All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S06E08.1080p.HEVC.x265-MeGusta[EZTVx.to]

Tonight, a surreal event outside a U .S.
Air Force base near the Rendlesham

Forest in England becomes an
international legend.

Lieutenant Colonel Halt's team goes out
in the forest at night, and they are

investigating these lights, recording
what they're saying in real time.

We're talking about a watershed moment
in UFO history.

These were highly trained military men
shaken to their core.

For more than 40 years, the question has
endured, what was really out there in

the Rendlesham Forest?

Maybe it was an experimental aircraft,
or maybe the ones being experimented on

were the men themselves.

Was it all a test to see how far minds
could be manipulated?

Now, we'll explore the top theories
surrounding one of history's strangest

encounters.

This was an experiment straight out of
science fiction.

It would have been the perfect way to
gauge their readiness without anyone

getting hurt.

What were the Rendlesham Lights?

Christmas night, 1980.

All is calm in Rendlesham Forest.

Six square miles of woods, stretching
between the Bentwaters and Woodbridge

military air bases.

Bentwaters and Woodbridge, known as the
twin bases, are in England,

in the county of Suffolk.

The U .S. Air Force leased these bases.

And they're very important in the NATO
military alliance.

In the aftermath of the Second World
War, Bentwaters Woodbridge become a

aerodrome complex because they're quite
close to one another. And by 1980, there

are 12 ,000 U .S. Air Force personnel
stationed at Bentwaters Woodbridge, and

it's one of the largest air bases
available to NATO.

With the Cold War raging, no one here
takes security lightly.

Even though Rendlesham is public land,
the base is very well protected.

It's surrounded by razor wire. There are
motion sensors. There's an electric

fence. There's 24 -7 security.

The officers and personnel making these
rounds and security checks are very

highly trained.

So anything out of the ordinary, the
security on these bases would be able to

catch it.

Among the guards responsible for
protecting Woodbridge is 20 -year -old

Airman First Class John Burroughs.

Burroughs and his Staff Sergeant Bud
Steffens are making their rounds around

perimeter of Woodbridge Air Base when
they see lights in the sky that are

very unfamiliar.

They're red and blue and then yellow and
orange. They're moving in a strange

way. And then...

All of them suddenly descend into
Rendlesham Forest outside the base.

Their minds immediately go to, these are
aircraft.

And since they descend downward, maybe
the aircraft crashed. Maybe there is an

emergency that they need to alert
somebody to. The thing about it that was

to them is the fact that there was no
sound.

Burroughs and Steffens alert the base's
central security controls of the

situation. And Sergeant Jim Penniston,
the base's senior security officer, is

assigned to investigate.

It turns out there are no missing
planes. Every aircraft is accounted for

military in this area. But there is an
anomalous radar signal that people saw,

but then the signal disappeared. And
that's not a normal thing that occurs.

That's weird.

When John Burroughs and Steffens are
waiting at the east gate, Sergeant

Penniston and his driver show up, and
they have to leave their weapons with

Steffens as they start to investigate
off the base.

With a glow still visible in the
distance, the men drive about 100 yards

an old logging road where, due to the
rough terrain, they're forced to carry

by foot.

It's 3 a .m.

It's dark.

They're in this old growth forest, and
the radios start.

to malfunction.

There's this static. It's almost as if
there's some sort of disruption with

their signaling.

As they approach, their hair on the back
of their neck was standing up.

And as they reach the clearing where
these lights are coming from, there's

instantly this large burst of light.

Penniston describes this eerie silence
and sees this car.

Triangular shape.

Nine feet high, nine feet across.

About the size of a tank.

Burroughs, who's about 20 yards behind
Penniston, he has a different account of

what he sees.

He does not see this triangular craft.

But what he does see is even more
perplexing. He claims he sees a red orb

suddenly rise from the clearing and then
shoot toward the coast faster than any

craft he's ever seen before.

Penniston and Burroughs are still in a
state of shock.

To them, they've only been gone for a
few minutes.

But by the time they get back to the
East Gate, Steffens informs them that

they've been gone for almost an hour.

