Speaker 1: Strange Arrivals is a production of I Heeart three D
Speaker 1: audio for full exposure. Listen with headphones. Have you brought
Speaker 1: with you, um, some of those devices which would have
Speaker 1: enabled the CEE i A to use this poison for
Speaker 1: we have indeed for killing people. Just goal of fire
Speaker 1: the dart, Yes, it does, Mr Chairman. The that the
Speaker 1: round thing at the top is obviously the site. The
Speaker 1: rest of it is what is practically a normal forty five,
Speaker 1: although it's is special it however, it works by electricity.
Speaker 1: There's in battery and the handle and it fires a
Speaker 1: small dart so that when it fires, it fires silently,
Speaker 1: almost silently. Yes, that very little. What range does it have?
Speaker 1: Hundred meters? I believe about about a hundred yards a
Speaker 1: hundred about a hundred meters rank and the dark itself
Speaker 1: when it strikes the the the target. Um does the
Speaker 1: target know that he's about that he's been hit and
Speaker 1: about to die? That depends Mr Chairman on the particular
Speaker 1: dardas there are different kinds of easily. I'm Toby Ball
Speaker 1: and this is Strange Arrivals Episode ten. Enemy above Paul
Speaker 1: Benowitz's suspicions that UFOs were present around Curtland Air Force
Speaker 1: Space in Albuquerque, New Mexico, began in the late nineties seventies,
Speaker 1: as he filmed lights and picked up radio signals at
Speaker 1: his house just outside the gates separating the base from
Speaker 1: the civilian world. In the decades since the Condon Committee
Speaker 1: rendered its final word on UFOs and Project Blue Book
Speaker 1: was subsequently shut down, the American attitude towards the federal
Speaker 1: government had changed considerably. In some ways. Many Americans now
Speaker 1: felt the way UFO proponents had following the Robertson and
Speaker 1: Condon reports that the government held secrets and was willing
Speaker 1: to lie to the public in order to keep them.
Speaker 1: It brought a certain kind of conspiratorial thinking into the zeitgeist,
Speaker 1: a suspicion that the government was involved in dark things.
Speaker 1: In his book The United States of Paranoia, author Jesse
Speaker 1: Walker describes five archetypal conspiracy stories, the enemy below, the
Speaker 1: enemy within, the enemy outside, the enemy above, and the
Speaker 1: benevolent conspiracy. In the nineteen seventies, the enemy above archetype
Speaker 1: became more prominent. The enemy above is the kind of
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory that most people have in mind when they
Speaker 1: say conspiracy theory. It's the fear of powerful institutions. It's
Speaker 1: the fear of either the institutions themselves, the government, big business,
Speaker 1: the idea that the people within these institutions are conspiring
Speaker 1: against the public, or the idea that some sort of
Speaker 1: subversive forces trying to take control of those institutions um
Speaker 1: and use them as a tool to get whatever it
Speaker 1: wants from the public, which often involves a sort of
Speaker 1: a master slave relationship. So in general, you know, if
Speaker 1: you hear people talking about a c I, a conspiracy
Speaker 1: or something like that, that's the enemy above. And by
Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies there was no shortage of evidence
Speaker 1: of real conspiracies coming from inside the government, beginning of
Speaker 1: course with water Gate, and I think it you're also
Speaker 1: aware that the President has refused to honor the subpoena
Speaker 1: issued by this committee for tapes and including specifically uh
Speaker 1: these two tapes won the September fifteen tape and the
Speaker 1: Marks Point first tape. I think you're aware of that.
Speaker 1: I am aware of that yet, and that his reason
Speaker 1: for doing so has been on executive privilege and separation
Speaker 1: of power and reasons. Yes. University of New Hampshire History
Speaker 1: professor Kirk Dorsey it's not even so much to break in.
