Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  SHINING A LIGHT ON THINGS

  Lieutenant Colonel Halt’s story also “improved” with age: Though he never mentioned it in his memo, he later claimed that after the UFO left the forest, it hovered over the base for a while and even shined a spotlight on the bunker where nuclear weapons were stored. (In the event of a Soviet nuclear attack on NATO countries, nuclear bombers based at RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge would have been part of a retaliatory strike).

  Halt’s new version of events collapses under its own weight: If an unidentified aircraft—human or otherwise—had entered the airspace over a military base and shined a beam of light right on the building where nuclear bombs were kept, wouldn’t someone have sounded an alarm? Scrambled jets? But no one did. According to Halt—the deputy base commander—he and his men, by now “unnerved and exhausted” after spending hours in the forest, just returned to base after seeing the UFO and went to bed. The unidentified craft (if there ever really was one) was allowed to fly off unchallenged.

  THE SKEPTIC

  The furor surrounding the “Incident at Rendlesham” soon caught the interest of Ian Ridpath, a prominent British science writer and editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy. When Ridpath started asking locals for their theory on what the airmen saw in the woods, one forester named Vincent Thurkettle told him that the bright light they saw was almost certainly the lighthouse at Orford Ness, some five miles east of the forest.

  A lighthouse on the coast? Ridpath paid a visit to Rendlesham Forest and, with the help of Thurkettle, made his way to the area where the UFO was first sighted. Sure enough, right at the spot where the airmen say they encountered the UFO, the light from the Orford Ness Lighthouse could be seen flashing brightly from the same direction where the witnesses say they saw the UFO.

  SEEING IS BELIEVING

  To be fair to the original witnesses, there were a number of things about the light coming from the lighthouse that could have made it seem odd and mysterious, especially to American airmen who may not have realized 1) that there even was a lighthouse on the coast, and 2) that its light could penetrate the trees and be seen five miles inland. “At the time, almost none of us knew there was a lighthouse at Orford Ness,” Chris Armold admitted to an interviewer in 2000.

  The Orford Ness Lighthouse is at a lower elevation than the forest. But only a little bit lower: just low enough, in fact, for the lighthouse beam, when seen from the forest, to be right at eye level. This could make it appear as if it was coming from a light source on the ground—just as the witnesses described it—and being deliberately beamed right into the eyes of people standing in the forest.

  And though the light in the lighthouse rotates a full 360°, much of the landward side is shielded, preventing the light—which in 1980 was 5 million candles strong—from being seen inland. Sections of Rendlesham are close enough to the coast for the light to be seen…and other sections are not. If the airmen moved from an area where the light was shielded into one where it could be seen, the sudden sight of such a powerful beam of light would have been very shocking indeed.

  MUCH ADO ABOUT…

  One by one, the other details of the story became a lot less extraterrestrial as Ridpath looked into them:

  The radiation levels that Halt’s party picked up using their Geiger counter were nothing more than the normal background radiation that is present everywhere on Earth.

  The smaller, colored flashing lights could have been any number of lights that are visible from the forest. When Ridpath visited the site, he saw lights on buildings in the valley below, as well as flashing red lights on giant antenna masts at Orford Ness.

  What about the “star-like” lights that Halt says he saw? “They were probably just that—stars,” Ridpath wrote in a 1985 article in the British newspaper The Guardian. Three very bright stars were visible on the nights in question: Deneb, Vega, and Sirius. Deneb and Vega were both prominent in the northern sky, where Halt says he saw two UFOs; Sirius, the brightest star in the entire sky, was visible to the south, where Halt says he saw one UFO.

  So if these UFOs were really just stars, how were the stars able to move “rapidly in sharp, angular movements,” as Halt described it, and change color from red to green to blue? The apparent movement can be attributed to an optical phenomenon known as the “autokinetic effect.” You can experience this yourself by staring at a night light or a digital clock in a dark room: if you stare at it for more than a few seconds, it will appear to move. This is because your brain perceives the movement of objects in relation to other visible reference points. In a darkened room—or a sky in which only the very brightest stars are visible—there are no other reference points; your brain perceives the objects as moving when in fact they are not. And the change in colors is caused by the same atmospheric effect that causes stars to twinkle in the night sky.

