Page 8 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - August/September 2017

8 Peter Robbins Explains Left at East Gate

Peter Robbins Explains

His Take on Left at East

Gate : A First-hand

Account of the

Rendlesham Forest UFO

Incident, Its Cover-up,

and Investigation

question, but I my efforts will be enough to means less to me than you might imagine.
assist all of us in bringing this sad ugly affair to I more than appreciate that in the minds
an end. I very much regret that the conclusions of some I may seem too close to all this to fully
I have been forced to arrive at fly in the face of apply the rigorous objectivity necessary to come
certain specifics published in Left At East At to the clearest and most accurate conclusions.
East Gate and that many of the falsehoods That’s alright. I am more than willing to leave
By Peter Robbins referred to are ones I stood by as 100% factual any such judgments to you the reader.
and repeatedly defended over the years, then the My only practical regret in ending this
An open letter to my friends and readers, decades, some of them not only in Left At East piece where I do is it leaves out so much of the
colleagues in ufology, the many UFO witnesses, Gate, but in part in two follow-up books I factual, conclusive evidence others have
experiencers and abductees I count as friends authored as well. My unswerving belief in labored so long and hard to find, confirm and
and who I’ve never met, and most of all to the almost all of them had remained the case until publish. The best reasons I can give for this is
men and women whose lives were changed said ‘facts’ began to fully unravel for me that every minute I have spent working on this
forever by the events of December 1980 in beginning in the spring of last year. is one I have resented giving up to yet one more
Suffolk England. Since that time I have quietly been visit to this sordid mess, this after investing
For more than a year now a scandal - for struggling to see beyond all of the malice and thousands (and likely additional thousands) of
there is no other word that aptly describes it - misunderstanding that this controversy has hours on defending, supporting, praising and
has been steadily growing in the field of UFO generated. I have done so, if largely in private, assisting my former coauthor in his efforts.
studies. It is as ugly, contentious, and vicious as in as even-handed a manner as I am capable of, Writing when you feel angry and resentful is not
we’ve seen, if not more so, in the seventy years this with special attention being paid to the part necessarily something that makes me write fast,
since the so-called Modern Age of UFOs came I have played - even if inadvertently - in and that’s the other issue. I set a self-imposed
into being. And it is spreading. While confined misleading what likely amounts to thousands of deadline to complete this tonight, though it’s
to that specific corner of ufology alternately readers, and between talks, lectures, and live now well into tomorrow. My reasons for doing
known as the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident and broadcast audiences, millions of others. so were not arbitrary. I set off tomorrow for
or the Bentwaters incident, it continues to draw The focus of this writing though is Larry three weeks of work and travel and have no
in good people who have come to increasingly Warren and his relationship with the truth desire or intention of dragging this millstone
demonize each other and allow hatred, regarding Rendlesham, his role in the events of with me when I do.
frustration and fear to rule their lives. December 1980, and in some of his unrelated But the ‘dialog’for lack of a better word,
At the center of this storm of dealings as well. Why bother to reference any between Larry Warren and his supporters, and
controversy is a man named Larry Warren. He such ‘unrelated matters?’ Because character and those who have completely lost faith in the
was my coauthor on a book some of you may honesty go hand in hand across the board in published and spoken accounts of his stated role
have read or heard about. Its title is Left At East human behavior, and to my way of thinking we in the events in question, is now long past the
Gate: A First-Hand Account of the Rendlesham should be held to the same standards in both our point where any vestige of civility exists
Forest UFO Incident, Its Cover-Up and public and private lives as they are mirror between them. The discourse on both sides long
Investigation. reflections of each other. ago turned toxic as nuclear waste, serving no
The investigation itself was begun in Coming to grips with the myriad pieces one and no aim other than to amp up the rancor,
1987 and concluded in 1996. It was conducted of information involved has proven to be one of hatred and partisanship, and in the process
by me and my coauthor, and looking back on the greatest, not to mention depressing series of continue pitting decent people on both sides
what I now know to be true about the realizations I have ever had to face as a writer against each other. There have been times over
circumstance I had walked into back then, my and individual. On a personal level the this past year when my irregular forays into this
efforts in many respects came up woefully experience has closely paralleled the five stages swamp of commentary, claims and counter
short. It is with more than a fair amount of of grief as defined by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler- claims, threats, lies and insults has left me
anger, regret and frustration that I’ve written Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist who was a feeling as though I was going to be physically
what you’re about to read, but the pioneer in near death studies. The stages as ill, and with good cause.
circumstances in question have given me no defined by Dr. Kübler-Ross are denial, anger, Before proceeding on, I think there is
choice. My purpose in doing so is nothing less bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Those something you should know about me, that is to
than to stop it in its tracks. If not, this blight will of you who know me will not be surprised to say about my make-up and character, because it
continue to fester and consume more learn that this past year has been the most bears upon the way I have approached writing
individuals and that is something I will not and introspective, self-critical, and increasingly this and some of the inclusions it contains.
cannot allow. disheartening in my forty-year long
The assorted evidence included here is involvement in UFO studies and where I go
anything but a full accounting of the outrages in from her I’m not quite sure. But at this point that (Continues on Page 9)