0:00
0 seconds
Headline edition July 8th 1947. The Army Air Forces has announced that a flying disc
0:08
8 seconds
has [music] been found and is now in the possession of the army.
0:11
11 seconds
However, there have been a certain percentage of this volume of reports that have been made by credible
0:18
18 seconds
observers of relatively incredible things.
0:24
24 seconds
Uh there is very compelling evidence that we [singing] uh we may not be alone. Whatever that means.
0:30
30 seconds
There's a whole fleet of them. Look on the NSA. Who all they do?
0:38
38 seconds
American public and global public finally understand UFOs are real
0:42
42 seconds
[music and singing]
0:43
43 seconds
non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed.
0:51
51 seconds
Dr. David Clark. David, how you doing?
0:54
54 seconds
Good. Great to see everybody again or great to see you, Vinnie. Yes, you're becoming quite the regular now.
0:59
59 seconds
Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate it. And uh yeah, I think last time or we spoke a while back and I said to you, what are the the kind of cases that you think
1:08
1 minute, 8 seconds
really do hold a lot of weight that probably don't really get talked about here in the UK? And this one, the sort of Bentwaters Lake and Heath was probably the first one that you
1:16
1 minute, 16 seconds
mentioned. So, I had to have you on to talk about it. And then when we found out or I found out that you'd done these interviews with the kind of people that
1:25
1 minute, 25 seconds
were there and involved in it, you know, I knew it it had to be talked about. So I'll kind of hand it over to you and if you could just sort of go through the
1:33
1 minute, 33 seconds
story and and tell us about it because like I said, it is absolutely fascinating. And then when you feel like I should play any clips or show any images and stuff, just let me know and and we'll go from there.
1:44
1 minute, 44 seconds
Okay. Thanks, Vinnie. Um just [clears throat] to introduce this um this story or case um before Rendlessham
1:51
1 minute, 51 seconds
came along. Um this is a long long time ago now. Um this case the what was known as the Lake and Heath Bentwaters case
1:59
1 minute, 59 seconds
which happened in the same area of East Anglia um as the Rendlessham Forest incident. It was probably the best known
2:06
2 minutes, 6 seconds
or the be most evidential um UFO incident in the um in the British sort of case list. [clears throat] And um it
2:15
2 minutes, 15 seconds
happened in 1956 at the height of the cold war. Um but the thing is it was it was effectively covered by official secrets act uh until the late 1960s. So,
2:25
2 minutes, 25 seconds
no one actually knew. It wasn't in the public domain until the end of the 1960s, which is when if you you will
2:32
2 minutes, 32 seconds
know that the American um project blue book that the US Air Force um were running, they they basically closed shop
2:40
2 minutes, 40 seconds
and they gave a contract to the University of Colorado uh to write a report. This became the infamous Condon report, not Condon.
2:49
2 minutes, 49 seconds
um and um they examined something like 12,000 um separate UFO incidents reported to the US Air Force and some of
2:59
2 minutes, 59 seconds
them were foreign where where for example um there were US air bases in in Europe and Far East and the interesting
3:07
3 minutes, 7 seconds
thing is out of those 12,000 cases um I think there was something like 700 that remained unexplained and one of those
3:15
3 minutes, 15 seconds
was from Britain and that was the Lake and Heath Bentwaters case And no one in this country in Euphology
3:22
3 minutes, 22 seconds
knew anything about this story until the Americans published it in 1969.
3:28
3 minutes, 28 seconds
And and unfortunately uh the if you believe what the British government tell us um their files on it by that point,
3:36
3 minutes, 36 seconds
the late 1960s had been destroyed. So when this came out, all the all the MOD was saying the usual sort of thing.
3:44
3 minutes, 44 seconds
Sorry, we can't tell you anything about it because we've destroyed our file on the kids. So um as I say, it was it's it
3:52
3 minutes, 52 seconds
is hugely evidential. There was a lot of information in the American um files because um it was the American air force
3:59
3 minutes, 59 seconds
um bases at Bentwaters and Lake and Heath in East Anglia where um these objects, the UFOs, UAPs, whatever you
4:06
4 minutes, 6 seconds
want to call them, were picked up first on radar. Now, they alerted the Royal Air Force because their sort of guests
4:14
4 minutes, 14 seconds
in the UK at that time right at the height of the Cold War. It was just as the sewish crisis was was brewing in the
4:22
4 minutes, 22 seconds
in the um in the Middle East. Um there was huge tensions with the Soviet Union which is there are some connections with
4:30
4 minutes, 30 seconds
what's going on today. I mean people thought at that time we were literally on the verge of the third world war. Um there was there was RAF um aircraft that
4:40
4 minutes, 40 seconds
were poised on quick reaction alert bases all around the east coast.
4:45
4 minutes, 45 seconds
um they were in contact with radar stations. Anything that was approaching the UK across the North Sea um that was connect that was um seen on radar, there
4:54
4 minutes, 54 seconds
would be an immediate scramble and aircraft would be sent off across the North Sea to investigate and the Russians were probing our defenses
5:02
5 minutes, 2 seconds
probably two three times every week. So, put UFOs or UAPs into that mix uh and
5:10
5 minutes, 10 seconds
you've got a real you've got the basis for an incredible story. And on the top of that, I mean when I looked into the
5:17
5 minutes, 17 seconds
background to this RAF Lake and Heath, which is still tenanted by the US Air Force today, was a base for nuclear weapons. And again, something that was
5:26
5 minutes, 26 seconds
covered up for many, many years just before this UFO incident in June or July 1956. There was a I think it was a B-56
5:34
5 minutes, 34 seconds
bomber coming into land at Lake and Heath went out of control. Crashed into the nuclear weapons stall and very
5:42
5 minutes, 42 seconds
nearly triggered off a massive nuclear incident in East Anglia that would have you know covered East Anglia in in
5:48
5 minutes, 48 seconds
fallout. Narrowly avoided the detonator didn't go off and again this didn't emerge until something like 1980 and as
5:56
5 minutes, 56 seconds
American general mentioned it came out in parliament. Um, at the same time as well, just before the UFO incident, the
6:04
6 minutes, 4 seconds
the CIA were flying the what was then the brand new Black Project U2 spy plane from [snorts]
6:12
6 minutes, 12 seconds
Lakeen Heath. Uh, and it and they had a contingent of these U2 spy planes that that were being sent over the Soviet
6:19
6 minutes, 19 seconds
Union with the consent of our prime minister at the time, Harold McMillan.
6:25
6 minutes, 25 seconds
And the the um the U2s were shipped into the UK in big wooden boxes disguised as bananas, big banana boxes. And uh
6:35
6 minutes, 35 seconds
apparently when some of the other politicians found out about it, they had to get rid of them, moved them off to um Vice Pardon in West Germany. But you can
6:42
6 minutes, 42 seconds
see if you were an American officer or you were in the RAF and you were based in that area, you knew all this stuff
6:50
6 minutes, 50 seconds
was going on. You can imagine the tension there must have been. And then one night, August, the night of August the 13th,
6:59
6 minutes, 59 seconds
14th, 1956, this is a really hot, steamy summer night, clear skies. Um,
7:08
7 minutes, 8 seconds
call start coming in to the RAF from the various air bases around the east coast.
7:12
7 minutes, 12 seconds
RAF Bentwaters, um, RAF Lake and Heath, all of them picking up weird objects on their ground
7:20
7 minutes, 20 seconds
control approach radars. So, this is where it gets complicated because the American bases had radar, but these were
7:27
7 minutes, 27 seconds
just airfield radar. So, they had a small radius. They didn't sort of see very far. Um, and they were seeing odd things on the radar. And people were
7:36
7 minutes, 36 seconds
going outside and they were seeing lights in the sky that were streaming across the sky, moving at incredible speeds. Something up I think the some of
7:43
7 minutes, 43 seconds
the things that have been seen on radar were moving at some incredible speed.
7:46
7 minutes, 46 seconds
4,000 mph was one of the things that were registered. formations of objects as well that were sort of slowly moving and then others that were moving really
7:54
7 minutes, 54 seconds
fast and they were phoning this in to the RAF.
7:59
7 minutes, 59 seconds
Um that's the stage at which the RAF start to to look on their radars. Now the RAF radar and you can see a picture
8:07
8 minutes, 7 seconds
of something like what was being used at the time. This is a a type um 85 cm centime radar which is um still on site.
