Inside The Dulce Underground Base

Inside The Dulce Underground Base

I recently decided to update information referencing the supposed joint government / alien underground facility in Dulce, New Mexico. Not much has changed over the past few years...but there has been a scattering of nuances worth adding to the mix:

The Dulce Wars & the 1979 Firefight

Phil Schneider, supposedly one of three people who survived the 1979 Dulce firefight between the large Greys, US intelligence and military at the Dulce underground base, was found dead on January 1996, due to what was said to be an execution style murder. He was found dead in his apartment with a piano wire wrapped around his neck. According to some sources, it appeared that he repeatedly suffered torture before he was finally killed. You can read his story here - The Mysterious Life and Death of Philip Schneider. There have been numerous questions surrounding Schneider, in particular his motives and state of mind. Seven months prior to his death, he stated the following during a lecture:

Phil Schneider

"To give you an overview of basically what I am, I started off and went through engineering school. Half of my schooling was in that field and I built up a reputation for being a geological engineer, as well as a structural engineer with both military and aerospace applications. I have helped build two main bases in the United States that have some significance as far as what is called the New World Order. The first base is the one at Dulce, New Mexico."

"Back in 1954, under the Eisenhower administration, the federal government decided to circumvent the Constitution of the United States and form a treaty with alien entities. It was called the 1954 Greada Treaty, which basically made the agreement that the aliens involved could take a few cows and test their implanting techniques on a few human beings, but that they had to give details about the people involved. An insider's account of the treaty meeting is posted here - President Eisenhower's Close Encounter at Holloman AFB. Slowly, the aliens altered the bargain until they decided they wouldn't abide by it at all. Back in 1979, this was the reality, and the fire-fight at Dulce occurred quite by accident. I was involved in building an addition to the deep underground military base at Dulce, which is probably the deepest base. It goes down seven levels and over 2.5 miles deep. At that particular time, we had drilled four distinct holes in the desert, and we were going to link them together and blow out large sections at a time. My job was to go down the holes and check the rock samples, and recommend the explosive to deal with the particular rock. As I was headed down there, we found ourselves amidst a large cavern that was full of outer-space aliens, otherwise known as large Greys. I shot two of them. At that time, there were 30 people down there. About 40 more came down after this started, and all of them got killed. We had surprised a whole underground base of existing aliens. Later, we found out that they had been living on our planet for a long time, perhaps a million years. This could explain a lot of what is behind the theory of ancient astronauts."

What was the Dulce firefight, really? From information I have gathered, in 1979, a Grey was giving a lecture to an unknown determined number of scientists. During the lecture, a security officer came into the area with a sidearm on his belt. It was strictly forbidden to carry any weapons of any kind anywhere in the vicinity of the Greys. The security officer was instantly killed by the Grey. Other security personnel, witnessing what was happening in that room on the security cameras, came to retaliate. The Grey, according to the information, allegedly killed everybody. The manner in which the Grey killed these people has not been disclosed but was noted that the cause of deaths were 'head wounds'. The approximate number killed was just over 60 scientists and security.

Because of the nature of the sources, I believe the story to be essentially true though most of the information is third hand. It was, for the most part, an unfortunate accident and was classified as such.

Now...let's go beyond the firefight and look deeper into the alleged secret alien underground facility known as Dulce Base:

During the past few years, I have accorded some attention to several unexplained livestock attacks and cryptid sightings on the Dine Navajo lands in the Four Corners region...in particular, those areas in northwest New Mexico. Many of these attacks were, most likely, the result of Bigfoot-type hominids that are regularly seen in this area. Other attacks have a more bizarre angle, especially when the tracks of the perpetrator are of an unfamiliar genus and / or suddenly end in mid-stride as well as animal carcasses drained of blood and not fed upon.

The Archuleta Mesa area near Dulce, New Mexico has long been rumored to hold a joint government-alien biogenetic laboratory designed to carry out bizarre experiments on humans and animals. It has also been said that the lower levels of this underground system stretches between Dulce and Los Alamos some 90 miles to the south-east. Because of the proximity of these facilities to the Dine Navajo lands, is it possible that these attacks are of unknown experimental beings that have either escaped from the facility or have been released in order to be scientifically monitored?

It may seem to be a far-fetched hypothesis...unless, of course, you are the victim of the attacks and have no idea of what you're dealing with. The following narratives may temper your resolve or offer some curiosity to the question.

In March 2011 I received the following email:

Lon, I read the letter you posted recently about the Dulce Labs genetics experiments and wanted to share my experiences with your readers. When I was an undergraduate studying genetics in the mid-1970s, I did a 10-month internship at Dulce Labs. My primary duties were on level 1, that is where I spent almost all of my time. But once a week I accompanied one of the junior researchers to levels 5, 6, and 7 to collect data tapes and other documentation. I never got past the "clear zone" on those levels, but on a couple occasions I heard inhuman shrieks and wailing noises on level 6. I was told that level 6 was a psychiatric facility for especially disturbed patients, and that they were known to have emotional outbursts.

On one occasion while we were waiting for someone to bring out the tapes, I heard part of a message come through the intercom, and the words are burned into my memory.

VOICE 1: "CELL 34 COMPROMISED, ENTITY HAS BREACHED CONTAINMENT"

After a pause a second voice came over the speaker:

VOICE 2: "AVAILABLE PERSONAL REPORT TO THE BLUE ZONE FOR C&C. MAXIMUM FORCE AUTHORIZED."

The guard at the desk told me and my colleague that we had to leave immediately, we were rushed back into the elevator before the materials were delivered to us. It was two days before they let us go pick up the tapes, and when we went that time, everything was normal. Nobody ever talked about it. I tried to ask my colleague, the junior researcher who was there at the time, about it, but he said he didn't know what I was talking about, and something in his tone told me I'd better forget about it too.

After I graduated I was interested in returning to Dulce because I was really excited about the potential for genetic science, and Dulce had some very advanced equipment and knowledge - better than anything being used anywhere else. But I was told that there weren't any openings. I wondered if I was being blown off because of my curiosity about that event, if I was considered a risk. I tried contacting the junior researcher, but never got a response from him. - MP

The above anecdote was in response to the following email which I had previously posted:

Sir, first off, if you want the full story let me know. But this will explain how Mothman came about. U.S. Energy Secretary John Herrington named the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory to house advanced genetic research centers as part of a project to decipher the human genome. The genome holds the genetically coded instructions that guide the transformation of a single cell, a fertilized egg, into a biological organism.

