Original subtitles

[narrator] Ever since humankind first looked to the heavens,

we have asked the question,

"Are we alone?"

Tales of otherworldly beings,

ancient prophecies and predictions,

and sightings here on Earth

have heightened our sense of anticipation.

But in recent years, these claims have become

more frequent...

Do you believe our government has made contact with

intelligent extraterrestrials?

Something I can't discuss in a public setting.

[narrator] ...more insistent...

Biologics came with some of these recoveries, yeah.

[narrator] ...and ever more dramatic.

In December 1980, two senior US Air Force

officers claimed to have experienced prolonged UFO

encounters, and to have come face-to-face with advanced

non-human technology.

They made a record of all they witnessed.

Top secret investigations were launched, explanations given.

But the truth remained elusive, and whatever it was, it appears

to have returned several times since.

Do you believe UAPs pose a potential threat to

our national security?

-Yes. -Yes.

Yes.

[narrator] What are we not being told?

Our team of experts reopen the files.

They'll analyze the intelligence,

investigate the science,

and reveal the truth.

[camera shutter snaps]

[narrator] Christmas, 1980.

Personnel at two US military bases in Suffolk, England,

experienced a UFO encounter.

It would become probably the most famous UFO sighting on

UK soil, and it has never been explained.

After playing crucial roles in World War II,

both RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge

continued as tactical US Air Force

bases in Europe as the Cold War began.

The twin bases were home to the 81st Tactical Fighter Wing.

The 81st Tactical Fighter Wing was the largest in

the free world.

This was a front line in defense of Europe.

[narrator] But the presence of the fighter wing in Europe and wartime

contingency missions would have made the bases a target from

both the Soviets and any rogue states.

And in the early 1980s, rogue states were on the rise.

Soviet and US nuclear arsenals grew to

their highest-ever levels,

and key battlegrounds such as Afghanistan and Nicaragua were

threatening to inflame Cold War tensions.

The bases were close to international ports, which were

frequently visited by Soviet ships and trawlers.

All of this meant security at these bases was as tight as it

had ever been.

[narrator] At around 6 p.m.

on the night of Christmas Day, 26-year-old

US Air Force Staff Sergeant Jim Penniston checked into

the guard mount room at Bentwaters before beginning

his 12-hour night shift as security supervisor at

RAF Woodbridge.

[Penniston] RAF Woodbridge had between 12 to 15 working the night shift,

and before starting, every one of them had to be checked for

their fitness for duty, and the equipment was in order,

and they were fully debriefed on the security situation that

might affect them during the shift.

[narrator] A little after 11 p.m., Airman John Burroughs and his

senior partner, Staff Sergeant Bud Steffens, were patrolling

the base perimeter.

One of their jobs was to check the east gate because there

were no guards posted there.

[narrator] Looking out into the darkness over the tall pines of

Rendlesham Forest, Burroughs claims he was

suddenly assailed by red, green, white, and blue lights

hovering in the sky.

He says they hovered and then descended into the tree line,

where they caused the forest to light up.

[narrator] Just after midnight, Staff Sergeant Jim Penniston

was dispatched to the East Gate by base security control.

As he approaches, he is brought directly to

Burroughs and Steffens.

[Penniston] Upon arrival, I immediately asked Staff Sergeant Steffens

what was going on and what was the current situation.

Sergeant Steffens pointed to the perimeter, which led off

from the base, and I could see way off in the distance a dome

of white, yellowish light over it.

I wasn't sure what it was at first.

The fire, in my mind, what it had to be, is probably

a aircraft crash.

I saw yellow, red, bluish types of glowing light, which were

standard with crashed aircraft,

the color of titanium in JP4 jet fuel burning.

[narrator] As an experienced security specialist, Penniston estimates

he'd seen 30 to 40 crashed planes in his career,

but nothing quite like this.

[Penniston] I thought an aircraft, maybe an A-10, had problems

and had come down in the forest, even though it was

Christmas and there was no scheduled flights.

However, there was no apparent smoke, no smell of smoke

or anything burning in the air.

