John Burroughs and the government’s unprecedented acknowledgment | National | rdrnews.com

As new hearings on unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) occur at different levels of government, a famous UAP encounter has been brought back into the spotlight. With the search for whistleblower testimony on UAP incidents heating up, the case of John Burroughs is drawing serious interest from the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), U.S. Space Command and various members of the Senate.

In 2015, the U.S. government made an unprecedented move by acknowledging the health issues of former Airman First Class Burroughs, resulting from his encounter with a UAP in England’s Rendlesham Forest in December 1980. The decision to grant Burroughs total medical disability by the Veterans Administration (VA) not only recognizes the reality of the phenomenon, but also highlights the potential health consequences of such encounters.

Documents obtained by the Roswell Daily Record show that AARO, U.S. Space Command and individuals on Capitol Hill attempted to reach out to Burroughs to testify under new whistleblower protection laws about his encounter in the woods of Rendlesham Forest.

Rendlesham Forest incident

In a recent interview with the Roswell Daily Record, Burroughs recalled the incident. “It was about three o’clock in the morning when I was riding around with my supervisor, and we saw some strange lights,” he said. “He originally saw something coming out of the sky into the forest. That got my attention, and it was in the forest. We drove off base to get a better idea before we called anything in, and when we got to the end of the road, it was where you were forced to go left or right. I got out of the vehicle, and everything seemed strange. There was static electricity in the air. Things didn’t seem right. We returned to the gate, and we knew we had to report it, so we called it in.

“They sent a security supervisor down because we were law enforcement. Security was sent down to evaluate,” Burroughs said. “They took a look, and they saw the same stuff, saw strange lights. There were some blue, green and yellow lights, and a white light. They contacted some radar sites, which confirmed that there was something seen on the radar that disappeared into the forest.”

Burroughs would approach the strange lights on two separate nights. “I remember; the only thing I can tell you is that on the first night and the third night, both people I was with claimed that I was gone. It was the first night the object was over me. They could see the light on me, you know, affecting me the third night. Adrian Bustinza said I had disappeared, but I don’t recall either time. Nor do I remember touching it. I remember getting close to it both times,” he said.

Failing health

In the aftermath of his encounter, Burroughs explained his health began taking a turn for the worse, specifically his heart and eyes. “Regarding my injuries, I didn’t feel well afterward,” he said. “I was looked at, and they didn’t understand other than it could be a virus or something. I had some throat issues. They treated it like they usually would and sent me on my way. I went back to the States, and that’s when I got sick one day, and I couldn’t get back to the base when I needed to be. So I called them, and they said go to an emergency room. At the emergency room, they found a heart murmur.”

Burroughs said he couldn’t have entered the service with a heart issue. “This doctor says I have a massive heart murmur. I found out later I couldn’t even have gotten into the military with this heart murmur. So all of a sudden, I had this heart murmur. When I returned to the base, they immediately brought in a doctor from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and he came and evaluated me and had me immediately go to Wright-Patterson the next day. They ran all kinds of tests on me and then said, ‘Well, you have an issue with your heart, we’re going to monitor it, but it’s nothing that needs to be addressed immediately,’ and I went on my way.”

Burroughs has stated that his heart condition should have been fatal, but it wasn’t due to an “anomalous tissue growth” in his heart. “I had a heart problem that should have killed me, but it didn’t because I had this anomalous tissue growth,” he said in a 2020 podcast interview. He also shared that his visual problems worsened over time, leading a specialist to ask him if he had been exposed to radiation.

The fight for benefits

After repeatedly being denied benefits by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, ailing Burroughs turned to Arizona Senator Jon Kyl’s office to ask for help. Sen. Kyl’s impending retirement and inability to get a classified portion of Burrough’s medical records led him to refer Burroughs to the office of Sen. John McCain. Cheryl Bennet, an aide on McCain’s staff at the time, recalled that first meeting in a recent interview with the Roswell Daily Record.

“First, all the avenues that they tried, they got nowhere. It was like they just closed doors everywhere they went. And so when they saw what was going on in the government, they were like, you know, maybe you should go over to see John McCain; he might have a little more pull over there. So then he came over to see me, and he was very, I would say, hesitant and …, you’re never going to do anything because nothing’s going to get done. And he was jokingly going, ‘Yeah, okay, well, let’s see what you can do.’ I said okay, let’s see what’s going on, and when I first filed for his ticket to get a copy of his DD-214 to find out what his benefits were, they denied that he was even in the military at that time.” Bennet said.

John Burroughs’ attorney, Pat Frascogna, has produced the original DD-214 showing Burroughs entering active duty in March 1979 and being separated in April 1982. However, the version of the DD-214 provided by the government and given to Bennet has different dates, with Burroughs entering active duty in April 1982 and dissolved on an unspecified date.

Bennet continued, “I was like, wait a minute. How can you deny he was serving? How can you say that when he proved he was in there? But they were utterly shutting the door and not giving me any help. But I would use every liaison I could use within my powers of working under John McCain I could, and I was even told it doesn’t matter if you work for John McCain. You’re never going to get any information, it’s top secret.“

Classified medical records

One of the main issues for Burroughs receiving care was that his medical records were classified. Frascogna explained in an interview with the Roswell Daily Record, “In May of 2013, Nick Pope, John Burroughs, Jim Penniston and I spoke at a National Press Club event in Washington, D.C., and it was a week, I think, after our appearance, that Christopher ‘Kit’ Green, contacted me by phone, and (said he) wanted to ‘help John.’ Two days later, I met him at an airport Comfort Inn in a room. And that’s where it all began. Then from there, we were constantly making, or I was, noise about filing a lawsuit against the government to get the information released on John’s medical records because, remember, the medical records were classified, we would find out, and civilian doctors, their hands were tied …. So I think it was the noisemaking along with the fact that that case, meaning John’s, came along at the right time to be kind of the one to go ahead and break the dam, and let this kind of thing start happening, meaning helping the vets out that were hurt. That makes sense.”

In comments posted online in 2015, and authenticated by the Roswell Daily Record, Dr. Green, M.D., Ph.D., FAAFS, of Wayne State School of Medicine, shed light on why Burroughs’ 1979-1982 medical records from RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge were classified. Green has worked with the CIA for 46 years. He stated, “It is true, his records — about a thousand pages, and to this day, still many hundreds, were legally classified.” He explained that the records contained numerous references to Special Access Projects (SAPs), “That could reveal other secret projects unrelated to the Rendlesham phenomenon of 1980.”

Green identified the cause of Burroughs’ injuries as “broad-band non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation,” radio frequencies linked to cardiac and neurological injuries in various classified and unclassified studies. The UK’s Project Condign, unclassified in 2006, supported this finding, describing the potential medical effects on humans exposed to UAP radiation.

In response to Green’s comments, Burroughs stated at the time, “I am stunned. I didn’t know this was coming. I want to thank Dr. Green for being open now about what has been going on behind the scenes. When I met with Dr. Green in July 2013, he saw how ill I was, he went out of his way to get the proper treatment and surgery I needed, and I will always be grateful to him for his help.”

Vindication

Burroughs said in the interview with the Roswell Daily Record that he and another witness, Bustinza, have been granted disability from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) due to their injuries sustained during the Rendlesham Forest incident.

“I went to National Personnel Records and requested every piece of paper they have on John. And it was coming in slowly, slowly, you know, a little bit here, a little bit there.” Bennet said in the interview. “And finally, I went up to the Department of Defense, and I was like, listen, this man’s life is on the line because he came out of the military with a heart murmur. He didn’t have that when he went in, and he had a sight problem. He’s raising his son alone, so he can’t mess around with the politics you are playing now; you need to get this guy his benefits. Whether it’s top secret, I don’t care, and we need to get his benefits, period. This took me like two years. It started in August 2013, and in January 2015, they finally sent a letter recognizing that he was in the service.”

The government’s recognition of Burroughs’ health issues and their link to the Rendlesham Forest UAP encounter marks a significant step towards greater transparency in UAP-related matters. While many questions remain unanswered, the case highlights the potential dangers of encountering UAPs and the need for further research into the possible long-term effects on human health.

Burroughs revealed to the Roswell Daily Record that Sen. McCain was given more info on his case. A group that included people involved with his treatment and settlement he said, “went to McCain’s committee with documentation. I was aware of it before it was declassified, and they put it to McCain and his committee to get funding for exotic technology moving forward. So McCain was now read in on all this, and they were trying to move forward with funding exotic technology because he had been read in and because of what happened with me.”

The VA’s decision to grant total medical disability to Burroughs set a precedent for other military personnel who have experienced UAP encounters and suffered health consequences. It also serves as a reminder that the phenomenon is not just a matter of curiosity and intrigue, but may have real-world implications for the individuals involved.

Frascogna told the Roswell Daily Record, “I consider the case with John … special; we came together as the right team at the right time. They’re now recognizing injuries of service members. Not just Rendlesham, from my understanding, there are other events. A lot of Navy personnel, I can’t name any, but I know a lot of Navy personnel come into contact with UAPs just like those tic tac videos show. And I would suspect that there is a growing number of veterans from the Naval Service are receiving these kinds of awards.”

As more information about the Rendlesham Forest incident and other UAP encounters becomes available, researchers, military personnel and the general public will likely continue to grapple with the implications of these events. What remains clear is that the government’s acknowledgment of the aftereffects experienced by individuals like Burroughs is a significant development in the ongoing quest for transparency and understanding in the realm of UAP phenomena.