.
Issue 1
The Date of “27 dec 80” in Jim Penniston’s Notebook
“. . . why does
Penniston notebook show the date of 27 Dec as the date we went into the
forest?”
From a message posted by
John Burroughs on the
Rendlesham “Lone
Rangers” UFO Sightings
(Facebook Group Page),
2016:
‘His [Jim
Penniston’s] notebook is dated wrongly as 27th Dec 1980 as shown in Sci-Fi’s
“Invasion at Rendlesham Documentary.” Is that because he’s a complete idiot and
didn’t know what date it was? Was he secretly out on the night of the 27th Dec
1980 and no one else knew including Jim? Or did he actually write it in the
notebook at a later date.’
Posted by “Mirageman,”
a skeptic poster on the
ATS (Above Top Secret)
forum, Feb 1, 2018:
.
John
Burroughs:
“Well the problem with the notebook is . . . and that’s
how the binary surfaced . . . was that the date in it when he [Penniston] said it took place was the twenty
seventh of December, which matches the Halt memo, which had the wrong dates.
But the interesting thing was, if he [Penniston] wrote it out there in
the field at the time, he would have known it was the twenty sixth of December,
you know what I mean? So that was a discrepancy right there.”
A Different Perspective with Kevin Randle (EP 0036).
Guest: John Burroughs –
Bentwaters/Rendlesham. Published on Apr 12, 2017.
John
Burroughs and “Mirageman” are obviously referring to the date given at the top
of this page in Jim Penniston’s notebook.
Figure 1: Jim Penniston leafing
through his notebook on the Sci-Fi TV documentary UFO Invasion at
Rendlesham (2003).
The
first person to bring public attention to this supposedly “wrong” date in Jim
Penniston’s notebook, was long-time Rendlesham skeptic and amateur astronomer,
Ian Ridpath, who was initially asked by the team of the BBC, Breakfast Time show on which he was a
regular face, to investigate (debunk) the Rendlesham Incident just five days
after the story broke in the UK national newspaper, The News of the World on Oct 2, 1983.
Ian
Ridpath has been the go-to “skeptic” on the Rendlesham Incident ever since.
In
a message on the ATS Website (April 21, 2018), “Mirageman” writes:
“I work with BBC
Worldwide meteorological arm for another agency with interest in the BBC’s
output.”
So,
both Ian Ridpath (an amateur astronomer) and “Mirageman” (meteorologist?) have
worked with, or for the BBC.
Although
through law, the government denies that it owns the BBC, the BBC has always
been controlled financially and editorially by the State, and is really the
epitome of State propaganda.
See
here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_media
The
government controls the BBC through a board that they appoint in the same way
that shareholders would appoint a board of governors to manage their company.
So, in that sense the ‘powers that be’ own it.
From
having observed both Ian Ridpath and “Mirageman” over the years, the term
‘pseudo-skeptic,’ describes them.
A
true skeptic and truth-seeker analyzes both sides and updates his or her views
and opinions to conform with the facts, while a pseudoskeptic manipulates the
facts to fit into their beliefs, using selective attention.
As
author Winston Wu has expressed it, these people are PROSECUTORS, not
investigators.
Pseudo-skeptics
are . . .
Quote:
‘. . . fanatics and
dogmatists who have no regard for facts, evidence or truth, but have an a
priori faith-based belief that paranormal phenomena is impossible and therefore
set out to debunk it, not investigate it. And they will distort, dismiss and
obfuscate to get their way. Thus, they generally have no objectivity toward
evidence, but bigotry and emotional fanaticism.’
Debunking
PseudoSkeptical Arguments of Paranormal Debunkers by Winston Wu.
2011.
Like
many others, Ian Ridpath had seen Jim Penniston’s notebook page with the date
in question featured on the Sci-Fi Channel, TV Documentary, UFO Invasion at Rendlesham, hosted by
Bryant Gumbel and first televised in 2003.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzlcWaqQItI&t=2s
Ridpath
writes:
“Immediately we can see a problem – the notebook
contains the wrong date and time for the event.”
Jim Penniston’s Notebook by Ian Ridpath.
Page modified 2015.
Here,
Ridpath is merely ‘stating assumptions as fact,’ which can be disastrous and it
was.
As
will now be revealed, it is not the date that is wrong as assumed, it is Ridpath, and correcting this silly
mistake has been long overdue.
It
is also clear, that Ridpath, and now Burroughs, as well as the guy who posts
under the pseudonym “Mirageman” – both of whom now foolishly follow behind
Ridpath on his “march of folly” – really
have not thought this through properly . . .
Ian Ridpath:
“The first page, shown above, is headed with the date
“27 Dec 80” . . .”
Jim Penniston’s Notebook by Ian Ridpath.
Page modified 2015.
The
answer is both simple and mundane.
The
date is NOT the “27th,” but the ‘29th.’
What
looks like a “7” is really a ‘9.’
It
is a fact that Jim Penniston’s handwritten ‘nines’ when viewed from some
distance away, do appear to resemble the number seven . . .
[Like this]:
.
. . but, Jim knows this is not a seven because he writes his sevens in the
European style with a dash through the stem of the seven.”
[Like this:]
In
fact, it would perhaps surprise the same people to know that Jim Penniston did
indeed write the date of “27 Dec 80” on a full blank page before he wrote down
the ones and zeroes (string of binary code) on the following sixteen pages.
He
wrote these ones and zeros down during the early morning hours of December 27,
1980 – the day after the incident, and he wrote the date first to check if the biro
he was using was working.
And
it is interesting that the number 7 in the date is in the European style with a
dash through the stem of the seven.
Figure 2: The relevant page
in Jim Penniston’s notebook. “27 Dec 80.” Note how Jim Penniston has written
the number seven in the European style with a dash through the stem of the
seven.
On
his Webpage, The Rendlesham UFO witness statements (Page 2), Ian Ridpath, had
also written that the date given at the bottom right corner on the sketch of
the triangular craft by Jim Penniston in three different views, presents the
date as the 27th December 1980.
Ridpath
WRONGLY ASSUMES AGAIN that Jim Penniston had given the date when he actually saw the craft, which Ridpath says was
the wrong date, as the first night of the incident had taken place on the
morning of December 26, 1980.
However,
what Ian Ridpath “sees” and wants to be
a “7,” is really a ‘9’ . . . relating to the 29th December – not the date that
Jim Penniston saw the craft, but the day
that Jim Penniston made the sketch of the triangular craft.
Figure
3: Close up of the date of the sketch, with the
words “RAF Bentwaters Wood SITING” (As in ‘Site’) underneath followed by the
home address where the sketch was made.
Again,
Jim’s handwritten ‘nines’ resemble the number seven . . .
Well,
now that this has all been logically explained, the question remains . . .
Why is the date of
’29 Dec’ at the top of the same page on which Jim Penniston then began writing
down notes on what he was observing while at the East Gate on December 26?
Jim
Penniston:
For a long time, I had forgotten about the written date
of “29 dec 80” at the top of that page in my notebook, and really because I hardly
ever looked at these pages over the years.
Monday the
29th was the day I would be going back to work after our short Christmas break.
The date was
logged during my shift on Christmas evening as a reminder for a preplanned
flight exercise which I routinely did for Master Sergeant Preston, who had made
it mandatory that I always give the guys a ‘heads up’ for the flight exercises,
which is why I would record the dates some days before they took place.
It was a
safety measure, due to the critical ‘real world’ resources we had on the base
and our ‘real world’ mission.
To have any
confusion about this could cause a security mishap.
The irony is,
that the date of “29 dec 80” was the date for an ‘off-base’ aircraft crash,
security training exercise.
In any case,
the date for this exercise, which was later cancelled, was logged in the
notebook with further information pending only hours before I was deployed to
the forest to investigate the light in the woods which I thought was an
aircraft crash at first, and which was just after midnight on the morning of
the 26th.
I would
usually close my pen in the notebook, so I could open it at the same page where
I left off from my last entry.
Soon after
arriving at the East Gate and before we left to investigate, I opened my notebook
at the same page and quickly jotted down the time of “12:20”.
Noting what
Sgt. Steffens had told me he and Burroughs had witnessed and what I thought it
might be, I then wrote “Response
notes” . . . then further down the page I wrote “A/C crash” . . . and
under that, “Adjacent East Gate.”