And so Penniston and Burroughs decide
that they need to go and investigate the

clearing in the light of day.

The men return to that clearing in the
woods.

And when they reach it, they find there
are three indentations that are seven

inches in diameter and circular, one and
a half inches deep.

And these indentations in the ground
seem to corroborate Penniston's story of

something sitting on a tripod of legs.

U .S. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt is
deputy base commander at Bentwaters.

When he hears about the incident, he
assumes it's some sort of Christmas

that's gotten out of hand.

On December 27th, Colonel Halt is
enjoying the annual awards Christmas

when one of the airmen bursts into the
room, very much wide -eyed, pale -faced,

and goes right over to Colonel Halt and
says, whispering, it's back.

Halt decides that the way to silence
these rumors is to do a thorough

investigation. So he assembles a team,
and he brings along a night scope. He

brings along a Geiger counter, which
measures radiation.

And he brings along a tape recorder so
that he can record all of the

conversations as they are finding
things.

At 1 .25 a .m., Halt turns on the Geiger
counter as well as his cassette

recorder while he and his lieutenant
search the forest.

The Geiger counter seems to get higher
readings on the sides of the tree facing

the clearing Specifically where they
absolutely peak is in those three

indentations

It's like an abrasion point into the
center. It is.

It's not an immediate panic.

It's a sort of, that's interesting
moment.

At 1 .48 a .m., Halt's attention is
drawn from the landing site to the sky

overhead.

You just saw a light there.

Where?

Right on this position here, straight
ahead, in between.

There it is again.

As they get closer to the location of
these lights, they realize that we're

actually chasing the light.

The light is coming towards us.

It's coming this way.

It's definitely coming this way.

After around five hours in the woods,
Halt and his men are no closer to

out what these lights could be, and they
return to the base with more questions

than answers.

Halt is ultimately told that since this
event unfolded off base, on UK soil,

that it is technically within the
purview of the Ministry of Defence to

with it, not the US Air Force.

Holt gets told, go write up a memo and
send it to the Ministry of Defence.

We'll let them deal with it as the host
nation.

But because of the key Brit officer
being away on Christmas leave, Holt's

wasn't sent until January 13th.

This interim of two weeks.

provides the basis by which the Ministry
of Defense declines to do anything.

And they declined to do anything on the
basis that this was serious. You would

have informed us sooner.

And if we're brought into it two weeks
later, why should we even waste a minute

looking into this matter?

So while the Brits are downplaying the
incident, it's not the same case on the

base. Rumors are already starting to
swirl.

And over time, Halt, Penniston, and
Burroughs all become convinced.

that whatever occurred in Rendlesham
Forest was not of this earth.

After the incident, Penniston and
Burroughs begin to experience unusual

of anxiety, nightmares.

Burroughs develops white gums, and he's
diagnosed with a heart murmur that he

didn't have before.

And in fact, his physician asks him
whether he's been exposed to radiation.

But both Penniston and Burroughs fear
sharing some of the details. They know

that there's a stigma to reporting
things like UFOs or paranormal

So they don't feel very comfortable
giving outright everything that took

Some 14 years after his first report of
the incident, Penniston adds a crucial

bit of new information.

Finally, in 1994, Penniston reports that
not only did he see this strange

black triangular object in the woods,
but that he actually touched it.

And that the surface of it was smooth in
some places, but in other places felt

like sandpaper. It was as if the surface
was covered with hieroglyphics.

This was a trained airman, and this was
like nothing he had ever seen before.

Although his claim sparked some
scepticism, critics acknowledged that

many UFO sightings, his claim is well
documented.

The accounts from those directly
involved are also corroborated by others

off the base.

Although most of the Rendlesham Forest
witnesses are military, turns out at

least eight witnesses in the local
community reported a triangular -shaped

object zipping around very rapidly.

Speed it up, and it came towards the
lodge.

And the closer it got, the more I
realized it was not an aircraft.

Many of the details around this case
make people believe that this was some

of an extraterrestrial craft.

We have missing time. We have physical
effects taking place.

