FILM REVIEW: CAPEL GREEN PREMIERE - BRITAIN'S 'ROSWELL UFO' INCIDENT

Uncanny. The alleged UFO incidents at Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, England, back in 1980 continue to perplex. Spectral sightings, unexplained flying lights in the sky, spooky non-human entities and alien craft landing on a farmer’s field amongst other things are stuff of the X Files and FBI special agents Mulder and Scully. 

Now a new film about the happenings has been released claiming proof that unexplained things on and around a farmer’s field, Capel Green, Suffolk, England at airbases then under U.S. control. Events surrounding it have been dubbed ‘Britain’s Roswell’ and described as the UK’s biggest UFO incident. The film contains actual audio recordings surrounding the events.

At the global premiere to the eponymously titled ‘Capel Green’, directed by Dion M Johnson, several of the protagonists from the time who witnessed the said events between the twin airbases - RAF Bentwaters and Woodbridge - were in attendance late this July at Stowmarket’s Regal cinema. 

They included the whistle blower, Larry Warren, US Airman First Class, who is shown in the film with an actor recreating a reverse charges call home to the States from a red telephone box to tell the folks there he had witnessed some astonishing sights before being cut off. Technical fault or was it the hand of the Ministry of Defence and Uncle Sam? The tension certainly ratchets up and sets the tone for what follows. 

Also in attendance was Lori E. Rehfeldt, a former U.S. Major with some 27 years of service, who had flown in from Arizona for the premiere. She had been assigned to the 81st Security Police Squadron (SPS) as a law enforcement specialist at RAF Bentwaters back in the day. She recalls in her book the ‘Rendlesham Loneranger’  events leading up to the alleged alien incursion. In February 1980, during a midnight shift at 0300 hours Rehfeldt and Airman Keith Duffield witnessed a UFO that is said to have breached military air space flying approximately 25 feet off the RAF Woodbridge runway. Spooky.

The Regal cinema, opened in 1936 and some 10 miles (16km) west of the airbases, is located a stone’s throw from the John Peel Centre in homage to the legendary Radio 1 DJ, who lived locally and is widely regarded as one of the most influential broadcasters in British music. 

The film was a labour of love. Taking around eight years to come to the silver screen, around 100 people were involved - from cameramen to researchers and consultants. Some seventy interviews were initiated both in the U.K. and various US states with former airforce personnel. It's a big endeavour for sure.

This may explain why the film took a fair while to hit the screen and Covid did not exactly help either. Now in retirement some of these folks have gone on record to put the record straight and debunk the debunkers. 

Over the years since the unexplained events that happened 45 years ago over several nights in late December 1980, many theories have been put forward by experts. For example, some say it was down to Orfordness Lighthouse (subsequently demolished in 2020) emitting red lights inland every five seconds from its 30-metre (98ft) tower. 

But this fails to appreciate that lighthouse had a back plate on the building preventing lights shining inland. Others put forward the notion that it was the SAS winding up the Americans at the base. Or still it was a potential hoax. Yet there is no definitive proof of that. And alternative theories, such as a downed Soviet satellite or secret military experiments, have also been thrown into the mix.   

There are also strong suggestions from sources that “nuclear ordnance” was stored in bunkers at the bases - initially at Woodbridge and then moved to Bentwaters. 

On that note, Lord Hill-Norton, Admiral of the Fleet, who took an interest in UFOs and expressed concern in Parliament about the potential destruction of files on them, asking about nuclear allegations at RAF Woodbridge and Bentwaters back in 1997 in Parliament, was met with the following response: “It has always been the policy of this and previous governments neither to confirm nor to deny where nuclear weapons are located either in the UK or elsewhere, in the past or at the present time.” 

Subsequently in 2001 he asked Her Majesty's Government about “detail [on] the underground facilities” there. The reply came: “There are no underground facilities at the former RAF Bentwaters.” 

The area has been the scene to other strange events in earlier years. Between 13-14 August 1956 RAF Bentwaters was the location of a night-time radar and visual sighting of multiple UFOs (the so-called Lakenheath-Bentwaters incident). 

What one sees on screen in this film is some strong testimonies from witnesses present over several days in December 1980 when the twin airbases were under US control during the Cold War. Airman Warren is shown going through a polygraph test and passes with flying colours. 

Charles Holt, a retired US Air Force colonel and a former deputy base commander of RAF Bentwaters, who served previously in Vietnam, Japan and Korea, is interviewed in the film about leading an account of a patrol in the late hours of December 27 and early December 28, 1980, to investigate an alleged UFO landing site near the eastern edge of Rendlesham Forest. So the film gets some big hitters on record.

Capel Green, the farmer’s field in the midst of Rendelsham Forest, is also said by Warren and others to have seen an alien craft landing and a “non-human” entity. What is interesting are the particularly high levels of radioactivity at three spots where the craft was said to have landed. 

Radiation readings in the triangle of depressions and in the surrounding area using an AN/PDR-27, a standard U.S. military radiation survey meter recorded 0.07 milliroentgens per hour. In other regions they detected 0.03 to 0.04 milliroentgens per hour, around the background level. Food for more thought.

Particularly gripping was a dramatization of a car journey made by local people from Martelsham about two miles (3 km) south-west of Woodbridge on a road skirting the forest, the engine and lights konk out as bright white lights flash across the sky. Other cars behind also come to a sudden halt. When the lights in the sky disappear their car engines restart. The film has an interview of this with the lady driver of the vehicle at the time. 

And, in conversation after the event the Australian director, Dion Johnson, revealed to me that during the filming around Rendlesham that the crew caught a UFO on film for several minutes - described as red and orange colours sailing across the sky.  

NOTE:

Following the film’s premiere in Suffolk, other showings are scheduled for Australia and Spain as well as other cities in the UK. The film itself was shot on SONY cameras - a7S II and SONY FX 3 cameras (T*/Zeiss lenses) for the low light scenes. It stars Max Easton, Lauren Stokes and Emma von Schreiber. 

For the movie trailer of Capel Green (‘The Truth Behind The Rendelsham Forest Incidents’) click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6OqOHjQxDY