Post by auntym on Apr 1, 2014 12:33:08 GMT -6
ufodigest.com/article/rendlesham-redux-0401
April 01, 2014
RENDLESHAM REDUX
By Nick Pope
Later this month, the book that John Burroughs, Jim Penniston and I have written about the Rendlesham Forest incident will be published. “Encounter in Rendlesham Forest” is being put out by Thomas Dunne Books, part of the Macmillan publishing house – one of the so-called “Big Six” in the literary world. Without giving away too many spoilers, what can people expect and what will the revelations mean for ufology?
First of all, I should say something about the unique way in which this book has been written. All too often, it seems to me, witnesses get a raw deal when it comes to getting across the details of their encounters. This is particularly true on TV, where a one or two hour interview is often edited down to a handful of sound bites, mixed in with a deep-voiced narration and a dramatic (often CGI) re-creation, and ends up only telling half the story – usually the half that everyone has heard before! When it comes to books, witnesses tend to have their stories retold by ufologists, who invariable end up mangling some of the details and bringing too many of their personal opinions and biases into the story. We decided to try something a little different.
Originally, John and Jim had planned to write a book themselves, and with that plan in mind, they asked if I would contribute a chapter detailing the UK government’s involvement in the story. Having worked on the Ministry of Defence’s UFO project and having undertaken a cold case review of the Rendlesham Forest incident in 1994, I was happy to do so, and wrote up an account of the MoD’s role, that ran to somewhere between 8000-10,000 words. At that stage, we discussed the possibility of collaborating, with the combination of the two main witnesses and a government UFO investigator working together being a unique way to take things forward.
Our collaboration covers three main areas. Firstly, the book itself; secondly, the ongoing investigation into the incident and its aftermath; and thirdly, the related campaign to secure the release of John and Jim’s military medical records, from the classified records section of the Department of Veterans Affairs. This third strand of the collaboration not only has political support in the US, but the involvement of a crusading lawyer, Pat Frascogna. A federal lawsuit may not be far away.
“Encounter in Rendlesham Forest” has to strike a difficult balance. First and foremost, it’s the story of what happened to John Burroughs and Jim Penniston, the two witnesses at the heart of the Rendlesham Forest incident. It tells the story of the encounter, and of what happened afterwards in terms of the debriefings and the wider official response, through John and Jim’s eyes. But while their account is central to the book, we’ve made sure that we broadened the focus, so as to give a wider and more comprehensive picture of what happened. We’ve also placed the events in their correct politico/military context, which goes much further than simply saying – as most ufologists do – that it happened at the time of the Cold War and that the rise in power of the Polish trade union Solidarity was causing tension. That’s certainly true, but the story of a military exercise codenamed Soyuz-80, a Polish colonel who spied for the CIA, and just how close we came to a Third World War in December 1980 is worthy of closer study. This is the sort of area we examine in our book.
CONTINUE READING: ufodigest.com/article/rendlesham-redux-0401
April 01, 2014
RENDLESHAM REDUX
By Nick Pope
Later this month, the book that John Burroughs, Jim Penniston and I have written about the Rendlesham Forest incident will be published. “Encounter in Rendlesham Forest” is being put out by Thomas Dunne Books, part of the Macmillan publishing house – one of the so-called “Big Six” in the literary world. Without giving away too many spoilers, what can people expect and what will the revelations mean for ufology?
First of all, I should say something about the unique way in which this book has been written. All too often, it seems to me, witnesses get a raw deal when it comes to getting across the details of their encounters. This is particularly true on TV, where a one or two hour interview is often edited down to a handful of sound bites, mixed in with a deep-voiced narration and a dramatic (often CGI) re-creation, and ends up only telling half the story – usually the half that everyone has heard before! When it comes to books, witnesses tend to have their stories retold by ufologists, who invariable end up mangling some of the details and bringing too many of their personal opinions and biases into the story. We decided to try something a little different.
Originally, John and Jim had planned to write a book themselves, and with that plan in mind, they asked if I would contribute a chapter detailing the UK government’s involvement in the story. Having worked on the Ministry of Defence’s UFO project and having undertaken a cold case review of the Rendlesham Forest incident in 1994, I was happy to do so, and wrote up an account of the MoD’s role, that ran to somewhere between 8000-10,000 words. At that stage, we discussed the possibility of collaborating, with the combination of the two main witnesses and a government UFO investigator working together being a unique way to take things forward.
Our collaboration covers three main areas. Firstly, the book itself; secondly, the ongoing investigation into the incident and its aftermath; and thirdly, the related campaign to secure the release of John and Jim’s military medical records, from the classified records section of the Department of Veterans Affairs. This third strand of the collaboration not only has political support in the US, but the involvement of a crusading lawyer, Pat Frascogna. A federal lawsuit may not be far away.
“Encounter in Rendlesham Forest” has to strike a difficult balance. First and foremost, it’s the story of what happened to John Burroughs and Jim Penniston, the two witnesses at the heart of the Rendlesham Forest incident. It tells the story of the encounter, and of what happened afterwards in terms of the debriefings and the wider official response, through John and Jim’s eyes. But while their account is central to the book, we’ve made sure that we broadened the focus, so as to give a wider and more comprehensive picture of what happened. We’ve also placed the events in their correct politico/military context, which goes much further than simply saying – as most ufologists do – that it happened at the time of the Cold War and that the rise in power of the Polish trade union Solidarity was causing tension. That’s certainly true, but the story of a military exercise codenamed Soyuz-80, a Polish colonel who spied for the CIA, and just how close we came to a Third World War in December 1980 is worthy of closer study. This is the sort of area we examine in our book.
CONTINUE READING: ufodigest.com/article/rendlesham-redux-0401