Ablang
2003-12-17 01:45:23 UTC
[Ed. Doing this might cause him to lose credibility.]
Bryant Gumbel Probes a 'UFO Invasion at Rendlesham'
(Sunday, December 07 02:30 AM)
By Kate O'Hare
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - "UFO" has become synonymous with "alien
spacecraft" in many people's minds, but it merely means "unidentified
flying object."
For American airmen at a base in Britain in 1980, the unknown nature of
what they saw has haunted them for two decades. On Friday, Dec. 12, at 9
p.m. ET, in a two-hour special called "UFO Invasion at Rendlesham," Sci Fi
Channel dispatches newsman Bryant Gumbel to Suffolk, England, to
investigate reports of UFO sightings in Rendlesham Forest.
"For many of us, it comes down to a question of belief," says Gumbel to
Zap2it, "because somebody will tell you it's fact, and somebody will tell
you it's not. I made the comment to somebody long ago that it's very easy
to be dismissive of people who believe, but it's probably easier to believe
in a UFO than it is to believe that we're the only intelligent life in the
universe.
"It's easy to laugh at such people and think they're people who pick up the
National Enquirer and believe the toaster produces aliens. But some of the
people you meet who claim to have seen some things are reasonable people.
They're people who, at some point in their lives, saw something they can't
quite explain."
This is the third in a series of specials -- under the "Sci Fi
Declassified" banner -- with Gumbel as host, narrator and correspondent,
that look at specific UFO incidents. The first examined probably the most
famous, the 1947 incident near the Army Air Force base at Roswell, N.M.;
the second looked at a less widely known event, in Kecksburg, Pa., in 1965.
The events in Rendlesham Forest took place over two nights in late
December, near to a pair of Royal Air Force bases, Bentwaters and
Woodbridge, being operated by the U.S. Air Force as part of NATO's front-
line defenses. U.S. servicemen reported strange, moving lights in the
forest and took photos of a possible landing site.
The Deputy Base Commander, Lt. Col. Charles Halt, even sent a memo to
Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) about the sightings. Rumors of a cover-
up by U.S. and U.K. officials have persisted ever since.
Gumbel talks to some of the U.S. servicemen involved; also included are
interviews with high-ranking U.K. officials. There is also documentation,
much of it released by MoD in December 2002.
What makes Rendlesham interesting to Sci Fi and to the show's production
team, led by executive producer Jim Milio of MPH Entertainment, is the
opportunity to use scientific means to seek trace evidence, and especially
the availability of witnesses.
"It's not exactly a good career move to talk about UFOs if you're in the
Air Force," Milio says, "so the reason this one was not heard about for a
long time -- although it made pretty good press in England in 1984, when
the Halt memo came out -- is because these guys certainly didn't want to
talk about it until they were retired.
"They didn't want to risk their pensions. Even now, there's a lot of
ridicule. But to this day, they would like to get some answers."
"They still have some degree of reticence when you speak to them," Gumbel
says. "They're not anxious to do things that cross a line with which
they're not comfortable."
One line the servicemen refused to cross concerns unconfirmed reports that
nuclear weapons were secretly kept at the bases. UFO sightings include one
right over supposed storage silos.
"It's one of the things we kept walking around," Gumbel says. "It's the
rhinoceros in the living room. Everybody worked on the assumption that they
were there, but nobody could state it as a fact. In the case of the
officers we were speaking with, they couldn't even speak of it."
"Although," Milio says, "when I videotaped them, they agreed to walk by the
weapons silos where they were held, but they wouldn't actually admit they
were there."
Whether the lights seen at Rendlesham were alien visitors, aircraft, a
lighthouse or a tractor (as some reports have suggested), the unwillingness
of governments and the military to be open inevitably leads to talk of
conspiracy.
"It's just easier for big operations," Gumbel says, "whether they be
governments or corporations or whatever, to just not answer, say a simple
'no comment' and move on."
But, as Milio points out, "When you have the defense departments of two
governments talking about the same thing, there must be an issue there.
When you have to get together to say, in unison, that there is no
[security] issue, suggests there is one."
Although Gumbel puts himself squarely in the skeptics' corner, he does find
Rendlesham compelling.
"For a nonbeliever," he says, "and I probably put most Americans into that
category, the Rendlesham one will probably leave them feeling the most
ambivalent. These are people whose job was -- it sounds like an oxymoron --
military intelligence, to begin with, so they're not people who, as a rule,
see things that go bump in the night.
"It remains the most convincing of the three, in my opinion, because of the
evidence and because of the character of the witnesses that said they saw
something. Has it made me a believer? No, but I confess that I don't have a
counterargument."