Speaker 1: It's all the revelations that Nixon was not just breaking
Speaker 1: into trying to find out about the Democratic Party, but
Speaker 1: that he had the FBI, the I R S, and
Speaker 1: the c i A all working against his enemies, that
Speaker 1: he had an enemy's list, and then he had those
Speaker 1: agencies actually working domestically. It indicated it wasn't just the president,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just one bad guy in the White House,
Speaker 1: but actually that he was able to corrupt all these
Speaker 1: other institutions. And if all those institutions could be corrupted
Speaker 1: so easily by Richard Dixon and nobody would have found out.
Speaker 1: You know, if they had hired good burglars, none of
Speaker 1: this would have happened. And I think it reinforced people's
Speaker 1: ideas so you can keep secrets and really big ones too.
Speaker 1: Less well known now, but also important were the findings
Speaker 1: of the Church Committee. We wouldn't have had the Church
Speaker 1: Commity with that Watergate because part of the reason why
Speaker 1: Senator Church has decided to run this investigation because the
Speaker 1: Democrats controlled the Senate is Frank Church from Idaho, was
Speaker 1: to basically say, we just found out that the president
Speaker 1: was using the CIA illegally. So we're going to use
Speaker 1: our new power with the weakening of the presidency to
Speaker 1: investigate the executive branch. And the CIA has never come
Speaker 1: clean to Congress about what it's doing, so we're going
Speaker 1: to start just piling up all the evidence we can
Speaker 1: in The Church Committee investigated intelligence abuses by the CIA,
Speaker 1: the FBI, the n s A, and the I r S.
Speaker 1: And it did two things. One is it revealed all
Speaker 1: these dark secrets that the United States have done overseas
Speaker 1: and domestically, but then also revealed things that had seemed
Speaker 1: to be successes that people knew about, like Guatemala and
Speaker 1: Iran interventions from the mid nineteen fifties, actually were a
Speaker 1: lot dirtier than they have been portrayed in the American people.
Speaker 1: Here we are talking about the CIA instigating coups against
Speaker 1: Jacobo are Bends in Guatemala in nineteen fifty four and
Speaker 1: Mohammed mosadag in Iran in nineteen fifty three. The free
Speaker 1: those taken prisoner earlier, and a storm the House of Massartic.
Speaker 1: The Foreign Minister Fatimi gets through first to books that
Speaker 1: he was told to pieces had not been confirmed. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the mob flopped the streets demanding the return of the
Speaker 1: Shop Masodic and his government has swept from power in
Speaker 1: favorite of General Zahidi, the man appointed by the Shop
Speaker 1: in the first place, and assassination attempts against, among others,
Speaker 1: Patrice La Mumba in the Congo, whose murder was not
Speaker 1: conclusively tied to the CIA and Fidel Castro. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the particular things in the Church Committee wasn't
Speaker 1: revealed how the CIA and both the Nixon and Kennedy
Speaker 1: administrations contracted with mafia killers to get rid of Castro.
Speaker 1: They couldn't even claim it was, you know, law and order.
Speaker 1: I think some of those documents from the Church Committee
Speaker 1: showed that they were giving poison capsules to the mob
Speaker 1: to use against Castro. So it's it's revealing a CIA
Speaker 1: that's just out of control, not very smart, and hardly
Speaker 1: the best and the brightest, And it just reinforces this
Speaker 1: notion that the federal government was worse than incompetent. It
Speaker 1: was corrupt and incompetent, which is a pretty bad combindation.
Speaker 1: So what happens when you have a whole lot of
Speaker 1: real life conspiracies revealed is it of course makes people
Speaker 1: more willing to imagine further conspiracies. What it was revealed
Speaker 1: the CIA had been doing a rug experiments, surreptitiously giving
Speaker 1: LSD to unwitting subjects and recording their reactions and seeing
Speaker 1: if this could be used, you know, in sort of
Speaker 1: the circumststances of brainwashing, resisting brainwashing and so on. This
Speaker 1: is the infamous Project mk Ultra. So once it's revealed
Speaker 1: that the CIA is doing something like that, it becomes
Speaker 1: a lot easier for people to imagine, well, maybe they
Speaker 1: killed JFK. The imagination takes an extra leap forward. A
Speaker 1: number of people were already thinking along those lines about JFK,
Speaker 1: but this made that much more imaginable for other people.