  BLIND DATE

  That explains what the airmen saw once they arrived in the forest, but what was it they saw that prompted them to search the forest for a downed aircraft in the first place? This would have been one of the easier pieces of the puzzle to solve, had Lieutenant Colonel Halt not gotten his dates wrong when he typed up his memo three weeks after the fact. Halt misstated the date of the first incident as December 27, 1980. Ridpath was apparently the first person to catch the mistake, when he noticed that the Suffolk Constabulary logged in the first call from RAF Woodbridge on the morning of December 26, not 27. This was important, because when Ridpath called the British Astronomical Association to ask if any meteor sightings had been reported over England at about 3:00 a.m. on the morning of December 27, the BAA found nothing.

  But when Ridpath called back with the correct date, bingo! “Shortly before 3:00 a.m. on December 26th, an exceptionally brilliant meteor, almost as bright as the full moon, had been seen over southern England,” Ridpath wrote in the Guardian. “This meteor would have been visible to the airmen at Woodbridge as though something were crashing into the forest nearby.”

  A LIKELY STORY

  Now there was a more plausible explanation for the Incident at Rendlesham: At 3:00 a.m. on December 26, 1980, some airmen at RAF Woodbridge saw a meteor pass overhead. Mistaking it for a downed aircraft, they searched the forest for the crash site…and stumbled into a section of the forest where they could see the Orford Ness Lighthouse. Two nights later, Lieutenant Colonel Halt, his mind already primed for the possibility of seeing a UFO, went into the same section of the forest and made the same mistake.

  The final blow came in 1997, when a researcher named James Easton obtained copies of the original witness statements written shortly after the incident. Not only did the statements undercut the exaggerated claims made by Penniston, Halt, and other witnesses, but they also confirmed that some witnesses had seen nothing unusual. Others who did chase strange lights had known all along that they weren’t extraterrestrial. “We ran a good two miles past our vehicle, until we got to a vantage point where we could determine that what we were chasing was only a beacon light off in the distance,” wrote Airman Edward Cabansag.

  “Census workers have been attacked by the people they’re trying to interview. No one knows how many.”

  —Jon Stewart

  “THE MAINTENANCE OF WORLD PEACE”

  President Harry S Truman delivered this radio speech on August 6, 1945,

  the day after the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. We’re including

  it here not only because that event was a turning point in history and represents

  the birth of the nuclear age, but because it portrays a different time in politics

  and communication. Truman did play down the devastation and play up

  the victory, but at the same time, he was blunt, candid…and truthful.

  Sixteen hours ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. It had more than 2,000 times the blast power of the British “Grand Slam,” which is the largest b
omb ever yet used in the history of warfare.

  The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid manyfold. And the end is not yet. With this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In their present form, these bombs are now in production, and even more powerful forms are in development. It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.

  Before 1939, it was the accepted belief of scientists that it was theoretically possible to release atomic energy, but no one knew any practical method of doing it. By 1942, however, we knew that the Germans were working feverishly to find a way to add atomic energy to the other engines of war with which they hoped to enslave the world. But they failed. The battle of the laboratories held fateful risks for us as well as the battles of the air, land, and sea, and we have now won the battle of the laboratories as we have won the other battles.

  Beginning in 1940, before Pearl Harbor, scientific knowledge useful in war was pooled between the United States and Great Britain, and many priceless helps to our victories have come from that arrangement. Under that general policy the research on the atomic bomb was begun.

  The United States had available the large number of scientists of distinction in the many needed areas of knowledge. It had the tremendous industrial and financial resources necessary for the project, and they could be devoted to it without undue impairment of other vital war work. In the United States the laboratory work and the production plants, on which a substantial start had already been made, would be out of reach of enemy bombing, while at that time Britain was exposed to constant air attack and was still threatened with the possibility of invasion. For these reasons Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt agreed that it was wise to carry on the project here.

  We now have two great plants and many lesser works devoted to the production of atomic power. Employment during peak construction numbered 125,000 and over 65,000 individuals are even now engaged in operating the plants. Few know what they have been producing. They see great quantities of material going in and they see nothing coming out of these plants, for the physical size of the explosive charge is exceedingly small. We have spent $2 billion on the greatest scientific gamble in history—and won.

  But the greatest marvel is not the size of the enterprise, its secrecy, nor its cost, but the achievement of scientific brains in putting together infinitely complex pieces of knowledge held by many men in different fields of science into a workable plan. And hardly less marvelous has been the capacity of industry to design, and of labor to operate, the machines and methods to do things never done before so that the brainchild of many minds came forth in physical shape and performed as it was supposed to do. Both science and industry worked under the direction of the United States Army, which achieved a unique success in managing so diverse a problem in the advancement of knowledge in an amazingly short time. It is doubtful if such another combination could be got together in the world. What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history. It was done under high pressure and without failure.

  We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.

  The secretary of war, who has kept in personal touch with all phases of the project, will immediately make public a statement giving further details. His statement will give facts concerning the sites at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and at Richland, Washington, and an installation near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Although the workers at the sites have been making materials to be used in producing the greatest destructive force in history, they have not themselves been in danger, for the utmost care has been taken of their safety.

  The fact that we can release atomic energy ushers in a new era in man’s understanding of nature’s forces. Atomic energy may in the future supplement the power that now comes from coal, oil, and falling water, but at present it cannot be produced on a basis to compete with them commercially. Before that comes there must be a long period of intensive research.

  It has never been the habit of the scientists of this country or the policy of this government to withhold from the world scientific knowledge. Normally, everything about the work with atomic energy would be made public. But under present circumstances it is not intended to divulge the technical processes of production or all the military applications, pending further examination of possible methods of protecting us and the rest of the world from the danger of sudden destruction.

  I shall recommend that the Congress of the United States consider prompt establishment of an appropriate commission to control the production and use of atomic power within the United States. I shall give further consideration and make further recommendations as to how atomic power can become a powerful and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace.

  Even in a quarrel, leave room for reconciliation.

  —Russian proverb

  TALL TALES OF THE TOTEM POLE

  The totem poles of the Pacific Northwest are impressive for their artistry.

  But you may be surprised at what they are…and what they aren’t.

  HISTORY’S MYTH-STORIES

  Forget what you think you know about totem poles. They’re not idols, they’re not ancient, and they’re not particularly rare. Totem poles are an art form created by the indigenous tribes of the Pacific Northwest, and the name comes from the Ojibwe word odoodeman, meaning “the mark of my kinship group.” Because totems were made in a close collaboration of artist and buyer, they have traditionally portrayed animals, plants, birds, fish, or anything else for which the patron felt an affinity. They were meant to make an impression, and they do: Towering, intricately carved, and brightly painted, they’re hard to ignore.

  There’s evidence that the Haida people of British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands were the first to carve totem poles. With time, the practice spread northward to the Tlingit of southern Alaska and westward to the Tsimshian. Totem styles evolved as the practice moved south down the coast and was adopted by the Heiltsuk, Nuxalk, Kwakiutl, Nootka, and finally the Makah, Quin-ault and Salish peoples of lower British Columbia and Washington. The northern grouping of tribes largely used pigments of red, black and turquoise on their poles. The southern tribes often included a spread-winged thunderbird at the totem’s top and a wider color palette of black, white, red, green, yellow, and turquoise.

  MYTHS AND ORIGINS

  There aren’t any ancient totem poles around. In fact, there are comparatively few from before 1900. Reasons for this:

  • They’re made of wood, which is biodegradable, especially so in the rain forests of the Northwest.

  • Few stand-alone totem poles were even carved before the 1800s. Before contact with Europeans, totem poles were generally just support posts used to decorate the interiors of homes.

  • Christian missionaries, thinking the poles were some sort of idols, encouraged new converts to destroy their totems and refrain from building new ones. In truth, totem poles were not worshiped. Nor were they believed to ward off evil spirits or tell the future. Nor were human-sacrifice victims buried below them. Instead, most totem poles were erected for a much less lofty, much more human reason: as a status symbol.

  MINE’S BETTER THAN YOURS

  In 1741 Russian explorers became the first Europeans to arrive on the North American Pacific coast. Impressed with the quality of North American furs, Russian traders began traveling the coast, buying up pelts from the coastal tribes, which brought the natives great wealth. With wealth, the people could afford to pay artists to beautify their surroundings. The wood carvings inside homes became more elaborate, and the stand-alone totems were moved outside
where friends, neighbors, and rivals could see them.

  The flip side of that new-found wealth was that it also led to competition between neighbors. In this case, it inspired a “totem race” among leaders of clans and rival tribes, each wanting to illustrate the superiority and affluence of its members. Totem poles, traditionally indoor decorations of modest size, became bigger, taller, and more elaborate through the 1800s. Originally small enough to be carried by two men, the poles of the era began looming as high as 40 feet and weighing many tons.

  THE FIGURES

  A totem pole starts as the trunk of a Western red cedar, an evergreen found in great abundance along the coast from southern Alaska to northern California. The trees’ habitat can range from a few feet above sea level to about 3,000 feet up the coastal mountains. The red cedar can live 800–1,000 years, growing as high as 180–200 feet and as wide as 9–10 feet. Its trunk is tall and straight, and its wood is comparatively soft and easy to carve.