"The Human Genome Project may well have the greatest direct impact on humanity of any scientific initiative before us today", said David Shirley, Director of the Berkeley Laboratory. Covertly, this research has been going on for years at the Dulce bio-genetics labs. Level 6 is hauntingly known by employees as "Nightmare Hall". It holds the genetic labs at Dulce. Reports from workers who have seen bizarre experimentation, are as follows:

"I have seen multi-legged 'humans' that look like half-human/half-octopus. Also reptilian-humans, and furry creatures that have hands like humans and cries like a baby, it mimics human words... also huge mixture of lizard-humans in cages. There are fish, seals, birds and mice that can barely be considered those species. There are several cages (and vats) of winged-humanoids, grotesque bat-like creatures...but 3 1/2 to 7 feet tall. Gargoyle-like beings and Draco-Reptoids."

"Level 7 is worse, row after row of thousands of humans and human mixtures in cold storage. Here too are embryo storage vats of humanoids in various stages of development. I frequently encountered humans in cages, usually dazed or drugged, but sometimes they cried and begged for help. We were told they were hopelessly insane, and involved in high risk drug tests to cure insanity. We were told to never try to speak to them at all. At the beginning we believed that story. Finally in 1978 a small group of workers discovered the truth. It began the Dulce Wars".

When the truth was evident that humans were being produced from abducted females, impregnated against their will, a secret resistance group formed. This did little though. Over time they were assassinated or "died under mysterious circumstances".

The witness also supplied the following information:

An underground Military Base/Laboratory in Dulce, New Mexico connects with the underground network of tunnels which honeycombs our planet, and the lower levels of this base are allegedly under the control of Inner Earth beings or Aliens. This base is connected to Los Alamos research facilities via an underground "tube-shuttle." (It can be assumed that such a shuttle way would be a straight-line construction. It should then be possible, by using maps and some deduction, to determine the most likely location of this base, especially since the general location is already known.) Beginning in 1947, a road was built near the Dulce Base, under the cover of a lumber company. No lumber was ever hauled, and the road was later destroyed. Navajo Dam is the Dulce Base's main source of power, though a second source is in El Vado (which is also another entrance). Most of the lakes near Dulce were made via government grants "for" the Indians.

Dulce Base - The Central Hub

-1st Level - contains the garage for Street Maintenance.

-2nd Level- contains the garage for trains, shuttles, tunnel-boring machines and UFO maintenance.

-3rd Level - the first 3 levels contain government offices.

-4th Level - Human Aura Research as well as aspects of Dream Manipulation, Hypnosis, and Telepathy. They can lower your heartbeat with Delta Waves and introduce data and programmed reactions into your mind (for those implanted with brain chips). Most people already are, they just don't know it.

-5th Level - witnesses have described huge vats with amber liquid with parts of human bodies being stirred inside. Rows and rows of cages holding men, women and children to be used as food. Perhaps thousands.

-6th Level - privately called "Nightmare Hall." It contains the genetic labs. Here are where the crossbreeding experiments of human/animal are done on fish, seals, birds, and mice that are vastly altered from their original forms. There are multi-armed and multi-legged humans and several cages and vats of humanoid bat-like creatures up to 7 feet tall.

-7th Level - Row after row of 1,000s of humans in cold storage including children.

It is alleged that Los Alamos and the mountainous regions east and southeast of it in and around the Santa Fe National Forest are the major holding area of earth based extraterrestrial (interterrestrial) beings in North America, although there are a number of smaller habitation locations scattered throughout the underground networks between Dulce and Area 51. 'Dulce Base' is said to hold the second largest repository of extraterrestrials and equipment in North America. None of this information takes into account what resources other nations and governments possess. All the evidence I have received is anecdotal but, in my opinion, the sources are reliable. You can find more at Dulce Conference Ends / The Dulce Report and Blue Planet Project - The Dulce Base.

Archuleta Mesa

In May 2010, through the MUFON CMS, a Jicarilla Apache tribal police officer recalled an alien encounter he had in Dulce, New Mexico (unedited):

Mid 80's Dulce, NM my self a law enforcement officer w/Jicarilla Apache Police. Background Police Science/Forensic Western NM Univ., Silver City. Had gone to graveyard shift at midnight w/ another officer and dispatcher. Immediately went to a single females home with the other shift and was informed that a small being was in her house at the foot of the bed with a box shining a laser like red light at her, the other officers knowing it was there shift change left without further investigation. Making fun mind you. She was obviously shaken up and I did notice some electrical malfunctions within her home and her animals, dogs and horses were uneasy. Throughout the night I continued to check on her, once in the early morning I was called to her home, her house was dark and as I entered I could hear her down the hall crying for help. I was informed again of visitors with a light in her home and it seemed strangely quiet. No one to be found in the home or area. In the early morning when the sun comes up when their is light I drove up to the home to make a check I noticed some movement in the brush and trees just west of her home about 15 yards away. I still don't understand what I may have saw, but soon after as I was stepping out of my unit three oval craft in a triangular pattern about the size of a three bedroom home lifted off from behind some juniper trees just 30 yards at the most taking off silently without noise/down drafts, then turn a bright white light and slow went in the direction east towards Chama, NM slowly gain altitude. My other Officer and Dispatcher was witness to this also. Shortly after I heard on the State Police Frequency from Chama about those UFO.s that were being called in to them. I felt completely helpless as a Officer to help someone who asked for help and was unable to assist and protect her in her time of need. It still bothers me today. S/GJ. (I spoke with Norio in Dulce, NM during the Dulce Base Conference also.)

A map of the alleged underground connections emanating from Dulce Base

These researchers are the most prolific original sources to the activity at the Dulce Underground Military Base/Laboratory:

Paul Bennewitz

Paul Bennewitz, a physicist in Albuquerque and a UFO researcher affiliated with APRO (Aerial Phenomena Research Organization), traveled to Dulce in 1977 to investigate reports of cattle being mutilated on the ranch of Edmound Gomez. He became friends with the local law enforcement official in the area of the Jicarilla Indian Reservation, Gabe Valdez, and the two investigated the mutilations and also some mysterious lights reportedly seen over Archuleta Mesa. Two gentlemen named Howard Burgess and John F. Gille (Jean Francois Gille), also seem to have been involved in these investigations.

Bennewitz along with Dr. Leo Sprinkle then studied the case of Myrna Hansen who said under hypnosis that she had 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 vats containing human body parts. Implants were placed in the bodies of her and her son and that the aliens could control their minds through these devices.

Bennewitz began filming the strange lights he was seeing over Manzano. He also built a complex electronic surveillance equipment network to receive low-frequency electromagnetic transmissions that he believed came from the alien craft. Bennewitz had several contacts with Air Force Officials that he tried to warn about the threat represented by aliens against the Manzano Weapons Storage Area.

