The UFO Connection
THE UFO CONNECTION
By Manuel Carballal
An article on invisible aircraft which appeared in the El Pais newspaper included statements made by John E. Prike on the Aurora and other secret prototypes: "it is impossible to understand the mysterious phenomenon of these airplanes outside the UFO context." How right he is...
Probably many UFO cases, developed in very specific contexts, could be a product of this situation. Another specialized American magazine published the accounts of several qualified witnesses, including commercial pilots, who claimed having seen strange Delta-shaped aircraft of considerable size, bomber types, which dwarfed an F-16 escort. But these sightings of bizarre aircraft do not occur solely in the United States.
Toward late 1991, this author began a study on UFO sightings made by pilots, air traffic controllers, radar operators and related aeronautical personnel (See the monograph entitled Testigos de Elite, Espacio y Tiempo, Colección "Enigmas", 1993). Up to the present I have collected over 800 High Credibility cases from all over the world, and many of the pilots and controllers I've interviewed agree that their sighting could have been caused by very sophisticated ultrasecret prototypes.
C. Iglesias, to select a case at random, is an air traffic controller with considerable experience in the observation of all manner of conventional aircraft. In 1992, he was outside the airport at Santiago (Spain) when he could clearly make out a perfectly triangular object crossing the sky in bright daylight. The most serious concern, he explained, was that the object had entered a civilian air corridor, but in the opposite direction from that which is normally used. Fortunately, there were no airliners transiting the air corridor at the moment. In Mr. Iglesias' estimation, the metallic artifact was some sort of unconventional aircraft, perhaps on an experimental flight. But voluntary or not, such an imprudent action could have had disastrous consequences.
The controller at Lavacolla isn't the only aviation professional who believes to have witnessed some experimental prototype flying over Spanish skies. In an excellent article on the subject of pilots who have made UFO sightings, written by Javier Sierra and published in issue #1 of Año Cero magazine, there appeared a survey of 120 pilots conducted by the publication itself. Out of the pilots who admitted having UFO sightings, 13.79% believed that it could be some sort of experimental prototype.
The alleged triangular craft seen by Iglesias in 1992 was perhaps one such object. In fact, I myself have collected numerous triangular object sightings in Galician skies since 1993, and which were discussed with Dr. Leon Brenige, a specialist in theoretical physics with the University of Brussels. Brenige and I met at a UFO conference shortly after the beginning of the Belgian UFO wave in which triangular UFOs were seen (Brenige and other scientists were able to see one), and which resembled some of the Galician cases. But these triangular UFOs were not seen exclusively in Galicia, either.
On July 23, 1990, five members of the AVIPO group (Valencian Association for Parapsychological and Ufological Research) were on Mt. "El Prado" at a height of 507 meters near the municipal limits of Segart. At that moment, our friends from AVIPO boasted more than 300 hours experience in watching the night skies. Like many other research groups, they periodically organized skywatch activities at night in order to familiarize themselves with all kinds of astronomical objects and phenomena, meteorological conditions, etc., which at a given moment could be mistaken for UFOs. But that night held surprises in store for them. At 3:45, they saw a strange airplane, entirely triangular in appearance and presenting "V" shaped illumination. My field notebook still contains some of the AVIPO witnesses' drawings, which resembled the triangular UFOs seen in Galicia.
Another strange triangular airplane sighting was made on June 30th, and shortly afterward, yet another was seen in Gerona. Faced with these facts, Vicente Moros, AVIPO's director, wrote a letter to the air base at Manises requesting information on the strange aircraft. The following is Moros' letter, which provides even greater detail about the incident.
Valencia, 23 July 1990
Dear Sir:
I am writing you in my capacity as president of the Valencian Association of Parapsychological and Ufological Investigation (AVIPO) which among other things, researches the UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) phenomenon.
The purpose of this letter is to ascertain whether the Manises Air Base under your command, currently houses some sort of Spanish or NATO warplane equipped with an unconventional or nonstandard lighting package and which conducts North-South maneuvers every Saturday night, landing at the Base between 3:30 and 3:45 on Sunday morning, and endowed with an intermittent red light in its nose-cone, along with two or four white lights and a very powerful lamp which illuminates the ground, all of this in a triangular arrangement. Its trajectory has been observed by members of this organization, flying at very low altitude and slow speed, between 60 and 200 KMH, on one occasion (07/01/1990) over the A-7 expressway around Port Saplaya and twice (06/20/1990 and 07/22/1990) over Mt. Garbí and Segart.