And multiple witnesses from trained
people seeing something anomalous in the

sky. Not everybody believes that it was
aliens or extraterrestrials in Suffolk,

England that night. But it's very
possible that this is some type of a

phenomenon that...

We don't understand.

For nearly three years, the unexplained
lights in Rendlesham Forest were largely

an Air Force secret.

Then, in October of 1983, a popular
British tabloid called News of the World

publishes the first public account of
the Rendlesham incident.

From the beginning of the case, Air
Force personnel had been known to be

parts of the information to the local
population.

As the interest started to rise in this
case, some of these ufologists filed a

Freedom of Information Act request with
the U .S. government and actually

retrieved the memo that Colonel Holt
filed to the Ministry of Defense of the

incident that took place that night.

So now the cat's out of the bag.

When this account is finally made
public, many people believe that this is

first official account of military
personnel interacting with some type of

extraterrestrial spacecraft.

We're talking about a watershed moment
in UFO history.

For UFO enthusiasts, this is irrefutable
proof that UFOs are real. They're

actually documented. They think this
proves it once and for all, to the point

that CNN even made a documentary about
this.

CNN has found others who were there in
the forest separating the Bentwater's

Woodbridge Air Force bases who have
given strikingly similar accounts of the

UFOs. We saw flying objects containing
maybe other people or another life form.

But not everyone believes that the
lights were otherworldly.

Like a lot of UFO sightings, there's not
necessarily a single neat explanation.

But what if a number of things?

All of them decidedly terrestrial and
normal. What if they all came together

create a sort of perfect storm of
confusion?

Ian Ridpath, a UK astronomer and known
UFO debunker, starts to investigate the

Bentwaters case himself.

Digging through police reports and
witness statements, Ridpath soon

that in the memo Charles Halt sent to
the MOD, he got the dates of both

encounters wrong.

The lieutenant colonel reported that the
first sighting happened early in the

morning on the 27th when it really
happened early in the morning on the

And he reported that his own encounter
happened early in the morning on the

and it was actually the 28th.

When you're out in the woods at 3 o
'clock in the morning, do you really

about it in terms of the night before or
the next morning? And that causes some

of the confusion and the chaos.

When Ridpat realizes that according to
Suffolk police, Halt's dates are wrong.

he makes a startling discovery.

And what was assumed to be
extraterrestrial might have been a more

phenomenon.

On the very night when Penniston and
Burroughs see these strange lights

in the trees, it just so happens that
astronomers all around the UK reported

some very bright fireball meteors.

Meteors are essentially pieces of base
rock.

And when they enter Earth's atmosphere,
they catch on fire and usually break up

into multiple pieces and fall harmlessly
to Earth or into the ocean.

The meteors that were supposed to be
visible on that night had actually hit

.20 p .m., 7 .20 p .m., and 2 .50 a .m.

And that corresponds to the time that
Burroughs and the other men were in the

forest seeing those weird lights behave
strangely.

Witnesses in Suffolk, England, noticed
that just before 3 a .m., this meteor

streaking across the sky and causing
this unbelievable light show of sparks

things coming off of it.

An astronomer at the time described it
as being almost as bright as the full

moon.

Meteors. are also known as shooting
stars.

And most of them are little bits of rock
that enter our upper atmosphere and due

to friction and compression of the
atmosphere, they generate light. And

them, they can explode and they can
burst into flames, making these big

fireballs.

So these fireballs, we give them
different names based on how they

If it explodes and you get this really
bright light, we call those fireballs.

but also bull eyes.

Back at the twin bases, another guard
claims to have witnessed a similar light

show in the sky that Christmas night.
And he described it as a very bright

of fire in the sky with a sparkle tail.

He reports that he and his fellow guards
had the feeling that this meteor was

close and that, in fact, it had fallen
right between the two bases.

These objects can play optical illusions
with you. They can look like they're at

a much lower altitude than they really
are.

Sometimes they look like they're right
above you, but actually they're miles in

the sky because there's no contrast.

There's just a blackness of space behind
you. Especially for an object that's

big and bright, it can appear to be a
lot closer than it is.