The year after, 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.

During this period, 1980 to 1987, Bennewitz was visited by many other UFO researchers, including John Lear and Linda Moulton Howe. In 1987, another abductee named Christa Tilton, added to the tales of underground bases and aliens and vats with human body parts in them.

Bennewitz told Thomas Moore, the famous ufologist, that the alien transmissions he had received indicated that the grays, who he said were responsible for cattle mutilations and the abductions of humans, were building a secret underground base beneath Archuleta Peak on the Jicarillo Indian Reservation near Dulce, New Mexico with the help of the US Government.

When he said in a final burst of paranoia that aliens were coming through the wall of his house to inject him chemicals, it was time to send him to the Hospital. The story says that he has recovered but refuse to deal with the subject of UFOs.

Thomas Edwin Castello

Thomas Edwin Castello claimed to be a former security technician, employed by the Rand Corporation, at the Dulce underground facility. However, Castello has only provided stories, nothing solid, and has yet to come forward in person. There is some doubt as to whether he actually exists. He allegedly stole a set of controversial papers called the "Dulce Papers," along with over 30 black and white photos and a video tape.

Castello reported that the Dows [Greys], the Dracos [Reptiloids], and the Ciakars are working there hand in hand with over 18,000 short "greys" living the Dulce Facility. A colleague had come face-to-face with a 6-foot tall Reptoid which had materialized in his house. The Reptoid showed an interest in research maps of New Mexico and Colorado which were on the wall. The maps were full of colored push-pins and markers to indicate sites of animal mutilations, caverns, locations of high UFO activity, repeated flight paths, abduction sites, ancient ruins, and suspected alien underground bases.

The multi-level facility at Dulce is reported to have a central HUB which is controlled by base security. The security level goes up as one descends to lower levels. Thomas had an ULTRA-7 clearance. He knew of seven sub-levels, but there may have been more. Most of the aliens supposedly are on levels 5, 6 and 7 with alien housing on level 5. The only sign in English was over the tube shuttle station hallway which read "to Los Alamos."

There appears to be a vast network of tube shuttle connections under the U.S. which extends into a global system of tunnels and sub-cities.Connections go from Dulce to the Page, Arizona facility, then onto an underground base below Area 51 in Nevada. Tube shuttles go to and from Dulce to facilities below Taos, N.M.; Datil, N.M.; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Creed, Colorado; Sandia' then on to Carlsbad, New Mexico.

At the Dulce Base, most signs on doors and hallways are in the alien symbol language and a universal symbol system understood by humans and aliens. Thomas stated that after the second level, everyone is weighed in the nude, then given a uniform. Visitors are given off-white uniforms; jump suits with a zipper. The weight of the person is put on a computer I.D. card each day. Any change in weight is noted; if over three pounds, a physical exam and X-ray is required.

Scales are located in front of all sensitive areas and are built into the floor near doorways and the door control panels. An individual places his computer I.D. card into the door slot, then enters a numerical code onto a keypad. The person's weight and code must match the card or the door will not open. Any discrepancy will summon security. No one is allowed to carry anything into sensitive areas. All supplies are put on a conveyor belt and X-rayed. The same method is used in leaving sensitive areas.

All elevators are controlled magnetically; there are no elevator cables. The magnetic system is inside the walls of the elevator shaft, there are no normal electrical controls. Everything is controlled by advanced magnetics, including lighting. There are no regular light bulbs and the tunnels are illuminated by phosphorous units with broad structureless emission bands. Some deep tunnels use a form of phosphorous pentoxide to temporarily illuminate areas. The aliens won't go near these areas for reasons unknown.

Level 1 contains the garage for street maintenance. Level 2 contains the garage for trains, shuttles, tunnel-boring machines and disc maintenance. The studies on Level 4 include human-aura research, as well as all aspects of telepathy, hypnosis, and dreams. Thomas says that they know how to separate the bioplasmic body from the physical body to place an "alien entity" life-force-matrix within a human body after removing the "soul" lifeforce-matrix of the human.

Level 6 is privately called "Nightmare Hall." It holds the genetic labs, where experiments are done on fish, seals, birds, and mice that are vastly altered from their original form. There are multi-armed and multi-legged humans and several cages (and vats) of humanoid bat-like creatures as tall as 7-feet. The aliens have taught the humans a lot about genetics; things both useful and dangerous.

At Level 7, Thomas encountered humans in cages. Row after row of thousands of humans, human-mixture remains, and embryos of humanoids were kept in cold storage. He says, "I frequently encountered humans in cages, usually dazed or drugged, but sometimes they cried and begged for help. We were told they were hopelessly insane, and involved in high-risk drug tests to cure insanity. We were told to never speak to them at all. At the beginning we believed that story. Finally in 1978 a small group of workers discovered the truth. That began the Dulce wars."

The Grey and reptoid species are highly analytical and technologically oriented. They have had ancient conflicts with the Nordic humans from other space societies, and may be staging here for a future conflict. Intensely into computing and bio- engineering sciences, they are led to doing reckless experiments without regard for what we consider to be ethical and empathetic conduct toward other living creatures.

Principal government organizations involved in mapping human genetics, the so-called genome projects, are within the Department of Energy (which has a heavy presence on the Nevada Test Site); the National Institute of Health; the National Science Foundation; the Howard Huges Medical Institute; and, of course, the Dulce Underground Labs which are run by the DOE. Thomas had revealed that the chief of the genetic experiments for Los Alamos and Dulce is Larry Deaven.

According to Thomas, the alien androgynal breeder is capable of parthenogenesis. At Dulce, the common form or reproduction is by polyembryony. Each embryo can, and does divide into 6 to 9 individual "cunne" (pronounced cooney, i.e. siblings). The needed nutriment for the developing cunne is supplied by the "formula," which usually consist of plasma, deoxyhemoglobin, albumin, lysozyme, cation, amniotic fluid and more. The term "genome" is used to describe the totality of the chromosomes unique to a particular organism (or any cell within an organism), as distinct from the genotype, which is the information contained within those chromosomes. The human genes are mapped to specific chromosomal locations. This is an ambitious project that will take years and a lot of computer power to accomplish.

Thomas also says the aliens don't want the land, the gold, the minerals, or water that we possess, nor even the human or animal life. What they do want is magnetic power that surges on and through the Earth. The aliens harvest this magic power in a way unknown to us. Thomas says the aliens recognize this power as more valuable than any other commodity on our globe.