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271|85062|1|,00.html
Bryant Gumbel Probes a 'UFO Invasion at Rendlesham'
(Sunday, December 07 02:30 AM)
By Kate O'Hare
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - "UFO" has become synonymous with "alien
spacecraft" in many people's minds, but it merely means "unidentified
flying object."
For American airmen at a base in Britain in 1980, the unknown nature of
what they saw has haunted them for two decades. On Friday, Dec. 12, at 9
p.m. ET, in a two-hour special called "UFO Invasion at Rendlesham," Sci Fi
Channel dispatches newsman Bryant Gumbel to Suffolk, England, to
investigate reports of UFO sightings in Rendlesham Forest.
"For many of us, it comes down to a question of belief," says Gumbel to
Zap2it, "because somebody will tell you it's fact, and somebody will tell
you it's not. I made the comment to somebody long ago that it's very easy
to be dismissive of people who believe, but it's probably easier to believe
in a UFO than it is to believe that we're the only intelligent life in the
universe.
"It's easy to laugh at such people and think they're people who pick up the
National Enquirer and believe the toaster produces aliens. But some of the
people you meet who claim to have seen some things are reasonable people.
They're people who, at some point in their lives, saw something they can't
quite explain."
This is the third in a series of specials -- under the "Sci Fi
Declassified" banner -- with Gumbel as host, narrator and correspondent,
that look at specific UFO incidents. The first examined probably the most
famous, the 1947 incident near the Army Air Force base at Roswell, N.M.;
the second looked at a less widely known event, in Kecksburg, Pa., in 1965.
The events in Rendlesham Forest took place over two nights in late
December, near to a pair of Royal Air Force bases, Bentwaters and
Woodbridge, being operated by the U.S. Air Force as part of NATO's front-
line defenses. U.S. servicemen reported strange, moving lights in the
forest and took photos of a possible landing site.
The Deputy Base Commander, Lt. Col. Charles Halt, even sent a memo to
Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) about the sightings. Rumors of a cover-
up by U.S. and U.K. officials have persisted ever since.
Gumbel talks to some of the U.S. servicemen involved; also included are
interviews with high-ranking U.K. officials. There is also documentation,
much of it released by MoD in December 2002.
What makes Rendlesham interesting to Sci Fi and to the show's production
team, led by executive producer Jim Milio of MPH Entertainment, is the
opportunity to use scientific means to seek trace evidence, and especially
the availability of witnesses.
"It's not exactly a good career move to talk about UFOs if you're in the
Air Force," Milio says, "so the reason this one was not heard about for a
long time -- although it made pretty good press in England in 1984, when
the Halt memo came out -- is because these guys certainly didn't want to
talk about it until they were retired.
"They didn't want to risk their pensions. Even now, there's a lot of
ridicule. But to this day, they would like to get some answers."
"They still have some degree of reticence when you speak to them," Gumbel
says. "They're not anxious to do things that cross a line with which
they're not comfortable."
One line the servicemen refused to cross concerns unconfirmed reports that
nuclear weapons were secretly kept at the bases. UFO sightings include one
right over supposed storage silos.
"It's one of the things we kept walking around," Gumbel says. "It's the
rhinoceros in the living room. Everybody worked on the assumption that they
were there, but nobody could state it as a fact. In the case of the
officers we were speaking with, they couldn't even speak of it."
"Although," Milio says, "when I videotaped them, they agreed to walk by the
weapons silos where they were held, but they wouldn't actually admit they
were there."
Whether the lights seen at Rendlesham were alien visitors, aircraft, a
lighthouse or a tractor (as some reports have suggested), the unwillingness
of governments and the military to be open inevitably leads to talk of
conspiracy.
"It's just easier for big operations," Gumbel says, "whether they be
governments or corporations or whatever, to just not answer, say a simple
'no comment' and move on."
But, as Milio points out, "When you have the defense departments of two
governments talking about the same thing, there must be an issue there.
When you have to get together to say, in unison, that there is no
[security] issue, suggests there is one."
Although Gumbel puts himself squarely in the skeptics' corner, he does find
Rendlesham compelling.
"For a nonbeliever," he says, "and I probably put most Americans into that
category, the Rendlesham one will probably leave them feeling the most
ambivalent. These are people whose job was -- it sounds like an oxymoron --
military intelligence, to begin with, so they're not people who, as a rule,
see things that go bump in the night.
"It remains the most convincing of the three, in my opinion, because of the
evidence and because of the character of the witnesses that said they saw
something. Has it made me a believer? No, but I confess that I don't have a
counterargument."
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271|85062|1|,00.html
--
Hilary Duff is America's Sweetheart & an international HeartBreaker.
"FAILING = Finding An Important Lesson, Inviting Needed Growth" -- Gary
Busey
Hilary Duff is America's Sweetheart & an international HeartBreaker.
"FAILING = Finding An Important Lesson, Inviting Needed Growth" -- Gary
Busey