Our reason for securing this information is of great importance to us since we conduct a number of skywatches every week and are familiar with conventional aircraft and their standard lights. However, we are completely ignorant about the signals of the aircraft in question and its origin. We have discarded the possibility of it being a commercial aircraft, since the civilian airport does not have any arrivals at that time of morning, and sources contacted by this association have stated that the light arrangement is "illegal."
Your assistance in this matter is crucial, for if this aircraft is not at your base, we suspect the possibility of a UFO such as the ones seen over Belgium and which were studied by the Belgian Ministry of Defense, or if not, a prototype of the USAF F-117A. We also have a short film of this plane which in spite of its brevity, is at your disposal.
We will take this opportunity to inquire whether the fighters at the Manises Air Bse have been scrambled in the past year to intercept any UFOs or unknown contacts over the Mediterranean coast. If so, any information you could provide this organization would be greatly appreciated in our efforts to contrast it with the testimonies in our possession.
We remain entirely at your disposal for any clarifications or joint investigation you may care to undertake in regard to the UFO phenomenon, which is researched by this association in a serious and entirely scientific manner.
Sincerely,
Fdo. Vicente Moros Bernardo
President, AVIPO
However, as in so many other occasions, the response from the authorities was brief and unhelpful. This is the only information which AVIPO was able to secure from the Manises Air Base:
Chief of the Secretariat
11th Air Wing
Manises, 30 July 1990
Dear Mr. Moros:
We are in receipt of your letter dated 23 July, in which you manifest your interest regarding an object seen on the 1st of June, 24th of June, and 22nd of June.
There were no aircraft arrivals or departures from this base on the date and time which you specify, and which presented the light signals to which you refer, nor evidently any aircraft of the F-117 type which you cite in your letter.
On the other hand, be advised that this Unit no longer performs air defense committments, and for this reason, our aircraft are no longer "scrambled."
Many thanks for your kind offer of collaboration with us in any investigation which may arise in regard to the UFO phenomenon.
Sincerely,
José J. Muñoz Castresana
It was quite some time later, in spite of the evasives of the Spanish Air Force's 11th Wing, that we learned the objects were American F-117s on their way to the Persian Gulf, flying over Spanish airspace as they did so. Perhaps they themselves, or their "cousins" the B-2's, were responsible for the sightings made by AVIPO.
We must bear in mind that on previous occasions there had been UFO incidents--some of them quite serious--produced by American planes that disregarded national aeronautical laws and invaded civilian airspace. In Testigos de Elite I mentioned the case of an Aviaco airliner which almost collided against five UFOs that strayed into its flight corridor. Radar detection of the UFOs and a quick warning to the pilot enabled him to avoid the unidentifieds that hurtled toward him...which turned out to be five American fighters.
What would have happened if the pilot hadn't reacted on time, and the Aviaco airliner had collided with one of the Yankee planes? The radar operator would testify before the board of inquiry that five unidentified echoes had merged with the civilian aviation codes on the screen. What would the official story have been? What would the air line tell the victims' families? Would the U.S. embassy confess that those responsible for the deaths of the passengers and crew were an illegal fleet of American fighters, or would it remain silent? Probably the talk about "some UFOs attacking the plane" would end up discrediting the case, and finally, the official story would blame the disaster on human error (since the pilot would no longer be around to defend himself). The radar operator would be accused of "seeing things," and the case would be discarded upon being consigned to the "high strangeness" file of some impudent ufologist who refuses to accept the official story...like yours truly.
Naturally, it's easier to blame such incidents on "Martians" than to face diplomatic conflicts over the invasion of someone's sovereign air space. But that is just one of many facets of the UFO phenomenon related to the military context. There are many others, even more serious ones.
