Military Policeman's Sketch Of UFO, Except It Landed, Wasn't Flying

Jim Penniston was a US Air Force security cop at a base in England, about 60 miles northeast of London, and the same distance straight north of Dover, maybe 2 miles inland from the English Channel.  Sgt. Penniston led a security detail of three soldiers to investigate bright lights on Xmas night, 1980, from a downed aircraft next to his base.  When they got close, they saw it wasn't "downed," but landed, sitting still on the ground in an opening in the forest.  He first felt fear but as time passed with no hostile behavior, he calmed down.

Penniston and fellow soldier John Burroughs stood near and walked around the craft for about 45 minutes.  Penniston used up the film in his camera and then made a sketch in his MP cop's notebook.    "I put my hand on the craft and it was warm to the touch.  The surface was smooth like glass . . ."  His drawing shows two views, front and side of a three-cornered craft sitting on 3 landing legs.  

Nick Pope comments that, with a plain sketch like this, "There's not a lot of middle ground with something like that.  It's not swamp gas.
                                  It's not the planet Venus.
                                  It's not the light from a nearby lighthouse shining through the trees."

I would add:  It's not a weather balloon.  It's not even a Project Mogul balloon, which is a basic weather balloon with neoprene and more complex things hooked onto the balloon.  Nor is Penniston's sketch of a flare, which was used to explain away the steady, nonflaring images of the 1990s "Phoenix lights."
                       It's not a helicopter.
                       It's not an F-16.
You have both of the close witnesses, trained military observers, agreeing it was a triangular craft sitting still on the forest floor next to them for a fair period of time..  Some time back I heard a scientist asked, "What do you think accounts for the UFO reports [in general]?"  "I think it's probably Venus," he opined confidently.

Ah, the lure of the plausible.

Penniston adds that, after about 45 minutes, the craft lifted up through the trees (would Venus do that?) and shot off at unbelievable speed--gone in the "blink of an eye," he said.  This movement was captured by air traffic control radar not as the usual blips of slower craft, but as a streak across the scope.  I don't believe Venus makes either a blip or a streak on radar scopes.

The scientist is voting for Venus.  What about Penniston?  He wrote, "When it took off, I felt alone, knowing now what John [Burroughs] and I knew.  . . . I realized it was  100% certain that we are part of a larger community beyond the confines of our planet."