Again, at
that time, I thought the light in the forest was a downed aircraft.
Everything
was happening so fast that I had used the same page when I began writing down
details during the incident – not realizing for a long time afterwards that the
date of “29 dec 80,” which had nothing to do with the incident, was at the top
of the same page on which I began taking notes.”
As was typical, because I had forgotten it, the date at
the top of the page which was a reminder for something totally different and
mundane in comparison, was then jumped on by the skeptics – especially the
British amateur astronomer [Ian Ridpath] who confused it with my having wrongly
noted the date of the first night of the RFI incident . . . which I always said
had happened on the morning of December 26, 1980.
I must admit
that even I was confused by the date in my notebook at first when it was first
pointed out to me by Colonel Halt.
This was
when I first showed him the notebook and some of the pages during the shoot for
the Sci-Fi Channel TV documentary, UFO Invasion at Rendlesham in
2003.
After all, at
that time it was twenty-three years ago since the incident, and this was a
trivial detail that really had nothing to do with the incident.
And then later it all came back to me what
the date referred to.
And I should
point out, that contrary to what people believe, Col. Halt has never held or
handled the notebook . . . in fact, no one has.”
Well as I predicted, I was accused of deliberately
giving out false information, as if I had lied or was mistaken about the date
of the incident.
By then, I
was irritated by the whole thing. I had no patience
with those who had already made up their minds that the incident did not take
place as described and whose agenda was to debunk the incident and use this
petty, misconstrued detail to call me a liar in the process.
I remember
being quite abrupt with the amateur astronomer [Ridpath] who also believed that
all of us – the witnesses to the Rendlesham incident – had merely confused the
phenomena we saw with the light beam of the Orfordness lighthouse.
I just allowed
him to think or believe what he wished.
I have been
criticized for not explaining these things whenever the opportunity presented
itself and was frequently being told that with the cantankerous attitude I
displayed with some people, I wasn’t doing myself any favors.
But, the
truth is, I have no time for idiots and stupid people who assume they are
smarter than everyone else but can’t think clearly and will often see things upside
down and back-to-front, and as a result, will often confuse and “muddy the
waters” for others and ultimately cause chaos – often assuming things without
knowing all the facts – especially people who were not there and are really in
no position to judge.
And so,
having experienced what most people are like and how I have been treated over
the years, I really could not be bothered, as whatever I said would either go
unheard, be ignored, or spun and twisted.
I thought I
would wait until I had the time to document everything, lay it all out properly
and write and express what I wanted to say in a publication – my last say on
the incident; something that is definitive for me and a lasting record .
. . which is why I am now explaining everything I can to my co-author.
At the end
of the day it was a trivial thing which couldn’t really be called a mistake as
I used the notebook exactly for the purpose it was meant . . . which was for
jotting down notes!
It wasn’t
meant to be used as an official record or report, and anyway, while writing
down the time I had arrived at the East Gate and some of the details of what I
learned while there, how was I to know how significant this event would be?
The notes were written as it was all happening and what
I wrote were short memos – just like the date of the flight exercise – a
reminder I had written at the top of the same page on which I later began
writing down notes concerning another incident I was later engaged in.
It’s not
like I could go back to the notebook after the incident and begin writing my
notes about it on a fresh page to give the incident the respect it
deserved.
Sadly,
today, this small “discrepancy” about the date in the notebook – something
which is so trivial and happens frequently in the real world to everyone and in
real situations – has been expanded out of all proportion, to the point that
people are now saying it smacks of a conspiracy . . . a ‘cover up’ on what
really happened.
However,
even the skeptics had made a mistake which has continued to this day.
Again, the
date of the 29th is mistakenly read by the debunkers and skeptics and those who
have focused on it, as ‘27.’
AGAIN, what
looks like a ‘7’ is really a 9.
[See also, No. 8 below]
The
so-called “conspiracy,” which has enjoyed free-flow on skeptic blogs and
websites, is based on the wrongly-perceived date of “27 Dec 80,” in that a
comparison has been made between what people believe Jim had written, and the
date of the “27 Dec 80,” which Colonel Halt had typed up on his memorandum as
being the date of the first night’s events in which Jim Penniston was involved,
but which really took place on the morning of Dec 26.