The guard was listening to the radio
that night, and he heard someone

into the radio saying, it's a UFO, it's
a UFO.

Humans are very susceptible to this
thing called confirmation bias. So if

told, it's a UFO, it's a UFO, don't be
surprised when suddenly people are

manufacturing UFO explanations.

All they got was a light show, and then
they struggled to explain.

Three years after the Rendlesham Forest
incident, The public remains intrigued

about those strange lights in the woods.

Some say it's an alien encounter.

Some raise the possibility that it's a
meteor shower. But is there actually a

more earthly reason for what
eyewitnesses saw?

Investigators tried to gather
information about what happened that

meeting with locals, by going into the
forest, gathering data, gathering

evidence, putting together information,
trying to get the facts.

As they start to piece together the
information, they hear about something

nearby that could have accounted for
this mystery.

The 100 -foot -tall Orford Ness
Lighthouse is located just about six

Rendlesham Forest on the coast of the
North Sea.

In this particular area is the Orford
Ness Lighthouse, and it's actually the

second most... powerful lighthouse in
the United Kingdom.

It's got a beam that you can see for 30
miles out to sea, and what it does is it

tracks around.

So you get a beam that sweeps across the
whole surrounding area.

The lighthouse has been there since the
18th century.

And the beam from the lighthouse is
shielded towards the town so that it

bother citizens in the town. But the
part of the lighthouse that faces the

forest, that's not shielded because
there's nobody living there to bother.

Depending on atmospheric conditions, the
lighthouse can either glow a yellowish

or an orangish color and is rotating in
five -second intervals.

It's highly likely that the military
personnel in the base were not even

of this lighthouse.

Just because the terrain of the forest
isn't something that you can directly

through and make out a lighthouse.

But a few hundred yards into the forest,
that would have been a different story.

From these guards' perspective, the
light would appear to enter just above

forest, and you have the effect of the
light bouncing off of low clouds.

So it really could appear to be
something hovering just above the forest

actually it's a beam of light that
originates from the coast six miles

Because this is considered really a
British problem, since it's not

a U .S. Air Force base, local constables
are alerted and asked to investigate

the matter.

Not surprisingly, as locals, they're
well aware of the existence of the

lighthouse. There have been other
reports of mysterious lights being

it. So when a report came from the base
that there was something weird going on

in the woods and they were
investigating, the local police decided

were going to take a look that first
night. And they arrived out there an

later at around 4 a .m. And what did
they report?

All we see are the lights from the
lighthouse.

According to the proponents of the
lighthouse theory, halts on tape prove

case.

As he's narrating this into his tape
recorder, he is saying, the lights, here

they come again.

And then five seconds later, the lights
are back again.

Small red light, maybe a quarter to half
mile, maybe further out.

Based on Holt's recording, after
trudging through the forest a little bit

further in, the bright beam becomes
visible once again.

This looks like it's clear off to the
coast. It's right on the horizon.

Right on the horizon where the
lighthouse Fortfordness is located.

According to some, the frequent
intervals of light suggest a secondary

for the Rendlesham's mysterious light
show, a vessel with a warning beam known

as a light ship.

It's a vessel that's effectively like a
mobile lighthouse. It's put over a

particularly dangerous area of coastline
that the coastline shifts as a result

of a large storm or tidal levels.

a light ship might account for the
reports of five other lights that are

presented by some of the witnesses.

As the lighthouse theory goes public,
the three main witnesses stand by their

accounts. Lieutenant Colonel Halt, he's
a base commander. He has a sterling

reputation. Burroughs is young, but he's
well -trained.

Penniston is also a professional. He's a
top security person there.

When they hear this lighthouse theory,
they don't take kindly to it.

Halt says, yeah, you think it's a
lighthouse?

Well, guess what? Lighthouses don't fly.

When this empirical argument is
presented to both Halt and Penniston

Penniston backs him up.

Penniston further states that, yeah,
lighthouses do what they do, but that

doesn't explain this black craft that
was spotted in the middle of the woods

that emitted this powerful light that he
walked up to and laid a hand on

physically.