Speaker 1: This new strain of conspiratorial thinking began to show up
Speaker 1: in popular culture a decade a decade and a half
Speaker 1: before all these mid nineteen seventies investigations, Your average Just
Speaker 1: Spy movie was American Spy was almost certainly going to
Speaker 1: be the hero. You're gonna sympathize with him as he
Speaker 1: struggles against either the Communists or some sort of imaginary
Speaker 1: terror conspiracy like Specter in the seventies. Of course, you
Speaker 1: have this big wave of conspiracy thrillers where the U. S.
Speaker 1: Government is the enemy or is allied with the enemy.
Speaker 1: Since the assassination, six of these people have died in
Speaker 1: some kind of an accident. There is no evidence of
Speaker 1: a conspiracy, and once that becomes a part of the conversation,
Speaker 1: that in turn also makes it easier for people to
Speaker 1: imagine real conspiracies. America has always been a home for
Speaker 1: conspiratorial thinking, and the nineteen seventies didn't necessarily see an
Speaker 1: increase in this thought. But instead of change and the
Speaker 1: focus of these fears, it's that people's conspiracy theories were
Speaker 1: more likely to start. Institutions like the CIA, the FBI,
Speaker 1: of the White House, and if you look at the
Speaker 1: polls that sort of look at the levels of public trust,
Speaker 1: you know, the US government itself and in different agencies
Speaker 1: of the U. S. Government, I mean the CIA and
Speaker 1: the FBI, They their numbers took a lunch. So it's
Speaker 1: important to understand the tenor of the times because when
Speaker 1: Paul Benowitz was contacted by Air Force Office of Special
Speaker 1: Investigations agent Richard Doughty, he wasn't just vulnerable to influence
Speaker 1: because of his belief in the reality of aliens visiting Earth.
Speaker 1: He was also vulnerable because he lived in a society
Speaker 1: that believed that the government did bad things in secret.
Speaker 1: On October, Benewitz, acting out of a patriotic sense of duty,
Speaker 1: called Curtland Air Force Bass head of Security, Major Ernest
Speaker 1: Edwards and told him about what he had filmed and
Speaker 1: recorded over the previous months. After this call, Major Edwards
Speaker 1: got in touch with Richard Doughty, I was a counter
Speaker 1: intelligence officer for the base. He gave me all the
Speaker 1: information that Paul had given him. So I said, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. So I made an appointment and went out
Speaker 1: and talked to Paul. Paul told me the same stories,
Speaker 1: shared everything that he had done. I immediately sent a
Speaker 1: message up to headquarters. Headquarters said, started an investigation. Then
Speaker 1: I got ahold of a man by the name of
Speaker 1: Jerry Miller. Miller was a scientist and former Project Bluebook investigator.
Speaker 1: We found that what the signals at Paul was gathering
Speaker 1: was a very highly classified n S A project that
Speaker 1: was occurring on base. It's no longer classified. We were
Speaker 1: shooting lasers into the air when Soviet satellites were flying
Speaker 1: over the base, and we were hitting the lens of
Speaker 1: the Soviet satellites, blinding them, preventing them from taking pictures
Speaker 1: of the base. Well, somehow Paul tapped into that. Paul
Speaker 1: also was taking pictures of a highly classified drone project
Speaker 1: that was being experimented with on the base. Back in
Speaker 1: drones were highly classified. What they did back in those days.
Speaker 1: They would have a controlling aircraft that would launch these drones,
Speaker 1: and they would control the drones from inside aircraft, so
Speaker 1: the aircraft was always in close proximity to these drones.