For further information, please go to --> Dulce Base: The Thomas Castello Declaration - Part I and Part 2

Below are a few of the images from Dulce Base supposedly leaked by Thomas Castello:

Phil Schneider

Phil Schneider was an engineer who claimed to have discovered the alien base accidentally. Schneider is said to have committed suicide, but others claim he was found with either (1) piano wire, or (2) rubber catheter hose, wrapped around his throat, which indicate that he was murdered, ostensibly to silence him. Some sources say, however, that Schneider both had severe brain damage and was also a paranoid schizophrenic, which makes his stories about Dulce somewhat questionable.

"Back in 1954, under the Eisenhower administration, the federal government decided to circumvent the Constitution of the United States and form a treaty with alien entities. It was called the 1954 Greada Treaty, which basically made the agreement that the aliens involved could take a few cows and test their implanting techniques on a few human beings, but that they had to give details about the people involved. Slowly, the aliens altered the bargain until they decided they wouldn't abide by it at all. Back in 1979, this was the reality, and the fire-fight at Dulce occurred quite by accident.

I was involved in building an addition to the deep underground military base at Dulce, which is probably the deepest base. It goes down seven levels and over 2.5 miles deep. At that particular time, we had drilled four distinct holes in the desert, and we were going to link them together and blow out large sections at a time. My job was to go down the holes and check the rock samples, and recommend the explosive to deal with the particular rock. As I was headed down there, we found ourselves amidst a large cavern that was full of outer-space aliens, otherwise known as large Greys. I shot two of them. At that time, there were 30 people down there. About 40 more came down after this started, and all of them got killed. We had surprised a whole underground base of existing aliens. Later, we found out that they had been living on our planet for a long time, perhaps a million years. This could explain a lot of what is behind the theory of ancient astronauts.”

NOTE: there are other links from past posts that may be of interest - UFO Witnesses - Sandia Mountains, New Mexico and The Reptilian Files. So, I ask again...is it possible that these attacks on the Dine Navajo lands are of unknown experimental beings that have either escaped from the facility or have been released in order to be scientifically monitored? The following link is somewhat different...but may add more fuel to the speculation - Black-Eyed Children in Dulce, NM. - also, a few videos - Video - Dulce NM Reptilian Base Footage Of Cryo Tanks (HD) and Video - Prisoners of the Dulce Base...Lon

Sources:
The Dulce Wars: Underground Alien Bases and the Battle for Planet Earth
PhantomsandMonsters.com
aliens.monstrous.com
theonlinemail.co.uk
ufos-aliens.co.uk
Underground Alien Bio Lab At Dulce: The Bennewitz UFO Papers
theregister.co.uk
orgoneblasters.com
bibliotecapleyades.net
burlingtonnews.net
subversiveelement.com
The Dulce Protocol
exopolitics.org
ufomind.com
Exposing U.S. Government Policies On Extraterrestrial Life: The Challenge Of Exopolitics
illuminati-news.com
www.ufodigest.com
thewatcherfiles.com
Extraterrestrials-U.S. Government Treaty And Agreements: Alien Technology, Abductions And Military Alliance
greadatreaty.com
illuminati-news.com
Too Many Secrets: Humanity's Fight To Expose The Secret Underground Worlds
subversiveelement.com
ufodigest.com
greadatreaty.com
thewatcherfiles.com
Hidden in Plain Sight: Beyond the X-Files

Posted by Lon Strickler at 3:53 PM

Close Encounters of the Mythic Kind

Close Encounters of the Mythic Kind

The Fact, Fantasy, and Speculation Behind Cinema's Greatest UFO Movie

More so than any other filmmaker, Steven Spielberg has moulded our perceptions of otherworldly visitors. His films teem with iconic imagery seared into the minds of millions: a mothership’s miraculous ascension at Devils Tower; a boy and his fugitive friend from the stars cycling in silhouette across the face of the moon... Even Spielberg’s less memorable alien offerings – War of the Worlds (2005) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) – have enjoyed enormous success at the worldwide box-office, raking in some $1.4 billion between them.

Although he has donned his director’s cap for just four alien-themed movies, Spielberg’s role as a producer has long seen him neck-deep in entertainment of the extraterrestrial kind. His credits to date include Batteries Not Included (1987), the Men in Black franchise (1997 – 2012), the alien abduction mini-series Taken (2002); the Transformers franchise (2007 - ); the alien invasion series Falling Skies (2011 - ); the ‘Sci-fi-Western’ Cowboys and Aliens (2011); and Super 8 (2011), the plot for which features Area 51, the US Air Force and an escaped alien entity.

That Spielberg continues to make movies about life elsewhere is owed not simply to good business sense but is due in large part to his own childhood fascination with UFOs – a fascination that would intensify into his late twenties and culminate in his cathartic production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).


A teenage Spielberg in 1964 awaiting the premiere of his first feature-length film, Firelight, which would serve as the blueprint for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

 

Close Encounters was a miracle of a movie. It imparted to the viewer a message of universal hope, revealing to cinemagoers that aliens were not necessarily a force to be feared. According to Spielberg’s vision, aliens were simply misunderstood – not our maleficent destructors, but our gloriously beneficent friends. He told his cast during filming that the movie was to be “very gentle, like an embrace.” Here, then, was the work of an unashamed idealist, its director’s childlike sense of wonder infusing its every frame.

Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) on the trail to Devils Tower.

The film’s plot, such as it is, follows electrical engineer Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), a Spielbergian ‘everyman’ with a thirst for adventure who is trapped in a joyless marriage with bratty kids in middle-American suburbia. Roy’s life is turned upside down one night after a close encounter with a UFO convinces him that we are not alone in the universe. This experience prompts Roy to embark upon an obsessive and isolating quest for the truth behind the UFO enigma and ultimately leads him to Devils Tower in Wyoming where he meets angelic extraterrestrial beings and blissfully takes his leave of our ‘humdrum’ planet.

Close Encounters is notable for being the first film ever to feature the archetypal ‘Grey’ alien. While shades of the Grey are identifiable in film and TV products dating back to the 1950s, Close Encounters marked the Greys’ first fully crystallized appearance onscreen with trademark spindly bodies, small stature, oversized heads and eyes, and otherwise featureless faces. Cultural commentators often have used this fact to suggest that it was Spielberg’s iconic movie – not real life occurrences – that lead witnesses to claim personal encounters with the diminutive Greys. However, the man who designed the aliens for Close Encounters – famed production designer Joe Alves – deflates this theory. When I interviewed Alves recently he told me that he based his alien designs on descriptions he’d received directly from witnesses. “I had called a lot of people when trying to design the aliens to see if people had actually seen anything,” said Alves, “and I talked to a lot of legitimate people... who described to me very simplistic creatures with large eyes and small mouths, no nose.”