The UFO Conspiracy
In June 1987, during the annual MUFON conference (the most important civilian association in the U.S. devoted to UFO studies), the most controversial documents in the history of ufology were made public: the Majestic-12 papers. This report, consisting of a group of 8 microfilms, was presented as a document provided by President Truman to his successor, detailing the autopsies and analyses performed upon four alien corpses and the flying saucer which crashed in Roswell in July 1947. Shortly after, these reports would develop into an absurd book: The Matrix, which would shake world ufology to its foundations--it detailed the story of an alleged secret pact between the aliens and the U.S. government.
Three years later, at another MUFON conference, William Moore, a well-known author and American ufologist (co-author of Incident at Roswell and The Philadelphia Experiment) made an explosive confession. With apparent remorse, he admitted to having been in the service of U.S. intelligence agencies for nine years, acting as a "mole" within the UFO community, transmitting the most important discoveries made by researchers to his masters and feeding disinformation to the same researchers. On that day, world ufology made a 180-degree turn, and some of the more lucid researchers began to realize the important role that the military factor played in this line of inquiry.
As Javier Sierra correctly describes in his article "La conspiración OVNI: Historia de un Watergate ufologico" (The UFO Conspiracy: History of a Ufological Watergate), William Moore's disinformation campaign began with the unfortunate Paul Bennewitz:
"Bennewitz, owner of a small manufacturer of electronic components, Thunder Scientific Company, was closely followed by the intelligence services at Kirtland AFB as a result of a series of experiments he conducted in early 1980 with a woman who had been abducted in the vicinity of Cimarron (New Mexico). Bennewitz believed that aliens had abducted the witness, implanted her with a microscopic device to control her at a distance, and also believed that with the exact electronic devices, he could intercept the signal leaving the implant in the abductee's body and trace it back to the alien spaceship. Along with Dr. Leo Sprinkle, world famous for his research in this field, [Bennewitz] commenced his first interception attempts. He finally managed to capture a signal that issued from within the abductee, but which would later be proven to come from the Manzano nuclear weapons depot within Kirtland AFB. This knowledge, coupled to sightings of strange lights entering and leaving the base, led Bennewitz to believe that aliens had occupied that restricted military zone." (?)
At the same time, the military at Kirtland, who at the time were working on the development of the initial phases of the Space Defense Initiative (SDI) known as "Star Wars", detected a "mole" in their computer system, who proved to be none other than a citizen named Paul Bennewitz! It was than that AFOSI contracted Moore to spy on Bennewitz, and after checking his interest in UFOs, proceeded to feed him all kinds of aberrant information regarding pacts between extraterrestrials and the Armed Forces in order that his suspicions that he'd detected "something strange" at Kirtland would not raise Soviet suspicions, with the added incentive of a historic moment in which the world was still experiencing the chill of the Cold War.
Rumors of a secret pact between the U.S. and aliens spread like wildfire. What other explanation could there be for signals received through the implant of an abductee which issued from inside an American military installation?
The "disinformation treatment" given to Bennewitz by the intelligence agencies worked perfectly, and the "spy" ended up in need of psychiatric treatment. "The government drove Bennewitz crazy," Moore confessed, "in order to bring the process to a halt..."
This incident was followed by a vast disinformation campaign against the ufological community by the U.S. government--disinformation which still continues. But the damage was already done. Bennewitz's discovery had opened the door to a troubling aspect of the UFO phenomenon: the manipulation of civilian populations by means of the extraterrestrial myth.
Synthesizing all this manipulations in a few lines would be too complex, since my intention is only to cause the reader to reflect upon all this. There are numerous aspects to this tapestry which has been woven since its beginnings in the 1940's, and even before that. But it would be useful to cite several particularly significant aspects. With this new "military espionage" aspect of the UFO phenomenon many significant cases came about, although they were perhaps interpreted erroneously.
"Proof" of the pact between the U.S. and the EBEs (Extraterrestrial Biological Entities) was centered by ufologists upon the ultrasecret Groom Lake air base better known as "Area 51."
The March 1994 issue of Popular Mechanics devoted its cover to this "Area 51." In this lengthy article published in this highly unsuspicious magazine, mention was made of sightings of strange aircraft which had been seen flying over the area. A true "UFO watch" was set up in the perimeter of Groom Lake, one which has since yielded photos and films of unconventional aircraft.