8:18
8 minutes, 18 seconds
If you go to RAF Nitisad which is a radar museum in the Norfolk Broads they've still got the radar from that era you can go and look at it. So this
8:27
8 minutes, 27 seconds
this is like one of the control cabins they were using and a um an RAF um uh officer called Freddy Wimbledon who I
8:37
8 minutes, 37 seconds
got to know really well was in lengthy communication with him about 20 years ago when he was in his late 80s early
8:45
8 minutes, 45 seconds
90s. He was the chief controller at RAF Neisad. So he started taking the calls
8:51
8 minutes, 51 seconds
from Bentwaters early in the evening and Lake Heath quite later on around midnight and he was quite skeptical as
8:59
8 minutes, 59 seconds
you can imagine. Um, and he would looked on his radar picture and could not believe what he could see because he could see something that had apparently
9:08
9 minutes, 8 seconds
come across the North Sea that was that was moving in unlike any aircraft moving at fantastic speeds. This was at quite a
9:17
9 minutes, 17 seconds
high altitude because the only way I can describe it, if you can imagine a radar doing this from a source. So you've got the ground control radars that are sort
9:26
9 minutes, 26 seconds
of spinning round like that and maybe seeing something and they're putting out pulses at a certain speed. Now the the
9:34
9 minutes, 34 seconds
the radar that Freddy Wimbledon had access to really highowered ground control interception radar. So much more
9:42
9 minutes, 42 seconds
powerful spanning out right across the North Sea. So he could see this thing zooming in, moving at incredible speed,
9:49
9 minutes, 49 seconds
stopping, stationary, unlike any aircraft movement. And you thought, is it the Russians? You know, if it is the
9:58
9 minutes, 58 seconds
Russians, it's too late to do anything about it because they're already here over Lake and Heath nuclear armed air base. Uh where this where the U2 spy
10:07
10 minutes, 7 seconds
plane was. Um so basically, um perhaps we ought to um play some of the tape of Freddy um talking about this. It's about five or six minutes.
10:17
10 minutes, 17 seconds
I think this one's seven minutes.
10:18
10 minutes, 18 seconds
Seven minutes. I should just say I I made these recordings 22 years ago before we had digital technology. So they were made on C90 cassettes and they've been transferred to MP3.
10:31
10 minutes, 31 seconds
Uh on the night of the 13th 14th August 1956 6 I was the flight lieutenant on duty at
10:41
10 minutes, 41 seconds
chief interception controller at a radar station in East Anglia.
10:48
10 minutes, 48 seconds
My function was to watch the radar picture as seen on our consoles and if
10:54
10 minutes, 54 seconds
any anything abnormal was seen to take what action was necessary.
11:01
11 minutes, 1 second
This involved scrambling fighter aircraft which were on standby 24 hours a day.
11:11
11 minutes, 11 seconds
Right.
11:13
11 minutes, 13 seconds
Um not long not after I went on duty at um
11:23
11 minutes, 23 seconds
2330 just before midnight. through time, our
11:30
11 minutes, 30 seconds
credit time, um we began to notice
11:35
11 minutes, 35 seconds
um a return on our right which was acting rather strangely.
11:45
11 minutes, 45 seconds
It was alternately going very very fast, much faster than anything we'd ever seen
11:53
11 minutes, 53 seconds
before and then suddenly stopping. And that did the apparent slowing down and
12:00
12 minutes
then accelerating from that position um that terrific speed straight away.
12:08
12 minutes, 8 seconds
Um but I conferred with the sector controller
12:16
12 minutes, 16 seconds
and uh said I thought we ought to scramble the battle flight see what it
12:23
12 minutes, 23 seconds
was. So the ratified troops scrambled
12:28
12 minutes, 28 seconds
that consisted of two Venom NF2
12:36
12 minutes, 36 seconds
fighter version of the Venom that carried a pilot and a navigator.
12:42
12 minutes, 42 seconds
Navigator sitting on the right hand side but otherwise they were more or less side by side. The navigator had his own radar.
12:51
12 minutes, 51 seconds
The function being that uh when he was directed from the ground
12:59
12 minutes, 59 seconds
um he would at one stake he would search on his own radar until he found the
13:07
13 minutes, 7 seconds
object from the directions given from the ground.
13:11
13 minutes, 11 seconds
And from then on um he would watch the object if he had
13:20
13 minutes, 20 seconds
picked it up by that time and um subsequently at a certain stage he would
13:27
13 minutes, 27 seconds
take over the interception if ordered to.
13:34
13 minutes, 34 seconds
In this case, um, a contact was made on an aircraft
13:41
13 minutes, 41 seconds
which appeared to be well didn't know it was an aircraft. It was just what appeared to be a very bright light and
13:50
13 minutes, 50 seconds
uh the navigator thought he had it on his
13:59
13 minutes, 59 seconds
screen but it kept disappearing and at one at one stage appeared to be stationary.
14:08
14 minutes, 8 seconds
In which case um we on the ground uh thought
14:16
14 minutes, 16 seconds
this object which we had followed the whole time um
14:25
14 minutes, 25 seconds
was behaving rather erratically. So we had two choices there. either this
14:33
14 minutes, 33 seconds
whatever it was um had been able to loop and get behind
14:39
14 minutes, 39 seconds
the target aircraft or target rather or the
14:47
14 minutes, 47 seconds
it has undersshot the target which later appeared to be the correct version.
15:00
15 minutes
So I decided then to scramble another aircraft and that was scrambled to join the
15:10
15 minutes, 10 seconds
chase. In the meantime, the target has shot up at a tremendous
15:17
15 minutes, 17 seconds
pace to the northeasterly direction, but at such a rate that uh height, it
15:26
15 minutes, 26 seconds
was off our height um consoles before he would say Jack Robinson at terrific speed.
15:37
15 minutes, 37 seconds
We're all I don't say shaken by this, but um the experience was such that we'd
15:46
15 minutes, 46 seconds
never something that we'd never encountered before.
15:50
15 minutes, 50 seconds
And the sheer speed, not only speed, but maneuverability of this object, whatever it was, uh seemed so uncanny.
16:04
16 minutes, 4 seconds
The next day we were visited by a group captain from Tide Command who wanted to the story.
16:17
16 minutes, 17 seconds
And uh he told us under no circumstances were we to talk
16:25
16 minutes, 25 seconds
about its fellows or anybody else. I never let the press down.
16:34
16 minutes, 34 seconds
And um it seemed very strange at the time, but he said, "Don't worry, you haven't
16:43
16 minutes, 43 seconds
seen something. These things are they described as a a bright light."
16:52
16 minutes, 52 seconds
They couldn't see anything else but a bright light.
16:57
16 minutes, 57 seconds
I think you've got the measure of it there. When you were tracking this thing on the on the radar, what what a normal rad aircraft response, right?
17:06
17 minutes, 6 seconds
No bigger than any other, just exactly the same as one of their own would have been, right? But presumably behaving in a way
17:15
17 minutes, 15 seconds
that behaving in a way that no aircraft at that time or anything in business
17:22
17 minutes, 22 seconds
would be able to do. I mean, no aircraft can be doing two or three,000 miles an hour and stop like that.
17:32
17 minutes, 32 seconds
[snorts]
17:33
17 minutes, 33 seconds
Yeah.
17:34
17 minutes, 34 seconds
Wow. I mean I mean Freddy was I think he was in his late 80s when I interviewed him and that would have been about 2000
17:41
17 minutes, 41 seconds
2001 and I should say the reason why um we knew he he'd come forward and he was willing to talk about it was in 1978
17:51
17 minutes, 51 seconds
I think it was shortly after Steven Spielberg's film had been released um encounters yeah a skeptic called Ian Ridath who I
18:00
18 minutes
know quite well he wrote a piece for I think it was the Sunday times um based upon what had been in the condai condom
18:08
18 minutes, 8 seconds
report about the case and it and because it it was only the American version, it was all completely wrong and mixed up
18:15
18 minutes, 15 seconds
and this was in the Sunday Times and Freddy read it and he wrote into the Sunday Times and said, "What a load of nonsense that I
18:23
18 minutes, 23 seconds
was there. Why has no one asked me about this?" And that's how it came out that he was involved in this. So managed to
18:30
18 minutes, 30 seconds
track him down and get him speaking. and he spoke to various other euphologists as well. But [clears throat] as you can see quite an incredible story and the
18:38
18 minutes, 38 seconds
story that he told is pretty much um it's it's um it's it's pretty much the same story that's in the blue book
18:47
18 minutes, 47 seconds
records but there's a lot of inconsistencies which I don't think we need to sort of go into at the moment.
18:52
18 minutes, 52 seconds
It's it's sort of like sure um it's it's about the timings because the American timings um seem to be earlier in the evening and he's talking
19:00
19 minutes
about something that happened after midnight. But there's a lot there's a lot of things that could explain that because at the time we were subject to what what was known as Brit double
19:09
19 minutes, 9 seconds
British summertime. So our time was 2 hours ahead of the American time. So there's lots of sort of distortions
19:16
19 minutes, 16 seconds
going on like that. But he was obviously he ordered the interceptors and and it wasn't until I think the late 1990s that
19:25
19 minutes, 25 seconds
we actually tracked down the pilots and the navigators who were flying the Venoms, the NF4 NF10 Venoms and they were like as Fedy had explained in that
19:34
19 minutes, 34 seconds
clip. They were like a double seater um interceptor aircraft that had forward-f facing interception radars. So he he scrambled them from the battle flight.
19:44
19 minutes, 44 seconds
So that so there was a group of venoms that were on 24 24-hour uh call at a base called RAF Water Beach, which is
19:52
19 minutes, 52 seconds
near Cambridge. Cambridge, city of Cambridge. And there was a whole group of people. So this is where you get all these other names like Graeme Scoffield,
20:01
20 minutes, 1 second
uh John Brady, Ivan Logan, they were all sat around in this, you know, you can imagine the Battle of Britain. Yeah. Similar sort of thing, but Cold War.