Production Designer Joe Alves (kneeling) with Spielberg (left) in 1976
during the shoot of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

 

Based on what he heard during his research, Alves began conceptualizing the alien beings. “The descriptions I heard were of these big-eyed things with small mouths and no nose, long fingers, that kind of thing. So I made some sketches and I also made a couple of clay models.” Spielberg was pleased with Alves’ designs: “Steven said ‘I like these simple little childlike beings. That’s what I want.’” It was soon after that Spielberg made the decision to have little girls wear the alien costumes in order to imbue the cosmic entities with a sense of innocence and grace.

Enter the Greys: the movie's aliens were designed by Joe Alves based on real witness reports.

 

Spielberg’s film is rich in UFOlogical detail beyond the appearance of its aliens – from its depiction of silent but spectacular UFO manoeuvres, UFOs interfering with electrical grids and car engines, government secrecy and disinformation surrounding the subject, and even alien abduction (around a decade before such stories began to permeate the literature). The movie achieved its extraordinary UFOlogical verisimilitude thanks in large part to the advice of legendary UFO investigator Professor J. Allen Hynek. It was Hynek’s classification system for UFO sightings that gave Spielberg’s movie its unusual title (a ‘close encounter of the third kind’ referring to any sighting of a UFO within 500 feet of the witness during which UFO occupants are also observed), and Spielberg appointed the man himself as his official UFO advisor on the movie.

Close Encounters also owes a debt to the pioneering UFO research of Hynek's most famous protégé, Dr Jacques Vallée (pictured here with Hynek). Indeed, one of the movies main characters, the Frenchman Claude Lacombe (Francois Truffaut), was partly inspired by Vallée himself. Spielberg consulted briefly with Vallée during the movie’s production and the scientist attempted to sway the director in favour of a more exotic explanation for the UFO phenomenon. Spielberg’s movie should explore the interdimensional hypothesis, Vallée insisted. “When I met Steven Spielberg, I argued with him that the subject was even more interesting if it wasn’t extraterrestrials,” said Vallée, “if it was real, physical, but not ET.” Spielberg wasn’t convinced, however, telling Vallée: “You’re probably right, but that’s not what the public is expecting – this is Hollywood and I want to give people something that’s close to what they expect.’”

Spielberg chats with (takes direction from?) legendary director Francois Truffaut, whose character in the movie
was partly inspired by Dr. Jacques Vallée.

 

For years, Close Encounters has been the subject of fervent speculation in the UFO conspiracy community, with even some of the most level-headed of researchers inclined to believe it was part of an official UFO acclimation campaign. Such speculation can be traced back to the production of the movie itself. On July 23, 1976, after a hard day’s shoot, around forty of the Close Encounters cast and crew (including stars Richard Dreyfuss and Melinda Dillon) gathered in the sticky night air of Mobile, Alabama to hear a lecture on UFOs delivered by Hynek (who had been flown in for a brief cameo in the film’s closing scenes). It was shortly after this lecture that the co-star of the movie, Bob Balaban (who plays the character of translator David Laughlin) spoke of an intriguing rumour that had been circulating during the production – “a rumour,” said the actor, “that the film is part of the necessary training that the human race must go through in order to accept an actual landing, and is being secretly sponsored by a government UFO agency.” I asked Close Encounters production designer Joe Alves if he had heard any such rumours during the shoot and if there was any substance to them. “There were a lot of rumours,” he replied ambiguously, before changing the subject.

Making history. Left to right: Francois Truffaut, Bob Balaban, Steven Spielberg, and Lance Henriksen.
 

In 1977, after the production had wrapped, Spielberg told Sight and Sound magazine what inspired him to make a film that dealt seriously with the UFO issue. “I realized that just about every fifth person I talked to had looked up at the sky at some point in their lives and seen something that was not easy to explain,” said the director, “and then I began meeting people who had had close encounters... where undeniably something quite phenomenal was happening right before their eyes. It was this direct contact – the interviews – that got me interested in making the movie.”

Left to right: Dreyfuss, Truffaut, Balaban, and Spielberg.

Spielberg’s interest in UFOs even extended to a belief in an official cover-up: “I wouldn’t put it past this government that a cosmic Watergate has been underway for the last 25 years,” he remarked during a Close Encounters promotional interview in 1977, “eventually they might want to tell us something about what they’ve discovered over the decades.” During the same interview, Spielberg spoke with relish of “rumours” that President Carter was due to make “some unsettling disclosures” about UFOs later that year. Needless to say, no such disclosures were forthcoming.

But was Spielberg dropping a hint? Was Close Encounters really part of a government-sponsored UFO indoctrination program – an effort to educate the public about the reality of an alien presence? We may never know for sure, although comments made more recently by another Hollywood professional make for intriguing reading in the context of this discussion. In February of 2011 – thirty-four years after the release of Close Encounters – I spoke with Andrew Thomas, a writer/director/producer who worked on Spielberg’s UFO epic in 1976 as head of ‘special marketing.’ Eighteen months before the film was scheduled to premiere, at the behest of the film’s studio, Columbia Pictures, Thomas worked with a major planetarium to create a dazzling twenty-minute show for the American public. He described it to me as follows:

“You sit down and a UFO shoots across the planetarium dome and then the audience is trained on how to figure out whether that was a meteor, a comet, or actually an extraterrestrial. We managed to bus-in tens-of thousands of kids from all around the country on the pretence of seeing an educational planetarium show, but what they really got was a sophisticated message to explain to them that extraterrestrials and UFOs are real and what an encounter of the first, second and third kind actually meant.”

At first glance, this testimony would seen to lend weight to the indoctrination rumours, but Thomas himself has a different take on why Columbia Pictures adopted such an unusual and deceptive marketing strategy: “They were concerned that the title ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ sounded suspiciously like a pornographic movie, because no one had any reference to what that vocabulary meant.” Thomas says his job was simply to introduce the ‘close encounter’ terminology into the vernacular, “so when the film opened-up everyone would know what was being discussed, and there wouldn’t be any question.”

There were further indications of secrecy and deception relating to Close Encounters shortly after the movie was released. It is curious, for example, that the Carter Presidential Library contains no record of the film-loving President ever having viewed Close Encounters while in office. However, in a 1977 Canadian TV interview conducted directly after the movie’s theatrical release, Spielberg said matter-of-factly that Carter had viewed the movie “Last Saturday.” “We haven’t heard the direct feedback,” Spielberg remarked, but added, “We hear he [Carter] liked it quite a bit.” The following March, The Phoenix Gazette cited Close Encounters as “Jimmy Carter’s favorite movie,” noting that “The President has seen the movie many times.” This is not the only discrepancy over the official record concerning Carter and Spielberg. Officially, Spielberg never set foot in the Carter White House and had never met the President; and yet a solitary photocopy of a photograph discovered in the Carter Presidential Library proves that the two men did meet. The photo shows Carter and Spielberg engaged in conversation and is signed: “To Steven Spielberg, [from] Jimmy Carter.” An accompanying White House stationary note signed by White House Social Secretary Gretchen Poston and addressed to Spielberg reads: “The President thought you would enjoy receiving the enclosed photograph.” 

This apparent secrecy almost certainly resulted from a desire in the military-intelligence community – and even among Carter’s staff – to keep the Administration from being further publicly associated with flying saucers. Famously, Carter had his own UFO sighting in 1969 in Leary, Georgia, witnessing a bright white round object that approached his position before stopping and then receding into the distance. Carter was with twelve other people at the time, all of whom witnessed the strange phenomenon. Needless to say, a UFO-spotting President viewing the ultimate UFO movie at the White House and having get-togethers with its alien-obsessed director would have been a PR nightmare.

By far the most outlandish of the conspiracy theories surrounding Close Encounters relates to ‘Project Serpo’ – an alleged human/alien exchange program between US military personnel and a race of extraterrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system.

The story goes that, in July of 1965, twelve astronauts were taken to the planet Serpo aboard an alien spaceship and remained there for thirteen years. In exchange, the aliens left one of their own in the custody of the US government. This story didn’t emerge until 2005 in the form of a string of anonymous emails that were sent to selected UFO researchers, including Project Camelot/Avalon’s Bill Ryan, who created a website dedicated to the “leaks.”

The Serpo story lead some in the conspiracy community to speculate that Close Encounters was partly inspired by the alleged alien/human exchange program of 1965, which assumes that Spielberg himself was privy to inside information on the UFO issue. In the movie’s final scenes, a taller alien (this one not designed by Alves but by effects expert Carlo Rambaldi) is seen to exit the mothership and communicate with the character of Claude Lacombe via a series of hand gestures. Soon after, we see twelve scientists clad in jumpsuits preparing to board the mothership and take permanent leave of planet Earth. Roy Neary joins the group as its thirteenth member. 

 

Again, it is important to note that the Serpo story, which has not a shred of credible evidence to support it, did not emerge until 2005 – twenty-eight years after the release of Close Encounters. The logical assumption, then, would be that the former was inspired the latter, rather than vice versa. 

Whether or not there is a shred of truth to any of the conspiracy theories surrounding Close Encounters, Spielberg’s movie remains hugely significant for the fact that it played a central role in Hollywood’s mid-to-late-1970s economic revival, forcing aging studio executives to recognize America’s vast and largely un-catered-for youth market and to adapt their output accordingly. It is notable that two other alien-themed movies of the period also played a key role in this industrial paradigm shift: Star Wars (1977) and Superman (1978). Together, these three films about the wonders of the universe acted as adrenalin, shot straight into the heart of a dying industry (though many critics would argue, perhaps justifiably, that this adrenalin acted as poison in the long-term, stifling creativity and individuality in Hollywood). Spielberg’s film also reignited public curiosity about UFOs as an enduring enigma, and its release closely coincided with the thirtieth anniversary of the Roswell Incident. Just one year later, Jesse Marcel would spill the beans on his firsthand experiences of that event, opening the floodgates for hundreds more closely-corresponding Roswell testimonies.

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg -- the future of Hollywood, for better or for worse -- pictured with Francois Truffaut on the Close Encounters 'Big Set' in the summer of 1976.

 

 

It had taken the better part of thirty years, but Hollywood’s aliens had made the transition from invaders to saviours. Remarkably, this transition was affected almost single-handedly by a wunderkind director with a vision. With Vietnam and Watergate still fresh in the mind, Close Encounters came as a reassuring hug for America towards the end of a decade of disillusionment, and, for the next few years, at least, Spielberg’s movie would redefine Hollywood’s working relationship with aliens. With movies like E.T., Starman, Cocoon and The Abyss cleaning up at the box-office throughout the decade, the 1980s would be a time of extraterrestrial kinship and splendour in Hollywood when UFOs would return to the silver screen en masse, and, for the most part, in peace.

Nessie Review of 2013

Nessie Review of 2013

The year two thousand and thirteen draws to a close and it is time to look back and reflect on what has happened in terms of the Loch Ness Monster and events elsewhere which have an eye towards Loch Ness.

ANNIVERSARY

The most important event this year was the year itself as 2013 marked the 80th anniversary of the Loch Ness Monster phenomenon. Though legends and stories of strange creatures go back a lot further than 1933, this was the year that this now worldwide story was birthed and there is no sign of the old girl dying off yet. Not by a long chalk.

Mention Loch Ness to citizens across the world and the first thing they think of is Nessie. The two are inseparable and long may it continue. The Tourist agencies of Scotland may try to disassociate them and point to the other attractions of Loch Ness, but I suggest they cease and desist.

The story started with the sighting of a water disturbance and two humps seen by the Mackays around April 1933. I took a fresh look at this seminal story some months back. The exact date is not clear but the publishing of their story by the Inverness Courier on May 2nd 1933 can be regarded as the date of importance as far as public awareness is concerned.

To mark the event, a special symposium was arranged by Charles Paxton and Gordon Rutter and was held at the Counting House in Edinburgh in April. The event received publicity worldwide and was well attended as various speakers (including myself) held forth on various aspects of the phenomenon.

It was perhaps a sign of the times that the event was more sceptically leaning than the last symposium in 1987, but a show of hands in response to the simple question "Do you believe in the Loch Ness Monster?" was pretty much 50-50. I gave my own thoughts on the event here.

A week later, a special event to mark the Mackay sighting was held at Loch Ness itself and near the spot where Aldie Mackay spotted the double hump coursing its way across the loch. The event was suitably backed up by Birthday Cake and Whisky.

THE MONSTER

But what of the old beast herself this year past? Though there were things to discuss, sightings again were thin on the ground compared to previous years. By thin, I mean they were not reported in the general media as the number of people who believe they have seen something outnumbers those which make it into print. These days, I suspect you will need a video or photograph of some interest to make it into the public view. However, what turned up this year makes me dub this year, the Year of the Wave Like Nessie.

Firstly, the only sighting I am aware of is one I have not written about until now! It appeared on the Facebook page of the cruise company, Cruise Loch Ness. It goes like this: 

Three different people came to the Wheelhouse today to tell me that they had seen something in the Loch on the 2 o clock cruise. They all described a long black thing on the surface behind the 'Royal Scot' it was visible for a few seconds before disappearing. I wish they'd said something when they were watching it, as I was busy looking where we were going and missed it !! 

This happened on April 5th just the day before the aforementioned Edinburgh Symposium. The skipper, Marcus Atkinson, gave me further details:

I was skippering the Royal Scot when this happened, and it was me that posted on Facebook. It is unusual because, over the last few years no-one has ever mentioned seeing anything, then on one trip three different people from different parts of the boat came to the wheelhouse and mentioned seeing something? I remember that it was a flat day with no wind, and everyone pointed to the same spot on the loch.

At the time I didn't think much about it because - they were all pointing to the place on the Loch where the Royal Scot turns around. This off the horseshoe scree and on a windless day the wake from our voyage up will slowly move across the Loch, at times it does look like several humps moving across the water. Because I didn't see it, it's hard to say anything really. Other than I wish someone had pointed it out at the time!

One may suspect it was just a wave if it was not for the independent tourists who came to Marcus. Was it a Nessie-like Wave or a Wave-like Nessie putting in an appearance for it's 80th?

The wave theme continued with a video taken by David Elder in August when he spotted something snake like making its way across the loch near Fort Augustus. This one generated quite a few comments about waves being caused by long gone boats. A pretty convenient explanation I thought since it does not require any proving on the part of the sceptic. A look at the still below shows three distant white boats near the horizon which makes them over nine miles away based on a height above sea level of 62 feet. There are also some boats in another picture on the far south shore making their way towards the observer.

A bit too far away to leave much of a wave for my liking. Accepting the presence of large creatures in Loch Ness as I do, it is inevitable from my point of view that these creatures can put on wave-like appearances. Admittedly, not good enough for the sceptically minded, but one that I take into account.

The wave theme appeared one more time in November with Jonathan Bright's unusual photograph of something appearing behind a Jacobite cruise ship. This might well be the first infra-red picture of the Loch Ness Monster. Again, the wave explanation was offered and was critiqued on this website. It clearly generated a lot of interest as it currently stands as the seventh most accessed article on this blog.

Oh well, perhaps these three Nessie stories was her just giving us a "wave" on her birthday. Jonathan's photograph is an example of how stories can filter through from recent years. Not everything that makes the news need happen in the year of reporting it.

This was also the year that George Edwards came clean on his hump photograph. Thanks to a conversation Steve Feltham had, the fibreglass prop that was actually photographed was presented to the world. Though George confessed, he was not explicit on how the photograph came about.

THE MONEY MONSTER

That little episode brought into relief a conflict of sorts that rumbled through 2013. I speak not of so called "believers" or "non-believers" in Nessie but a conflict between Loch Ness businessmen and Loch Ness businessmen. Whether they believe there is a large monster in Loch Ness (and I doubt it), they certainly profit from it and where there is money to be made, there is potential for conflict.

George Edwards' stunt brought to light a war of words between such people as to how the Loch Ness Monster should be presented to the public. George's "end justifies the means" approach did not sit well with Tony Harmsworth who preferred the scientific approach. When the Drumnadrochit Chamber of Commerce told Tony to remove negative comments about Edwards from their website, he tendered his resignation.

The wars continued later in the Summer when the two competing exhibition centres at Drumnadrochit got into a tiff over what signs should be shown where. This resulted in one sign being taken and the owner of the Nessieland exhibition being arrested by the police over its theft!

BOOKS

In the world of print, three titles of contrasting nature came out in 2013. The best for me was the biography of famous monster hunter, Tim Dinsdale, titled "The Man Who Hunted Nessie". This was written by his youngest son, Angus. I reviewed this book here. The second book by J.F. Derry called "Loch Ness Monster and other Unexplained Mysteries" was more an anthology of photographs and stories as published by the British newspaper, the Daily Mirror.

In distinction to these was the sceptical tome "Abominable Science" written by Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero. I reviewed their chapter on the Loch Ness Monster or perhaps the better term is panned it. I gave it one star on amazon.com while nearly everyone else was praising it to the skies and the sceptics never forgave me for that! In fact, they focused on that more on than what I said because I was told the rating should be based on the whole book. Well, I have nearly finished the book and I may up it to two stars. But the fact that they complained more about that the exposure of  poor research suggested deflection tactics to me.

REST IN PEACE

This was the year we also said farewell to some people involved in the hunt for the Loch Ness Monster. The most prominent was the now legendary monster hunter, Professor Roy Mackal, who died of heart failure at the age of 88 in September. Roy joined the Loch Ness Phenomenon Investigation Bureau in 1965 and helped put the "Scientific" into "Investigation". You can read tributes to him by Loren Coleman (who broke the sad news), the Chicago Sun Times, Dick Raynor (who worked with him) and myself.

We also say "Rest In Peace" to Ken Wallis who died at the grand old age of 97. He famously employed his one man autogyro to help the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau perform any airborne surveys of Loch Ness - in case Nessie popped up to the surface. The Loch Ness Monster has been spotted from the air on at least one occassion, so the idea had merit. Doubtless, Mackal and Wallis would have met back then in 1970.

THE INVESTIGATION CONTINUES

Meanwhile, the search for the Loch Ness Monster continued in 2013. Aside from the myriads of tourists that hot summer, people such as myself and Gordon Holmes took the high road to Loch Ness in search of Nessie. I posted recently about Gordon's recent work and my own attempts to glimpse the creature. I always am thinking of a new angle to try and catch that elusive piece of evidence. Of course, there is nothing new there. The aforementioned Loch Ness Investigation Bureau brainstormed many a new technique into existence and some of their ideas are still employed today. The one I don't particularly fancy is "nightdrifting" where you drift around in a small boat in the darkest hours ... waiting for something. I would probably freeze to death first.

Back home, discoveries of a different kind were made as old stories came to light after decades of hiding and well known stories were re-examined. The well kent Jennifer Bruce photograph was shown to be more than just a passing seagull and I finished off my series on the Lachlan Stuart photograph. An old tale from the 1880s telling of a diver's encounter with a strange beast was found as was a curious photograph from 1938 which was closely correlated to a known sighting from the time. A recently obtained zoom in does not reveal much more but indicates some water disturbance to the left. In some ways, it is reminiscent of Gordon Holmes' 2007 video.