Some characters, like controversial physicist Bob Lazar, insist that after being hired as maintenance personnel to work in the base, they managed to see discoidal craft "similar to those photographed by Billy Meier." according to Lazar.
The story is longer and more complex, but elements such as the "communications" between the abductee's implant and Kirtland AFB, as detected by Bennewitz, or the saucers and other unconventional craft seen at Area 51, constitute proof to some American ufologists that the government has made a pact with aliens to exchange extraterrestrial technology for "abduction rights."
Maybe--only maybe--there's a somewhat simpler solution. Maybe saucers and triangular UFOs are merely sophisticated terrestrial vehicles. Maybe abductions, or some of them, are illegal genetic manipulation experiments conducted by the military. Or maybe...
Manipulation
A surprising book was published in Zaragoza in 1979, from Editorial Alvarez Esbec. Its title: Bases de OVNIS en la Tierra (UFO Bases on Earth).
This book, written in first person, was the purported biography of a Spanish youth born of American parents (his father was an alleged officer at the Torrejón air base) who was recruited by the CIA and trained to become a ufologist and contactee at the service of the American intelligence community.
Throughout 223 pages, the author, who calls himself Douglas O'Brien, explained how the CIA had furnished him with ufological documentation, credentials from Flying Saucer Review (FSR), threats to witnesses who'd seen too much, how he had organized "UFO alerts" in enemy bases so as to photograph them using UFOs as an excuse, and so on. In the end, the remorse he felt as a result of his actions, and the ultimate conviction that extraterrestrial UFOs indeed existed, led the "spy" to publicly confess his actions by means of the book. The story is certainly enthralling as a suspense novel and as a genuine foreshadowing of the military aspects of the phenomenon which would be uncovered 10 years later.
I was finally able to identify, locate, and meet the true author of the book, Francisco Javier Esteban, in Zaragoza in April 1994.
Esteban, currently a member of the skeptical organization ARP (Rational Alternative to the Pseudosciences), explained that the book was a novel crafted from UFO information gleaned out of an infinite array of sources, plus a pinch of fantasy. However, the "UFO bases on Earth" argument would apparently become true, precisely a decade after it publication in Spain.
By Manuel Carballal
An article on invisible aircraft which appeared in the El Pais newspaper included statements made by John E. Prike on the Aurora and other secret prototypes: "it is impossible to understand the mysterious phenomenon of these airplanes outside the UFO context." How right he is...
Probably many UFO cases, developed in very specific contexts, could be a product of this situation. Another specialized American magazine published the accounts of several qualified witnesses, including commercial pilots, who claimed having seen strange Delta-shaped aircraft of considerable size, bomber types, which dwarfed an F-16 escort. But these sightings of bizarre aircraft do not occur solely in the United States.
Toward late 1991, this author began a study on UFO sightings made by pilots, air traffic controllers, radar operators and related aeronautical personnel (See the monograph entitled Testigos de Elite, Espacio y Tiempo, Colección "Enigmas", 1993). Up to the present I have collected over 800 High Credibility cases from all over the world, and many of the pilots and controllers I've interviewed agree that their sighting could have been caused by very sophisticated ultrasecret prototypes.
C. Iglesias, to select a case at random, is an air traffic controller with considerable experience in the observation of all manner of conventional aircraft. In 1992, he was outside the airport at Santiago (Spain) when he could clearly make out a perfectly triangular object crossing the sky in bright daylight. The most serious concern, he explained, was that the object had entered a civilian air corridor, but in the opposite direction from that which is normally used. Fortunately, there were no airliners transiting the air corridor at the moment. In Mr. Iglesias' estimation, the metallic artifact was some sort of unconventional aircraft, perhaps on an experimental flight. But voluntary or not, such an imprudent action could have had disastrous consequences.
The controller at Lavacolla isn't the only aviation professional who believes to have witnessed some experimental prototype flying over Spanish skies. In an excellent article on the subject of pilots who have made UFO sightings, written by Javier Sierra and published in issue #1 of Año Cero magazine, there appeared a survey of 120 pilots conducted by the publication itself. Out of the pilots who admitted having UFO sightings, 13.79% believed that it could be some sort of experimental prototype.
