by Michael E. Salla, PhD
May 11, 2005
from
Exopolitics Website
I recently finished reading Greg
Bishop’s book on
Paul Bennewitz and was pleasantly surprised to read
about one UFO researcher’s attempt to find the truth about what
happened to Bennewitz and the extraterrestrial information he
allegedly discovered in the period from 1978 to 1986. Bishop
researches the Bennewitz saga by conducting a number of interviews
with individuals who directly knew and worked with Bennewitz during
the period in question. William Moore, Richard Doty,
Leo Sprinkle
and Gabe Valdez, according to Bishop, are the individual keys to
unlocking the mystery behind the Bennewitz saga.
According to the saga unraveled by Bishop, Bennewitz through his
electronics wizardry was able to find the electronic frequencies
upon which some classified military projects were being conducted in
the area around the Manzano Nuclear facilities near Kirtland Air
Force base in New Mexico. Alert to the possibility of
extraterrestrial involvement through the recent spate of cattle
mutilations in the area that he had been researching, Bennewitz was
to embark on a journey where he ultimately claimed that
extraterrestrials had established an underground base in the area,
and were showing a suspicious interest in US military facilities in
the Manzano nuclear facility. Bishop relates how Bennewitz in
November 1980 went through the process of passing on his
information, the United States Air Force and how they took his views
seriously. Too seriously for Bennewitz’s ultimate well being
in
Bishop’s opinion.
According to Bishop, the USAF Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI)
soon began a campaign of systematically feeding Bennewitz
disinformation about underground alien bases, captured humans, and
alien hybridization programs. The goal, according to Bishop, was to
so destabilize Bennewitz that he would ultimately be unable to
separate the truth from the falsehoods being directed towards him
and ultimately discredit himself. This apparently happened with
veteran UFO researchers deserting Bennewitz and Bennewitz himself
finally succumbing to a complete nervous breakdown in 1986. In this
saga, Bishop clarifies the role of key individuals such as Moore and
Doty in feeding Bennewitz the disinformation that ultimately led to
his discrediting and abandonment by the UFO community. Both Doty and
Moore befriended Bennewitz, and allegedly used this friendship to
lead Bennewitz astray from whatever it was he had discovered in his
research.
Bishop goes on to further argue that the disinformation fed to Bennewitz ultimately went on to be disseminated by controversial UFO
researchers such as
William Cooper, John Lear and others, who
created a whole new genre of extraterrestrials located at
underground facilities using captured humans for all sorts of nasty
purposes. Bishop’s point is that much of modern Ufology has been
contaminated by the disinformation fed to Bennewitz, and discerning
’modern’ researchers need to weed out the disinformation
regurgitated by less astute ’researchers’ that was originally
spawned through Bennewitz. Bishop’s thesis is certainly ambitious so
the reasonable question to ask is, "is Bishop correct?"
There are many assumptions that Bishop makes that can be seriously
criticized. First should Richard Doty and William Moore be believed
that the information they fed to Bennewitz was in fact
disinformation, rather than rumors of disinformation being spread to
discredit Bennewitz and his legitimate claims of extraterrestrial
bases with captive humans? Bishop certainly concludes the former
from his interviews with Doty and Moore, and curiously doesn’t
consider the latter possibility as seriously worth considering. If
Bennewitz was the subject of a disinformation campaign, as most
agree was indeed the case, then should one find credible the
testimony of individuals directly participating in such a campaign?
Bishop paints a sympathetic picture of
Moore as someone who
unintentionally overstepped the bounds of sensible research
principles and cooperated with the ’wrong side’ so to speak. The
same cannot be said for Richard Doty who was a professional in AFOSI
and was a direct part of the campaign to discredit Bennewitz. Bishop
seems too eager to accept Doty’s and Moore’s’ versions of events
that the information Bennewitz claimed concerning underground
extraterrestrial bases and captive humans was in fact disinformation
fed to Bennewitz.
The question Bishop doesn’t answer is why should anyone believe
anything claimed by Richard Doty who in his official duty for AFOSI
was a professional in disseminating disinformation and discrediting
UFO researchers and witnesses? As for William Moore, it is also
dubious to accept his version of events where he volunteered to
participate in a campaign to discredit Bennewitz in order to learn
about how AFOSI interfered with UFO research. If Moore choose to
believe Doty and Moore’s other AFOSI handlers that Bennewitz was
being fed disinformation, then it’s not surprising that Moore would
later contend that Bennewitz had been fed disinformation.
Put
simply, Bishop places too much faith in a professional in
discrediting UFO witnesses/researchers, and a UFO researcher who
naively believed he could benefit by being a part of the
military-intelligence game. Bishop assumes that Bennewitz’s claims
were a result of the disinformation being fed to him, and doesn’t
seriously consider that Bennewitz’s central claims were accurate and
that rumors of disinformation were used to discredit the genuine
information Bennewitz was disseminating.
Bishop’s most unsympathetic assessment of Bennewitz’s work came with
his interviews concerning the case of Myrna Hansen, an abductee that
Bennewitz claimed was being taken to the underground
extraterrestrial base. Bennewitz’s efforts to gain information from
Myrna Hansen through the regressive hypnosis by Leo Sprinkle are
depicted in terms of an increasingly neurotic Bennewitz who was
using Hansen to feed his increasing paranoia about extraterrestrial
bases and abducted humans. What Bishop fails to discuss is Bennewitz’s expertise in electronic transmissions and his alleged
success in discovering the radio frequency of the extraterrestrial
implants inserted into Hansen. This kind of electronic interception
device was a specialty area for Bennewitz and he actually held a
number of patents in the area of electronic transmissions.
This
alone may explain why AFOSI was interested in Bennewitz’s work since
the interception and deciphering of electronic transmissions between
a ’human abductee’ and the extraterrestrial abductors would clearly
have national security significance. Bishop totally ignores such a
possibility and instead chooses to promote the idea that Bennewitz
was paranoid in his dealing with Hansen and that this was a product
of the disinformation being fed to him. However, since Bennewitz’s
work with Hansen began in May 1980, six months before he notified AFOSI of his conclusions in November, it’s a stretch for Bishop to
argue that Bennewitz’s claims about extraterrestrials having
underground bases with captured humans was a product of
disinformation. Bennewitz’s views were already formed well before
AFOSI were notified of Bennewitz’s concerns, and presumably began
their campaign of discrediting Bennewitz.
Another significant act of omission in Bishop’s work concerns a
number of whistleblower testimonies alleging the existence of
underground bases located at Dulce, New Mexico as claimed by
Bennewitz. First was Bob Lazar who claims to have read a briefing
document at the S4 facility about an underground base in 1979 where
there was a firefight between extraterrestrials and elite security
forces. Another whistleblower is Phil Schneider who went on the
lecture tour in 1995 claiming to have worked in the underground
construction of classified military bases, and had been directly
involved in a military altercation at Dulce between
extraterrestrials and elite security forces in 1979. Schneider was
found dead in his apartment in January 1996 in what some claim were
circumstances that resembled a contract killing. Another
whistleblower is
Daniel Burisch who claims to have been taken to
Dulce and heard the cries of captive humans.
Burisch was allegedly
threatened with the prospect of joining the captive humans if he did
not participate in a highly unethical retro-virus program. Yet
another whistleblower is Michael Wolf who claimed that he worked at
Dulce and regularly met with extraterrestrials working with there
under agreements with clandestine government authorities. Arguably
the most controversial whistleblower is a former allegedly security
guard at Dulce, Thomas Castello, who claims in great details the
alleged treatment received by captive humans by extraterrestrials at
Dulce and also claims to have participated in the 1979 firefight.
Despite his extraordinary claims, Bill Hamilton researched Castello’s claims and found him plausible (for more analysis of
whistleblower testimonies concerning Dulce, see
The Dulce Report).
Bishop’s claim that information circulating in the UFO community
about underground extraterrestrial bases and captive humans held
underground was disinformation should not be accepted without
thorough research of the above whistleblowers claims. These
whistleblowers allegedly had direct experience with evidence
validating Bennewitz’s claim of an underground extraterrestrial base
at Dulce suggests that there is some merit to Bennewitz’s claims.
Unfortunately, Bishop doesn’t examine any of these whistleblower
claims and makes what appears to be the unfortunate assumption that
they are not worth investigating.