Speaker 1: So these drones would be flying close around these aircraft,
Speaker 1: and it looked like there was some maybe danger or
Speaker 1: hostility of these drones stores that aircraft, but actually that
Speaker 1: aircraft was a controlling aircraft. This is probably as good
Speaker 1: a time as any to reiterate my words of caution
Speaker 1: about Rick Doughty from last episode. Doty spent years planting
Speaker 1: disinformation in the UFO community, an effort we are looking
Speaker 1: at in this episode in the next. It makes sense
Speaker 1: to believe that anything that he says is in furtherance
Speaker 1: of this goal, even though he is long retired. I
Speaker 1: don't know why he would be any more honest with
Speaker 1: me than anyone else. Some of the things he says,
Speaker 1: less sensational things are consistent with other accounts of the
Speaker 1: same events. Other things, including the more sensational things, should
Speaker 1: be treated as untrustworthy. With that in mind, here's Doady again.
Speaker 1: So when we found all this out, the project I
Speaker 1: was told to do was convinced Paul that what he
Speaker 1: was seeing was in fact UFOs And it wasn't difficult
Speaker 1: to do because Paul was a member of MUFON and
Speaker 1: a pro. MOUFON and APRO were two civilian UFO investigation organizations.
Speaker 1: MOUFON is still active today. Paul had been a field
Speaker 1: investigator for MUFON and APRO for a number of years.
Speaker 1: Paul was already a believer in UFOs, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: difficult for us to convince Paul that what he was
Speaker 1: seeing with UFO, and that's what we wanted him to think,
Speaker 1: to prevent him from maybe disclosing the fact that we
Speaker 1: were testing classified drones or classified leisure project. In fact,
Speaker 1: in addition to his documenting the Curtland Lights, he was
Speaker 1: also focusing attention on a place called the Archiletta Mesa,
Speaker 1: which rises up to over nine thousand feet in altitude
Speaker 1: in northern New Mexico. Paul was a pilot. He had
Speaker 1: a plane and he would fly all over. He flew
Speaker 1: a person up to Dulcie, New Mexico once and and
Speaker 1: when he was coming back, he saw some strange things
Speaker 1: occurring in Archiletta Peak, which is east of Dulcie, very
Speaker 1: strange things, and he flew up there a number of times,
Speaker 1: photographing a lot of these strange occurrences. Paul was told
Speaker 1: within the UFO community that there was an underground UFO
Speaker 1: based up there, and so Paul was convinced it was
Speaker 1: UFO related. I went up there with Paul once and
Speaker 1: we saw some strange things happening up on top of
Speaker 1: the Archiletta Peak, and I didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1: So I started checking within the intelligence community, and I
Speaker 1: found out there was a special unit at Fort Carson, Colorado,
Speaker 1: near four Collins that was using that area. What Doughty
Speaker 1: says he learned was that it was a Special Forces
Speaker 1: training area and the lights have been planted in the
Speaker 1: ground to guide incoming helicopters. Now, if you're standing below
Speaker 1: down on the ground, several thousand feet down from the
Speaker 1: top of the Archipelata Peak, you saw these lights turn on,
Speaker 1: they look like especially if if they were hitting the cloud,
Speaker 1: they looked like UFOs flying up there. So what Paul
Speaker 1: was seeing wasn't actually just just lights that were built
Speaker 1: into the MESA up there, and and and it had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the UFOs. Doty says that he
Speaker 1: couldn't tell Bennewit's the truth about the area because the
Speaker 1: project was classified. Whether that was the reason or not,
Speaker 1: Doty used the lights to reinforce Bennewitz's suspicions about the MESA.
Speaker 1: So that was another maybe disinformation statement I gave to Paul. Now,
Speaker 1: remember Doughty was tasked with sewing disinformation, and I have
Speaker 1: no reason to believe he didn't use our interview to
Speaker 1: continue that work. With that in mind, he told me
Speaker 1: this strange story. Now, another interesting thing occurred a couple
Speaker 1: of years later. Paul was flying up to Dolcie and
Speaker 1: he had a one of his employees seated with him
Speaker 1: and and they had a camera. As they were coming
Speaker 1: back about over where red Rivers located, baub Bennouits encounter
Speaker 1: the UFO, a huge UFO that he took pictures of,
Speaker 1: and he saw into the UFO he saw a little
Speaker 1: creatures inside through the window of portals. When Paul got back,
Speaker 1: he called me and said, you're not gonna believe what
Speaker 1: I got. I said, what do you have? He said,
Speaker 1: I got pictures of a real UFO, A big UFO,
Speaker 1: huge UFO that I almost collided with over Red River
Speaker 1: in New Mexico. Paul had his own photo lap so
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I'll come over and let me come
Speaker 1: over and look at these pictures. I went over there.
Speaker 1: I looked at these pictures. That was astounded. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I know of what I've seen in classified documents,
Speaker 1: and this object was huge. And I said, well, gosh,
Speaker 1: you you photographed are real and you all a huge one.
Speaker 1: He said, that's a mother ship. I know it's a mothership.
Speaker 1: So I sent those pictures up the headquarters and they
Speaker 1: were astounded by it, but they didn't have an answer
Speaker 1: what they were. Where this scraft came from. Duty says.
Speaker 1: He asked ben a Witz if he'd shared them with
Speaker 1: the UFO community. He said, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no. I'm afraid it's too hostile. I don't
Speaker 1: want anybody else to know about it. And I took
Speaker 1: his pictures and I also took his negatives and we
Speaker 1: sent him up to why Shehington of the chain And
Speaker 1: of course people ask me today where are they? Where
Speaker 1: are they? Well, they're up there someplace. Do you think
Speaker 1: the government's going to release that stuff? No, they're not
Speaker 1: going to release it. During this time, Bennowitz also took
Speaker 1: photos of a crashed craft of some sort on the
Speaker 1: mesa maybe an early version of the Stealth Fighter or
Speaker 1: a drone author Greg Bishop. So nobody knows exactly what
Speaker 1: he took pictures of because all the pictures of an
Speaker 1: actual crash were stolen out of his house, and Doty
Speaker 1: said either he or somebody in the Air Force did
Speaker 1: it because they didn't find him to have for his pictures,
Speaker 1: So they would break into his house and like go
Speaker 1: through it stuff and sometimes move furniture around just to
Speaker 1: mess with him, which none of this is ethical or proper,
Speaker 1: but that's what they did. I think they thought, especially
Speaker 1: somebody like Dotie, thinks, you know, if I can accomplish
Speaker 1: the mission, that you know, I can pretty much do
Speaker 1: what I want. This effort came to include more direct
Speaker 1: methods to amplify Bennewood his paranoia, which took a very
Speaker 1: dark turn. After the break, as the Air Force continued
Speaker 1: its disinformation campaign against Paul Benowitz, they allegedly gave him
Speaker 1: some new computer software that they said would help in
Speaker 1: deciphering the signals he was picking up from Kurtland. The
Speaker 1: translated messages were intended to further trigger his paranoia. Bennewitz
Speaker 1: considered his work to be a kind of scientific study,
Speaker 1: and he produced a report summarizing his conclusions, titled Project Beta.
Speaker 1: It is, to say the least, a troubling document. In it,
Speaker 1: Benewitz details his certain of a hostile, devious alien presence
Speaker 1: and the existential threat that they presented. Here are a
Speaker 1: few excerpts that give you an idea of the sense
Speaker 1: of dread that pervades his writings. It is important to
Speaker 1: note at the outset the alien is devious employees deception,
Speaker 1: has no intent of any apparent peace making process, and
Speaker 1: obviously does not adhere to any prior arranged agreement. In truth,
Speaker 1: they tend to lie. However, their memory for line is
Speaker 1: not long, and direct comparative computer print out analysis reveals
Speaker 1: this fact. They are picking up and cutting, as the
Speaker 1: alien calls it, many people every night. Each implanted individual
Speaker 1: is apparently ready for the pull of their switch. Whether
Speaker 1: all implants are totally effective I cannot predict, but conservatively
Speaker 1: I would estimate at least three thousand or more in
Speaker 1: the US and at least two hundred million, if not more, worldwide.