In
fact, the night that Halt was involved and was himself witness to strange
aerial phenomena, was the night of Dec 27, going into the morning of Dec 28,
1980, and so Halt could have had that date on his mind and confused it with the
first night’s events when he wrote his memorandum.
Apparently,
because it is believed that both Col, Halt and Jim Penniston had given the date
of the 27th – even though the date Jim wrote was the 29th referring to a
different planned event altogether – both men are now being accused of covering
up something.
The
theory is that the incident Jim was involved in must have really taken place on
the 27th,
“The JP notebook
matches Halt’s memo date of the 27th December 1980. What if Halt recalled
Penniston for investigations right after Lt. Tamplin went crazy in the woods
and they ventured out that night too then he was told to keep it all secret?”
“Mirageman,”
posting on the ATS (Above Top Secret)
Website May 11, 2018.
This
view/theory posited by “Mirageman” is absurd.
First
of all, the night involving the so-called “unexplained events” that Second Lieutenant
Bonnie Tamplin is reported as having experienced, was the night of December 26
and not the night of December 27th.
Also,
the events which began during the late afternoon of December 27, involving
SSgt. Monroe Nevels and Lt. Englund, and who were sent out by Col. Ted Conrad
to determine and record any evidence that might exist of the landed craft that
SSgt. Jim Penniston had witnessed on the morning of the 26th, and which led
into the evening of the 27th and the morning of the 28th involving Col. Halt, did
not involve SSgt. Jim Penniston.
Jim
Penniston was simply not there, but if he was, then this would mean that
everyone involved on the third night’s events, are also implicit in the “cover
up” because no one has ever reported SSgt. Penniston being present that night.
Moreover,
I have personally been privy to the private emails sent between Jim Penniston
and Chuck Halt, as Jim Penniston would often forward them to me, and there was
nothing in those emails in which the events were discussed that implied that
Jim Penniston was with Halt on any of these nights.
If
these two men were complicit in any kind of cover-up about the nights in
question, I would have seen something that revealed exactly that in their
private email discussions.
In
any case, the date at the top of that page in Jim Penniston’s notebook is not
the “27th” but the 29th, and despite what people would prefer to believe, these
are the facts relating to this particular discrepancy, and shows how ordinary
and simple the answers can be.
All
these Penniston-testimony detractors are not using logical, analytical,
critical thinking skills, and I would either put it down to lower-than-average
IQ levels, or have to conclude that they have no problem in deceiving people
while being able to sleep peacefully at night.
It
is far more simple to accept that Jim Penniston used his notebook all the time,
and that he had simply jotted down information in the notebook on whatever page
he opened it to, as anyone would have done.
It
should also have been noted that Jim had no foreknowledge of what was going to
transpire and could not have known how important his investigation on the
morning of December 26 would turn out to be.
Again,
Jim simply jotted down notes where he could in the notebook, and where he
jotted down the notes didn’t follow any particular order . . . they were just
notes!
People
are simply making more out of this than is necessary, and it is really to serve
their own views, beliefs, and/or agendas in swaying public opinion on this
issue to their side and render Jim Penniston incompetent and not credible as a
witness.
This
silly issue – which on the surface would be considered a ‘misreading’ mistake –
has assisted in doing much damage to Jim Penniston’s reputation over the many
years in that it has been allowed to remain unchallenged since Ian Ridpath had
brought it up in public to do just that.
The
point to be made here, is that after having enjoyed a Christmas dinner at home
just hours before Jim Penniston was ordered to investigate the light in the
Rendlesham Forest, which he had first believed was a crashed aeroplane or
helicopter, why would Jim forget the date of the morning of December 26, and
write ‘Dec 29 80,’ which was three days later? . . . and I should emphasize
that the number 29 with the month of December is definitely what had been
written at the top of the page – NOT 27.
However,
this simple ‘Occam’s Razor’ mundane explanation will never satisfy the
pseudo-skeptics whose mission is to prove that the Rendlesham Forest Incident
was a mundane event.
* * *
Let’s
now look at the next related issue that skeptic Ian Ridpath brings up regarding
the times that Penniston entered into his notebook.
