a pillar of yellowish mist. One of his men added that the light had a rainbow effect as well, as if being reflected through a prism. Just like the night before, the light was gliding slowly through the woods.
In interviews later on, Halt said he initially considered that the light might be an optical illusion, or a mirage, or that old standby, the weather-induced temperature inversion. But none of these explanations fit. On the tape he describes what he was looking at as being like a huge eye, with a dark center, winking at them. Halt also said the object appeared to have molten metal dripping off it, even though neither he nor his men could see any evidence of this on the ground.
Finally, Halt had to admit that he simply couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
As reported on UFO researcher Nick Pope’s website, nickpope.com, Halt was quoted as saying: “Here I am, a senior official that routinely denies this sort of thing, someone who diligently works to debunk them and [suddenly] I’m involved in the middle of something I can’t explain.”
The recording Halt made that night is as gripping as it is authentic. Spoken as a running commentary on his actions and those of his team, it is the sound of a man who had been a UFO skeptic minutes before becoming a UFO believer in a hurry.
(Note: The recording and transcript can be found on many Internet sites, including: www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicrend.html)
Halt: It’s 0148, we’re hearing very strange noises out of the farmer’s barnyard animals. They’re very, very active, making awful lot of noise… (pause) You just saw a light? Where?
Airman: Yeah…
Halt: Wait a minute now, slow down, where?
Airman: Right up in this position here, straight ahead, in between the tree… there it is again! Watch. Straight ahead… sir. There it is…
Halt: Yeah, I see it too. What is it?
Airman: We don’t know, sir.
Halt: Yeah, it’s a strange small red light, looks to be maybe a quarter to a half mile, maybe further out…
Halt: The light is gone now, it was approximately 120 degrees. Is it back again?
Airman: Yes sir.
Halt: Well, douse the flashlights then… let’s go out to the edge of the clearing so I can get a better look at it… the light’s still there and all the barnyard animals have gotten quiet now…
Airman: Now it’s stopped. Now it’s coming up, hold on, there we go. About four foot off the ground…
Halt:… Say that again. About four feet off the ground, about 110 degrees…
Airman: Yes sir. Now it’s died.
Halt:… I think it’s something that, something very weird.
Airman: How about the tree right over…
Halt:… The woods are just deadly calm. There is no doubt about it, there’s some type of strange flashing red light ahead.
Airman: There, it’s yellow.
Halt: I saw a yellow tinge in it too. Weird, it, it appears that he may be moving this way? It’s brighter than it has been.
Airman: Yellow…
Halt: It’s coming this way! It’s definitely coming this way! Pieces of it are shooting off. There is no doubt about it, this is… weird.
Airman: Two lights, one light to the right, one light to the left!
Halt: O.K., keep the flashlights off. There’s something very, very strange… pieces are falling off it again.
Airman: And it just moved to the right.
Halt: Yeah!
Airman: Just off to the right.
Halt: O.K., we’re looking at the thing, we’re probably about… 300 yards away and it looks like an eye winking at you. It’s still moving from side to side, and when you put the star scope o
n it, it sort of has a hollow center, a dark center. It’s like the pupil of an eye looking at you, winking. And the flash is so bright to the star scope that, it almost burns your eye.
Halt and his men followed the light through the woods, crossing a farmer’s field and stumbling through a small brook.
Halt later recalled: “As we moved out of the forest, we noticed three objects in the sky. The objects in the sky were moving about, sharp angular movements, very high speed. I kept getting on the radio and calling the command post. I wanted to know if they were finding anything on the radarscope. One of the objects was sending down beams, beams of light, beams of energy, I’m not sure what they were. At that same time I could hear on the radio, voices talking about the beams coming down on the base.”
Then Halt saw a beam of light cut the night directly in front of him. That’s when his skepticism disappeared for good.
He and his men chased the lights for more than an hour but to no avail. They finally left the forest around 3 A.M. But even after their departure, strange lights were still being reported above RAF Woodbridge.
* * *
The next morning, representatives from U.S. intelligence agencies started showing up at Bentwaters and Woodbridge.
Oddly (or maybe not), just about anyone who’d actually seen the UFOs in the woods was not questioned by the spooks. This included Lieutenant Colonel Halt, who was particularly marginalized. It is at this point that many ufologists contend the inevitable cover-up of the Rendlesham events began.
Still, whatever happened, there is no denying the episode had a significant effect on some of the men involved. For instance, soon after the incident Sergeant Penniston requested a transfer; the sighting had affected him adversely. On the other hand, John Burroughs, his partner in the woods that first night, stayed out in the forest for days afterward, waiting for the UFO to return.
