Project Beta and
Underground Bases
An Interview With Greg Bishop
Dateline: Tuesday, July 12, 2005
By: STUART MILLER
By: Phenomena News Editor
Phenomena News Editor, Stuart Miller, talks to Project Beta
author Greg Bishop about how many of the cornerstones upon
which today's ufological lore are built had their origins
in the fertile minds of military intelligence and the behind-the-scenes
spook-brigade.
SM: In our prior email correspondence, you commented about
a slightly negative review of the book that had appeared on
Amazon.
GB: The guy gave it five stars but he said he didn't know
if any of it was true and that the premise of the book was
that everything about UFOs was made up by the government.
He either didn't read the book or he read it with a preconception
that he kept.
SM: I'll tell you something. When Nick (Redfern) launched
the book publicly, Nicks emails everywhere were the first
I think that most people knew about the book.
GB: Oh really God, I have even more to thank him for than
I thought I did. I just saw a couple of the reviews he put
up. They were really positive and I was very happy about it.
SM: Oh he did, he reached out and really pushed very hard
and got others to get behind it too. Lets put it this way,
I don't think the UFO community could not have known the book
was coming out. But the point I wanted to make was,to an extent,
Nicks email gave that same impression. Maybe that guy read
it and just absorbed it and went into the book with that attitude.
Nick had certainly convinced me, before Id started to read
the book, that all of ufology was a myth and it was a very
pleasant surprise to open the book to realize that that's
not what you're saying.
GB: I'm saying that a great deal of the wackier elements
of ufology, especially the stuff that happened about underground
bases, exchange of technology and that aliens seeded the planet
with religious leaders, all that's either been made up or
capitalized on by the Intelligence agencies.
Its hard to get that across to someone who has no grounding
whatsoever in the field, and that's the kind of people who
want to buy the book so it has to have some kind of point,
and you cant have these grey areas where people get disinterested
or confused.
SM: But the difficulty with this stuff is, well for example,
a letter would have been sent to Bennewitz and within that
letter, there would be a large element of disinformation and
made up crap and so on, but there would also be elements of
truth and the trick is to identify those elements that are
true. I cant remember the name of the air force officer who
wrote a particular letter to Bennewitz, its the one where
he goes on about the four rolls of film, but then he goes
on about Roswell. Now if you weren't reading that within this
book and knowing that a substantial part of it was a load
of bunk, its very compelling. Its the sort of thing you not
only want to read but also to believe.
GB: Yeah, exactly. I think they tapped into that want to
believe vein very well and the main reason was to keep people
away from sensitive air force projects and the secondary reason
was to find out who was interested, why, and what they think.
And the third reason, which not many people talk about but
which I think makes a lot of sense is that they got off on
it. They though tit was kind of funny.
SM: What, just basically yanking peoples chains
GB: Any job you do there are boring parts and standard parts,
and these are government people. They were actually leading
these people on a wild goose chase and that is the point of
counter intelligence, to lead people away from what they didn't
want them to see. Well, they did that and they also capitalized
on these stories. Rick Doty grilled Bill Moore on different
aspects of the UFO phenomenon its history, different cases
etc and then capitalized on those when talking to other people.
Like for instance Linda Howe; I mentioned that little episode
in the book too.
SM: Just for the record, could you specifically identify
commonly held beliefs within ufology that, as a result of
your research, are clearly bunkum. The first thing that comes
to mind is Dulce, so presumably there is no underground base
at Dulce
GB: I'm pretty certain there isn't a base there. There was
something placed there to make him think so though.
SM: Oh, the vehicles and shafts.
GB: He (Bennewitz) got the idea there was something there
from the episode with Myrna Hansen. I don't know if I made
that clear because it wasn't clear to me where he got the
idea that there was a base at Dulce.
SM: Oh, you did make that clear, you did make the connection
or the implied connection because I remember you saying that
within her testimony that she said she was taken to an underground
base.
GB: The funny thing was she was taken to an underground base,
well she said she was, I have no idea, but the funny thing
was, she described part of the Manzano nuclear weapons storage
complex very accurately. There was no way she could have been
there or known anything about it. She didn't know anyone in
the military as far as I know, and the air force was very
disturbed about that. Dulce began with the idea that Bennewitz
had that there was a base there and that the air force and
the NSA to some extent were quite happy to let him believe
that and encourage it because it took his attention away from
Kirkland AFB.
So that's one of the myths I suppose that has grown up. There
are unexplained things about that. I cant remember the mans
name but he came out in, I think the early 90s and said he'd
been a guard at that base and he was going around lecturing
about it. Then he surprise, surprise, died mysteriously of
some fast acting disease or he killed himself, I cant remember
which, sometime in the mid 90s. That's the only reference
I've seen where somebody has said that they were actually
there but I don't know what his motivations were, what he
thought or whether he was a crazy person and if anybody ever
checked up on him.
The other thing they brought up with Paul was specifically
in this letter from this guy, I think he was with the NSA
but he was working with Lockheed at the time. He's actually
around and I know his name but I don't want to give it out
because I didn't have his permission, I didn't talk to him.
Some of the things he said in that letter, that there were
two races, the Ebans and the Swedes, that's the kind of stuff
that's taken directly from 1950s contactee mythology or whatever
you want to call it. Whether there are Aryan white skinned
space brothers coming and telling us that were destroying
ourselves is still an open question to me. They capitalized
on that and got him going on that and I believe some of these
same people were also talking to John Lear, Bill Cooper and
people like that after Bennewitz to keep that mythology going
because it allowed them to keep track of how their rumors
had spread, and like I said before, who was interested in
it.
And if people are interested and come flocking to these stories,
it was important to find out what their interest was because
a lot of espionage is done under the guise of being an innocent
UFO researcher. I'm not talking about American citizens at
that time specifically. Soviet citizens actually.