Ian Ridpath:
“Below is written “12:20. Response notes. A/C [i.e.
aircraft] crash. Adjacent East Gate.” At the bottom of the next page is another
time, 12.51. These times should really be expressed as “0020”, “0051”, etc. The
24-hour clock is standard in military, aviation and emergency services usage,
and at the time of the Rendlesham incident Penniston came under all three
headings, so why he used the civilian 12-hour clock is a puzzle.”
Jim Penniston’s Notebook by Ian Ridpath.
Page modified 2015 (now
due for another modification – Gary Osborn).
As
we can see, Ridpath’s reasoning is that Jim Penniston being a military guy,
SHOULD have written “0020” [hrs] and “0051” [hrs] – even though, Jim says he
has personally said and written down the time in both military and civilian notations,
as is his prerogative – and especially in civilian notation after looking at
his watch.
In
any case, what Jim was writing in at the time was his own personal notebook,
and he was using it exactly for what it was issued for.
It
was NOT a formal military record or document where Jim would be required to
write the time in military notation.
Also,
being married to Dr. Heather Elizabeth Osborn, an American, I am informed that Americans
are not raised to use the 24-hour clock in telling time.
This
is merely an example of Ian Ridpath’s British centrism, to assume that someone in the American military abides by
the same habits as someone from his own cultural military experience, and if
so, then this is hardly a point that could be raised and used to render Jim
Penniston’s testimony highly-questionable.
Ridpath’s
questioning as to why Jim Penniston – a military guy – didn’t use the military
notation, as if this hints at some kind of deception perpetrated by Jim, falls
flat, because . . . well, actually, Jim
did….
Unbeknownst
to Ridpath, on the bus back to Bentwaters just after the incident, Jim
Penniston had also decided to write a brief list of the things that happened in
chronological order in the same notebook – including the times these events happened.
And
for this he changed from using normal civilian notation, which he used during
the incident, to using the formal ‘24-hour clock’ military notation, and he did
this because he was going to consult what was in this short summary while
logging an official report, as he was instructed to do so by Lt. Buran.
He
was going to copy what he had written into the official AF1569 form along with
a more explanatory narrative, all of which would then be placed in the Security
blotter.
Jim Penniston:
After arriving back
at the East Gate, exhausted and fatigued, we found the posting van waiting for
us.
Mostly everyone expressed their worry and
concern, telling us we had been “off the grid” for more than two hours.
Burroughs then caught a ride with a Law
Enforcement patrol, and I went with my guys who had been picked up from ‘shift
change.’
Noting what Lt. Buran had directed me to
do, I knew that when we got back we would be debriefed and that I would most
likely have to write out an AF1569 form – which was a Security Police Incident
and Complaint report.
Although I did have my doubts about that,
knowing the nature of what I witnessed, I thought it best to be prepared.
While I was waiting for everyone to board
the bus, I then took out my notebook and summarized what had happened by
writing down a short list of the times and accompanying notes in proper
chronological order so that I could simply consult the list of things I had
written to be entered into the official AF1569 form, which would then be placed
in the Security blotter.
Because this list was for an official
report, I wrote down the times in the formal ‘24-hour clock’ military notation.
In this short summary, which took up two
notebook pages, I laid out the basics of all I was going to say.
I knew not to mention anything about my
close-up examination of the craft and just keep things short and simple.
I also knew that if I mentioned the term
“UFO” that would have been the end of my career.
“0002 Notified East
Gate
0015 Rendezvous /
east gate
with P-2 / P-3
0020 Assessed
possible
A/C Downing
0051 ECP
established
D-1/ S5 Plot
0100 Determined not
to be A/C crash
0115 White, blue
and
red yellow lights
in woods
investigated
& observed
0230 Undetermined
markings
0245 Origin of
craft? Took off, trailed
lights in woods
0345 Physical
markings on forest floor
Triangular
measuring
Approx 10 feet
apart
1 ½ inch
depressions
Round, Dinner
Plate size”
Figure 3: The relevant page
from Jim Penniston’s notebook. Compare the writing here with the scrawled
writing on the notebook pages, which were noted down while Jim Penniston was
next to the craft. This page was accidentally ripped, due to the age of the
notebook and its pages, which are now old and very brittle.
The
pages presented and what they contain above also explains away the next issue
in this list of issues repeatedly presented by the detractors of Jim
Penniston’s testimony: