All language subtitles for Alien Files Reopened S01E05 1080p WEB h264-FREQUENCY_track3_[eng]

[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]