SM: You did really surprise me with that revelation about
those two sub contracted private detectives taken on by Citizens
Against UFO Secrecy who did turn out to be Soviet agents.
Because sat here 3,000 miles away, when you look back at the
mid 80s, you don't still expect America to have this reds
under the bed syndrome.
GB: Yeah but it wasn't It was people hanging around military
bases. There was a Chinese guy that they were worried about
for a while who said he was a UFO researcher who mysteriously
up and disappeared and went back to China in the late 80s
or early 90s. But the reason they're interested in these UFO
researchers is because a lot of these sightings occur around
military bases, a good deal of them, and when people are out
there at specifically places like Area 51 and at the time
Bennewitz at Kirkland, you've got a bunch of people sitting
round saying they're looking at UFOs when maybe two or three
of them are not. And the air force and other people there
are very interested in these people that are saying, I'm just
out here looking for UFOs and taking pictures. And in the
mean time they're taking pictures of the base, taking pictures
of things that fly in, trying to get into other areas saying
they're UFO researchers and what they are really interested
in is espionage and that's what the air force is mainly concerned
about. That's what got their interest.
If Bennewitz had just said they were UFOs, they would have
just thrown him in the kook file like anybody else and we
would never have heard of him. But he took it a step further
and got very noisy about it.
Also, he was very smart and knew how to figure out some of
these things. Apart from his blind spot about the UFO subject,
he was looking at drawing attention to things that were in
plain sight and other things that weren't in plain sight and
they didn't want other countries to know about. And yes, they
were concerned about the Soviets as they had the most interest
and the most wherewithal and agents stationed in this country
to do this kind of thing. We had agents in Russia too and
that's part of the story as well.
SM: Oh yes indeed and very adept ones according to the information
in the book.
But that's another aspect. I wouldn't say that you show an
element of sympathy towards the Intelligence agencies but
you do put them in a context whereby they are seen simply
to be doing their job as opposed to vilifying them.
GB: I think they, specifically Richard Doty, went a little
bit further than doing his duty because I think he got off
on it but yeah, for the most part that's their job. They think
they're doing the right thing and while I don't agree with
the fact that somebody had to be driven crazy and I think
they could have done it a different way, they thought they
were doing the right thing and weren't doing anything wrong
and the fact that one person had to go nuts and was getting
more nuts as time went on didn't concern them nearly so much
as someone in Russia finding out what they were doing there.
And even beyond that, as I mentioned, they had assets stationed
in Russia and if they found out that somebody over here was
getting codes for these satellites and sending them back to
Russia, they would immediately have gone in and done a house
cleaning and found out who the moles were and how the information
was getting out. People have been deported, arrested, imprisoned
or worse. And to them one person going crazy because of his
UFO beliefs was far preferable to having an entire network
of spies being brought down by just leaving him alone.
That was their trade off. I can see their reasoning there
but I'm not happy about what happened to Bennewitz and like
I said, I think they could have done it in a different way.
SM: Well OK, how do you think they could have done it differently
GB: Well..(thinks)
SM: Couldn't they just have sat him down and said, Look,
you argent listening to signals from UFOs and aliens. You
are listening to highly sensitive black projects. Leave it
alone.
GB: Actually, you've answered the question for me because
I haven't really thought about that before. Yeah, exactly.
He considered himself loyal, patriotic, etc. I think he was
in the coastguard or something in World War 2, he actually
enlisted, he wasn't drafted and they could have appealed to
his patriotism and said, Look, you're onto things you shouldn't
be on to. As a loyal citizen, could you please not worry about
it It doesn't have anything to do with UFOs and wed rather
you didn't mess with it. I thought that was what they had
done when I first started the book.
Project Beta Author Greg Bishop
© cfz.org.uk
The mistake, which you've pointed out here, was to decide
that they could get more out of him, get more out of the project
by letting him continue with his folly and finding out how
he found out what he did so that they could prevent it from
happening again. And to do that, they had to let him persist
in these illusions to keep his interest and to keep him going
in the direction he was and take it as far as he could so
they could find out how far he could go and therefore how
far any other reasonably intelligent electrical physicist
could go. The decision was made to get more out of him by
keeping him going then to just tell him to quit it and stop
it because the Intelligence community, when they move, they
make sure there is a multiple upside to what they're doing.
Instead of taking care of just one problem, they can take
care of 5 or 6 or8 problems if they can do it. They didn't
consider that he'd go crazy. When he did, I think some people
were concerned but they were more concerned with keeping the
secrets and getting the job done.
I don't know that I agree with that methodology but a lot
more lives have been saved by having spies running around
preventing wars, I think, then everybody keeping secrets to
themselves and having misunderstandings etc. Its a funny way
to talk for most people, especially the very lefty people
I hang out with.
I guess I consider myself the same but there are good reasons
for a lot of this stuff and a lot of it prevents a lot of
unnecessary conflict and bloodshed.
That's the point of it and that's what they thought they were
doing.
SM: What drew you to write the book What attracted you to
write up Paul Bennewitz's life
GB: It was one of 4 or 5 proposals I sent out and that was
the one that Simon and Shuster wanted. The other main reason
was that I had a personal connection because I have known
Bill Moore since 1988 which is kind of late in the game, but
it was the year before he made his announcement in Las Vegas
that freaked everybody out and that really affected me because
I was there at that conference. I was sitting at Bills table
helping him sell books and things and he wouldn't tell me
what he was going to talk about. He said that it was really
going to blow the lid open and make a lot of people mad but
maybe a lot of people will have their eyes opened and we can
do things differently.
So when the lecture was about to start, I walked in and took
a seat about two thirds of the way up the front. Phil Klass
was in the front row with a tape recorder and Bill started
his lecture and a few minutes into it, people started yelling
at him and interrupting him. I've never heard such a violent
reaction to anything politically or otherwise. I wondered
why that was and why people were so mad that it began my interest.
I knew Bill and as time went on, I asked him more and more
questions about it. I thought this would be a story to cover
as no one else was going to talk about it. Bill was in the
middle of it, we were on friendly terms and I thought he'd
tell me more than he might tell somebody else and that indeed
was what happened.
SM: Tell us about that announcement.
GB: It wasn't specifically about Bennewitz. He was part of
it but the speech ran for about two and a half hours, it was
a long talk.
SM: Good grief.
GB: Well, it would have run shorter but he kept getting interrupted.
The State director kept having to get up and say, Look, let
Bill say what he has to say. He's here to give a which was
answered followed by shouts of things like, Why should we
He's full of crap. The announcement was that many of the stories
that had been circulating about underground bases, abductions
in exchange for technology, alien intervention in human events
throughout history, specifically those three things were mainly
the product of a disinformation campaign and that Ufologists
who were listening to government people who were thinking
that they had an inside source and this was the real stuff,
his warning was, you had better watch out because a lot of
that stuff is not true and I know because I've been through
it. At first they were confused because they thought he was
one of them, and he was up to that time, and I think he still
was.
Now suddenly a lot of the things they'd been told and a lot
of the things they'd built their reputations on were in question.
He said, I had the wherewithal to find out these things and
you didn't That's a very bad thing to say to a Ufologist.
Somebody that's been working on something for a really long
time, to say to them, Hey, you that have been working on this
for 10 years. Most of what you're talking about and putting
in your newsletters and saying at your lectures is based on
false information.
That's a really hard one to handle for anybody. They got very
upset with him.
I could see why they'd get upset but I Couldn't understand
why they'd stay upset for so long. Now its been over 15 years
since he gave that talk and his interest in ufology dropped
off. Actually I've had him on my internet radio show about
3 times and I always get old line Ufologists listening in
and commenting on it. Nobody says anything bad. Its all kind
of sunk in. Its taken about 10 years to get this information
to sink in and for people to realize there were a lot of things
that were false. In fact a couple of them said, Well, I knew
that all along anyway and these are the people that were yelling
at him in the beginning.
SM: Another thing that the book has done for me is clarify
Bill Moore for me because I've always been very confused about
him up to now in terms of how he was seen. Sometimes when
he was referred to, it would be in a negative sense. At other
times it would be in a positive sense. Obviously, I was well
aware of his long time connection with Stan Friedman. Stan
has never said a bad word about him that I can find. But always
there was this thing about, Well he was involved in psyops
(psychological operations,) he was involved with Bennewitz
and its been very confusing trying to justify him in terms
of his place in ufology. But in terms of how far I'm into
the book, the impression I get is that he was as much a victim
as anybody else.
GB: But you know what He was a willing victim. He agreed
to be a victim.
SM: Well yes, but he had an enormous carrot dangled in front
of him.
GB: Yes he did. Let me back up a little bit about Bill. Its
very hard for me to come in and condemn Bill because for one
thing, I've seen what's happened from that lecture on and
what people have said and his attempts to explain himself
and them not listening because most people, especially if
you're highly emotional about it are not going to be listening
to what's coming out of your mouth. Whatever you say is going
to be interpreted the way you want to hear it when it comes
into your consciousness. That happens with everyone. If you've
ever been in a relationship then you know that!
The point with Bill is, and as this isn't a radio interview
so I can bring this up, I don't know how much interest there
is in the Academy Awards but remember that director who was
given an award and who had given names to the Committee of
Un American Activities and a lot of people were mad at him
for that, Elia Kazan. They gave him a life time achievement
award and half the people stood up and clapped and the other
half sat. Warren Beatty, who tries to appear as one of the
most left leaning people in Hollywood, got up and clapped
and Ed Harris who was a little bit younger just sat there
with this grim look on his face. The point with Beatty was,
and he said this in the press when they asked him this, why
he was the way he was with Kazan given his politics, and he
said, I knew him personally, he gave me my start, he was very
kind to everybody I know and I have a hard time turning on
him because of that. Or something to that effect.
And that's how I feel about Bill. As far as I can tell, He's
always been very straight with me, as much as he could be,
if he could tell me something he would, if he Couldn't he'd
tell me why. And he would also tell me things he didn't want
to get out to the public but he thinks will help me in my
search for whatever I'm looking for. If he can help me out,
hell give me some tidbits of information but occasionally
I'm not supposed to spread them anywhere.
From that aspect I find it hard to pillory Bill and like
you said, the fact that he had something dangled in front
of him which any of those people that were yelling at him,
I'm certain if they had gotten that deal, many of them would
have done the same thing.
SM: The feeling I've had so far in terms of Moore's relationship
with Doty and AFOSI is that so far, its almost been all one
way traffic. So far, Bill doesn't seem to have got much back.
Does he (Editors note here; sometimes one asks stupid questions
without thinking and this was probably the dumbest I've ever
asked).
Did they show him the golden egg so to speak
GB: I think they gave him the biggest hint they'd given anybody
up to that point, through different documents. At first they
gave him that fake one just to make sure he wasn't the sort
of person to go spouting anything. They wanted to make sure
he was very careful about what he did and once he assured
them of that, they said, OK. That Eisenhower briefing document,
the famous MJ12 thing came out in 1986. Before that he had
gotten bits and pieces, he'd received something called the
Carter briefing document. He was led to a hotel in upstate
New York after flying all over the country and given 30 minutes
with these documents. They said he could do anything he wanted
to do with them for half an hour and then they would take
them away. All these little documents had hints about what
had happened in the past, what records specifically the Air
Force had on UFOs, what they thought about them, and some
people associated with studying them.
Some of these documents might have been genuine, some might
have been partially genuine, some might even have been completely
fake but he knew at the beginning when he was given stuff,
it would be his job to check it out. Nobody else was being
given this access at the time and it went to about 88 or 89
when it finally trickled off. In that time, a lot, in fact
maybe most of the documents we've come to know as the bedrock
of FOIA government released information on UFOs were given
to Bill Moore and Jamie Shandera. Jamie is in the background
here but he played a very important role in all of this. He
worked very closely with Bill. In fact the MJ12 documents
were mailed to his house in 84 or 85 I think, which was not
too long after Bill got involved.
So they did follow through on their promises but implied
within that promise was that he had to find out what was true
and what was not. Were not going to do it for you. Well give
you hints. Now if they were giving him hints about something
that was actually true, he was never able to determine that,
which was basically why he stopped. He said, Look, I went
as far as I could and I Couldn't find out for sure. And I
got as far as anybody at that point. He got his side of the
deal except that they didn't give out anymore than they wanted
to or they had to.
SM: Does he regret his involvement with them now
GB: No, not at all. The only thing he said that he regretted
was that speech in Las Vegas and I think I say somewhere in
there that he doesn't think he would have been so arrogant
about it at the time. And he was. He was a little self-righteous
but I think the reason was because so many people were cutting
him down and saying he was full of it and they weren't going
to listen to him, and all that. He got really mad at them
and decided to answer them in this way; OK, if you don't think
its real, Ill tell you what's been happening and you can tell
me what you think of that.
SM: Where in all this do the MJ 12 papers sit
GB: In the Bennewitz story
SM: In relation to Bill Moore.
GB: It fits in, in that it was part of the deal he had made.
He kept tabs on people, reported on what they were thinking
and their opinions and what they knew at the time, what kind
of reports they were investigating and what rumors were making
the rounds in the UFO field. In return he got documents and
the block buster was the Eisenhower briefing document saying
there was a group of
12 people convened by Harry Truman in 1947 to deal with the
UFO subject. Bill now thinks that document is probably false
or mostly false. At the time he had no idea. People said he
championed the idea of it being true throughout the late 80s
and through the 90s but he published a book called the MJ12
Documents where he discussed all the documents he was handed
by the government and how authentic he thinks they are. Two
or three of them out of the six or eight he thought were completely
false, some he said were probably mostly disinformation and
others he said probably were true as far as he could tell.
The people came out and said, He brought out all this stuff
and he said it was true and he was spreading disinformation,
well that isn't true. If you look at the written record of
what he said, he judged them each on their own merits and
tried to figure out if something was real or not. As far as
I can tell, he was really careful about it.
Another thing he did was to put out altered documents and
people got mad at him about this too. He'd leave out certain
things or change things and I asked him why he did that. I
said, Did the government tell you to do that and he said,
No. They just gave it to me and said do what you want with
it. I did that because if somebody came back to me with a
bit of information that I thought I could use, if they hadn't
picked up the false parts that I changed or guessed at the
bits Id taken out, I would use that in judging how accurate
and how reliable their information was. I think that's legitimate,
it doesn't bother me. They said he was spreading disinformation.
This is something he learned at this ad hoc spy school that
the air force put him through. They actually trained him to
be a low level spy. He did other things besides UFO things
which I also point out in the book.
He says he never got paid for it. His only pay were these
documents that he could do what he wanted with. For one thing,
they were a very valuable information source for anybody looking
into this kind of thing and for another it makes you feel
like you're kind of important. He's not a prideful person,
I've noticed that, but if you get his dander up, if you get
him irritated with stupid questions or you don't listen to
him or argue or discuss something in an illogical manner,
he doesn't have very much patience.
That's just his personality. I respect him I wish I could
be that way.
I'm too patient.
SM: What was, in the end, his opinion of Bennewitz How did
he feel about him
GB: I don't think they were ever any kind of close friends
but according to people I talked to, and that Publishers Weekly
Review took me to task for not getting more into peoples personalities
and motivations, but the main character, Bennewitz, nobody
except for his family and I guess other people I Couldn't
talk to or knew about, knew what his personality was and what
made him tick. What his basic demeanor was. Really, all they
knew him from was from the UFO subject and since Bennewitz,
at least at that time was quite obsessed with it to the exclusion
of his own business and his family, that's all they knew him
by. I asked Bill about him too and he said he didn't know
much about him either except for visiting him on a few occasions
to talk about this subject and to tell him a few things he
could tell him to try and put the brakes on a little bit.
One thing he did say about Paul was that his filters weren't
very good.
Anything that agreed with what his preconception was, he would
accept without any hesitation and he would incorporate it
into growing theory about what was going on. At the end, after
the Air Force lost interest, Bill lost interest and didn't
hang out with him that much either.
Richard Doty actually hung out with him, he said, after all
this and tried to be friends with him but his family, and
particularly his son Matthew, didn't want Doty to have anything
to do with him. He blamed Doty for sending his father to a
mental institution and making his health deteriorate. I don't
disagree with him. He was a family man. But the thing is,
the family I think have a lot of contracts with the government
and they don't want to mess those up by suing them.
To the question of what Bill thinks of Paul, I think he only
thought of him to the extent of how he dealt with the UFO
subject and what his beliefs were, and what he was doing with
that information. They hung out a little bit, they had lunch
occasionally, he went to his house a few times, but it wasn't
like this ongoing, everyday thing. Bill lived in Arizona at
the time which is about 300 or 400 miles away from Albuquerque
so he didn't see him that much.
Bill feels it could have been done better. He feels sorry
for Bennewitz but he also knows what the stakes were. He had
made an agreement and he had to stick to it which meant not
telling Bennewitz why he was interested in him. He thought
he was just the guy that had written the Roswell book and
the Philadelphia Experiment and was a board member of APRO
and to him this meant somebody who knew what they were talking
about and was interested in what he was doing.
SM: You do, in the book and probably inadvertently, paint
an extremely comical image of the intelligence agencies walking
into Bennewitz's house the moment he walked out. This ridiculous
situation of even Doty being in there once and the orange
orbs and Doty turns round and says, Are those ours Its almost
like they were tripping over each other.
GB: The thing about the orbs was; who knows what they were
Bill saw them too.
Doty either doesn't know what they were or he isn't telling.
I talked to him for about almost 3 hours one time, on the
phone sporadically here and there. but mostly in this interview
in this restaurant. I think He's an old intelligence guy he
doesn't like talking on the phone, so we sat in this Dennys
out there in Grants, New Mexico and talked for a while. He
was very nice, very polite and very forthcoming about a lot
of stuff but he also fed me a lot of crap and I knew it too.
Same thing he did with Bill and the point was, the only way
I would put something in the book was if somebody else mentioned
the same thing or if somehow, from another source, I got confirmation
of what Doty had said. Two or three people say something then
I included it as part of the story. If it were just Doty or
just Bill, I would say that in the book .A couple of times
I say, Well the only person that told me this was so and so.
One exception was the fact that Doty was on the base at Area
51. He told me that and how am I going to check that out There
isn't really any way.
SM: You've said there that all these intelligence agencies
knew what they were doing but the impression in the book is
that they didn't It sounds like a chaotic mess on Kirkland
The NSA were involved in projects on Kirkland and Doty didn't
know about them.
GB: Exactly. They wouldn't tell what they were doing. There
might have been somebody at the base who sort of knew what
was going on but the intelligence agencies at least back then,
I don't know how they're going to be doing things now, they
were very secretive even with other intelligence people because
you don't know who these people are. Even if they're checked
out, they're not cleared to know what Project X is so you're
not going to tell them about it unless you absolutely have
to.
If Doty needed to know they were putting together some sort
of system to encrypt messages or communications with weapons
or something like that, they'd tell him. But if he wasn't,
they wouldn't tell him and they'd keep him in the dark about
it and as far as Doty or anybody else was concerned, they
had no business to ask. And if they didn't get a straight
answer, they would drop it. The fact that they're so secretive
between each other causes these problems and makes it kind
of comical, yes, but the reason for it is just the weird echelons
of who needs to know what.
SM: What is your impression of Richard Doty What do you think
of him
GB: Lets see. I think he enjoyed that job. Keeping secrets,
lying to people, keeping things from some people and not from
others, having access to something that most people don't;
he enjoyed that. A lot of people would. I don't know if Id
enjoy lying to people and playing games with them, I'm not
that kind of person, but his personality was such that I think
he likes to do that.
Personally, when I met him, he didn't say anything cryptic,
he didn't give me the impression he was trying to mess with
me but since I knew he was that kind of person, I could pick
some of those things out. While I was sitting there I just
kind of let it all flow. He didn't let me record it and I
had to remember everything he said and immediately run back
to the hotel and take two hours typing up everything he said
so I wouldn't forget it.
SM: That was actually my next question; you said he bull
shitted you to a degree and you explained your criterion for
actually putting information he gave you for putting into
the book. Could you give me an example of something he told
you that wasn't true or you didn't believe was true and didn't
end up in the book
GB: He told me that one time Paul had been given a contract
to work on something for the air force and he had gone out
to this testing area out in the mountains near Albuquerque
to do this on government land. He said while he was there
he saw a UFO and took pictures of it, really good pictures.
He told Doty about it and Doty had to go later to his house
when Paul wasn't there and replace the pictures Bennewitz
had taken with blank frames and keep that information for
the government. I was thinking, Well there's no way I can
find this out.
It sounds interesting but I don't know whether I can put it
in the book.
Then I get back and I was talking with Bill about it and
he starts laughing so I ask him why He said that's just like
Rick and He's come out with that story before with people
and He's never seen it in the literature or anything and he
know its complete junk.
But the thing was, I think he was telling me that to let
me know that's what he did with Paul generally anyway. He'd
go into the house, they'd find things which were sensitive
and take them and either not replace them or replace them
with blank frames and just generally keep tabs on him and
keep the most sensitive stuff, whatever that might be. I think
he was giving me a little hint there as to his modus operandi
and what was going on with the fake story.
There was a physicist from the air force who did the same
thing with me. He didn't really tell me fake stories but he
would answer questions I asked him later in the conversation
or the next day or the next week or the next month, in another
way. Its a very weird thing. It takes time to pick up on this
and realize that's what's going on. I didn't realize it until
I got home. I thought, Oh my god, He's giving me a hint about
what was going on at the base by not answering my question
directly but telling me to look in a certain area. This guy
drove me on to Kirkland air force base and drove me around
and showed me things. This physicist is now in his 70s and
he was in charge of a lot of things on the base and I asked
him what they were so interested in, a fairly straight forward
question. And he said he wasn't really sure and there were
a lot of things going on at the base at the time. He didn't
think it was the electro magnetic testing platform because
that turned out that it didn't do the job it was supposed
to do after all that effort. Most of it is underground now
and he drove me by it and I saw these antennas on top of it
and there are bunkers underground and they do the testing
under there now so you cant see it.
But he also drove me near the Manzano weapons complex and
at one end there's the Star Fire optical range. And we could
see it from the road there. You cant see it from Albuquerque
or from anywhere outside the base but we could see it there.
It was off in the distance, maybe half a mile to a mile away.
And he said, Oh, did you know about this guy, Bob Fugate He
used to work there.
He figured out all kinds of stuff. He figured out this adaptive
optics system, which was a big deal at the time.
SM: I've got to say, that certainly was. The way you described
that and the way they got round the problems with that was
absolutely brilliant.
GB: But I think he said that to answer my question that Id
asked two days before. He didn't answer me then. He answered
it in this oblique way when we driving around the actual base.
SM: So it sounds like with these people that they have to
think very carefully, they actually have to go away and think
about an answer to the question. They sound like they're being
helpful but they don't give you a direct response.
GB: I don't think they go away and think about it. I think
they know exactly what they're doing the whole time. I think
this guy was smart enough that he knew that he would direct
the way that he would give me the information. He talked about
a load of other things. He was interested in religion and
spirituality, the Bible; He's a very religious person. When
we went out to lunch he would say grace before eating. He
said it to himself; he wouldn't make me do it. But we talked
about so many other things as well and I didn't really remember
anything from those conversations because I didn't think they
were really important. Now I'm thinking it probably wasn't
very smart.
You meet some of these government people and people that
are involved in secret projects, and they're completely different
from anybody you might know. They might drink a beer and have
fun and talk about when they were in Vietnam and whatever.
But, if you're asking direct questions about things, if they
can talk about it they might just answer your question but
if you're not back grounded in figuring out what they're saying,
you'll never catch it, and they don't care. If you don't catch
it, they're not going to repeat it. They'll help you as much
as they can, and I think those are the kind souls in the spy
business. There are others that are either completely uncooperative
or will say something to lead you astray specifically. I don't
think anybody I was talking to while I was doing the book
did that in any specific or malicious way, as far as I could
tell. I was really lucky with that.
SM: How high up the chain of command do you think Doty was
How genuinely knowledgeable was he You start the book with
you sat with him in this restaurant and he tells you straight
out, UFOs are real.
GB: He believes that. As far as I can tell, I'm 80 to 90%
sure of that. He's been exposed to a lot of things that we
argent and he said that. I don't know for a fact but I'm pretty
sure he has. He got to captain rank or something by the time
he retired and he got into trouble for various things; making
up stories and causing problems. He got a little over zealous
in what he was doing and made some headaches for the air force.
I talked to another guy, my friend Walter who was in AFOSI
from about 92 to 96 approximately, he was an agent same as
Doty was and they actually give them a lot of leeway as to
how they do their job. They get orders but unlike a lot of
other military organizations, they get a lot of latitude about
how they go about doing their jobs. From our point of view,
that looks like Doty had a lot of power and he was high up
in the military etc. But the thing is, while not being a low
level grunt, he was also not somebody in a command position.
He was carrying out orders. It doesn't mean he was stupid
or that he didn't know how to do his job or that he Couldn't
have had a higher rank or whatever. What his position and
job description dictated as regards to Bennewitz and with
what went on at the bases, he was tasked to keep tabs on who
was looking at what, how much they knew and if they were communicating
with anybody then how they were doing that and how to stop
it.
As I said, from our point of view that's a lot of power,
and it is, but from the military's point of view, he was just
doing the job of a detective.
SM: I suppose I meant more by my question, in terms of knowing
the truth, the genuine reality, how far towards the top was
he positioned in that sense
GB: He knew more than us, but not much.
SM: Really
GB: I don't think so. He believes things in terms of what
he was told by others in the military. If he actually saw
something at Area 51 as he claims, I have no idea.
But based on talking with him and with Bill about him, and
they both believe there is some other civilization visiting
here, they both think that but as far as Doty is concerned,
I don't exactly know what he thinks that interaction is.
There are ways to dis-inform people on the inside as well
as there is the rest of us. That's the point of compartmentalization.
Certain people will know certain things. One or two or three
people will probably know everything. I'm sure the President
doesn't even know the whole thing and I don't think any president
ever has. Then there are maybe two or three hundred people
that know a great deal about it and then there's probably
thousands that just know enough of what they need to know
to do their job.
And I think those very few who know the whole thing probably
don't even know the whole thing. They may only know this part
or that part but its enough to really throw people through
a loop if its true. Belief is a bad word but I think Doty
has seen enough to make him believe that there is a, if not
extraterrestrial, then at least another consciousness that
deals with the human race and a lot of people in the government
have known about that and have had interaction with it. I
think he really believes that from what he was shown.
GB: Any sense of whether that race is benign or aggressive
SM: I didn't ask him about that but from what I can tell,
I asked him if it bothered him and he said no. If there was
something that was endangering the human race associated with
it, he probably would have couched it in different terms.
I don't think anybody, even abduction researchers think that.
Abduction researchers think they're here to take all of our
DNA and impregnate our women etc. That may be true but they
seem to be the only ones saying that. I think the government
for its part, I think they know what's going on but they're
still confused about it. They're more knowledgeable but they
are knowledgeably confused! They don't quite know how to handle
it.
They know that that big piece of information carries a lot
of power with it and they don't want to let that out. If I
was in that position and my job and my livelihood depended
on it, I probably wouldn't say anything either. I might say
tantalizing things to a few people but I think its very easy
for people to keep secrets. If Bill tells me something and
says Don't tell anyone
then I don't Its a courtesy. My job is my livelihood so there's
even more of an incentive to be like that unless someone pisses
you off or whatever.
I think the people that know this information, and other things
like weapons systems and so on are very good at keeping quiet
plus they are legally bound not to talk about it.
SM: Why do you think were not being told then
GB: From what I said before. Because knowledge is power and
if you know about something that nobody else does then you've
got that much more of a lock in keeping them in their place
and you in your place. And I'm not only talking about socially
but I'm talking about politically too. I'm not sure if the
United States knows what other nations think about it or what
contact they've had. I'm sure they're interested in it.
SM: I'm jumping about here a bit but something else that
you strongly hint at in the book is that cattle mutilations
are entirely a government organized event.
GB: Yeah. I don't go out and do investigations, that's just
not what I do.
I'm not interested in doing such a thing which puts me at
a loss, especially if you talk to Linda Howe. The reason I
thought that is because the one person I talked to who knew
more about cattle mutilations than just about anybody except
Linda Howe and Chris O'Brien and a couple of other people,
was Gabe Valdez, and he said that during a lot of these mutilations,
especially when he was working with them in northern New Mexico
in the 70s and 80s, they found gas masks lying about and radio
chaff stuffed into a cows mouth in one instance why would
aliens do that A lot of periphery things, hardware around
these sites, like a boot or a glove or something like that.
They find these things and if its aliens doing it all the
time, why would they leave these things It makes no sense
whatsoever.
I asked Linda Howe about this and I Couldn't believe it when
she said, The aliens leave that stuff there to make us think
its humans. I think I said something like, Okay, I guess I
don't have anything else to talk about with you.
Almost none of the stuff they do is outside the realm of
human abilities, really, as far as I can tell, except that
Linda Howe has said that organs are removed and no place they
can see where they've been taken out except maybe a little
hole which means they'd have to liquefy it somehow and suck
it out.
SM: Well yes, the surgical procedures have been commented
on in the sense that medical procedures have been carried
out that argent practiced by the medical profession.
GB: But its not beyond the realm of possibility for humans
to do. Almost none of it. There's some of the things that
happen that are which leaves the question open but what I
was trying say in the book was that some if not most of these
things are done by some sort of human agency. As to why, well
I asked Gabe Valdez about that as well and Chris O'Brien who
wrote Mysterious Valley and they think, and many researchers
think the same thing, that there is some kind of pathogen
that got out into the animal population sometime in the mid
to late 60s and somebody is responsible for it and its starting
to spread and they're trying to figure out where it is and
what its doing and how to stop it because it will decimate
the native animal population because some of these things
are found in elk and deer, I'm talking about some Mad Cow
disease type stuff.
People ask why they cant keep their own cows but then you
don't get a very good sampling.
SM: I know this argument Greg but they don't need to keep
their own cattle.
Why cant they just set up a legitimate wholesale business
and buy in cattle from all over the country
GB: Because people would wonder why they were doing it. There's
other things too although this goes off into speculation.
The way its done, there's helicopters flying over these places,
these things happen at night, sometimes right next to peoples
houses and nobody hears anything. Well, its a good way to
test in a real environment how well you can sneak by and do
things right under peoples noses, almost literally. Also to
find out how it affects the population and what people think
of it and what kind of information is being spread about it.
Its one of these intelligence operations, and I'm not saying
the government are doing it maybe some quasi government or
private agency that's being supported by the government who
know about it it covers a lot of bases.
Field medical procedure, stealth, the spread of disinformation
and rumors, so many different things. It sounds like I'm going
around the bend to get away from the alien explanation, I'm
not. The main reason I follow that line of thought, and Gabe
Valdez who dealt with it intimately for many years follows
the same line of thought, is that its the only thing that
seems to explain some if not most of what's going on. If there
are aliens and they are out there performing cattle mutilations,
they either might have done it first or someone is trying
to copy them and hide under that scenario I don't know but
nothing seems able to explain everything. But human element
within cattle mutilations seems to explain a lot of it.
Chris O'Brien even found a group of people in the San Louis
Valley that were trying to cover up for it and were seen there
afterwards, some local outlaw type people, and the government
and others are not above hiring criminals to do things if
they think they can do the job properly. There are also aspects
of ritual sacrifice and all that which enters into it. There
are people who have actually witnessed others doing it. There's
a lot of activity around this nexus that can be explained
in a lot of ways and a few that cant.
SM: You say there are people who have witnessed cattle mutilations
taking place
GB: No, they haven't witnessed the actual mutilation but
they've seen people who don't have access to helicopters and
stealth technology and radios and all this wandering around
near a cattle mutilation. Not actually killing it.
They've seen people in robes and there's candles there and
stuff they find afterwards. There have been witnesses out
there that have seen humans around cattle that have been killed
and mutilated.
SM: So you're talking about copycats.
GB: Yeah copycats or opportunistic people. Somebody who's
made some blood sacrifice for something or other. It gets
a lot weirder than that when I got into it with Chris O'Brien
on my radio show.
SM: Another interesting point, one explanation for identifying
a UFO is the performance of the craft. The fact that it can
suddenly dart off and shoot up at an incredible speed or angle
and the automatic response of course is that there is nothing
terrestrial that we've got that can perform like that. But
you seem to intimate that that's not necessarily true and
that we already have that technology.
GB: Well, I was hinting that we might. A lot of people have
said we might have that technology and whether its taken from
aliens a la Philip Corso or not, I don't know. I read Corso's
book and there's nothing in there to prove anything except
his opinion. I'm not saying He's lying and it sounds good
if you're a UFO researcher or a fan or whatever. Unfortunately,
there's no way of proving it. Kind of like Bob Dean and his
stuff about NATO headquarters in the 60s. But as far as I
could tell, if these documents are true, scientists have been
involved, specifically the United States government and I
think the British government too, have been involved in anti-gravity
research since at least the 50s. If they've got anywhere with
that, perfected it or whatever, there's absolutely no way
they're going to tell anybody that they are doing that. Bob
and Ryan Wood are trying to determine where the technology
that Corso described as coming from the aliens actually came
from. They're looking into the history of transistors, lasers,
fibre optics, etc.
SM: The next sequitur is, why argent we seeing these sorts
of aircraft in operation
GB: People think they're UFOs probably.
SM: Why haven't we seen them in Iraq
GB: I don't know, I haven't been to Iraq and I don't know
who's there and who is reporting it.
SM: Oh, I see. I see.
GB: Did you hear recently that the Iranian air force got
an order to shoot down any UFO
SM: Well yeah, but they're probably drones.
GB: If you look at purely physical science, you cant have
a person sitting in one of those things with that kind of
performance because they'd die. They'd get smashed unless
they found a way to cancel out inertia. I am confused about
how they can do these things and not produce a sonic boom
while going at 14,000 miles an hour.
SM: With the benefit of hindsight now, Bennewitz does appear
to have been a disaster waiting to happen. Above all, his
location, his residence, right across the road from the air
base, his background, his interests, it just seemed to be
a disaster waiting to happen.
GB: I guess so but like we said, if they had just told him
to cut it out, it would probably never have happened.
SM: Has writing the book affected you or changed you in anyway
GB: It didn't change any of my beliefs about the subject.
It made me feel good that I could finish a book on time. It
was the first one Id ever written.
Id edited the Exclusive Middle anthology and that was great
as so many people liked that. But to actually write a book
about something, meet all these people and talk to them I
tried to put it in some kind of context. That's the essence
of telling a decent story. I'm not totally happy with the
book or the way the story was told but its a learning curve.
SM: What are you unhappy about with it
GB: Well that Publishers Weekly review kind of stumped me
because I realized they were right. I didn't develop the characters
as well as I could have. But part of that is its the first
one I've written and the other part of it is, especially with
Bennewitz, how the hell am I going to get into his brain if
He's dead and nobody wants to talk about him who knew him
that well. I cant make stuff up. I tried to stick to the information
I had at hand and create a story with that.
SM: I think you've written a brilliant book and one that
deserves the attention of the UFO community.
GB: British people seem to be interested in it because there's
a healthy skepticism. I don't know if its the education system
in the UK or what, but it comes out in Nick [Redfern] too.
They've got a healthy, (and to some American minds pathological)
skepticism. about things and I respect that. Maybe not skepticism.
but an enquiring attitude; Well, what are the pros and cons
Does this make sense, does this not make sense. Leave your
belief at the door and see if it can be changed by some sort
of checkable facts.
That's another reason why I wrote the book too actually,
to answer that question and I'm glad you brought it up. If
you cant get past somebody's decent research, checkable facts,
actual living people who have been asked questions, documents
etc. and make a conclusion that this isn't what it seems to
have been in the past, if you cant get past what you find
with that, and if it makes you have to change your opinion,
well, then you're probably doing ufology a disservice.
SM: I would agree with you but I think you're doing your
fellow Americans a disservice as well. I understand what you
mean when you say we have a more skeptical attitude but my
response to that would be, Where's it got us
If anything were worse off here then you are in the States.
You seem to have achieved much more than what researchers
here have.
GB: (At this point, Greg made reference to another book coming
out later this year by a well known author which I had not
heard about it and would have expected to. I later asked someone
else about it who confirmed that it was a well kept secret
until publication. Sounds like its going to be a bomb shell.
I know the subject matter but not what its about).
I just had a little part. My part was just along the edge,
mostly of interest to UFO researchers because I'm basically
saying the same thing Bill said in 1989.
There are more receptive ears now as people have had 16 years
for it to sink in.
I think I'm not getting nearly the flack that Bill got.
I think he helped me as much as he could to do the book because
its a book he wanted to write maybe at some point but he just
Couldn't do it and didn't want to. I went ahead and did it
for him. He said there were things in the book he disagreed
with but they were philosophical disagreements and I cant
make you change what you wrote. For the most part he said
it was accurate and agreed with most things I had said. I
asked him some very nasty questions about some things about
why he did certain things and didn't he feel guilty and this
and that. He was really straight forward. Sometimes he got
irritated but at all the time he answered my questions as
best as he could. They were the same things he'd been saying
for years just in more detail. I don't have any reason to
believe that anything that came from Bill was either a lie
or disinformation. But he wouldn't tell me who Falcon was,
even though He's dead.
SM: Darn, I was going to ask about that. Greg, its been fascinating,
thank you.
Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security,
and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth by Greg Bishop is published
by Paraview-Pocket Books.
The Excluded Middle editor, radio host, author and lecturer
Greg Bishop has provided the field of UFO research with what
is without doubt one if its major, published contributions.
The subject matter of Project Beta is an unusual one; and
were it not for the fact that the story is meticulously detailed,
referenced and researched, the reader might be forgiven for
thinking that they had stumbled upon a high-tech, X-Files-meets-Robert
Ludlum-style thriller. But Project Beta tells a very real
story - and one that is as harrowing as it is informative.
In essence, the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction book relates
the story of physicist Paul Bennewitz, who after stumbling
upon Air Force and National Security Agency secrets that he
believes are connected to the activities of sinister extraterrestrials
and UFOs, is bombarded by the murky world of officialdom with
a mass of disinformation, faked stories and outright lies
in order to both divert him from his research and lead to
his mental and psychological disintegration.
While anyone and everyone with an interest in UFOs should
read Greg's book, it is unlikely to please some - particularly
the I-want-to-believe crowd that foam at the mouth whenever
the words "underground base," "cattle mutilations,"
and "alien abductions" surface. As Greg shows, many
of the cornerstones upon which today's ufological lore are
built, had their origins in the fertile minds of military
intelligence and the behind-the-scenes spook-brigade.
The UFO truth might not be "out there" after all
- it may all be one big con behind which a veritable plethora
of classified, military projects have been hidden.
Hopefully, Project Beta will open the floodgates that lead
to questions being asked at a higher, official level about
the Bennewitz affair, and those who manipulated the man to
the point of collapse will be made to answer for their actions.
Greg Bishop can be contacted at www.excludedmiddle.com.
DISCLAIMER:
I make
no claims for the accuracy of this information and express no personal opinion
on the matter. The information was acquired off the web and from authors (owners
of said pages) and other sources and described as "information"
and I wanted to pass it along to anyone who might find it interesting or otherwise
useful. I'd appreciate any feedback you'd care to share with me if you wish
to proceed in a civilized manner. If the work is yours please email me and
we can work something out.
I want to give the author the credit they deserve or remove the piece.
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