What will 2014 hold? God willing, I hope to be back at Loch Ness in April. I also plan to give a talk on recent events at Loch Ness in Edinburgh in March. That year will also mark the 80th anniversary of the most famous Nessie image of all, the Surgeon's Photograph, in April. So expect some media coverage around that time.

And again, we await that story or picture which continues to make the Loch Ness Monster a subject that is more than just interesting - it's an intriguing and enduring story.

A good New Year to you all when it comes.

Roswell: The Area 51 Connection?????

Roswell: The Area 51 Connection

 

In early July 1947, something very unusual plunged to earth on the Foster Ranch, located in the wilds of Lincoln County, New Mexico, not far from the now-infamous town of Roswell. The event has been the subject of dozens of books, official studies undertaken by both the General Accounting Office and the U.S. Air Force, a plethora of television documentaries, a Hollywood movie, and considerable media scrutiny.
The admittedly-odd saga has left in its wake a near-mountain of theories to explain the event, including a weather balloon, a Project Mogul balloon secretly utilized to monitor for Soviet atomic-bomb tests, an extraterrestrial spacecraft, some dark and dubious high-altitude-exposure experiment using Japanese prisoners-of-war, a near-catastrophic atomic-bomb-based mishap, the crash of a V-2 rocket with shaved monkeys on-board, and an accident involving an early “Flying-Wing”-style aircraft, secretly built by transplanted German scientists who had relocated to the United States following the end of World War Two.
And, as I’m sure many of you will be aware, last year yet another theory for the Roswell affair surfaced. The latest story appeared in Annie Jacobsen’s Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base. The book included details of a sensational story suggesting that the Roswell craft and bodies were, in reality, the diabolical creations of a near-Faustian pact between the notorious Nazi (and “Angel of Death),” Dr. Josef Mengele and Soviet premier, Joseph Stalin.

The purpose of this early Cold War plan, so the book told it, was to plunge the United States into a kind of War of the Worlds-style panic (echoing the Orson Welles affair of 1938) by trying to convince the U.S. Government that aliens were invading. And how would the plan work? By placing grossly mutated children (courtesy of the crazed Mengele) inside a futuristic-looking aircraft designed by the brilliant aviation experts, the Horten brothers, and then try and convince the U.S. of the alien origins of both.
Unfortunately for Stalin, the plot failed when a storm brought down the craft and its “crew” in the wilds of New Mexico, an event that did not lead to widespread panic, but that instead was hastily covered-up by U.S. military authorities.
Is the story true? Was Jacobsen duped? Is it a blend of fact and fiction specifically weaved by government insiders to even further confuse the true nature of what did, or did not, happen outside of Roswell back in the summer of 1947? The questions are many, but definitive answers are less so. But, there’s something else I want to talk about; something that is highly relevant to this particular saga.
The angle of insiders with links to Area 51 being told that Roswell was a Soviet hoax (involving genetically-altered human beings) is an intriguing one. Now, just so there can be no misunderstanding, I don’t mean that because it’s intriguing I believe it’s the answer to the puzzle. I certainly don’t think, at all, that this is the answer to Roswell. However, here’s the important thing: the scenario of Area 51-linked people being told such a story does not begin and end with Jacobsen’s informant.
In late 2010, my book, The NASA Conspiracies was published and included a whole chapter that told the tale of a man who had worked at Area 51 in the early 1970s, and who had heard a very similar story to that told to Jacobsen and which appeared in her 2011 book. It’s a strange and convoluted saga involving a man named John who was exposed to a series of weird and controversial files that told astonishing tales of alien visitation and UFO crashes in the early, formative years of the Flying Saucer era. But, were those files real? That’s the crux of John’s revelations, as you will now see.
As I note in my book, The NASA Conspiracies: “John stressed that although the documentation at issue certainly looked genuine, he was never able to entirely dismiss from his mind the possibility that his exposure to the files could have been a part of some large, and very curious and convoluted, mind game on the part of NASA and the intelligence services, such as the CIA, Air Force Intelligence, and the National Security Agency.”
I continue in the book as follows: “Since his work at Area 51 and his access to the files surfaced as a direct result of his FBI contacts, John speculated that his superiors may have exposed him to totally bogus materials at Area 51, and then watched his every move to see if he spoke out of turn, and to those without security clearances. The fact that John never did speak out of turn in that twelve month period, and was thereafter considered utterly trustworthy, led him to be rewarded with a near decade long career in the private security sector. It was a career that saw him move, practically effortlessly, within highly influential circles in the world of U.S. Intelligence that were totally unconnected to UFOs.”
To me, at least, this is all very refreshing. Whistle-blowers are generally extremely keen to have their story believed; but John noted to me from the absolute outset (and as the above extract clearly demonstrates) that the nature of the data to which he was exposed should be addressed very carefully, and not accepted uncritically at all. Maybe, as John noted, the documentation was entirely bogus, prepared by disinformation specialists to test his reaction and response.
But, there’s more. John related an aspect of the story to me, that was published in my NASA book, and which dealt with one specific set of papers that, today, we can see is highly relevant to the account provided to Jacobsen. I described it in the pages of my 2010 book like this:
“…John did assert, however, that there was a brief collection of documents dating from July 1947 speculating that this might have all been the result of a very ingenious hoax on the part of the Soviets – until, that is, it very quickly became acutely apparent to one and all that not even the Soviet Union would have had the required expertise to successfully pull off such a fantastic ruse, much less biologically alter, or mutate, a number of human beings into something very different.”
To me, this is important, as we have old files seen and read by John (that ultimately found their way to Area 51 – they did not originate there) discussing the two central points of the story told to Jacobsen: (A) the idea that Roswell was a Soviet ruse; and (B) the theory that the bodies found at the crash-site might have been biologically altered or mutated by the Russians.
The story told by John, and published by me in late-2010, is astonishingly close to the one provided to Jacobsen and that appeared in her 2011 book. The big difference, of course, is that Jacobsen’s Area 51 source believed the Russian theory, while the originators of the files read by John at Area 51 – and John himself, too – clearly did not accept it as having any validity at all.
But, that such files did apparently exist at Area 51, and did refer to both the Russian hoax angle and the issue of genetically altering human beings, does make me think that this Russian-themed story/theory was indeed in circulation amongst Area 51 personnel at some point decades ago.
And maybe some of those people who were exposed to the files, to the rumors, and (as John speculated as a possibility) to some weird loyalty-testing mind-game, came to accept the Russian story as being utterly genuine (such as Jacobsen’s source), when in reality the truth, as John noted, may have been very different.
This controversy, I suspect, is far from over…