The alleged triangular craft seen by Iglesias in 1992 was perhaps one such object. In fact, I myself have collected numerous triangular object sightings in Galician skies since 1993, and which were discussed with Dr. Leon Brenige, a specialist in theoretical physics with the University of Brussels. Brenige and I met at a UFO conference shortly after the beginning of the Belgian UFO wave in which triangular UFOs were seen (Brenige and other scientists were able to see one), and which resembled some of the Galician cases. But these triangular UFOs were not seen exclusively in Galicia, either.
On July 23, 1990, five members of the AVIPO group (Valencian Association for Parapsychological and Ufological Research) were on Mt. "El Prado" at a height of 507 meters near the municipal limits of Segart. At that moment, our friends from AVIPO boasted more than 300 hours experience in watching the night skies. Like many other research groups, they periodically organized skywatch activities at night in order to familiarize themselves with all kinds of astronomical objects and phenomena, meteorological conditions, etc., which at a given moment could be mistaken for UFOs. But that night held surprises in store for them. At 3:45, they saw a strange airplane, entirely triangular in appearance and presenting "V" shaped illumination. My field notebook still contains some of the AVIPO witnesses' drawings, which resembled the triangular UFOs seen in Galicia.
Another strange triangular airplane sighting was made on June 30th, and shortly afterward, yet another was seen in Gerona. Faced with these facts, Vicente Moros, AVIPO's director, wrote a letter to the air base at Manises requesting information on the strange aircraft. The following is Moros' letter, which provides even greater detail about the incident.
Valencia, 23 July 1990
Dear Sir:
I am writing you in my capacity as president of the Valencian Association of Parapsychological and Ufological Investigation (AVIPO) which among other things, researches the UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) phenomenon.
The purpose of this letter is to ascertain whether the Manises Air Base under your command, currently houses some sort of Spanish or NATO warplane equipped with an unconventional or nonstandard lighting package and which conducts North-South maneuvers every Saturday night, landing at the Base between 3:30 and 3:45 on Sunday morning, and endowed with an intermittent red light in its nose-cone, along with two or four white lights and a very powerful lamp which illuminates the ground, all of this in a triangular arrangement. Its trajectory has been observed by members of this organization, flying at very low altitude and slow speed, between 60 and 200 KMH, on one occasion (07/01/1990) over the A-7 expressway around Port Saplaya and twice (06/20/1990 and 07/22/1990) over Mt. Garbí and Segart.
Our reason for securing this information is of great importance to us since we conduct a number of skywatches every week and are familiar with conventional aircraft and their standard lights. However, we are completely ignorant about the signals of the aircraft in question and its origin. We have discarded the possibility of it being a commercial aircraft, since the civilian airport does not have any arrivals at that time of morning, and sources contacted by this association have stated that the light arrangement is "illegal."
Your assistance in this matter is crucial, for if this aircraft is not at your base, we suspect the possibility of a UFO such as the ones seen over Belgium and which were studied by the Belgian Ministry of Defense, or if not, a prototype of the USAF F-117A. We also have a short film of this plane which in spite of its brevity, is at your disposal.
We will take this opportunity to inquire whether the fighters at the Manises Air Bse have been scrambled in the past year to intercept any UFOs or unknown contacts over the Mediterranean coast. If so, any information you could provide this organization would be greatly appreciated in our efforts to contrast it with the testimonies in our possession.
We remain entirely at your disposal for any clarifications or joint investigation you may care to undertake in regard to the UFO phenomenon, which is researched by this association in a serious and entirely scientific manner.
Sincerely,
Fdo. Vicente Moros Bernardo
President, AVIPO
However, as in so many other occasions, the response from the authorities was brief and unhelpful. This is the only information which AVIPO was able to secure from the Manises Air Base:
Chief of the Secretariat
11th Air Wing
Manises, 30 July 1990
Dear Mr. Moros:
We are in receipt of your letter dated 23 July, in which you manifest your interest regarding an object seen on the 1st of June, 24th of June, and 22nd of June.
There were no aircraft arrivals or departures from this base on the date and time which you specify, and which presented the light signals to which you refer, nor evidently any aircraft of the F-117 type which you cite in your letter.
On the other hand, be advised that this Unit no longer performs air defense committments, and for this reason, our aircraft are no longer "scrambled."