All the while, another theory starts to
bubble up, which explains perhaps why

the Ministry of Defense denied looking
into the case.

In December 1980, Cold War tensions are
rising between the world's two

superpowers, the U .S. and the USSR.

Is it possible that new technologies
forged in that supercharged moment might

hold clues to what people saw in
Rendlesham Park?

Ronald Reagan is elected president in
the 1980 presidential election.

One of his major campaign promises is to
expand the size and funding of the

United States military.

The U .S. government sought to return
the perception of great American

to the Cold War balance of power.

It would do this by increasing the
amount of money that would flow into the

American military, particularly into
agencies like the Defense Advanced

Projects Agency, DARPA.

So what takes place is a heightened
sense of military action on both sides,

increasing their arms regiment,
including new weapons for spying and for

destruction.

So perhaps there is more to the
Rendlesham case than meets the eye.

Maybe this was an orchestrated diversion
from what was really going on in the

skies over Rendlesham.

At almost any time in the history of
aviation, there have been things that

public won't be told about for some
years.

And you can look back to the 50s and the
60s at programs like the U -2, the SR

-71 Blackbird.

None of these things appeared magically
overnight.

If you are a government and you are
developing secret craft and someone

and they say it's something that it's
not, you like that.

You want people thinking it's a UFO. You
don't want them to know about what

you're doing.

because it is secret.

Not only did the government like it,
sometimes they actively promoted that

narrative. It's a smoke screen.

It's a distraction.

At the time, they were much happier with
people thinking it's a UFO than the

Soviets getting a glimpse or any type of
knowledge about some of these game

-changing technologies that were being
developed.

At the time of the Rendlesham incident,
there's a truly groundbreaking

technology in the pipeline.

Stealth aircraft.

The stealth program is one of those
quintessential examples of something

took more than a decade to actually put
into operation and was a very tightly

held secret.

In 1977, the first test flights of a U
.S. Air Force development project was

done between DARPA and the Lockheed
Skunk Works called Have Blue. The

anatomy of the aircraft was developed to
disperse radar reflectivity so that the

aircraft will show up at a greatly
reduced radar profile.

Have Blue eventually is adopted in the
form of the F -117A Nighthawk stealth

fighter.

While the stealth fighter wasn't
operational until the fall of 1983, it

striking resemblance to the craft
Penniston claimed to have seen in the

Rendlesham Park.

The stealth bomber was black. It was
triangular.

It had a very smooth surface. It had
many of the characteristics of that

that Penniston reported seeing.

So that object might have been some kind
of prototype for the stealth bomber.

We can also consider that there are
other types of aircraft that were in

development at the time. For example,
combat drones and surveillance drones.

So by around 1980, they probably would
have been prototyping.

If the U .S. was working on such
classified technology, a test flight in

Rendlesham Forest on Christmas night
could have been an ideal time and place

do it.

One of the reasons that the Ministry of
Defense didn't actively investigate it

might have been that they were very well
aware that the Americans were testing

new prototypes of technology at the
time. And they're not going to

something that their allies are
developing to defend them against Soviet

missiles.

This all presumes that the craft we see
in Rendlesham is some type of American

test flight. But what if it was
something that the USSR was actually

It's rumored, not completely known, that
Bentwaters and Woodbridge had more

nuclear weapons than any other military
base that the US operated in Europe. So

if it was from an adversarial nation
like the Soviet Union, they definitely

would want to see what's going on there.

In theory...

If there was some kind of an incursion
of Soviet personnel or Soviet equipment

into an American air base that may or
may not have been equipped with nuclear

weapons, this could create an escalating
incident.

Maybe this story was buried because we
don't want to let people know that there

is this Soviet cutting -edge drone
that's looking at our military bases.

Even 40 years later, we still have very
little idea about the technology that

the Soviets were developing at the time
in the 1980s. If it was Soviet

technology, then it's possible that the
hieroglyphics that Penniston reported

seeing and feeling on the surface of the
object might have in fact been

Cyrillic.

Perhaps what Penniston was feeling on
the craft was a type of Cyrillic

actually from the Russian alphabet.

