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Were the radiation readings significant?
In his book Open
Skies, Closed Minds, Nick Pope
described the radiation readings taken by Col. Halt’s
team at the supposed UFO landing site in Rendlesham Forest as
“the most tangible proof that something extraordinary
happened there”. To justify such a claim, it is essential
that the readings are shown to be beyond reproach.
My original conclusion, based on telephone
discussions with the UK’s National Radiological
Protection Board (NRPB), was that the figures reported in Col.
Halt’s memo,
The subsequent release of Col. Halt’s
real-time tape recording of
events confirmed that the figures he quoted were simply
occasional bursts, not a steady level. For much of the time
scarcely anything was being picked up by the geiger counters.
The highest reading mentioned on the tape is “seven
tenths”, i.e. 0.07; the 0.1 figure reported by Halt
appears only in his memo and we do not know exactly where that
reading was obtained, assuming it was not just a rough value
recalled from memory.
Yet, as is clear from Nick Pope’s
quotation above, my conclusion has not been universally
accepted. Pope’s own researches led him to claim that the
radiation levels recorded were 10 times higher than normal, and
similar claims have been made by others.
Thanks to the influence and contacts of the
British physicist Professor Frank Close the matter was resolved
more definitively in 1997 for a television discussion programme
produced by London Weekend Television (called Strange But True – Live) on which Professor Close and I were to appear along
with Nick Pope and Col. Halt.
My earlier inquiries had shown that the
radiation monitor used by Halt and his team would have been of
the type known as an AN/PDR-27. On
behalf of Frank Close, NRPB contacted the American
manufacturers of the AN/PDR-27, who stated that Halt’s
peak measurement of 0.1 mR/h was the “bottom reading on
the lowest range” of the monitor and was “of little
or no significance”. They noted further that these
instruments are designed to be used to monitor workplace fields
or radiation levels after sizable nuclear incidents and are
therefore not suitable for environmental monitoring at
background levels. On the basis of this information from the
manufacturers, NRPB concluded that using such an instrument to
establish a level of 10 times background (i.e. 0.1 mR/h) is not
credible.
This, therefore, is the official view of
NRPB and of the makers of the radiation monitor, which Frank
Close publicly demonstrated to Nick Pope and millions of
viewers on live TV on 1997 June 27. To confirm the matter I
subsequently wrote to NRPB to ensure that there was no
misunderstanding. In a letter to me dated 1997 July 7 Michael
Clark of the NRPB stated: “We are convinced of the
correctness of our interpretation.”
Nick Pope, however, had contacted not the
NRPB but the Radiation Protection Services department of the UK
government’s Defence Evaluation and Research Agency
(DERA). Pope has described his inquiries as “the first
and only official investigation into this aspect of the
case”. [Now that the official Ministry of Defence file on
the case has been released, we can see for ourselves the
results of this “official investigation” – a hand-written memo amounting
to fewer than 150 words.]
In his book, Nick does not say who it was
that he spoke to at DERA Radiation Protection Services, but it
was actually a man named Giles Cowling. When I tracked Cowling
down, via his colleague Ron Brown, they sounded surprised that
their opinion had been published in Nick’s book. Rather
than regarding it as an ‘official investigation’
Cowling described his discussions with Nick Pope as a
‘private conversation’. Perhaps this is why Pope
did not name his source or quote him directly.
When I presented Cowling with the above
information from the NRPB, he wrote to me as follows on 1998
August 21:
“In my original discussions with Mr
Pope I did indeed state that the readings were around 10 times
normal background levels, provided that the instrument was
appropriate for measuring background radiation (at the time of
our discussions he could not state what the instrument was),
calibrated and being used/interpreted correctly. I share the
NRPB view that the use of a high-range survey instruments to
measure (accurately) environmental levels of radiation is
somewhat questionable and this must throw some doubt on the
validity of the data reported.”
Cowling also confirmed to me by telephone
in 1998 August that Nick Pope had not re-checked the facts with
him. This was over a year after Professor Close’s TV
demonstration that there was nothing significant about the
radiation levels at Rendlesham – an opinion with which
Cowling, Pope’s own source, now agrees. Judging from
Pope’s subsequent utterances, it seems that he has never
updated himself on this vital point.
In 2003, as part of a TV documentary about
the Rendlesham case, the Sci Fi Channel made their own check on
radiation levels at the site in the hope that, had the area
genuinely been contaminated with unusually high levels of
radiation, some traces might remain. The readings were taken
for them by Patrick Davison, an environmental scientist from
Mayer Environmental Ltd of Brentford, west London. The Sci Fi
Channel’s programme itself was non-commital about the
results, but Davison confirmed to me by telephone in 2006 March
that he found nothing above background at the site.
If Nick Pope or anyone else is going to
continue to use the radiation readings as “tangible proof
that something extraordinary happened there” then they
are on very shaky ground indeed.
Content last updated: 2007 March
© Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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