20:08
20 minutes, 8 seconds
They were waiting for the call. They were expecting the Russians to come and they thought the Russians would be coming over the over the um the North
20:16
20 minutes, 16 seconds
Sea at very high altitude, you know, the Russian bears. So when they got this call from um from the RAF Niti said um
20:25
20 minutes, 25 seconds
they were absolutely amazed because they were being asked to go and intercept something that was at 4,000 ft above the East Anglian countryside. So if it was
20:34
20 minutes, 34 seconds
the Russians, it's far too late to do anything about it. So perhaps we ought to now play the the the description from John Brady who was a navigator in the
20:43
20 minutes, 43 seconds
first Venom. He he was sent by um Freddy Wimbledon to intercept um this UFO that
20:49
20 minutes, 49 seconds
was on the RAF Neyad radio radar and he was told to speak to the Americans. So they switch frequency to RAF Lake so
20:58
20 minutes, 58 seconds
that the Americans were using the ground controlled approach radar because the object was so near the ground they couldn't see it on the interception
21:05
21 minutes, 5 seconds
radar. to dropped below the horizon that that Freddy could see. So they put patched them through to the Americans and perhaps we ought to let John tell the story what happened there.
21:16
21 minutes, 16 seconds
Absolutely. I'll just premise this by saying that these are clips from 45minute interviews. The the Freddy Wimbledon that we heard and this one
21:24
21 minutes, 24 seconds
from John Brady on the night in question. I can remember some chat immediately prior to scramble
21:31
21 minutes, 31 seconds
with Neistad and they then they called for a venom and um I think it probably
21:38
21 minutes, 38 seconds
went like water beach water beach here one bell scramble vector so and so called so and so on whatever frequency
21:47
21 minutes, 47 seconds
it was. Well, we were airborne probably within 2 minutes because the uh Venom was a cartridge start
21:55
21 minutes, 55 seconds
um startup system. Pilot just pressed the cartridge and you got this terrific whoosh from the cartridge gases as it
22:04
22 minutes, 4 seconds
drove the turbine around the start mechanism around and there's no water up in a jet. We just roared off and we think what is this?
22:14
22 minutes, 14 seconds
But we had a vague idea that the Americans wanted us to go and look at something. But where did that idea come from? Well, it must have come from Nishad.
22:22
22 minutes, 22 seconds
Probably the chat saying the Americans want us to want you to go and look at something. They've got I can't remember
22:29
22 minutes, 29 seconds
very clearly, aren't they? Anyhow, off we went and called Lake Heath and they were directing us uh towards this thing
22:37
22 minutes, 37 seconds
at around 7,000 ft. The first run we had at it, I saw nothing.
22:43
22 minutes, 43 seconds
The next time we went went beyond um I I can remember saying to David contact and he kept saying to me, "What is it? I
22:51
22 minutes, 51 seconds
can't see it." As we rush by on each pass and it would go down the right hand side or left hand side depending which
22:59
22 minutes, 59 seconds
way we went at it. And there would be a little paint like that and it was fairly obvious that whatever it was was stationary.
23:07
23 minutes, 7 seconds
There was no moving. And if you remember in that little film they said, "Well, couldn't you intercept it?" And I have to say you cannot intercept something
23:16
23 minutes, 16 seconds
that is stationary which you just can't do.
23:20
23 minutes, 20 seconds
Um but there was something there. And when we got back and landed and when I in France Kirk came back I had a word
23:28
23 minutes, 28 seconds
with Ivan and he said do you see something? Did you? I said yes. So did I. And it was just this little faint
23:36
23 minutes, 36 seconds
paint. You wouldn't call it a real positive blip. It's the sort of thing I've seen a MET balloon with a radar
23:44
23 minutes, 44 seconds
reflector on it before on AI21 and I reckon it was probably that or something like that.
23:52
23 minutes, 52 seconds
Um in the end we just turned around went back home when we we were getting a bit low and had several runs at it. But uh
24:00
24 minutes
each time I would say to David there it's out 45 starboard now at one mile he'd be looking at me and see nothing say what is it? What is it? I don't know. There. There it was.
24:11
24 minutes, 11 seconds
How many rooms did you have at the target? Three or four? Definitely. So, what altitude?
24:17
24 minutes, 17 seconds
Around 7,000 ft and around 300 knots. 7,000 ft is quite low really, isn't it?
24:25
24 minutes, 25 seconds
Compared to a lot of the interceptions.
24:27
24 minutes, 27 seconds
Yes. But of course, our inter our fuel consumption was pretty. Sure.
24:34
24 minutes, 34 seconds
Which uh governed a shorty length. Of course, we only do that about 50 55 minutes. So, we were air what about 55
24:42
24 minutes, 42 seconds
minutes or further than this? But you've been checking in a lot more. Great stuff.
24:49
24 minutes, 49 seconds
So, in that one he mentions he did at one point think it was this radar balloon thing.
24:55
24 minutes, 55 seconds
Yes. And um the interesting thing about that was I did actually track down the the diary, the squadron diary, number 23
25:03
25 minutes, 3 seconds
squadron, which was their squadron. And there's an entry about the um the case in there and it basically said that there was all these aircraft were sent
25:11
25 minutes, 11 seconds
out looking for this mysterious object um and [clears throat] um it was they couldn't work out what it
25:19
25 minutes, 19 seconds
was and eventually it was concluded it was a balloon. That's all it says in the squadron diary. But obviously um there was something more than a balloon there.
25:29
25 minutes, 29 seconds
Um because what Freddy saw clearly wasn't a balloon. And it's I mean it's like with a lot of UFO incidents like
25:38
25 minutes, 38 seconds
Rendles and some of the others. It's not impossible that there was a number of different things going on. You know that there wasn't just one thing. There may
25:46
25 minutes, 46 seconds
well have been a balloon floating around around as well that caused some confusion. But clearly what what was being seen earlier in the night wasn't a
25:54
25 minutes, 54 seconds
balloon. And um um the the the interesting thing about it is if if if there's any astronomers
26:02
26 minutes, 2 seconds
or people interested in astronomy um who um are listening to this show um the
26:09
26 minutes, 9 seconds
13th or the 14th of August should spark um something off in your brain and that is because that is the height of the Perciad meteor shower. That that's the
26:18
26 minutes, 18 seconds
time when the Perciads are the most active. So there's a lot if you read about the case there's a lot of stories about people going outside and seeing
26:26
26 minutes, 26 seconds
lights streaking across the sky. So, it's quite possible they were percied meteors. And what happens with these
26:33
26 minutes, 33 seconds
cases again like Rendlesshamrom, I think it's once people get it in their heads that there's something out there, there's something flying around. Uh
26:42
26 minutes, 42 seconds
they're sort of broken out of whatever myasma they're in, you know, they might be reading the paper, they might be, you know, wait like like sat in the crew
26:49
26 minutes, 49 seconds
room waiting for the call. Someone tells them there's a UFO. They go outside and maybe there's a balloon floating around or there's a meteor streaking overhead.
26:57
26 minutes, 57 seconds
that gets all roped into the story and it's very easy then to sort of for skeptics and debunkers to sort of like
27:04
27 minutes, 4 seconds
myself to say what a waste of time you know that's obviously what it was but the more you look into it the more you look at the detail it's clearly
27:12
27 minutes, 12 seconds
something more than that and they obviously the American the air for American air force and the British air ministry obviously investigated it in
27:20
27 minutes, 20 seconds
great depth and I discovered um that the this is a really involved story. The
27:27
27 minutes, 27 seconds
chap who was the head of 23 Squadron at the time, um it was a bloke called um Tony Davis,
27:36
27 minutes, 36 seconds
um he um was ex he he'd been a Russ he'd been a British spy working for MI6 in
27:43
27 minutes, 43 seconds
Budapest before he was he was he was captured by the Russians, exchanged, sent back to the UK, and they put him in
27:50
27 minutes, 50 seconds
charge of um 23 squadron um running the QR. And I looked into his background and he'd um flown in the Second World War.
27:59
27 minutes, 59 seconds
He'd flown intruder missions into Germany and he'd actually seen a Foo Fighter during the Second World War.
28:05
28 minutes, 5 seconds
It's in one of his log books. And the bizarre thing was, and this is still blows my brain when I find when I when I
28:14
28 minutes, 14 seconds
think about this, in 1972, he became the head of the Ministry of
28:20
28 minutes, 20 seconds
Defense's UFO desk, Anthony Davis. What year was that?
28:27
28 minutes, 27 seconds
1972. When when he'd retired from sort of military service, they brought him back obviously because he knew something
28:34
28 minutes, 34 seconds
about UFOs and about the he'd been they knew he'd been involved in this Lake and the Heath case and they gave him the job as as head of the UFO desk at Whiteall.
28:44
28 minutes, 44 seconds
Is this the same level as Owen Hart and Nick Pope kind of level?
28:48
28 minutes, 48 seconds
No, above that level. So So more DI55 type.
28:52
28 minutes, 52 seconds
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and when you look at the files as I have done for that period when he was um running the desk, there were people who had
29:00
29 minutes
obviously read about the case uh in the Condomon report that had been published by the Americans who were writing in to the UFO desk at the time
29:08
29 minutes, 8 seconds
saying, "What do you know about it?" And in one of the letters he writes back, he says, "Well, I know about it because I was flying one of the aircraft."
29:16
29 minutes, 16 seconds
[laughter]
29:16
29 minutes, 16 seconds
That's amazing.
29:17
29 minutes, 17 seconds
He doesn't say anymore. And it's so frustrating. And he unfortunately he died in 1988. So I was never able to um
29:25
29 minutes, 25 seconds
speak to him because it was before I started looking into this. But he obviously knew an awful lot about it.
29:30
29 minutes, 30 seconds
And Graeme Scoffield, who is the next person we um um we need to play, he he knew Tony Davis and he he knew that Tony
29:39
29 minutes, 39 seconds
Davis had looked into the incident and investigated it and that there was something uh definitely sort of unexplained about it. It wasn't a
29:48
29 minutes, 48 seconds
balloon basically. Um and we should say that um Graeme Scoffield was the navigator of another Venom and quite
29:55
29 minutes, 55 seconds
early in the evening before um Logan went out in his Venom, he'd been scrambled, I think about half 9 when the
30:03
30 minutes, 3 seconds
first UFOs had been seen at Bentwaters and he went up um in this um Venom from
30:10
30 minutes, 10 seconds
Water Beach and before they could get very far in the sky, I think the the wing fuel tank fell off and crash into a field Cambridge. Again, all covered up.
30:21
30 minutes, 21 seconds
There was no sort of public story about this, but this is what he said. And they had to return to base, so they couldn't actually get anywhere near this UFO that
30:30
30 minutes, 30 seconds
was being tracked at 9. So quite fr he was really frustrated about this. and he ended up back in the um in the guard
30:37
30 minutes, 37 seconds
room, I think it was, with all the other pilots and navigators gathered around a little radio set and they were listening
30:44
30 minutes, 44 seconds
to the radio and listening to what was going on in the sky with all these other aircraft being scrambled one after the other by um my Niti said to go and have
30:53
30 minutes, 53 seconds
a look. So perhaps we ought to play what Graeme Scoffield will say.
30:56
30 minutes, 56 seconds
Let's get that one up. I will just say I've got a few people who have asked questions and I've I've noted them. So when we finish watching this and we'll talk about it. I will get to your
31:04
31 minutes, 4 seconds
questions uh after that guys. So let's get this playing. But I mean I knew these guys very well.
31:13
31 minutes, 13 seconds
So they they were okay. You know they knew their jobs and the um the radar at that time was sufficiently good that if you got a blip, you knew what it was.
31:22
31 minutes, 22 seconds
You could identify it. You could see it.
31:24
31 minutes, 24 seconds
You know it was of a particular Yeah.
31:26
31 minutes, 26 seconds
size. So you you would not really be um assuming it was something you know some neological phenomena or something like
31:34
31 minutes, 34 seconds
that and anything that could catch you might be a balloon or something that sort which is always the possibility
31:40
31 minutes, 40 seconds
but um but I believe these guys did get the scramble did get the intercept did say what they said and so on so forth I
31:48
31 minutes, 48 seconds
still still stick stick with that so that
31:55
31 minutes, 55 seconds
okay Well, the the Venom would was a um a twin seat uh aircraft where the pilot navigator sat side by side and in the
32:04
32 minutes, 4 seconds
front of the seat virtually the whole area was made up of a ray dome which would have a radar uh uh unit probably
32:14
32 minutes, 14 seconds
about um 3 and 3 foot six wide. the um the the the the
32:22
32 minutes, 22 seconds
um diameter of the uh of of the actual screen. And this was uh adjusted so that it could move in every every direction.
32:28
32 minutes, 28 seconds
So you get up, go up, go down, go left, go right. And that was connected to the radar equipment and and a joystick which
32:36
32 minutes, 36 seconds
the navigator would work to position the uh the radar in in place. Now in addition to that obviously it had a um a
32:44
32 minutes, 44 seconds
CRT display very similar to a television which would give you a um a probe of light which would go across. So the
32:52
32 minutes, 52 seconds
object of the exercise was to point your radar into the direction you thought the enemy aircraft would come and then by a
32:59
32 minutes, 59 seconds
series of calibrations you could measure its distance, its track, its positioning and things like that. it would appear on
33:06
33 minutes, 6 seconds
the on the screen as a very fine line and uh you from the line and the rest of
33:13
33 minutes, 13 seconds
it you could determine you know broadly what its characteristics are whether it was big and fuzzy or whether it was very tiny
33:22
33 minutes, 22 seconds
mind. Um, so we were not aware that we were other than just scrambled for either a trial or something like that that we got off the ground and
33:30
33 minutes, 30 seconds
immediately we would do a a maximum rate uh climb away from base climbing turn and then onto your vector and go
33:38
33 minutes, 38 seconds
through. Um, and this this climb would take you all of 15 minutes something like that. Now we would be it was dark.
33:46
33 minutes, 46 seconds
We were um no navigation lights. So it would be very very quiet, very still.
33:50
33 minutes, 50 seconds
You know, we would just be getting out to height and wondering what was going to going to happen.
33:59
33 minutes, 59 seconds
Now, uh I can't remember. I don't think they did more than one pass each. Right.
34:05
34 minutes, 5 seconds
I think they were then they were then called off. Um did they sound excited or Oh, yes. Or
34:12
34 minutes, 12 seconds
Yeah. Yeah. They were they were speaking very tensely. Well, partly because you're on a collision course. You can't
34:21
34 minutes, 21 seconds
see in front of you. And what they hadn't figured was that the thing was stationary.
34:26
34 minutes, 26 seconds
You see, it would be most unusual to have an aircraft. Well, it couldn't have an aircraft that was stationary, right?
34:30
34 minutes, 30 seconds
And therefore, there were two things that that were were distinct. Uh, one is the rate of of approach. Now, the rate
34:38
34 minutes, 38 seconds
of approach normally is exceedingly fast. If you are on collision courses opposite direction, so you can tell that
34:45
34 minutes, 45 seconds
reasonably clearly, uh you would normally um expect therefore the
34:52
34 minutes, 52 seconds
aircraft in in front of you to be moving in you know various directions and you would try to harmonize your speed with the speed of the aircraft.
35:00
35 minutes
Yeah. You see, so one of the things which uh is exceedingly difficult particularly for the navigator is trying
35:07
35 minutes, 7 seconds
to define what the speed is. So you can get the the pilot to reduce speed sufficient to to come in line because you don't want to come in like a train.
35:15
35 minutes, 15 seconds
You want to come in slowly and sit behind it, identify it, and then if necessary shoot it down that point. So
35:21
35 minutes, 21 seconds
the navigator's got a number of um uh methods of doing that. One of which is to slap on your air brakes, which is
35:29
35 minutes, 29 seconds
like stopping you dead dead in the air, right?
35:32
35 minutes, 32 seconds
But you've got to be very careful where you do that because if you ever shoot, you stop dead in front of them when you were trying to catch. That's not very
35:39
35 minutes, 39 seconds
clever. But I didn't ever hear anything about air brakes. I didn't hear anything about controlling speeds or anything of
35:46
35 minutes, 46 seconds
that sort. Um, and frankly when you're looking to be spectred onto um a Russian
35:53
35 minutes, 53 seconds
bomber flight at 600 knots, the last thing you're expecting is something that's going to be stationary [laughter] almost on the deck. So I suspect there
36:02
36 minutes, 2 seconds
was a mental process involved here that that hadn't quite clicked into place.
36:05
36 minutes, 5 seconds
So it would have been obvious to you listening that this wasn't your ordinary Yes.
36:10
36 minutes, 10 seconds
interception. Something odd was going on.
36:12
36 minutes, 12 seconds
Yes. Yes. And I I seem to remember this is the bit where I may made this up, but I seem to remember the pilot saying the
36:20
36 minutes, 20 seconds
second pilot saying he is right behind us.
36:23
36 minutes, 23 seconds
Right? That's a crucial that's that's what I what I have in mind because that's the thing that sent the shivers up our back because you know one
36:32
36 minutes, 32 seconds
thing is one thing to be attacking somebody else but they're right behind you attacking you. you really begin to in order to say that because they didn't
36:40
36 minutes, 40 seconds
have any rear ra rad radar that was looking behind they must have just assumed that because they must have assumed disappeared radar that's exactly behind that's exactly right yes
36:49
36 minutes, 49 seconds
so someone over listening to that on the radio on the ground would may have jumped to the conclusion that perhaps it circled around the back rather than the
36:57
36 minutes, 57 seconds
overshot exactly yeah yes yes I mean it would be the natural reaction [laughter] is very tense who knows there was something
37:04
37 minutes, 4 seconds
there navigators told him it's just in front of you and he's gone beyond it and then he's saying right he's just behind me now so that's that's the bit that
37:13
37 minutes, 13 seconds
really fixed our minds and then we started saying what could this be what is this likely to be
37:18
37 minutes, 18 seconds
[clears throat]
37:18
37 minutes, 18 seconds
uh is this a UFO is this or something and it was in our crew room that we would be discussing so that would be the first time that UFO yeah we never knew anywhere yeah
37:27
37 minutes, 27 seconds
anywhere else yeah and uh you know that went on until such time as the crews returned which was quite soon after these incidents they
37:35
37 minutes, 35 seconds
didn't hang about they backed straight back to base.
37:38
37 minutes, 38 seconds
They landed, they came out, came into the crew room, tremendous amount of banter and jib, you know, what's happened to you? Seen any little green
37:46
37 minutes, 46 seconds
men and all all the usual, you know, jokes, but the serious content was was something that actually happened and all
37:53
37 minutes, 53 seconds
of us were thoughtful about um quite what it was all about.
37:59
37 minutes, 59 seconds
But to be quite frank, it didn't register to the extent that we all thought we were part of a a major incident. We had not at that time been
38:08
38 minutes, 8 seconds
aware that the Americans had been involved. Uh to us, it was something that happened on a particular night.
38:13
38 minutes, 13 seconds
Tomorrow was another day and we were going to get on with our lives and do the various things.
38:17
38 minutes, 17 seconds
So that's really why our input is is somewhat limited in terms of the the overall scene.
38:24
38 minutes, 24 seconds
I mean, yeah, I mean that that really brings it home in what he said at the end there, Graeme, about how the fact that they
38:32
38 minutes, 32 seconds
were all operating in their own little bubbles and because of it being everything was covered by the official secrets act. No one was supposed to talk
38:39
38 minutes, 39 seconds
to anyone else. So, the Americans knew their part of the story. Um, the the the radar people knew part of that their
38:48
38 minutes, 48 seconds
part of the story and then the pilots knew their bits of the story. because over the years um some [snorts] of them
38:55
38 minutes, 55 seconds
have died. Um a lot of the records, the written records have been destroyed or dispersed. It's been like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. And I I spent
39:03
39 minutes, 3 seconds
literally it must have been like 15 years working on this story from about 1995 to about uh 2010 tracking people
39:12
39 minutes, 12 seconds
down and they were literally in the last few years of their lives some of them.
39:15
39 minutes, 15 seconds
But I do think it's an incredible story and and just just to read um Gordon Fyer who wrote this up for the Colorado um
39:23
39 minutes, 23 seconds
university the the the condom study he was a radar expert and he concluded what the line in the study says the
39:31
39 minutes, 31 seconds
apparently rational intelligent behavior of the UFO suggests a mechanical device of unknown origin as the most probable
39:39
39 minutes, 39 seconds
explanation for this sighting. Now when people think of con the condom study they tend to think this is a complete
39:46
39 minutes, 46 seconds
debunking exercise and you know we don't even need to think about it but he does actually say that and that is the one UK
39:53
39 minutes, 53 seconds
incident that's that that's in that American study and clearly something must have gone on because I I've got to
40:02
40 minutes, 2 seconds
say I have in all the work that I've done in the British archives they have literally gone through and removed and
40:09
40 minutes, 9 seconds
destroyed every single trace um [snorts] of this incident. There is one single mention of it in a in a briefing from
40:17
40 minutes, 17 seconds
1957 and this was simply because one of the defense ministers had asked the UFO desk at that time um to spell out the
40:26
40 minutes, 26 seconds
incidents from 1956 and they make a mention of there was this incident at Lake and Heath where an object was seen on radar at a high altitude. They sent
40:34
40 minutes, 34 seconds
an aircraft to investigate, but nothing was seen by the aircraft, which I suppose is true, but it's the actual bare bones of what happened.
40:45
40 minutes, 45 seconds
Absolutely. Now, one thing I wanted to show people is just to get an idea. We keep hearing about these different bases, Lake and Heath, Bentwaters, and that. If I bring up a map and we can
40:54
40 minutes, 54 seconds
kind of get an idea of the kind of area of of the UK. It's a bit blurry, but I'm sure we can we can do it. Yeah, that's
41:02
41 minutes, 2 seconds
pretty clear. So you can see here if you can see my cursor you've got Lake and Heath here and then up to the right we've got Nita Head near the coast and
41:11
41 minutes, 11 seconds
then down in the right corner we've got Bentwaters. So this is the kind of the East Anglia area really isn't it of the UK.
41:16
41 minutes, 16 seconds
Yeah. So Bentwaters and IPS which is where people will be familiar with the Rendlessham Bentwaters Woodbridge down in the southwest corner of East Anglia.
41:26
41 minutes, 26 seconds
So, Niti said where Freddy Wimbledon was um is right up on the coast on the flattest part of the coast, which is why
41:33
41 minutes, 33 seconds
the radar station's there. There's there's an actual radar museum there.
41:37
41 minutes, 37 seconds
Now, if you if you go there, it's actually you can actually go in the radar room as as it was in the 1950s.
41:44
41 minutes, 44 seconds
So, you can sort of imagine yourself um as Freddy Wimbledon would have seen it at the time.
41:49
41 minutes, 49 seconds
Yeah, that's pretty interesting. But it just gives a good impression as to piecing the like you said the puzzles you know and the bases and stuff. Ah Mr.
41:58
41 minutes, 58 seconds
Graeme Randall's in the chat. Lake and Heath and Milden Hall are pretty close to each other.
42:02
42 minutes, 2 seconds
Bentwaters and Wood Bridges circus overlap. IRC I'm not sure what that means. I'm sure they explain.
42:11
42 minutes, 11 seconds
Yeah, good to see you Graeme. Anyway, um let's just say that one thing I thought might be good to go and I'm not going to spend much time on it is just to look at
42:19
42 minutes, 19 seconds
the blue book files on it just to show people that it was taken you know kind
42:26
42 minutes, 26 seconds
of seriously. So this is a you know these are I'll I'll scroll through these are all
42:34
42 minutes, 34 seconds
documents drawings of the radar y showing the path of the object and a lot of this is Dr. Jay Allen Heinik as well.
42:43
42 minutes, 43 seconds
Yeah, he was he was asked to give an opinion on it. I think even Fred Whipple was was one of the famous astronomers at the time was asked to give an opinion,
42:52
42 minutes, 52 seconds
but this was all what you're seeing there was all top secret. No one had access to it outside the US Air Force.
43:00
43 minutes
Yeah. And these are a lot of these are or most of them are Air Force documents as well.
43:04
43 minutes, 4 seconds
Yeah. So there you go talking about meteors and space anomalies and all sorts of things. But yeah, like you said, these were all
43:12
43 minutes, 12 seconds
classified files that have obviously since become unclassified, but yeah, it just adds weight to the story. There we have another image of the radar
43:21
43 minutes, 21 seconds
tracks and things. I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense really to me. Um, but it's just adds to this weight of
43:28
43 minutes, 28 seconds
information and that. So ah, what about the artist impression? Should we show that now as well? Do you want to talk about this? quite good. Um, yeah,
43:35
43 minutes, 35 seconds
Hillary Evans, um, who was very big in eupfology in the 1980s and '90s, he he ran a picture library in London called
43:43
43 minutes, 43 seconds
the Mary Evans Picture Library, which some people may have heard of, and he did a wonderful children's book on UFOs um, in the 1990s, which had these
43:51
43 minutes, 51 seconds
wonderful artists impressions. And there was a a chapter on Lake and Heath Bentwaters where he got this, you [snorts] can see there, it's sort of
43:58
43 minutes, 58 seconds
like a almost like a palmst where he's got lots of bits from the story. So, he's got the um he's got the radar
44:05
44 minutes, 5 seconds
people peering at the screen. He's got the blurry light in the sky. You I think you can see a a Venom up there somewhere. Yeah. Above the light. Yeah. Yeah.
44:13
44 minutes, 13 seconds
And he's got the airman sort of pointing at the sky and the hangers. I just thought that really sums up the case really well. Yeah. Absolutely.
44:22
44 minutes, 22 seconds
But the key the main the main thing about the case that makes it stand out, I think, is the action bit that Brady and Scoffield were talking about. you
44:30
44 minutes, 30 seconds
know, the bit where that bit where the tension was rising and you can just imagine if you were in one of those venoms, you there's no light. You you've got your pilot who's
44:39
44 minutes, 39 seconds
sort of bombing along. Um, in fact, the pilot um David Brady was the pilot when um Brady was um David Chambers was the
44:48
44 minutes, 48 seconds
pilot and he was called David Hell for Leather Chambers, that was his nickname.
44:53
44 minutes, 53 seconds
So he was like bombing along and you can imagine Brady sat next to him peering at this radar screen and and and there's this thing about you
45:01
45 minutes, 1 second
know it's it's there in front of you and it's stationary and they're zooming past it and then they're getting the message from the ground. It's behind you. It's behind you and you can imagine that
45:10
45 minutes, 10 seconds
Scoffield and the others down on the ground listening to this and hearing this rising tension.
45:16
45 minutes, 16 seconds
That's the bit of the story I think that that really makes it interesting. So it's almost like they're involved in this really long chase with this thing
45:24
45 minutes, 24 seconds
whatever it was. I mean yeah I mean they're saying as well they were saying that you know at that time of night in those aircraft your vision your
45:33
45 minutes, 33 seconds
vision is limited to what 20 foot. So you're b you are basing you're it's the radar it's the the
45:40
45 minutes, 40 seconds
communications and things like that that you're relying on to navigate around and and intercept.
45:45
45 minutes, 45 seconds
It's not visual unless there's a light which you know some of them have said but it must be you know I'd be myself.
45:54
45 minutes, 54 seconds
It must have been terrifying. I think they were putting a bit of bravado on there to be honest. Um and don't forget this is Battle of Britain technology we're talking about. It's not much
46:02
46 minutes, 2 seconds
further advanced than what we were using during the 1940s. This is way before we had digital technology which is what what they use nowadays. And and the
46:12
46 minutes, 12 seconds
interesting thing about it is the radars they were using then were better for picking up UFOs than what we've got now because the the the radars that they use
46:21
46 minutes, 21 seconds
for civil civil aviation now they're computerized and I mean I've been around Manchester airport. I've been around
46:27
46 minutes, 27 seconds
some of the big airport um terminals and actually had people showing me how to use the radar and and I've sort of said to them, "Do you ever see UFOs?" and
46:35
46 minutes, 35 seconds
they said, "Well, yeah, we see odd things all the time, but all we do is we just change the computer program so that they we get rid of them." It's like,
46:44
46 minutes, 44 seconds
what? And it's it's like, well, we're not interested in things that aren't aircraft, you know? So, yeah, there's
46:51
46 minutes, 51 seconds
birds, there's insects, there's unusual meteorological things, but as long as they don't collide with aircraft, we don't want to see them. So we basically
46:58
46 minutes, 58 seconds
change we we we we we um you know we we we get the computers so it it doesn't see them. So unless something is the
47:07
47 minutes, 7 seconds
size of an aircraft and is behaving like an aircraft, it won't show up on radar.
47:12
47 minutes, 12 seconds
But that's why we get more of these stories from the 1950s because that was before they were computerized. So they were actually seeing things which might
47:19
47 minutes, 19 seconds
have been UFOs and scrambling aircraft to look at them. And I think what really stood out for me when going through everything you sent me and reading about
47:28
47 minutes, 28 seconds
it was this big ground control radar that we see behind us right now. But also those Venom radars sounded pretty good as well. So if you've got
47:36
47 minutes, 36 seconds
corroborating data coming from both you know it's difficult to say that you know they're both messing up or
47:44
47 minutes, 44 seconds
Exactly. So here you've got at least five different radars all seeing the same thing. So you've got the ground the
47:51
47 minutes, 51 seconds
ground controlled approach radar which is the American one at Lake and Heath.
47:55
47 minutes, 55 seconds
They were seeing it from the ground. All different frequencies. Don't forget these radars. Sure.
47:59
47 minutes, 59 seconds
You've you've got the ground control interception or GCI radar which is the type 80 or type 85. The one you can see
48:07
48 minutes, 7 seconds
behind you again different frequency seeing the same thing on radar at the same time. You then send up the um the aircraft. They've got their airborne
48:15
48 minutes, 15 seconds
interception radar operating on a different frequency. If you've got three radars seeing the same thing at the same time, there's something there. There's
48:23
48 minutes, 23 seconds
no doubt about it. And you've got, I think Freddy mentioned, there's the heightfinder radar, which is a separate radar, cuz he said at the end it just zoomed off on the heightfinder.
48:33
48 minutes, 33 seconds
Yeah. And they couldn't speed get any readings from it.
48:36
48 minutes, 36 seconds
Yeah, that's incredible.
48:38
48 minutes, 38 seconds
Yeah, this was going on for hours. It started at sort of about half 9 and they didn't fade from the radar screens until 3 in the morning. So there
48:47
48 minutes, 47 seconds
were wave after wave of aircraft going up and they sent some American aircraft up as well, some T33s.
48:54
48 minutes, 54 seconds
I managed to track the pilot down from one of those and he remembered it as well. Wow. Yeah.
48:59
48 minutes, 59 seconds
I think one thing that stood out for me was when this the radars were tracking them coming in, you know, 30 m, 20 m, 10 miles, and you know, they're getting the
49:08
49 minutes, 8 seconds
speed of this thing. So 2 3 4,000 miles an hour in 1956. of course they're going to be
49:16
49 minutes, 16 seconds
very confused and the tensions are going to rise, you know, at that point within the Cold War, it's going to be what the hell's going on. So, all these things
49:24
49 minutes, 24 seconds
adding up is just a a fascinating fascinating UFO case. And it's it's just such a shame that it it didn't manage to
49:33
49 minutes, 33 seconds
make it into the media like some of the other stories, you know, like the top cliff one from 1952 and some of the others from that period because like people spoke out and spoke to the media.
49:44
49 minutes, 44 seconds
Um and then there were questions in parliament. It basically created a bit of controversy and so some of the papers survived. Whereas with this one, because
49:52
49 minutes, 52 seconds
they were able to keep it secret for so long, they've managed to hide whatever there was about it and destroy it effectively. Why? I don't know.
50:03
50 minutes, 3 seconds
Well, yeah, I was going to say here's, you know, we know that the mod a sly and they have been many times in the past. Do you think it was a simple
50:11
50 minutes, 11 seconds
case of they just destroyed them for purposes of hiding the case and a cover up or do you think they said they destroyed them and kept some somewhere?
50:21
50 minutes, 21 seconds
I mean this is obviously pure speculation on your but if anybody knows the way the mod and the archives and everything work is you think secret
50:29
50 minutes, 29 seconds
I think they kept them for a while because I think they weren't able to explain it but I think what you've got to understand here is there's a massive
50:36
50 minutes, 36 seconds
turnover of staff at the mod and you get people who are sympathetic towards this subject like the unique perks of the
50:45
50 minutes, 45 seconds
world and you get people who are just utter skeptics and um I think what happened was and I suspect sometime in
50:52
50 minutes, 52 seconds
the 1970s maybe or even as late as the 1980s someone came across all this stuff and just said why are we keeping this
50:59
50 minutes, 59 seconds
and just all they've got to do is just say I think this is nonsense and it happened so long ago uh we don't need to
51:07
51 minutes, 7 seconds
worry about it so signed all they need to do is sign a bit of paper destruction certificate and it goes in the incinerator and I think
51:14
51 minutes, 14 seconds
that's what's happened unfortunately that's crazy uh let's get to some questions and and and statements. We'll
51:22
51 minutes, 22 seconds
start with this one here. Condine suggests an interest question mark.
51:26
51 minutes, 26 seconds
Well, for me personally, Condine, you know, it mentioned a lot of cases that weren't explained, but it certainly
51:33
51 minutes, 33 seconds
didn't take it any further in No, I mean, um, Had Ron had wrote the Cond, he must know something about this
51:42
51 minutes, 42 seconds
case, uh, because he was based in that area. He's sort of trained in East Anglia on on radar. um I'm sure he would
51:50
51 minutes, 50 seconds
know about it. And he mentions another incident in 1996 when something was seen on RAF NET radar again in the Condine
51:59
51 minutes, 59 seconds
report. It's one of the few specific incidents he that he refers to. Um so there's obviously something about East Anglia that attracts these things.
52:10
52 minutes, 10 seconds
Well, whatever they are. I'm gonna I'm going to bring up something we talked about before we came on live which was the the beach the lighthouse beach near
52:20
52 minutes, 20 seconds
oh or Ness yeah and we always hear about nuclear things attracting UAP and if you could just tell us a bit about that again because
52:28
52 minutes, 28 seconds
that had all sorts going on there from the early 1900s. Yeah, Orford Ness is like a big long strip of Shingle Beach.
52:36
52 minutes, 36 seconds
Um, and it's just off the coast, not far from um um Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge. And right from the First
52:43
52 minutes, 43 seconds
World War, they used it to to test all kinds of nasty stuff. Um, mustard gas, I believe, in the first world war. And
52:50
52 minutes, 50 seconds
then in the Cold War, um, they were use well before before the Second World War before we had radar, they were using the making the first radar tests there. Uh,
52:59
52 minutes, 59 seconds
and before we discovered radar, they were looking for a death ray, something that they could use to actually, you know, burn enemy pilots out of the sky, you know, like something from HG Wells.
53:09
53 minutes, 9 seconds
And it was whilst they were mcking about with that that they they realized that if you send pulses of energy out and it hits things and bounces back, you can
53:18
53 minutes, 18 seconds
actually see things before they reach the shore. So that's how they discovered radar effectively when they were looking for a death ray. Um um and then they
53:28
53 minutes, 28 seconds
they they built these huge concrete pagodas where they where they were testing nuclear bombs basically underground. All of this going on on
53:35
53 minutes, 35 seconds
Ness. [clears throat] And then the last thing there in the 1960s or '7s then the Americans spent billions on this on this
53:42
53 minutes, 42 seconds
top secret base called Cobra Mist um which has got a very evocative name. And effectively it was a top secret over the
53:50
53 minutes, 50 seconds
horizon radar station um that was built to detect um Soviet um inter intercontinental ballistic missiles at
53:59
53 minutes, 59 seconds
great distance almost like you know to take over from filing dales. Yeah.