Given the tensions at the time, the idea
that a Soviet military surveillance

drone was hovering over a U .S. nuclear
base, oh, that could have been bad all

the way around. And some people think it
could have gone as far as triggering

World War III.

Over two decades later, the public still
wants answers about the Rendlesham

incident. In her 2001 book titled...

You can't tell the people. The late
Georgina Bruni, a British UFO

claims to have turned up some new
evidence.

She says that she has evidence from four
scientists who visited the twin

air bases in December of 1980, right
around the time of the incident.

Allegedly, they put on some type of
contamination suit with air compressors

began going through the Rendlesham
Forest area.

Now, after a few hours of doing these
investigations in the woods, they

no explanation for what they were doing.
They changed their uniforms back into

normal clothes and then left the scene.

Bruni and her associates theorized that
these scientists could have been from

the Porton Down Research Center, one of
the UK's most secretive and sensitive

sites.

Located about 200 miles southwest of the
Twin Bases, Porton Down is the oldest

chemical and biological warfare research
installation in the world.

One of the more unsavory aspects of
Porton Down is that during World War II,

they actually weaponized anthrax spores.

In order to test their new weaponized
anthrax, Porton Down apparently duped

their own soldiers.

into being test subjects, guinea pigs
for anthrax, which is deadly.

Or maybe what happened in the Rendlesham
Forest was also part of some secret

government test.

Six months before the Rendlesham Forest
incident, the U .S. Department of

Defense prepared a secret report titled
The Role of Behavioral Science in

Physical Security.

And in that report, they recommended a
method for evaluating their ability to

withstand being probed by the enemy.

Maybe Porton Down was helping them carry
out that trial run.

In 1964, at Porton Down, they conducted
Operation Moneybags.

This was the first test conducted on
human subjects.

to determine if LSD could be used to
incapacitate an individual.

At 11 .40, the first effects of the drug
make their appearance.

Two Marines are reported to the troop
commander for insubordination.

Drug is also beginning to affect the
other men. They no longer take cover.

relax and begin to giggle.

Most of the soldiers just got silly and
sleepy and kind of goofy.

But they found also that among some
people that it triggered strong

hallucinogenic reactions.

The troop commander, although feeling
more capable of thinking and acting

normally, is, in fact, still
experiencing one of the characteristic

the drug.

Everything he looks at appears to be
patterned.

While looking at the white ceiling, he
describes geometrical patterns which are

coloured and three -dimensional.

They appear to move in and out of each
other.

Anonymous sources say that in 1980 on
Christmas night, Porton Down researchers

had another batch of hallucinogens, but
these doses would be delivered

throughout the woods using some type of
an aerosol delivery system.

Mind -altering drugs were just one part
of the assessment. The rest of the

readiness test involved light
holographic imagery.

A 1997 article discusses the possibility
of the use of hallucinogens combined

with holographic imagery.

of troops and tanks so that enemy
soldiers would be under the

impression that they were being
overwhelmed by huge numbers of soldiers

other side.

It would have been the perfect way to
gauge their readiness without anyone

getting hurt.

Were Halt and his men also part of an
experiment as they chased lights in and

out of the forest?

You want to do a lot of lights? Still
carefully, come on.

Okay, we're looking at the thing. We're
probably about 200 to 300 yards away.

It looks like an eye winking at you.
It's still moving from side to side.

It sort of has a hollow center, a dark
center.

Like a pupil of an eye looking at you,
winking.

And the flash is so bright to the star
scope that it almost burns your eye. We

see strange, strobe -like flashes,
rather sporadic, but there's definitely

kind of phenomenon.

This hallucinogen theory can actually
close a couple of loopholes in what

occurred that night. For example, why
did Penniston and Burroughs report

different experiences to the same event?

Just don't make sense. Why do they both
report losing time?

Well, hallucinogens could create those
sort of effects using so -called active

procedures.

What happened in Rendlesham was
possibly...

An incredible series of experiments to
see just how far the human mind could be

manipulated.

More than four decades after the
Rendlesham incident, a new theory is

One that the U .S. Air Force may have
wanted to keep hidden.

Some propose that what was experienced
that night was actually a military

experiment involving nothing more than
lasers, radar, and air.

On December 29, 1980, an astronomer
talks to people who claim that they've

this triangular thing zipping about, and
he comes up with his own theory, that

what people are seeing is consistent
with the idea of being a plasma globe.

Plasma is often called the fourth state
of matter.

If you make a gas really hot, it begins
to dissociate into its elementary

particles, and you end up with a state
called a plasma.

And although they're rare here on Earth,
relatively speaking, 99 % of the volume

of all that we call normal matter is in
the plasma state.

It isn't solid. It isn't liquid.

It's not a gas. And you can find it in
lightning. You can find it inside the

tubes of fluorescent lights or neon
lights. You can find it in stars. It is

type of matter.

There is a plasma glow phenomenon that
people witness, and it's called ball

lightning.

Ball lightning involves the ionization
of a small area that results in

essentially a plasma ball spontaneously
erupting. It almost looks like lightning

kind of hovering above the ground for a
short period of time.

Plasma balls can be any color, but
red...

Orange, yellow are quite common, and
sometimes they move very slowly, but

times they can be really erratic and can
sometimes even go through glass.

It could be turned into a very powerful
weapon, which would essentially be like

making a giant lightning bolt to strike
your enemy.

The idea of trying to weaponize plasma
has been around for decades.

Most people would argue it's not a very
practical approach to weapons. That

doesn't mean that there weren't at least
attempts to create a plasma weapon.

As far back as the 1950s, scientists
have been exploring ways to harness the

devastating power of plasma.

And perhaps they even succeeded.

In 1965, two American scientists come up
with the idea of focusing lasers as a

means of manipulating plasma or ball
lightning.

They even give it the German nickname
Kugelblitz, the German word for ball

lightning. Although there's no evidence
that a test of this nature was ever

conducted by the U .S. government,
there's evidence that tests with plasma

been conducted historically.

And who knows, maybe a test such as that
was being conducted that night in

Rendlesham Forest.

Some theorists think that perhaps the U
.K. did in fact develop a plasma weapon.

And if they did... What better time and
place to test it than in the middle of

the forest at night between two military
bases during Christmas?

The men on the base had no idea that
they were walking into a hot zone.

John Burrow claims to see a red orb that
lifts up and there's some type of

plasma or electricity like dripping off
of it.

The presence of plasma might explain the
other odd occurrences that night.

including an atmospheric mixture of
electric and magnetic forces that

electromagnetic field, or EMF.

An electromagnetic field from plasma can
be one of the things that can cause

interference with radio communications.

Penniston and Burroughs, they've talked
about it as if they were wading through

water, the hairs on the back of their
neck standing up.

There's a static electricity field.

All sorts of things can emit an EMF. You
can get them from plasmas. You

can get them from certain propulsion
systems.

Exposure to high levels of plasma can
also cause confusion.

It can cause optical illusion.

It can cause any number of...

mental and psychological effect so why
no one from the ministry of defense in

the uk will comment on the event in the
rendersham forest that night there was

an official study of ufo phenomena in
the uk and in that report it does state

that the uk government was aware of this
idea of weaponizing plasma

Henniston to this day maintains his
belief that he saw something

extraterrestrial in Rendlesham Forest.

Burroughs, on the other hand, has become
convinced that he and his fellow

members of the patrol were actually just
caught up in some form of secret

demonstration or test.

Part of the reason that so much
attention is attracted to this incident

because of the incredible importance of
these twin bases.

Bentwaters and Woodbridge both are known
to have nuclear weapons on them. And we

were developing even newer and even more
impressive technologies.

And then the whole thing was shushed up
in the aftermath so that word of this

technology would not get out,
potentially reaching our Soviet

In the decades since the Rendlesham
incident, the U .S. Air Force has left

Suffolk. The 100 -foot lighthouse has
been torn down, and the twin bases of

Bentwaters and Woodbridge are now
occupied by the Ministry of Defense.

But between them lies the same dark
woods whose secret remains hidden to

day. I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you
for watching History's Greatest

Mysteries.