This kind of routine dismissal of
whistleblower testimony should not be condoned and is really
impermissible for anyone wanting to conduct a balanced investigation
of a major event in UFO history such as the Bennewitz case. The kind
of difficulties many whistleblowers have in validating their
credentials or testimony should not be used as an excuse to dismiss
their claims as regularly done by veteran UFO researchers. This
approach used by veteran UFO researchers is inappropriate as I have
argued elsewhere (see:
http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2005/mar/m22-020.shtml).
Another area of concern in Bishop’s book is a significant piece of
information dug up by Bishop that the USAF awarded Bennewitz a grant
of $75,000 to conduct research on what he had discovered by his
electronic intercepts. Bishop suggests that this was part of the
’sting’ operation launched against Bennewitz by AFOSI. This
stretches the bounds of credibility since I have heard of no other
case where a significant research grant will be awarded to a UFO
researcher with the primary purpose of disinforming him while
getting more information on the precise nature and conclusions of
his research.
What is more likely is that Bennewitz had developed
the means for intercepting electronic transmissions that were of
great interest to the Air Force. These transmissions may have been
little more that communications used in a classified project as
Bishop suggests; or may have been more exotic in terms of
intercepted extraterrestrial communications which is what Bennewitz
believed. It is clear that Bennewitz had discovered something with
his electronic interceptions and his methods where the subject of
close observation by the USAF.
It’s hard to believe that the USAF would have given a grant to
Bennewitz so they could find out more about how he was intercepting
their own classified transmissions. They could easily have silenced
Bennewitz by informing him that he had intercepted signals from a
classified military project. As a loyal citizen, it’s hard to
imagine that Bennewitz would have done anything other than simply
comply. It’s more plausible that he received his grant because the
Air Force wanted to learn more about what the alleged
extraterrestrials were up to as Bennewitz was indeed claiming.
It
appears that while Bennewitz was passing on information to the USAF,
he was simultaneously the recipient of an intense campaign to
discredit him by claiming he was ingenuously accepting
disinformation passed to him. To accept the word of those playing a
direct role in discrediting Bennewitz’s primary claims concerning
underground extraterrestrial bases and captive humans as
disinformation appears to be a dubious way of assessing the validity
of Bennewitz’s claims. Yet this is what Bishop does in his book.
Ultimately I come away from Bishop’s book with very mixed feelings.
He has done some excellent field work in uncovering much pertinent
background information about the Bennewitz affair and deserves
recognition for bringing this important case to the public’s
attention. Yet from the very first chapter of his book, Bishop has
the clear goal of demonstrating that Bennewitz was the victim of a
disinformation campaign and that Bennewitz’s claims were too laden
with disinformation to be of any service to the UFO community other
than a warning of how researchers can be led astray. Bishop’s
citation of sources and interviews are all geared to demonstrate the
truth of his thesis that the UFO community was right to dismiss the
bulk of Bennewitz’s extravagant claims.
Unfortunately, Bishop
doesn’t seriously entertain the idea that Bennewitz was possibly
correct, even in part, in his most extravagant claims concerning
underground extraterrestrial bases with captive humans. Indeed,
Bishop assumes that such claims were precisely the disinformation
fed to him, when it may have been that rumors of disinformation were
generated towards Bennewitz to discredit his research findings about
an underground extraterrestrial base at Dulce. It’s Bishop’s a
priori dismissal of the possibility the Bennewitz could have been
correct is what most weakens his book as an impartial research study
of a key historical figure in UFO research.
A more balanced assessment that seriously explores the claims made
by a number of whistleblowers who allegedly directly witnessed
evidence or physically visited an underground extraterrestrial base
at Dulce, New Mexico, together with the claims made by Richard Doty
and William Moore concerning the discrediting of Paul Bennewitz, is
needed. Simply accepting Doty’s and Moore’s testimony that Bennewitz
believed disinformation fed to him is to do a disservice to the
memory of Bennewitz who was an astute observer of the UFO phenomenon
and who had valid observations to make regardless of the rumors of
disinformation leveled against him.
Bennewitz was ultimately
discredited by a clever disinformation campaign. However, it was
rumors of him ingenuously spreading disinformation that were more
damaging to his reputation, than his actually using the information
received by AFOSI agents and assets to formulate his views about
what was really occurring in underground facilities in New Mexico.
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