Many thanks for your kind offer of collaboration with us in any investigation which may arise in regard to the UFO phenomenon.
Sincerely,
José J. Muñoz Castresana
It was quite some time later, in spite of the evasives of the Spanish Air Force's 11th Wing, that we learned the objects were American F-117s on their way to the Persian Gulf, flying over Spanish airspace as they did so. Perhaps they themselves, or their "cousins" the B-2's, were responsible for the sightings made by AVIPO.
We must bear in mind that on previous occasions there had been UFO incidents--some of them quite serious--produced by American planes that disregarded national aeronautical laws and invaded civilian airspace. In Testigos de Elite I mentioned the case of an Aviaco airliner which almost collided against five UFOs that strayed into its flight corridor. Radar detection of the UFOs and a quick warning to the pilot enabled him to avoid the unidentifieds that hurtled toward him...which turned out to be five American fighters.
What would have happened if the pilot hadn't reacted on time, and the Aviaco airliner had collided with one of the Yankee planes? The radar operator would testify before the board of inquiry that five unidentified echoes had merged with the civilian aviation codes on the screen. What would the official story have been? What would the air line tell the victims' families? Would the U.S. embassy confess that those responsible for the deaths of the passengers and crew were an illegal fleet of American fighters, or would it remain silent? Probably the talk about "some UFOs attacking the plane" would end up discrediting the case, and finally, the official story would blame the disaster on human error (since the pilot would no longer be around to defend himself). The radar operator would be accused of "seeing things," and the case would be discarded upon being consigned to the "high strangeness" file of some impudent ufologist who refuses to accept the official story...like yours truly.
Naturally, it's easier to blame such incidents on "Martians" than to face diplomatic conflicts over the invasion of someone's sovereign air space. But that is just one of many facets of the UFO phenomenon related to the military context. There are many others, even more serious ones.
The UFO Conspiracy
In June 1987, during the annual MUFON conference (the most important civilian association in the U.S. devoted to UFO studies), the most controversial documents in the history of ufology were made public: the Majestic-12 papers. This report, consisting of a group of 8 microfilms, was presented as a document provided by President Truman to his successor, detailing the autopsies and analyses performed upon four alien corpses and the flying saucer which crashed in Roswell in July 1947. Shortly after, these reports would develop into an absurd book: The Matrix, which would shake world ufology to its foundations--it detailed the story of an alleged secret pact between the aliens and the U.S. government.
Three years later, at another MUFON conference, William Moore, a well-known author and American ufologist (co-author of Incident at Roswell and The Philadelphia Experiment) made an explosive confession. With apparent remorse, he admitted to having been in the service of U.S. intelligence agencies for nine years, acting as a "mole" within the UFO community, transmitting the most important discoveries made by researchers to his masters and feeding disinformation to the same researchers. On that day, world ufology made a 180-degree turn, and some of the more lucid researchers began to realize the important role that the military factor played in this line of inquiry.
As Javier Sierra correctly describes in his article "La conspiración OVNI: Historia de un Watergate ufologico" (The UFO Conspiracy: History of a Ufological Watergate), William Moore's disinformation campaign began with the unfortunate Paul Bennewitz:
"Bennewitz, owner of a small manufacturer of electronic components, Thunder Scientific Company, was closely followed by the intelligence services at Kirtland AFB as a result of a series of experiments he conducted in early 1980 with a woman who had been abducted in the vicinity of Cimarron (New Mexico). Bennewitz believed that aliens had abducted the witness, implanted her with a microscopic device to control her at a distance, and also believed that with the exact electronic devices, he could intercept the signal leaving the implant in the abductee's body and trace it back to the alien spaceship. Along with Dr. Leo Sprinkle, world famous for his research in this field, [Bennewitz] commenced his first interception attempts. He finally managed to capture a signal that issued from within the abductee, but which would later be proven to come from the Manzano nuclear weapons depot within Kirtland AFB. This knowledge, coupled to sightings of strange lights entering and leaving the base, led Bennewitz to believe that aliens had occupied that restricted military zone." (?)
At the same time, the military at Kirtland, who at the time were working on the development of the initial phases of the Space Defense Initiative (SDI) known as "Star Wars", detected a "mole" in their computer system, who proved to be none other than a citizen named Paul Bennewitz! It was than that AFOSI contracted Moore to spy on Bennewitz, and after checking his interest in UFOs, proceeded to feed him all kinds of aberrant information regarding pacts between extraterrestrials and the Armed Forces in order that his suspicions that he'd detected "something strange" at Kirtland would not raise Soviet suspicions, with the added incentive of a historic moment in which the world was still experiencing the chill of the Cold War.
Rumors of a secret pact between the U.S. and aliens spread like wildfire. What other explanation could there be for signals received through the implant of an abductee which issued from inside an American military installation?
The "disinformation treatment" given to Bennewitz by the intelligence agencies worked perfectly, and the "spy" ended up in need of psychiatric treatment. "The government drove Bennewitz crazy," Moore confessed, "in order to bring the process to a halt..."
This incident was followed by a vast disinformation campaign against the ufological community by the U.S. government--disinformation which still continues. But the damage was already done. Bennewitz's discovery had opened the door to a troubling aspect of the UFO phenomenon: the manipulation of civilian populations by means of the extraterrestrial myth.
Synthesizing all this manipulations in a few lines would be too complex, since my intention is only to cause the reader to reflect upon all this. There are numerous aspects to this tapestry which has been woven since its beginnings in the 1940's, and even before that. But it would be useful to cite several particularly significant aspects. With this new "military espionage" aspect of the UFO phenomenon many significant cases came about, although they were perhaps interpreted erroneously.
"Proof" of the pact between the U.S. and the EBEs (Extraterrestrial Biological Entities) was centered by ufologists upon the ultrasecret Groom Lake air base better known as "Area 51."
The March 1994 issue of Popular Mechanics devoted its cover to this "Area 51." In this lengthy article published in this highly unsuspicious magazine, mention was made of sightings of strange aircraft which had been seen flying over the area. A true "UFO watch" was set up in the perimeter of Groom Lake, one which has since yielded photos and films of unconventional aircraft.
Some characters, like controversial physicist Bob Lazar, insist that after being hired as maintenance personnel to work in the base, they managed to see discoidal craft "similar to those photographed by Billy Meier." according to Lazar.
The story is longer and more complex, but elements such as the "communications" between the abductee's implant and Kirtland AFB, as detected by Bennewitz, or the saucers and other unconventional craft seen at Area 51, constitute proof to some American ufologists that the government has made a pact with aliens to exchange extraterrestrial technology for "abduction rights."
Maybe--only maybe--there's a somewhat simpler solution. Maybe saucers and triangular UFOs are merely sophisticated terrestrial vehicles. Maybe abductions, or some of them, are illegal genetic manipulation experiments conducted by the military. Or maybe...
Manipulation
A surprising book was published in Zaragoza in 1979, from Editorial Alvarez Esbec. Its title: Bases de OVNIS en la Tierra (UFO Bases on Earth).
This book, written in first person, was the purported biography of a Spanish youth born of American parents (his father was an alleged officer at the Torrejón air base) who was recruited by the CIA and trained to become a ufologist and contactee at the service of the American intelligence community.
Throughout 223 pages, the author, who calls himself Douglas O'Brien, explained how the CIA had furnished him with ufological documentation, credentials from Flying Saucer Review (FSR), threats to witnesses who'd seen too much, how he had organized "UFO alerts" in enemy bases so as to photograph them using UFOs as an excuse, and so on. In the end, the remorse he felt as a result of his actions, and the ultimate conviction that extraterrestrial UFOs indeed existed, led the "spy" to publicly confess his actions by means of the book. The story is certainly enthralling as a suspense novel and as a genuine foreshadowing of the military aspects of the phenomenon which would be uncovered 10 years later.
I was finally able to identify, locate, and meet the true author of the book, Francisco Javier Esteban, in Zaragoza in April 1994.
Esteban, currently a member of the skeptical organization ARP (Rational Alternative to the Pseudosciences), explained that the book was a novel crafted from UFO information gleaned out of an infinite array of sources, plus a pinch of fantasy. However, the "UFO bases on Earth" argument would apparently become true, precisely a decade after it publication in Spain.
posted by Inexplicata (IHU) at 2:34 AM
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