54:02
54 minutes, 2 seconds
And they spent billions on it and it was the whole island was sort of off limits.
54:07
54 minutes, 7 seconds
No one could go there. But the but the thing is it never worked because there was some kind of weird sort of noise that they they couldn't get rid of that
54:15
54 minutes, 15 seconds
was sort of interfering with the radar and they didn't know whether it was the Russians jamming it or what. Um so they shut this whole thing down about 1972
54:24
54 minutes, 24 seconds
and it never it never went into operation. But that whole area and its proximity to Rendlesham Forest has led people like John Burroughs the the one
54:33
54 minutes, 33 seconds
of the key witnesses from the Rendlessham incident. He's absolutely convinced that that what he saw um RAF
54:40
54 minutes, 40 seconds
Woodbridge um on that famous night was some kind of experiment this this some kind of experiment involving the British
54:47
54 minutes, 47 seconds
and the Americans and some kind of death ray that was being tested that he was exposed to which is why um you know he's had all this ill health
54:56
54 minutes, 56 seconds
blames it on on that not on not on sort of aliens or extraterrestrials but on some kind of experiment that went wrong.
55:03
55 minutes, 3 seconds
Maybe he's on to something there. I don't know.
55:06
55 minutes, 6 seconds
Maybe we'll never know. That's the thing. [laughter] Um, Benji asks, "We know that Rendlessham in 1980 was related to US
55:14
55 minutes, 14 seconds
nukes being held at Benwaters. Were they US nukes there as far back as 56?" The answer is yes. Well, there certainly
55:21
55 minutes, 21 seconds
were nukes at Lake and Heath. I mean, Lake and Heath is some distance from Bentwaters, but they had um some serious
55:29
55 minutes, 29 seconds
um nuclear ordinance. in fact on a level of like what they'd used at Nagasaki uh in the Second World War stored at
55:36
55 minutes, 36 seconds
Lakeenhe. And this is why when this B-52 crashed there in just before the UFO incident, you know, it it didn't come
55:44
55 minutes, 44 seconds
out until the 1980s, thank God, but you know, we were very close to um having most of the East of England leveled that that night in July 1956.
55:54
55 minutes, 54 seconds
There we go. Uh, Andre asks, "If this is 1956, some of these are going back earlier on when I saved them.
56:02
56 minutes, 2 seconds
Why is the UK still silent on this subject?" Well, I think the answer to that is simply they're embarrassed by it. And I
56:10
56 minutes, 10 seconds
think it sort of contradicts their standard line that these things don't exist, that they're not interested in them, and they've never studied them, which is clearly a lie.
56:19
56 minutes, 19 seconds
Yeah. And they don't pose any kind of threat to national security. The same as what we hear.
56:23
56 minutes, 23 seconds
Yeah. There we Although although like I said, I've had to reluctantly sort of accept that I I don't actually think they deliberately
56:32
56 minutes, 32 seconds
had a policy to destroy this stuff. I just think if you if you work in the civil service, particularly the mod, there's such a huge turnover of people
56:40
56 minutes, 40 seconds
and there's different policies coming in and different sort of regimes and and also there's the period in which things were stored on paper in filing cabinets.
56:51
56 minutes, 51 seconds
You remember that? Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
56:55
56 minutes, 55 seconds
And people don't store things in filing cabinets anymore. So So effectively during the 1980s and the 1990s, they
57:02
57 minutes, 2 seconds
literally went through all the past records at the Ministry of Defense when they were moving offices and things and they basically must have come across
57:10
57 minutes, 10 seconds
mountains of stuff on these UFO incidents and just said, "This happened 30 years ago. What do we need to keep
57:16
57 minutes, 16 seconds
it? If we do keep it, then people like us in the future might start asking awkward questions and asking to see what you've got on [laughter] file, what what
57:25
57 minutes, 25 seconds
have we got to lose by just destroying the lot and then we can say, "Oh, well, sorry, we don't keep records after such and such a date." And that's the policy they've adopted.
57:35
57 minutes, 35 seconds
It is true. Yeah, absolutely. Um, but that kind of leads me into a question, something we spoke about very briefly. I
57:43
57 minutes, 43 seconds
think one of the last times you joined me was I think I asked you the question as if you believe they may still will have
57:50
57 minutes, 50 seconds
a kind of secret DI55 equivalent office happening now and I think you said you you kind of think they might do.
57:59
57 minutes, 59 seconds
Could you expand on do do you think you know where that might sit or anything like that?
58:04
58 minutes, 4 seconds
Yes. Well, DI55 who um were basically the intelligence branch who were investigated UFOs from about 1960s
58:12
58 minutes, 12 seconds
because when the air ministry became part of the mod um the old sort of structure that existed at the time of the lake and heath sighting which was
58:21
58 minutes, 21 seconds
basically the old RAF stroke air ministry intelligence who looked into these things. they passed their
58:28
58 minutes, 28 seconds
responsibility on to DI55. I think about 1967 and DI55 um retained that interest and they
58:37
58 minutes, 37 seconds
retained access to the files up to about 2000 which was when Ron had completed that condine study and effectively that
58:44
58 minutes, 44 seconds
study drew a line under their supposed interest in the subject. how it's a bit like um you know that there was that
58:54
58 minutes, 54 seconds
flying saucer working party study in 1950 that basically said we don't need to worry about this forget about it. Yeah.
59:00
59 minutes
Um and then Winston Churchill in 1952 after the top cliff sighting said you know what's going on and they had to
59:07
59 minutes, 7 seconds
then reinstate the the UFO desk and and I think something like that will be in existence. It just they won't use the
59:15
59 minutes, 15 seconds
word UFO. They might not even use the word UAP. Sorry, UAP. Yeah, I bet they don't.
59:22
59 minutes, 22 seconds
I think they'll have they'll have invented something else to describe it as and they'll probably be because Ron Hado was a contractor. He was he was
59:30
59 minutes, 30 seconds
effectively a private defense contractor who they brought in, paid him to do the study so that they could then say when
59:37
59 minutes, 37 seconds
they were asked in parliament, we're not actually doing it ourselves, which is not a lie because they were paying a private contractor to do it. And that
59:45
59 minutes, 45 seconds
means that if some if you ask for information under freedom of information, they can say no, we haven't got any information, which is true because it's public information that's
59:54
59 minutes, 54 seconds
subject to freedom of information. So if if you employ a private contractor, it's a bit like what happens with the NHS.
1:00:00
1 hour
Um you can ask for information from the NHS, but anybody that the NHS employs privately is outside Freedom of
1:00:07
1 hour, 7 seconds
Information. So I my I suspect whoever's taken over from DI55 will be private defense contractors. They'll be based
1:00:15
1 hour, 15 seconds
somewhere like Farra. Uh there's a base in Bristol where I suspect this is going on um or near Bristol. And I think that
1:00:24
1 hour, 24 seconds
they will be um keeping a very low profile. They'll be just interviewing um people such as pilots, radar personnel,
1:00:33
1 hour, 33 seconds
people who've seen things who are who are military. Basically, they're not interested in civilian sightings anymore.
1:00:39
1 hour, 39 seconds
And that does kind of fit in with what's happening in the US a lot as well. It does.
1:00:43
1 hour, 43 seconds
Um, here we go. How relevant, if any, do you see the 1956 incident with the 1980s? So, in the comparison of like how
1:00:51
1 hour, 51 seconds
do you weigh them up? Um, well, I think if we h actually had some of the some of the materials, um, because back then
1:00:59
1 hour, 59 seconds
when they did the radar trackings, they actually had like tracing paper on the radar screens and they used to mark it with pencils so you could actually see
1:01:07
1 hour, 1 minute, 7 seconds
where the object moved. And I know that Freddy kept a really detailed record. He had like a big thick log book where he
1:01:15
1 hour, 1 minute, 15 seconds
he he would have entered every single thing that happened during the night, what time he scrambled, what altitude the aircraft was, and he had all that.
1:01:22
1 hour, 1 minute, 22 seconds
And he said that when this group captain from fighter command came, they took it, they removed the log book. So somebody had all that stuff. And I think if we
1:01:31
1 hour, 1 minute, 31 seconds
had access to it, it would be far more evidential than the Rendlessham incident because you could add it all together.
1:01:37
1 hour, 1 minute, 37 seconds
you could give it um somebody with you know who could put it all together with what the pilot said and it would be highly evidential and obviously someone
1:01:45
1 hour, 1 minute, 45 seconds
did that um at the air ministry at the time and reach whatever conclusions they reached. So I I I've always thought it
1:01:53
1 hour, 1 minute, 53 seconds
it's far more uh important and evidential than Rendlessham because the the radar aspect of it is is got the
1:02:00
1 hour, 2 minutes
primacy whereas the radar aspect for Rendlessham I always thought was pretty weak actually.
