May 11, 2017 I Nick Redfern

UFOs & Plans For Prison Evacuations

Back in 2013, I wrote an article here at Mysterious Universe titled "The High Point of a Cover-Up" The subject? The infamous Rendlesham Forest affair of December 1980 - which saw multiple UFO activity in the direct vicinity of two U.K. military installations. Their names were Royal Air Force Bentwaters and Royal Air Force Woodbridge, both in the English county of Suffolk. The article included the following words (QUOTE): "One of the little known rumors surrounding the Rendlesham Forest case is that at the height of the strange encounters a panicky British Government was on the absolute verge of evacuating a number of nearby prisons, all in the county of Suffolk, too. In the 1980s, the late Graham Birdsall, who was the editor of Britain’s UFO Magazine from the 1990s to the early 2000s, had the opportunity to speak with one George Wild – a prison officer at Armley Prison in the English city of Leeds – who had some intriguing data to impart on this notable aspect of the story.

"According to what Wild told Birdsall, a senior prison official from the British government’s Home Office had once let it slip to him, Wild, that high-level orders had arrived at the nearby HM Prison Highpoint North advising staff to prepare for a possible evacuation of the inmates due to a matter of grave national security. The date was December 27, 1980. Well, if that was the case, wouldn’t the prison-governor’s official log-book for that period reveal and reflect the facts? Indeed, it might. That is, if we could find and study its potentially priceless pages (END OF QUOTE)."

By the British Government's own admission, and as I noted in my earlier article, officialdom would only state: "It has not proved possible to locate that journal." Anyone surprised? I'm sure as hell not. There is a reason why I mention this. The saga of HM Prison Highpoint North does not stand alone. The late Georgina Bruni - who wrote a book on the Rendlesham affair titled You Can't Tell The People - uncovered information suggesting that two additional prisons were about to be evacuated at the height of the incidents which went down in Rendlesham Forest. Georgina's information came from several sources, one of whom worked for the British Police Force's Special Branch; someone who Georgina came to know well.

One of the facilities was once called HM Prison Blundeston. As is noted at Wikipedia: "On 4 September 2013, the Ministry of Justice announced that it intended to close Blundeston Prison by March 2014. The closure of the prison led to criticism from local politicians, including planning proposals to allow the site to be used for a large housing development."

According to Georgina's sources, the other facility was HM Prison Hollesley Bay. Notably, Hollesley Bay is located only eight miles from Woodbridge - once the home to the previously-mentioned RAF Woodbridge. The people of the town refer to the prison as "The Colony." One of those who took a keen interest in these claims, that mass evacuations were on the verge of taking place when the UFO events in the forest were at their height, was the late Lord Hill-Norton. He raised this issue, in the House of Lords, on January 23, 2001. He did so specifically as a result of the revelations contained in the pages of Georgina Bruni's book.

Lord Bassam, then the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office, stated concisely: "We can find no record of any such instructions." Does that mean no such records ever existed? Or, does it mean that, by 2001, they were long gone? We're talking about destroyed, burned, shredded - you get the picture. The Government has chosen not to expand on its very brief 2001 statement. Again, no surprises.

Whatever the truth, there is no doubt that this is an aspect of the Rendlesham case which is well worth pursuing. George Wild spoke on-the-record about what he knew of a planned evacuation of HM Prison Highpoint North, about which the British Government says: "From 1938 to 1970 the site of the prison was a Royal Air Force base. It was then used as a transit camp for Ugandan Asian refugees, before opening in 1977 as a prison." George Wild never wavered on his words. Georgina's sources chose not to speak on-the-record regarding Blundeston and Hollesley. This is not surprising: her Special Branch source was on a much-welcomed pension from the British Government, having retired in the 1990s.

Anyone up for the challenge of looking into the 1980 planned evacuations? When it comes to Rendlesham Forest, there may yet be further amazing revelations to be found. Disturbing revelations, too...

Nick Redfern

Nick Redfern works full time as a writer, lecturer, and journalist. He writes about a wide range of unsolved mysteries, including Bigfoot, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, alien encounters, and government conspiracies. Nick has written 41 books, writes for Mysterious Universe and has appeared on numerous television shows on the The History Channel, National Geographic Channel and SyFy Channel.

Join MU Plus+ and get exclusive shows and extensions & much more! Subscribe Today!

Search: