(sigh) UFOs. Yes, UFOs.

[Jay Berner]

Our government has been worried about them since at least 1946. It's a matter of public record. It's also time consuming to relate, and right now my plate is full, so all I'll do is get the meme started...

[RPankn]

Does any one ever listen to Coast to Coast AM? I know a lot of the stuff they talk about is tinfoil hat time, and the hosts are annoying, too, because they'll seriously entertain callers claiming to have been abducted by aliens and implanted with mind control, but refuse to believe Bush & Co. allowed Sept. 11th to happen. However, I have been listening to it because I'm up late nights and because the local R&B/hip hop and top 40 stations play the same five songs over and over, which gets really annoying; almost all the stations here are owned by Clear Channel, what can I say. And Delilah is a snoozer with the militant sentimentalism.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago on Coast to Coast AM they had this man on who is hosting a conference on the paranormal in Washington, D.C. this month. He said that one of the purposes of Podesta's "Progressive" Policy Institute is to push sectors within the government to come clean about the government's contact with alien life, which seemed to indicate that if we get a Kerry administration, we'll all learn that aliens exist and the U.S. Government has had contact with them in the past.

[karpomrx]

I spent some time exploring some of this a few years ago.
Some credible persons are sure that there are aliens here among us, that much new technology has been developed by the discovery of alien crash sites, etc.
There are those that feel our planet is being manipulated by dimension and time travellers whose motives are always obscure. There are those that believe we are being bombarded by negative energy that causes us to be hostile to each other, and our own best interests.
All of these and more are part of an urge some of us feel to find outside causes for whatever is going on, Angels, demons, aliens, shape shifting reptiles from Sirius, all are directing human affairs.
When people have lost hope in affecting their own destiny, they tend to look outside themselves for pourpose.T hey join cults, political movements,all in search of a direction that cannot be given to them, as we are all masters of our own hearts.
The separation of people from a sense of community is the primary cause of most of our psychotic behavior, lonely people are vulnerable to any easy answer that does not demand self examination.
As for me, I already feel as if I am surrounded by aliens.

[Moses]

Surrounded by aliens: or Boys from Brazil-- or the Body Snatchers have invaded.

In terms of the UFO cover-ups, it seems that they were covering up their own secret programs?

[Jay Berner]

"When people have lost hope in affecting their own destiny, they tend to look outside themselves for purpose.

Yes. But while the people are doing that, UFOs are flying around, and have been since we scratched petroglyphs on cave walls. They either don't know or don't care about aviation law, do whatever they please, and our government can't do a blooming thing about it.

That's the Big Secret.

Anybody remember this?

Bright Blue UFO Scrambles 113th Squadron Near D.C.
Rense.com, 7/26/02

Summary: Washington, D.C. UFO sightings in 2002. According to the Washington Post, "military officials confirm that two F-16 jets from Andrews Air Force Base were scrambled early yesterday after radar detected an unknown aircraft in area airspace."

Update

F-16s Pursue Unknown Craft Over Region

By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
7-27-2

For Renny Rogers, it was strange enough that military jets were flying low over his home in Waldorf in the middle of the night. It was what he thinks he saw when he headed outside to look early yesterday that floored him.

"It was this object, this light-blue object, traveling at a phenomenal rate of speed," Rogers said. "This Air Force jet was right behind it, chasing it, but the object was just leaving him in the dust. I told my neighbor, 'I think those jets are chasing a UFO.' "

Military officials confirm that two F-16 jets from Andrews Air Force Base were scrambled early yesterday after radar detected an unknown aircraft in area airspace. But they scoff at the idea that the jets were chasing a strange and speedy, blue unidentified flying object.

"We had a track of interest, so we sent up some aircraft," said Maj. Douglas Martin, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado, which has responsibility for defending U.S. airspace. "Everything was fine in the sky, so they returned home."

At the same time, military officials say they do not know just what the jets were chasing, because whatever it was disappeared. "There are any number of scenarios, but we don't know what it was," said Maj. Barry Venable, another spokesman for NORAD.

Radar detected a low, slow-flying aircraft about 1 a.m. yesterday, according to a military official. Controllers were unable to establish radio communication with the unidentified aircraft, and NORAD was notified. When the F-16s carrying air-to-air missiles were launched from Andrews, the unidentified aircraft's track faded from the radar, the military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Pilots with the D.C. Air National Guard's 113th Air Wing, which flew the F-16s from Andrews, reported nothing out of the ordinary, NORAD officials said.

"It was a routine launch," said Lt. Col. Steve Chase, a senior officer with the wing, which keeps pilots and armed jets on 24-hour alert at Andrews to respond to incidents as part of an air defense system protecting Washington after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Rogers remains convinced that what he saw was not routine. "It looked like a shooting star with no trailing mist," he said. "I've never seen anything like it."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

---


What was that bright light in Maryland's sky?

WTOP has learned that residents near Andrews Air Force base were shaken from their beds early Friday morning by some strange activity in the air.

"Incredible. Absolutely incredible" is what Renny Rogers of Waldorf calls it. Just before two in the morning, Rogers says he saw a large blue ball of light streaking across the sky. But it was the military jets that really startled him.

"(The jets) were right on its tail. As the thing would move, a jet was right behind it," Rogers recalls.

He is not the only one who saw it. Several people called WTOP Radio reporting seeing a bright blue or orange ball moving very fast, being chased by jets.

Rogers says there was no smoke coming from the object, no flashing lights, and says it was smooth, and eerily silent.

The Air National Guard confirms they scrambled the 113th squadron. Spokesman Sheldon Smith says they are investigating and in contact with NORAD.


WTOP Radio, 2002
----------------------------------

Whether or not you believe in UFOs, you can be sure NORAD's radar techs do.

I'm going to go find a comprehensive article on Bennewitz and post it here.

[Moses]

The fact that this was at Andrews leads me to believe that they themselves have got something cooking over there.

[Jay Berner]

I went to ufos.about.com/library/weekly/aa093097.htm and snatched this. It's a good summary:

UFOs: The Destruction of Paul Bennewitz

Dateline: 09/30/97
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event -- in the living act, the undoubted deed -- there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.
(Moby Dick by Herman Melville)

In 1979, Paul Bennewitz operated a small electronics company, Thunder Scientific Laboratory, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was a physicist, and inventor, and a tinkerer. He also had an avid interest in UFOs, and was an investigator for APRO (Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization- based in Arizona), the UFO group started by Jim and Coral Lorenzen. From his home on the outskirts of Albuquerque, Bennewitz had, along with others, seen strange lights in the night sky over the Manzano Test Range outside Albuquerque. The lights seemed to appear almost every evening and to fly towards Coyote Canyon, also a part of the Kirtland Air Force Base area that included Sandia National laboratory and Phillips laboratory, both of which do ultra-top-secret research.

In 1979 - 1980 (the record of the year is unclear), Bennewitz and a psychologist/UFOlogist named Dr. Leo Sprinkle investigated the story that a deeply troubled woman named Myrna Hansen told them. She claimed that she and her young son had seen a UFO while driving on a rural road near Cimarron, in northeastern New Mexico. With the patient's permission, Dr. Sprinkle began hypnotizing her, and over a three month period, Bennewitz and Sprinkle heard a very unusual story.

Under hypnosis, the patient said that, not only had she seen several UFOs that day, but she had seen cattle being abducted and she and her son had also been abducted by the aliens and taken to a secret underground base where they saw the cattle being mutilated and drained of their blood and saw vats containing human body parts. She further said that some sort of implants were placed in the bodies of her and her son and that the aliens could control their minds through these devices.

Bennewitz believed the woman's story, and he believed that it was connected somehow to the lights he was seeing over Manzano. He began filming the lights, amassing over 2600 feet of film. He also came to believe that he could receive signals from the craft that he observed. He built antennas and receivers to receive low-frequency electromagnetic transmissions that he believed came from the alien craft. Bennewitz called his "mission" Project Beta. Those who have seen the films and heard the tapes of the low-frequency radio transmissions say there is no doubt that Bennewitz was filming and recording real phenomena.

On 24 October 1980, Bennewitz contacted Kirtland AFB to make a report of what he felt was a real threat against Manzano Weapons Storage Area by UFOs. He first communicated with Major Ernest E. Edwards, who referred him to S.A. Richard C. Doty.

Richard Doty and Jerry Miller, Scientific Advisor for Air Force Test and Evaluation Center, Kirtland AFB, interviewed Bennewitz in his home on the edge of Manzano Base. They examined Bennewitz' films and tapes, and Miller, a former Project Bluebook investigator at Wright-Patterson AFB, determined that the films did show some type of unidentified aerial objects. They also noted the array of electronic surveillance equipment that Bennewitz had pointed at Manzano. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations declined to investigate further, but scheduled an inspection of Bennewitz' data by personnel at Wright-Patterson. AFOSI also did a background check on Bennewitz.

Taking a step that ultimately led to his later troubles, Bennewitz wrote a computer program that he claimed could translate the alien radio transmissions. He now came to believe that he was intercepting the messages that the aliens were transmitting to mind-control devices such as those that Myrna Hansen claimed had been placed in her and her son.

On 10 November 1980, Bennewitz presented his evidence again, this time to high ranking Air Force personnel including Brigadier General William Brooksher. In the report of this meeting, it is noted that Bennewitz was advised to apply for an Air Force grant to study the phenomena. Once again, however, the AFOSI declined to investigate the matter themselves.

Bennewitz was not to give up so easily. Besides the regular reports he was sending to APRO, he was contacting U.S. Senator Harrison Schmidt and Senator Peter Domenici, as well as other UFOlogists such as Linda Moulton Howe and John Lear.

By 1982, APRO had decided to investigate Bennewitz' claims. They sent William Moore, one of their directors and a former-schoolteacher-turned-writer-and-ufologist, to talk to Bennewitz. Moore had gained a degree of fame in the UFO field by co-authoring(with Charles Berlitz) The Philadelphia Experiment and The Roswell Incident.

By now, Bennewitz' story had become quite complicated. He told Moore that the alien transmissions he had received indicated that two types of aliens had invaded the U.S.: The peaceful "whites" and the evil "grays". The grays, who he said were responsible for cattle mutilations and the abductions of humans, had a treaty with the U.S. government that allowed them to build a secret underground base beneath Archuleta Peak on the Jicarillo Indian Reservation near Dulce, New Mexico. The aliens, however, were about to break the treaty...

Perhaps the oddest twist in this story is that Bill Moore later claimed in a "confession" that he was recruited by someone with the code name "Falcon" to lead Paul Bennewitz astray by giving him false information. He claimed that he was given his orders by an AFOSI Agent, and that for four years, he was asked to feed disinformation, including the forged "Aquarius Document" to Bennewitz. This disinformation included "verification" of Bennewitz' beliefs about the "grays" and the underground base at Dulce.

Paul Bennewitz gradually became more and more paranoid, claiming aliens came through the walls of his house at night and injected him with chemicals. He began keeping guns and knives all over his house. Finally he had to be hospitalized for "exhaustion". It is said that he recovered and now refuses to grant interviews or to have anything to do with the subject of UFOs.

---------------------------------------
References for this Article:


Above Top Secret by Timothy Good

Alien Contact by Timothy Good

Out There by Howard Blum

Revelations by Jacques Vallee

The UFO Cover-Up by Lawrence Fawcett & Barry J. Greenwood

Watch the Skies by Curtis Peebles
------------------------------

[Jay Berner]

I snipped this from www.ufoarea.com/conspiracy_dissinformation.html :

(snip)
Bill Moore says, "In early September, 1980, I was approached by a well- placed individual within the intelligence community who claimed to be directly connected to a high-level project dealing with UFOs. This individual told me that he spoke for a small group of similar indiivuals who were uncomfortable with the government's continuing cover-up of the truth and indicated that he and his group would like to help me with my research into the subject in the hope and expectation that I might be able to help them find a way to change the prevailing policy and get the facts to the public without breaking any laws in the process. The man who acted as liason between this group and myself was an Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent named Richard Doty. I knew I was being recruited, but at that point I had no idea for what."

It soon became apparent to Bill that he was expected to supply information to this individual about the activities of Paul Bennewitz and APRO in exchange for being given `sensitive' (or presumably classified) information on UFOs. Bill realized that, whatever it was Bennewitz was involved with, he was the subject of considerable interest on the part of not one but several government agencies, and that they were actively trying to defuse him by pumping as much disinformation through him as he could possibly absorb. Bill decided to play along with these government agents so he could learn more about the disinformation process by witnessing it firsthand.

Bennewitz, for his part, continued to make what seemed to be increasingly bizarre claims, most of which gave every appearance of having been influenced by a heavy blanket of disinformation mixed with a small, but significant, amount of truth. The problem was always one of keeping a level head and trying to sort the fact from fantasy - something which Paul Bennewitz was having a hard time doing.

"By 1981", according to Bill, "Paul was gathering data from a variety of sources and amalgamating it with information being fed to him by a number of government people in whom, for some reason, he seemed to have an implicit and abiding faith. The story that emerged from this melange of fact, fiction, fan- tasy, heresay, hard data and government disinformation was absolutley incredible! Yet somehow, Paul believed in it and set out on a one-man crusade to tell the world that malevolent aliens from space were in league with our government to take over the planet. What had begun in 1979 as an effort to learn whether the behavior of a woman who claimed she had been abducted by UFO aliens was being influenced by some sort of radio remote control had, in the space of less than three years, blossomed into a tale which rivaled the wildest science fiction scenario anyone could possibly imagine.

Bennewitz continued with his experiemnts regarding the radio signals he was receiving and the film footage he was getting of unusual lights. Both of these phenomena seemed to be largely connected to activities within the Kirtland AFB Sandia National Labs complex just south of the city of Albuquerque. Bill feels that Bennewitz definitely was receiving some sort of low frequency electromagnetic signal on his equipment, and is equally certain that his photos and films depicted unusual lights, most of which were filmed while hoovering or maneuvering over the Kirtland/Sandia complex. The real question is whether this evidence was sufficient to conclude that either of these phenomena was directly related to UFO activity, or whether, in fact, the strange things he was witnessing had to do with some classified government research project going on nearby. Either reason would be a good explanation for the government's counterintelligence activities in this case.

Bill reports that government survelliance of Paul's activities, some of which Paul was astute enough to detect and some of which Bill learned about but Paul seemed unaware of, included wire taps and even break-ins. "Paul took these activities as proof positive that he was onto something big. Unfortunately, he seemed largely unaware that the same people who would go to such lengths to spy on him also had the capabilities to mount an effective disinformation campaign."

In any case, by mid-1982, Paul's story contained virtually all of the elements found in the current crop of rumors being circulated around the UFO community by people such as John Lear. There were two groups of aliens, one malevolent, one more friendly. The malevolent ones, which he referred to as the `greys', were really in control, and they were the ones responsible for the cattle mutilations, for human abductions and the implanting of sinister control devices in humans, for having first made and then broken a secret treaty with the U.S. government, for maintaining a secret underground base in Dulce, New Mexico, and for having supplied the U.S. government with alien space hardware and weapons which ultimately proved defective or which were caused to crash, thus leaving human civilization virtually defenseless against invasion.

Bill Moore says, "I know that this whole body of information if false, because I was in a position to observe much of the disinformation process as it unfolded. And I can tell you it was effective, because I watched Paul become systematically more paranoid and more emotionally unstable as he tried to as- similate what was happening to him. He had guns and knives all over his house, had installed extra locks on his doors, and he swore that `they' (meaning the aliens) were coming through his walls at night and injecting him with hideous chemicals which would knock him out for long periods of time. He began to suf- fer increasing bouts of insomnia. I knew at that time that he was not far from an inevitable nervous collapse. His health had deteriorated, he had lost considerable weight, his hands shook as if from palsy, and he looked terrible. I tried to counsel him to drop the entire UFO thing before his health was completely destroyed. Not long afterward I heard he had been hospitalized and was under psychiatric care.

The disinformation campaign was also effective because it insured that no one in the mainstream media or scientific or scientific community would pay any attention to the outlandish claims that Paul Bennewitz made. Thus the elements of truth that were conatained in his experiments became lost to the public forever.

Were UFOs ever actually involved with all of this? Bills says we may never really know. Perhaps Bennewitz had merely stumbled upon signals generated from some sophisticated, high-level government project whose security people hit upon UFO-related disinformation as the ultimate cover. Or perhaps he discovered a real government UFO project which elected to disinform him to protect what they were really doing. The one thing that Bill does know from first-hand experience is that there was a tremendous amount of government disinformation involved, and that a large proportion of what we are hearing today about malevolent aliens, underground bases and secret treaties with the U.S. government has its roots firmaly planted in the Bennewitz affair. "The current crop of disinformation is really nothing new; it's just that a different crop of people are spreading it this time around," says Moore.

(snip)

[Moses]

Yes. Entities appear to have a whole set of disinformation geared toward the conspiracy theory sets. This seems to be a means of establishing red herrings and distracting those who might see through the mainstream public disinformation with bogus conspiracy theories.

[Jay Berner]

"Entities appear to have a whole set of disinformation geared toward the conspiracy theory sets."

You mean human entities, like groups within the government, right? Yes. Since 1946-'47, and possibly earlier.

For those of you disinclined to believe that any government could keep secrets of this magnitude for that long I point out that people have been howling about the government covering this up for 57 years now. The existence of UFOs and our government's interest in them are hardly a secret.

"This seems to be a means of establishing red herrings and distracting those who might see through the mainstream public disinformation with bogus conspiracy theories."

Yup.

A tip: If you want learn about fear, gullibility, denial, misinformation, disinformation, corruption, and more conspiracies than you can count, plunge into the civilian American UFO research scene. If you want to learn about UFOs, talk to the actual witnesses, and don't jump to any conclusions.