[narrator] Before setting off for the site, Penniston asked

the two men if they had heard an explosion.

Steffens says to him, "No, Jim, there was no explosion

and no crash. It landed."

And Burroughs kept interrupting.

He was agitated and incoherent, basically battling, saying,

"I think a UFO just landed in the forest."

[narrator] Knowing that no aircraft could land in the midst of a dense

forest, Penniston contacted nearby RAF Bentwaters.

He tells them he thinks a military aircraft has come down,

but they tell him no military aircraft

has been lost.

[Penniston] RAF Bawdsey had been tracking an unidentified bogey on radar

near Bentwaters and lost it about 15 minutes earlier

near Woodbridge.

I asked for backup and waited their arrival.

[narrator] Penniston headed to the crash site with Burroughs

and Airman Ed Cabansag, who was on his first shift at the base.

[Pope] When they get a few hundred yards from the site,

Penniston's radio starts to struggle and fail.

[Penniston] I could not proceed any further in the Jeep due to the terrain.

I set up Airman Cabansag as the intercontroller for

the first responders.

[narrator] As Penniston and team continued into the forest, they began to

experience unusual sensations.

I felt the hairs on my head, neck, and body stand up,

like I was entering a very strong static field.

I also felt the effects on my clothing.

Each movement and step I took was becoming more labored.

It was like walking through water, chest-deep.

He said that all around them, animals were going crazy,

and they were running out of the forest, away from the site.

[animal howling]

[narrator] Then, after a few minutes, the forest went

completely silent.

They continued towards the craft.

Penniston could now see that this was no crash.

[Penniston] There was no fire, scattered debris,

or bodies around us or in the clearing.

I called in on my radio, and I was initiating

a helping hand situation.

[narrator] A helping hand situation is a potentially hostile

encounter alert.

As the bright light dissipated, the structure of

the craft appeared.

It was a dark mechanical object surrounded by a gray,

white, yellowish bubble.

Penniston tried to continue to report back.

[Penniston] The radio was breaking up again.

I continued giving updates, even though I could not

receive transmissions.

Burroughs was behaving erratically.

So I told him to wait, and I continued on my own.

[narrator] But so unnerved was Burroughs by the craft that he disobeyed

and continued to follow Penniston from a distance.

The lights from the object were still actively

flashing and pulsating.

I was worried that whatever it was might become hostile

or even explode.

Penniston then turned and told Burroughs to either crouch

or lay down, but Burroughs wouldn't listen.

I told him, "Stay here."

[narrator] Climbing on an embankment, Penniston moved

within 20 feet of the object.

My sudden presence must have triggered something because

whatever it was lit up brightly.

Reacting on a reflex, I immediately hit the ground,

expecting to be hit by debris or the force from an explosion.

[narrator] But there was no explosion, just an object surrounded

by light, hovering just above the ground.

He could see a dome of light and multiple colored lights

flashing inside the forest.

[Penniston] I proceeded, and in front of me was a triangular craft.

When I got within 10 feet, it all dissipated.

It was totally silent, no sounds of the forest

or the air, or even my footsteps, just silence.

[narrator] As Penniston approached, distinct circular

and crescent-shaped lights

began blinking on and off just under the black,

shiny surface like a digital display.

Penniston wasn't the only witness.

Burroughs had continued to follow him.

[Penniston] I looked over to my right, and I seen that he was

motionless, not moving, just staring straight ahead.

I yelled at him, but he seemed not to hear me.

[narrator] With his radio failing again and facing a possible

hostile threat, Penniston made extensive notes

on what he was seeing.

His notes are remarkable.

There's no break in the surface of this thing, no way to get in

and out, no crew compartment, no exhaust pods,

no landing gear.

It's being supported by three pillars of light that seem to

be leaving indentations in the ground.

[Penniston] I came around to the far side of it, and I could see there was

writing on the craft.

It was like glyphs, stretched about three feet wide

and about five or six inches high.

[narrator] He starts drawing the craft and the symbols on

the side of it.

He reaches out a hand and touches them.

[Penniston] I was touching the glyphs, and it was like going from

smooth black glass to sandpaper.

When I touched the top of the triangular one,

there was a blast of light.

That's when I saw ones and zeros.

[narrator] Then, without warning, the craft takes off vertically,

clears the trees, and accelerates away with

incredible speed.

Penniston writes in his notebook, "take off unknown,

speed impossible."

[narrator] Penniston returns to base, where he's debriefed by agents

from the Office of Special Investigations.

And he writes a four-page brief recounting the incident.

When he finally made it home, he was haunted by what

he'd witnessed.

He can't sleep, he feels sick, and every time he does close

his eyes, he sees ones and zeros.

He got out of bed at 2 a.m., grabbed his notebook and pen,

and wrote down ones and zeros, pages of them.

And only when he was done did he manage to get to sleep.

[narrator] On the 26th, unable to stop thinking about the strange

events of Christmas Day, Jim Penniston returned to

the site with his camera and some plaster.

He took photos and made plaster casts of the indentations.

He hadn't finished his investigation yet.

[narrator] And the strange events hadn't finished either.

[narrator] Two days after Staff Sergeant Jim Penniston and his colleague

Airman John Burroughs had had their astonishing encounter

with an unidentified craft in Rendlesham Forest,

the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt,

and his security detail were enjoying a Christmas party

at a local bar when suddenly they were rudely interrupted.

[Dr. Aderin-Pocock Mbe] Personnel burst through the doors and approach

Charles Halt. The UFO is back.

[McDonald] He heads out to the site with his tape recorder and a half

a dozen sober witnesses with one mission, to squash any

stories of UFOs.

[narrator] But as Halt gets closer to the site, the same spot

Penniston and his team had visited just 48 hours before,

his mission suddenly changes.

They notice they're having problems with their radios.

Then they see the indentations in the frozen ground.

They start to take samples from the trees and the soil

and some radiation readings.

[narrator] And the Geiger counter shows far higher radiation levels

than normal.

[narrator] The middle of the forest offers only one obvious entry point,

from above.

Despite the mounting evidence, Lieutenant Colonel Halt was

still unimpressed.

Although what he was seeing was strange, he hadn't been

considering anything as extraordinary as a UFO.

[narrator] At least not yet. Just a few moments later...

[narrator] The men head towards the mysterious light.

That's when they see the UFO themselves.

Every time they approached the craft, it moved backwards,

so they decided to wait at the tree line and watch.

The object just exploded into five white lights,

and three of them stayed in the sky for hours.

The tape continued until 3:30 a.m.,

when Halt and his men began to head back to base,

claiming the objects were still

in the sky.

The following day, Halt fired off a memo outlining the events

of the previous evening.

It was a stripped-back retelling, just

the basic facts.

But it was still enough to prompt the UK Ministry of

Defense and the American intelligence to launch

a proper investigation.

[narrator] It appears to have been ordered at the very highest level.

[Pope] Normally, OSI investigations are commissioned locally by

a base commander.

But this one apparently came from OSI headquarters

and direct from Hans Mark, Secretary of the Air Force.

There were lots of different entities involved

in the investigation.

There was the British police, the UK Ministry of Defense,

and of course, the United States Air Force themselves.

A lot of samples were taken from the site.

There were burn marks and scorch marks on the ground

and on the sides of the trees facing the clearing where this

object had been seen.

Often, physical evidence of this sort is associated with

very high levels of energy.

General Gabriel, the commander in chief of

United States Air Force in Europe, flew in personally

and removed some of the items of physical evidence back to

his headquarters in Ramstein, Germany.

Here was the United States, our closest ally,

basically doing things that they had no legal

or constitutional right to do, and we were furious.

[Bader] The officers interviewed all those on the base as well as

several local residents.

There were key and notable differences in their testimony.

[Pope] Airman Cabansag was with Penniston Burroughs

on the 25th.

And he later said, essentially, we followed

some lights, but it turned out to be beacons,

and it illuminated the farmhouse.

He later said that he was so scared, he didn't even

write his statement.

He just signed what was put in front of him.

[narrator] Though some accounts went much further.

A young airman called Larry Warren was on base and had only

been there for a couple of weeks when

the sightings happened.

He describes the same craft that the others did say

they saw, but he claims that although the sighting did

happen that night, it was coordinated and filmed,

and that the senior officers on the base approached a landed

craft and spoke to the ETs inside.

[narrator] According to the official report, some of the witnesses

agreed to a polygraph. Larry Warren was one of them.

It showed he was lying.

[narrator] His testimony had several discrepancies, including dates,

times, and locations, but he had an answer for that.

[McDonald] He says that it only happened because he was given

a watered-down statement to sign.

Apparently, it was implied that if he told the true story,

he would be killed.

[narrator] Warren may have proven to be an unreliable witness,

but not Jim Penniston.

His account of the investigation hints

at a cover-up.

[Penniston] A lot was left out of the official report.

When I challenged this, I was told only wackos talk

about UFOs.

[narrator] It was a clear threat to Penniston's promising career.

The intimidation tactics didn't stop there.

He says that they gave him sodium pentothal, which makes

you incredibly suggestible.

[Penniston] They said the case was top secret and classified.

In the military, that's a gag order.

[narrator] But something did happen in Rendlesham Forest on the nights

of December 25 and 26, 1980.

The investigation revealed sky high levels of radiation at

the site, and the burn marks on the ground were consistent with

some form of aircraft landing there.

According to the readings on the night and later by

the official investigators, the levels were around

eight times higher.

[narrator] But ultimately, no one could explain all of

the events of that night.

And after a while, no one seemed to want to.

The official position of the UK Ministry of Defense is slightly

bizarre because, on the one hand, they say that the whole

Rendlesham Forest incident is completely unexplained.

But on the other hand, they say there's no evidence

that there was an intrusion of an unknown craft,

and there's no evidence of any defense threat

to the United Kingdom.

[applause]

[narrator] Charles Halt continued serving in the Air Force for another

10 years before retiring as a full colonel.

He has never changed his story.

"I believe the objects that I saw at close quarter were

"extraterrestrial in origin and that the security services

"of the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted

"both then and now to subvert the significance of what

"occurred at Rendlesham Forest and RAF Bentwaters by use of

well-practiced methods of disinformation."

Jim Penniston also continued in the Air Force, serving until

1993 before retiring and joining the lecture circuit

about his experiences.

But the story didn't end there.

There was a significant late development.

Penniston's notebook filled with ones and zeros that he'd

felt compelled to write down on the night of the encounter,

even though he had no idea what they meant.

[Pope] He just wrote them down in his notebook, put it away,

and then put the whole matter out of his mind for years.

[narrator] Then, in 2010, they were decoded.

Burroughs one day asked me about a specific date in

the notebook, which led him to seeing the pages of the ones

and zeros, something I kept private up to that point.

A full message came out.

[narrator] The message included a list of coordinates.

So these latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates

exactly matched some of the most important sacred sites

anywhere in the world, the Great Pyramids,

the Temple of Apollo, the Nazca Lines, and so forth.

[narrator] So 40 years on from one of the most infamous ever UFO

sightings, can our experts make sense of what happened in

Rendlesham Forest?

[narrator] Over two nights in December 1980, the personnel at

two US Air Force bases in Suffolk, England,

witnessed multiple UFOs

that remain unidentified to this day.

One officer even claims to have made physical contact

with the craft.

An investigation by multiple intelligence agencies from

both the US and the UK

provided no concrete explanation.

So what really happened that night?

Deputy Base Commander Lt. Col. Charles Halt's memo

describes three star-like lights

witnessed roughly 10 degrees above the horizon.

The brightest hovered for two to three hours,

occasionally streaming down light.

So, maybe it was a spacecraft, or maybe not.

According to the British Astronomical Society,

Between 9:07 and 9:08 p.m.

on December 25, 1980, a Russian satellite reentering

the atmosphere burned up.

The debris identified was from the Cosmos 749 satellite

launched in 1975.

[narrator] But satellite reentry usually lasts minutes,

not hours or days.

Might there be a more terrestrial explanation?

[Pope] There's a really interesting conspiracy theory that there is

something called Project Blue Beam.

Now, Project Blue Beam is the idea that you would use

a combination of holographic technology,

Hollywood special effects,

and government spin to create a false narrative.

One of the theories about Rendlesham is that they were

testing this, using holographic projection technology.

[narrator] And holograms can store a lot of data, potentially everything

that has ever existed.

Some physicists studying quantum gravity assert that

the universe may be holographic due to quantum entanglement.

So it's theoretically conceivable that these men were

tricked by a hologram, especially considering

a program that the US was testing at this time.

[Pope] There's an official document called

The Role of Behavioral Science in Physical Security.

And it's all about questions such as, how would a guard

force respond to unusual stimuli?

The fact that it was published fairly shortly before

the Rendlesham incident has made some people wonder.

[narrator] Could there have been some sort of military readiness check at

Rendlesham, of which the base commander and security detail

were deliberately kept in the dark?

If it was such a test exercise, it seems highly unlikely that

they'd have gone to the trouble of such a detailed

investigation after the event.

What of the supposedly landed crafts that Jim Penniston claims

to have encountered, and the strange effects of

the force field that surrounded it?

[Dr. Haseltine] Strong magnetic fields can definitely affect the brain,

as can strong electrostatic fields.

In this case, the beams of light suggest that it was more

likely some kind of ion flux, for example, an ion plasma,

and that could have explained why the hairs were

standing up on end.

[narrator] A more simple and obvious explanation is that something

could have been wrong with Penniston, which

impaired his faculties.

[Dr. Haseltine] It could have been a psychological fugue state due

to sensory overload.

When the brain gets overwhelmed with sensory information to

protect itself, it simply shuts down sometimes.

[narrator] That could also explain why Penniston claimed there was

complete silence at the scene.

Even his feet on the forest floor made no noise.

There is no known mechanism that could completely turn

an environment silent unless it directly affected the brain

or auditory system.

Electromagnetic energy has been shown to be able to do that.

[narrator] And what of Penniston's claims to having seen an actual craft?

[Dr. Haseltine] The only thing in that era that even comes close is the F-117.

And I can't see any reason why the US government

would have flown it over that time, that place.

[narrator] And even if it was in the region, how could it,

as Penniston described, have rested on

pillars of light?

[Dr. Haseltine] Technically it is possible for shafts of light to play a role

in levitating a craft.

For example, if you had a magnetodynamic ion thruster,

or an electrostatic ion thruster, or more exotically,

a laser photon pressure thruster, it could cause

levitation associated with light beams.

[Dr. Aderin-Pocock Mbe] But all of these propulsion mechanisms are

highly theoretical.

If light beams played a role, it was through non-terrestrial

or highly classified technology.

[narrator] The most fascinating aspect of the site, which remained

unexplained, was the emission of incredibly high levels

of radiation.

My time on the MOD's UFO program was '91 to '94, so

after Rendlesham.

But this was clearly the biggest case in our files,

so I reopened the investigation. I went through the witness statements, went through

all the documents, rechecked the data with

government scientists.

One aspect that particularly interested me was the level of

radioactivity, because there'd been lots of figures bandied

around over the years.

So I rechecked the data, and it transpired that

the levels taken were 6.66 times higher than the average

background levels.

[narrator] For Nick Pope, who has reexamined the evidence

in detail, the fact that there were spiking levels of

radiation remains the most telling aspect of the case.

The implication from the physical data is that there

was indeed a solid craft present and that it did emit

high levels of heat and energy and indeed radioactivity.

And there's a declassified UK intelligence assessment of UFOs

more generally,

entitled Project Condign.

There's a line in there that says the well-reported

Rendlesham incident is a case where it might be postulated

that witnesses were exposed to UAP radiation for longer

periods than normal.

[narrator] Richard Doty, formerly an investigator for

the United States Air Force Office of Special

Investigations, has also seen the official findings of

the radiation study and agrees with Pope.

An OSI forensics team arrived at Rendlesham Forest on

January 5th, 1981.

The team conducted a extensive forensics examination of

the bark, the soil, and the plants around the area

of this alleged incident.

They found a high level of alpha radiation.

A further examination of the soil, the plants,

and the bark found that the molecular structure of

the plants were changed.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations forensics team

sent it to the Department of Agriculture laboratory.

And one of the things they tried to do was imitate

the molecular structure being changed in the plant,

the bark, and the soil.

And the Department of Agriculture couldn't imitate it.

[narrator] The evidence appears to support Penniston's claims that he did

indeed encounter a physical craft of some kind that night,

and that it emitted radiation.

But if so, from where might it have come?

The symbols Penniston saw on the side of the craft might

hold the key.

The symbols were enlarged and sent to cryptologist

and mathematician George Daglish.

The first symbol looks to me like a vessel with

a steering oar afloat in some sort of medium.

The second symbol looks like a glyph associated with

a mathematical idea known as the Fibonacci series, which is

found everywhere in nature.

The root of a Fibonacci series, 1, 2, and 3,

taken as a whole, it's a rather clever glyph,

all in one.

They could represent an apse in an orbit, a perigee,

or an apogee, and if they are

apogees and perigees, it means that the orbiter is doing

a highly processive orbit, like that.

So if you were going to survey a planet, and this is

an orbiter, I assume, which would be a very sensible

arrangement if you were using the vehicle as a surveying

vehicle, because you would get a maximum look at the planet.

I don't think they were trying to send us a metaphysical

message about the beauty of life or the reason for

the universe or anything like that, or their own existence.

I think it was just more of a utilitarian marking,

so they knew what craft they were dealing with.

[narrator] Penniston claimed that his encounter with the craft

triggered a telepathic transmission of binary code

into his mind.

[Dr. Haseltine] A lot of reputable scientists think that there is something

mathematical woven into the very fabric of

the universe, which is why we get things like

the Fibonacci ratio expressed in everything from pineapples

to the way trees branch, or fractal geometry.

These things seem to be not descriptions of the universe,

but actually maybe part of the universe.

[McDonald] The binary code that Penniston claimed to receive was

translated by a team of researchers led by

Linda Moulton Howe, a journalist and a ufologist.

The team included Nick Seisk, a web developer and programmer.

He decoded the binary code into ASCII characters.

[narrator] When they analyzed the binary code, they uncovered seven sets

of geographical coordinates.

When studying them further, it becomes apparent

the coordinates are a code within the code, all of which

point to a timeline or a processional cycle clock,

marking cataclysmic events in Earth's existence.

Sometimes referred to as the Giza Diagonal, these are

recurring major events within a 25,920-year cycle timeline.

25,920 years is a significant number.

We've known for thousands of years that the Earth processes

on its axis.

And it takes around 25,900 years to complete

a single procession.

[narrator] The decoding process of Penniston's code has attracted

a lot of doubt and criticism.

[Dr. Haseltine] There is no known technology that can decipher

ones and zeros.

It's just not mathematically possible.

You can impose meaning on anything you want, right?

And so, yeah, you can look at those ones and zeros and figure

out that, ooh, they're some spooky secret coordinates.

Sure, you can do that, but that doesn't mean that

that's what they are.

[narrator] That's not how Penniston sees it.

He claims the message isn't from extraterrestrials,

but from our future selves, which is why we were

able to decode it.

[Penniston] The craft itself had inherent things that only humans would

put on their craft.

One is they're using triangular craft.

Second, they put markings on the side of the craft

like we do.

And the other thing is the binary, it was in English.

I never believed it was extraterrestrial.

It's clearly us from the future.

[Dr. Haseltine] There is some new research on quantum entanglement

and a phenomenon called retrocausality, where in

theory, some physicists think that it might be possible for

creating an act in the future and having it impact

the present or past. See, it all has to do with

the wave function of quantum particles.

Things can exist simultaneously, not only in

space, but in present, past, and future.

We can't say categorically something like that

is impossible.

[narrator] The one thing that everyone can agree on is that Penniston

and Halt experienced something inexplicable.

Both Penniston and Halt were highly respected officers

placed in positions of trust before and after this incident,

and with high levels of security clearance.

[narrator] But even if they did see something that night,

there remains significant doubt over whether their accounts

reflect what they think they saw.

[Penniston] About 48 hours after the incident, they sat me down

and asked me to produce a statement and not to leave

anything out.

I wrote four pages, signed it, and initialed each page.

Later, I was given a half a page of typed text,

a watered-down version.

They told me, "You memorize this,

"and that's the story you'll tell people when they ask you.

It'll all go away if that's what you say to people."

What was in the public domain was not my statement.

[Doty] There is some truth that some of the witnesses

were hypnotized.

They transgressed a number of airmen who claimed to have

actual physical contact with the craft and with the beings

that apparently came outside the craft.

[narrator] People under hypnosis are highly suggestible.

If Jim Penniston is to be believed, the OSI had

a preferred version of the story, and they were

willing to force that version upon their witnesses.

A year after I retired in 1994, 13 years after the incident,

a medical doctor referred me to a psychiatrist who specialized

in hypnotic regression.

In the second session, she had me talk about

the incident in Rendlesham Forest.

It all came out during the hypnosis.

I had no recollection of the binary code until then.

That's why I never spoke about the binary code until

years later.

I had no idea that in 1980 I was hypnotized and drugged.

They asked me back one day later on the 30th, but I don't

remember that.

That's when they drugged me and blocked my memory of

the binary code. I don't know what they gave me.

I don't know if it's sodium pentothal or not,

but it blocked my memory.

[narrator] Signing altered briefs is by no means unusual in the military.

It's done all the time to cover the asses of the brass.

[narrator] It was only thanks to some good fortune that Penniston still

had the notebook with his drawings and notes.

[Penniston] The OSI didn't know I had a notebook.

Actually, on the 29th, when I was asked to report to

the OSI building, I took my notebook along with me.

It had three of my drawings of the craft.

I was going to hand my notebook over,

but they never asked for it.

When I got a sanitized version of my brief, I knew not to hand

it over -- it would have been confiscated.

[narrator] With governments on both sides of the Atlantic

taking this case so seriously,

why does so much confusion and so many doubts persist?

It's certain that in this case, both the UK and the US did not

share everything they had with their partner.

After the incident was reported to OSI in December of 1980,

there were a number of different

US government agencies involved in this,

and one particular UK agency, the Ministry of Defense, OSI,

the National Security Agency,

and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

CIA never shared what they found regarding

the Rendlesham Forest incident until 1982.

The National Security Agency withheld what they found until

well into 1983.

[narrator] The ripples from the Rendlesham Forest case

can still be felt today.

With all the evidence analyzed and all the angles considered,

what do our experts make of the case?

So, over 40 years on, this is completely unknown.

And indeed, that's the conclusion of the Ministry of Defense.

The case file is technically still open.

No definitive explanation was ever found.

[narrator] And the OSI's official report?

This report that I read in headquarters in 1984 listed

that the plausible explanation could have been

extraterrestrial contact by unknown entities.

That was in the final report.

[Dr. Haseltine] I think that they saw something extraordinary that is far from

the realm of normal human experience and that I don't

think there's any logical explanation for it.

Something real happened.

And honestly, I don't think we have any clue what it was.

[narrator] Whistleblower David Grusch recently claimed before

Congress that the US military

has had a decades long top secret program to reverse

engineer recovered UFOs.

Could it be that the craft at Rendlesham was recovered

by the US Air Force and is still being held

at a secret location today?

To me, the evidence suggests that the Rendlesham Forest UFO

case was a joint PSYOP between the USAF, the OSI, and RAF.

The location of the sighting, the inconsistencies in witness

testimony, and the questionable binary code download all point

to a staged event.

The full truth may never be known, but it is clear that

the Rendlesham Forest UFO case will continue to fascinate

and intrigue people for years to come.

[dramatic music playing]

[spraying noises]