1:02:06
1 hour, 2 minutes, 6 seconds
Right. Yeah. Fair enough. Um, Graeme asks, "What's the likelihood of secret files from the 50s and 60s
1:02:14
1 hour, 2 minutes, 14 seconds
actually surviving somewhere? Would duplicates be kept by other agencies such as DI55?" I guess you kind of covered this, but anything to add?
1:02:22
1 hour, 2 minutes, 22 seconds
Well, the some of the files from the 1950s have survived. I've got copied copies of them. There are some quite interesting ones. Um there was some um
1:02:31
1 hour, 2 minutes, 31 seconds
there was some parliamentary questions that were asked I think about 1957 about a similar incident where javelins were
1:02:38
1 hour, 2 minutes, 38 seconds
scrambled and this did get into the news and there was another sighting at West RAF West in Scotland in April 1957 where
1:02:47
1 hour, 2 minutes, 47 seconds
three different radar set um stations on a an RAF bombing range switched on at a
1:02:55
1 hour, 2 minutes, 55 seconds
certain time on a morning. I think it was early in the spring morning and all of them at the same time saw this enormous object over the over the Irish
1:03:03
1 hour, 3 minutes, 3 seconds
sea like a huge object as big as a battleship with lots of other objects circling around it and um the DI55
1:03:11
1 hour, 3 minutes, 11 seconds
report well sorry not DI55 it was their predecessors report yeah it was air intelligence I think
1:03:18
1 hour, 3 minutes, 18 seconds
they were called okay DDI tech their report on that west infant has survived it's in it did survive at the national archive I I can send you copies of that.
1:03:28
1 hour, 3 minutes, 28 seconds
And it's interesting because it does actually say we can't explain it. And there was obviously some object in the sky that was seen on radar. Uh it wasn't
1:03:38
1 hour, 3 minutes, 38 seconds
seen visually, but I think the phrase they use is, you know, there were four very large reflecting objects that weren't charged clouds and weren't sort
1:03:47
1 hour, 3 minutes, 47 seconds
of meteorological phenomena. And the reason that that file wasn't destroyed and it survived was because the one of
1:03:54
1 hour, 3 minutes, 54 seconds
the radar operators talked to one of the Sunday tabloids about the story. So it was front page headlines and then there
1:04:01
1 hour, 4 minutes, 1 second
were questions asked in parliament and amazingly at the JIC uh which is the joint intelligence committee in London which is like the
1:04:10
1 hour, 4 minutes, 10 seconds
absolute top intelligence um where you've got MI5 MI6 GCHQ it's there in the minute so they couldn't destroy the
1:04:19
1 hour, 4 minutes, 19 seconds
evidence for that one and it's actually in the files it's just such a pity that no one involved in Lakeen Heath spoke to the
1:04:27
1 hour, 4 minutes, 27 seconds
media at the time because if they had have they wouldn't have been able to destroy the material that they have destroyed.
1:04:34
1 hour, 4 minutes, 34 seconds
Yeah, absolutely. Uh oh, Mr. Strafe Wilson, good to see you, Strafe. Uh, does Dave have any comments on the
1:04:41
1 hour, 4 minutes, 41 seconds
current state of the UFO UAP topic? Are we gaining ground?
1:04:46
1 hour, 4 minutes, 46 seconds
Oh, that's difficult. [laughter] Difficult one. Yeah, I I I don't know.
1:04:51
1 hour, 4 minutes, 51 seconds
Are we? We seem to be getting somewhere when the Pentagon published their report and although people thought it was a bit of a damp squib, I thought there were some um quite interesting things in it.
1:05:02
1 hour, 5 minutes, 2 seconds
I think the idea that they had for doing like a realtime radar study of some of the areas where these things have been
1:05:10
1 hour, 5 minutes, 10 seconds
seen for example in the southern Pacific Ocean around the coast of California rather than they were basically saying we're not going to get anywhere looking
1:05:18
1 hour, 5 minutes, 18 seconds
at historical cases sadly like Lake and Heath because they happened so long ago however evidential we might think they
1:05:26
1 hour, 5 minutes, 26 seconds
are as eupfologists from a military point of view people's stories without hard evidence like radar tapes and
1:05:34
1 hour, 5 minutes, 34 seconds
photographs and all the rest of it don't really amount to much. So what they would seem to be suggesting and they may well be doing this now because they've
1:05:42
1 hour, 5 minutes, 42 seconds
asked for all this additional funding is to actually you know have realtime radars monitoring parts of the world
1:05:50
1 hour, 5 minutes, 50 seconds
where some of these um strange UAPs have been seen have aircraft ready to scramble a bit like what we've just heard at Lake and Heath. Yeah,
1:05:58
1 hour, 5 minutes, 58 seconds
but when something happens actually be monitoring the situation in real time. So you've got two or three different radars, you've got aircraft,
1:06:06
1 hour, 6 minutes, 6 seconds
you've got visual observers. That's what you need and that's what they should be looking for. And sadly, we have had this
1:06:14
1 hour, 6 minutes, 14 seconds
in instances like Lake and Heath Ben Waters in the past, but sadly they haven't kept the evidence or they haven't shared it with the people they
1:06:22
1 hour, 6 minutes, 22 seconds
should have shared it with. So we can only hope that that's what they might do.
1:06:26
1 hour, 6 minutes, 26 seconds
I have absolutely no doubt I' have no confidence, shall I say, that the British are doing anything remotely as comprehensive as this. I mean, I think
1:06:34
1 hour, 6 minutes, 34 seconds
they'll just be doing what they've always done and just said, "Well, the Americans have got more money and more resources than we have. Leave it to them."
1:06:41
1 hour, 6 minutes, 41 seconds
Yeah. Oh, we've got a question here. I didn't notice the Zignal has joined us.
1:06:45
1 hour, 6 minutes, 45 seconds
Uh, do you think details on big cases like Roswell could be lost due to poor recordkeeping?
1:06:52
1 hour, 6 minutes, 52 seconds
Straight answer to that is definitely yes. [snorts] And I think sadly we've got to recognize that um we might think
1:06:59
1 hour, 6 minutes, 59 seconds
this subject is interesting but there's an awful lot of people particularly in the military and government who think it's a complete waste of time and public
1:07:06
1 hour, 7 minutes, 6 seconds
money and sadly those th that mindset has has their influence and they've got a lot of
1:07:14
1 hour, 7 minutes, 14 seconds
influence they've destroyed a lot of this material. I mean, I should mention here, I mean, you know about this, Vinnie, but um a colleague of mine um
1:07:23
1 hour, 7 minutes, 23 seconds
Matthew Ilsley um recently um put in a Freedom of Information Act request um to
1:07:29
1 hour, 7 minutes, 29 seconds
try and find out what's happened to the unredacted version of the Condine report, which as you know was only finished in 2000. And the one that was
1:07:38
1 hour, 7 minutes, 38 seconds
released, there's bits of it that were top secret. And I was told that this file, it would be preserved, it would be released at the National Archives.
1:07:46
1 hour, 7 minutes, 46 seconds
Matthew um sent an a freedom of information request last year I think it was and after a long delay because of
1:07:54
1 hour, 7 minutes, 54 seconds
all the usual things COVID etc someone came back to him and said well we've looked for it but um we think it's been
1:08:00
1 hour, 8 minutes
accidentally destroyed this is the condine report [laughter] that's ridiculous
1:08:08
1 hour, 8 minutes, 8 seconds
I mean is that stupidity or just negligence I mean well again I I just I just think they
1:08:15
1 hour, 8 minutes, 15 seconds
they just they don't value it. They don't value the subject. They don't um they don't think it's important. They they just they just think they just
1:08:24
1 hour, 8 minutes, 24 seconds
regard the likes of us as nuisance as a nuisance basically. So anyway, um this has got me on their back and I've raised
1:08:31
1 hour, 8 minutes, 31 seconds
it with my MP and put in a formal complaint to the information commissioner. So I think they'll be seeing a bit of heat over this one.
1:08:39
1 hour, 8 minutes, 39 seconds
Yeah, absolutely. Dan says, "Great answer, David. Thank you. We shall meet soon when I visit Vinnie." Absolutely, man. If you're not aware, that's Dan,
1:08:47
1 hour, 8 minutes, 47 seconds
who I went to Colombia with and Yes, I got all that. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Well, listen, David, let's leave it at that.
1:08:54
1 hour, 8 minutes, 54 seconds
We'll arrange to come back and talk about the the top cliff case. Um, if you don't mind hanging about, we'll have a little chat after this. Uh, after we end
1:09:01
1 hour, 9 minutes, 1 second
this, I just want to say again, thank you so much. I found all the research that you'd done fascinating and going through the interviews. It was just
1:09:10
1 hour, 9 minutes, 10 seconds
shockingly interesting. And you know, I'm glad that we got to do this and put this case back out there for people to see. We'll love you and leave you. Have
1:09:19
1 hour, 9 minutes, 19 seconds
a great rest of your day and we'll see you soon. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye.