10.06
MJ-12
The so-called Majestic 12 documents surfaced in 1982, suggesting that there was secret, high-level U.S. government interest in UFOs dating to the 1940s.
Linda Moulton Howe
In September 1979 to May 1980, Linda Moulton Howe, Director of Special Projects at KMGH-TV, Channel 7 (then a CBS affiliate) produced, wrote, directed, edited and reported a documentary film for TV entitled A Strange Harvest about the Colorado and worldwide phenomenon of bloodless, trackless animal deaths that law enforcement called “animal mutilations.” The documentary was first broadcast as a two hour special on May 18, 1980, and Howe was awarded a 1981 Regional Emmy. Some time after the broadcast, Linda was contacted by Jean Abounader, Director of the Documentary Division at Home Box Office, about producing an hour for HBO that would go beyond A Strange Harvest.
On March 21, 1983, Howe was in New York City to sign a contract in the HBO offices to produce an hour with the working title, UFO’s: The ET Factor. Peter Gersten, New York attorney who had filed Freedom of Information Act inquiries on behalf of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS) for UFO information from the CIA, NSA and other intelligence and military organizations, met with Howe in New York City. Mr. Gersten showed Howe correspondence he had from an AFOSI (Air Force Office of Special Investigations) Agent named Richard C. Doty. Doty’s correspondence with attorney Gersten was about an alleged military exchange at Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota with a landed UFO and humanoid entity that fired a ray of light at a security guard’s gun. The ray allegedly melted the gun and burned the guard’s hand. Gersten said that he and CAUS would like to investigate the Ellsworth AFB case and that he would arrange contact for Howe with Richard Doty. A meeting was set for April 9, 1983, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the Kirtland AFB office of AFOSI. Howe thought she was to receive names and phone numbers for eyewitnesses to the Ellsworth AFB event. Instead, Doty showed her a “Briefing Paper for the President of the United States On the Subject of Unidentified Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).” (Clark 1998, 154) Howe says she was not allowed to copy the paper or take notes, and was required to read it in Doty’s presence. The document, Howe reported, detailed a series of events: Several UFO crashes and recoveries, including one where an alien occupant was alive and remained in the care of the U.S. government at Los Alamos Laboratory “until it died of unknown causes on June 18, 1952.”
Howe reported that Doty promised considerable confirmation, including documents, film and photographs. She called Jean Abounader at HBO and the two agreed that an official letter from the U. S. Air Force was necessary to back up the promise of film, photographs and documents for use in Howe’s HBO documentary. Abounader asked Howe to meet with the number two executive at HBO, Bridgett Potter, on May 18, 1983, to discuss the government’s potential contribution to the HBO TV production. Howe met with Potter, Abounader and others at the New York HBO offices, but no official letter was ever forthcoming. Potter gave Howe until October 1983 to come up with official administration and military confirmation to her at HBO about the details of the briefing paper. Doty stopped communicating with the Howe/Gersten effort that June of 1983 and nothing of an official nature was provided. HBO and Howe reached the October deadline and the documentary project ended.
Howe continued to develop her own military and intelligence sources independent from the HBO/Doty/Gersten period of March to June 1983 and produced four books and other documentaries, including An Alien Harvest: Further Evidence Linking Animal Mutilations and Human Abductions to Alien Life Forms © 1989; Glimpses of Other Realities, Vol. 1: Facts & Eyewitnesses © 1994; Glimpses of Other Realities, Vol. 2: High Strangeness © 1998; Mysterious Lights and Crop Circles © 2002; Strange Harvests 1993, an hour documentary film about an upsurge in animal mutilations and human interactions with aerial lights in Alabama and surrounding region from 1993 to 1994.
By 1999, Linda Moulton Howe created Earthfiles.com, a news website Howe reports, writes and edits about science, environment and Real X-Files issues and breaking news. Earthfiles has received several journalism awards for excellence. The Real X-Files section contains interviews, documents, illustrations and photographs related to a non-human presence on Earth and its interactions with civilians and military.
John Lear
In the late 1980s, John Lear, an accomplished pilot and son of Learjet proprietor William Lear, became prominent in UFO circles. Citing “unnamed but well-connected sources” (Clark 1998, 157), Lear asserted that the U.S. government had in fact recovered dozens of UFOs over the decades. In exchange for advanced technology, the government allowed for a limited number of alien abductions.
This proceeded for some years, until in 1972 the government discovered that the aliens were kidnapping far more persons than their agreement had stipulated. This dispute culminated in a conflict between aliens and humans at a secret military base near Dulce, New Mexico. The aliens supposedly killed about 40 high-ranking military officials or scientists, and many more military personnel who tried to invade the base.
Following this conflict, Lear reports, the aliens have essentially gone about their schemes with no interference. Up to 10% of the U.S. population has been abducted, and the Strategic Defense Initiative was actually proposed to protect from alien invaders, not Soviet missiles.
Lear relied heavily on Bennewitz’s stories, which Bennewitz claimed to have heard from officials at Kirtland AFB.
Milton William Cooper
In the 1980s, Milton William Cooper achieved a degree of prominence due to his conspiratorial writings; see the main page on Cooper for more information.
Lear remains active in UFO circles; Cooper was shot and killed in a confrontation with police.
Bob Lazar
Bob Lazar In November 1989, Lazar appeared in a special interview with investigative reporter George Knapp on Las Vegas TV station KLAS to discuss his alleged employment at S-4. In his interview with Knapp, Lazar said he first thought the saucers were secret, terrestrial aircraft, whose test flights must have been responsible for many UFO reports. Gradually, on closer examination and from having been shown multiple briefing documents, Lazar came to the conclusion that the discs must have been of extraterrestrial origin. In his filmed testimony, Lazar explains how this impression first hit him after he boarded the craft under study and examined their interior.
For the propulsion of the studied vehicles, Bob Lazar claims that the atomic element 115 served as a nuclear fuel. Element 115 (provisionally named ‘Ununpentium’ (Uup)) reportedly provided an energy source which would produce anti-gravity effects under proton bombardment along with the production of antimatter used for energy production. Lazar’s website says, as the intense strong nuclear force field of element 115′s nucleus would be properly amplified, the resulting effect would be a distortion of the surrounding gravitational field, allowing the vehicle to immediately shorten the distance to a charted destination.
Lazar also claims that he was given introductory briefings describing the historical involvement by extraterrestrial beings with this planet for 10,000 years. The beings originate from the Zeta Reticuli 1 & 2 star system and are therefore referred to as Zeta Reticulians, popularly called ‘Greys’.
Lazar says he has degrees from the California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1993, the Los Angeles Times looked into his background and found there was no evidence to support his claims.
“UFO Cover-Up?: Live!”
On October 14 1988, actor Mike Farrell hosted “U.S. UFO Cover-Up: Live!” a two-hour prime-time syndicated television special that was broadcast in North America (and elsewhere). William Moore and Jamie Shandera appeared (among many other guests) and discussed the acquisition of the Majestic 12 documents, and introduced their sources “Falcon” and “Condor”, allegedly high-level government intelligence officials. Interviewed in shadow and with masked voices, Falcon and Condor disclosed information about the U.S. government’s involvement in UFOs and alien interaction, UFO crashes and occupant retrievals, and alien biology. This broadcast also included the first known mention of Area 51 on television. Also known as the “strawberry ice cream show” in reference to the informants’ remark that a captured EBE enjoyed strawberry ice cream and Tibetan music.
The full video can be seen at http://video.anomalies.net/video/123/UFO+Coverup%3F+LIVE!
July 1989 MUFON Convention
The Mutual UFO Network held their 1989 annual convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 1, 1989.
William Moore was scheduled as the main speaker, and he generated controversy even before his appearance: He refused to submit his paper for review prior to the convention, and also announced that he would not answer any follow-up questions as was common practice. Unlike most of the convention’s attendees, Moore did not stay at the same hotel that was hosting the convention.
When he spoke, Moore said that he and others had been part of an elaborate, long-term disinformation campaign begun primarily to discredit Paul Bennewitz: “My role in the affair … was primarily that of a freelancer providing information on Paul’s (Bennewitz) current thinking and activities.” (Clark, 1998, 163) Air Force Sergeant Richard C. Doty was also involved, said Moore, though Moore thought Doty was “simply a pawn in a much larger game, as was I.” (ibid.) One of their goals, Moore said, was to disseminate information and watch as it was passed from person to person in order to study information channels.
Moore said that he “was in a rather unique position” in the disinformation campaign: “judging by the positions of the people I knew to be directly involved in it, [the disinformation] definitely had something to do with national security. There was no way I was going to allow the opportunity to pass me by … I would play the disinformation game, get my hands dirty just often enough to lead those directing the process into believing I was doing what they wanted me to do, and all the while continuing to burrow my way into the matrix so as to learn as much as possible about who was directing it and why.”(ibid., 164)
Once he finished the speech, Moore immediately left the hotel. He left Las Vegas that same night.
Moore’s claims sent shock waves through the small, tight-knit UFO community, which remains divided as to the reliability of his assertions.
Rendlesham Forest Incident
Britain’s most celebrated UFO incident, and one of the best-documented in the world, occurred outside the US Air Force base at Woodbridge in Suffolk, England, shortly after Christmas 1980. Various lights were seen in neighbouring Rendlesham Forest by numerous servicemen, who investigated and found an apparent landing site. This site was examined by the deputy base commander, Charles I. Halt, who took readings with a geiger counter and was also witness to a flashing light in the direction of Orford Ness as well as starlike objects in the sky.