Speaker 1: They appear to be totally death oriented, and because of this,
Speaker 1: absolutely death fear oriented. This is a psychological advantage. No negotiation, agreement,
Speaker 1: nor peaceful compromise can be settled upon in any way.
Speaker 1: No agreement signed by both parties will ever be adhered to,
Speaker 1: nor recognized and respected by the alien, though they may
Speaker 1: attempt to make us believe otherwise. This analysis has entered
Speaker 1: the wilder realms of UFO folklore. Greg Bishop. The aftermath
Speaker 1: of this is, you know, adulcie underground based rumors those
Speaker 1: got started then, like aliens are here have making deals
Speaker 1: with the United States government in exchange for who knows what,
Speaker 1: you know, abduction rights or some thing like that. I've
Speaker 1: seen a letter where somebody wrote to him and told
Speaker 1: him that all spiritual teachers throughout history where either aliens
Speaker 1: or influenced by them or whatever. All these things that
Speaker 1: were floating around in the late eighties and early nineties
Speaker 1: being told to Paul Benewits. A lot of them ended
Speaker 1: up in the UFO mythos, and it's still there a
Speaker 1: lot of them. And I don't think there's any underground
Speaker 1: basis with aliens in them. There's certainly our underground basis.
Speaker 1: There's tons of them, there's tons of underground facilities. But
Speaker 1: as far as having anything to do with extraterrestrials, I
Speaker 1: seriously got that. If you search, they'll say aliens on Google.
Speaker 1: You can read all kinds of wild stories about secret treaties,
Speaker 1: reptilian aliens, and battles between humans and extraterrestrials and underground bases,
Speaker 1: like I said, the fringes of UFO folklore. Eventually, Benewit's
Speaker 1: got more and more paranoid, And there's a dispute as
Speaker 1: to whether he was already sort of paranoid before he
Speaker 1: talked to the Airforce or not. I still think he was,
Speaker 1: and that this episode just made it worse, and the
Speaker 1: Air Force and the various intelligence agencies just made it
Speaker 1: worse by encouraging him and occasionally by feeding him disinformation.
Speaker 1: Another story that comes out of the Benewit's affair involves
Speaker 1: the passing of an altered document. According to this story,
Speaker 1: Doughty used a man named Bill Moore as an intermediary
Speaker 1: to Benewitz. You might remember Bill Moore from the previous episode.
Speaker 1: He was one of the authors of the book that
Speaker 1: brought Roswell back to public attention. Anyway, Doughty again allegedly
Speaker 1: gave more a document to pass to his friend Benowitz.
Speaker 1: Bill Moore was told to give him a teletype that
Speaker 1: mentioned UFO activity and interest around UFO activity, and actually
Speaker 1: mentioned one of the sightings that he had or a document.
Speaker 1: And so Bill was told to give this document to Beneuits.
Speaker 1: And what Bill told me is he took it to him.
Speaker 1: He said, this is the only thing he ever gave
Speaker 1: to him. I trust him because Bill has never lied
Speaker 1: to me. He said, he took this document down there,
Speaker 1: and at night, after his company was closed, benewits his company,
Speaker 1: he said, I have to talk to you. We have
Speaker 1: to go in the supply closet. He went in the
Speaker 1: supply closet, turned the radio out, and gave him the
Speaker 1: document and yelled in his ear. I was told to
Speaker 1: give this to you. Take it with a grain assault.
Speaker 1: The document, which was made to appear as an official
Speaker 1: government teletype, essentially said that while the Air Force was
Speaker 1: no longer officially investigating UFOs, IT and other government agencies
Speaker 1: led by NASA, we're continuing to investigate legitimate sightings in secret.
Speaker 1: It also includes these two sentences. The official US REMNT
Speaker 1: policy and results of Project Aquarius is still classified top secret,
Speaker 1: with no dissemination outside official intelligence channels, and with restricted
Speaker 1: access to m J twelve. Cason Benewitz is being monitored
Speaker 1: by NASA I N S who requests all future evidence
Speaker 1: to be forwarded to them through a f O S
Speaker 1: I I v O E. There are two interesting things here.
Speaker 1: One is that last sentence that indicates continued federal interest
Speaker 1: in Benowitz's work. It must be there to further convince
Speaker 1: Benowits that he is on the right track regarding UFOs.
Speaker 1: The second interesting thing is the allusion to Project Aquarius
Speaker 1: and m J twelve, which is the first mention of
Speaker 1: what would become a major part of modern UFO folklore,
Speaker 1: with Bill Moore right in the middle. We will look
Speaker 1: at this in the next episode. Doughty more or less
Speaker 1: denies being behind the passing of this document to Benewitz.
Speaker 1: Well number one, I never passed anything to Paul Benowitz.
Speaker 1: That had anything new with him J twelve. I never
Speaker 1: passed Paul Benowitz any classified documents. That's absolutely maloney. You
Speaker 1: can parse this statement and note that he doesn't rule
Speaker 1: out giving something to more to pass to Benewits that
Speaker 1: involved MJ twelve, or that the memo might not have
Speaker 1: been classified, and therefore he's not ruling it out for
Speaker 1: that reason. But regardless of whether Doughty was behind it
Speaker 1: or not, Benewitz received the document. I'll also note that
Speaker 1: another reason for considering the possibility that Doughty didn't pass
Speaker 1: on the memo is that the Air Force Office of
Speaker 1: Special Investigations was not the only federal agency with interest
Speaker 1: in Paul Benowitz. Myself, another agent and Jerry May were
Speaker 1: at Paul's house one night, the rainy night now Abuquerque.
Speaker 1: His wife comes in and said there's a red light
Speaker 1: in the house across the street. And we looked at
Speaker 1: her like, okay, what does that mean? And Paul says,
Speaker 1: the house is vacant. So when we went out and
Speaker 1: looked out his window, we could see a red light
Speaker 1: and it's more or less like a camera light or something.
Speaker 1: Paul says, they're keeping track of me, and well, I
Speaker 1: knew we weren't doing it, and I knew the FBI
Speaker 1: wasn't doing it because we were FBI was closely involved
Speaker 1: in this. I thought, hmm, well who's doing it? So
Speaker 1: myself and this other agent go down and we were
Speaker 1: got guns, were federal agents. We go down and we
Speaker 1: walked over there. About that time we got there, these
Speaker 1: two men were walking out of the house and we
Speaker 1: confronted them. We identified ourselves and we said, who are
Speaker 1: you guys? Well, they identified themselves too, as agents with
Speaker 1: a national security agency. According to Doughty, there follows a
Speaker 1: classic scene where each group tries to assert their claim
Speaker 1: to priority in the case. So the next day I
Speaker 1: went out and I knew the supervisor n s A
Speaker 1: on the base as a highly classified location, and I
Speaker 1: was I had a pass to give them as as
Speaker 1: what the heck are you guys doing investigating Paul Benowitz?
Speaker 1: Oh that's classified? I said, I'll give a crap what
Speaker 1: classification is. You're gonna brief me right now because that's
Speaker 1: our operation. You're interfering with our operation. And I just
Speaker 1: sent a message up the headquarters. Oh let me get
Speaker 1: you cleared. Let me get you cleared. Doughty was allegedly
Speaker 1: cleared to be given information about the n s AS
Speaker 1: interests in Benewitz, and this is where he says he
Speaker 1: learned about the laser program to foil the Soviet satellites.
Speaker 1: And about ten days later they sent me down and said,
Speaker 1: you continue what you're doing. You are the lead agency,
Speaker 1: not n s A, not the FBI. Paul Benewitz was
Speaker 1: the subject of operations involving at least three government agencies,
Speaker 1: and the pressure that this exerted on him led to
Speaker 1: a deteriorating mental state. So anyway, eventually ben Benewitz gets
Speaker 1: more and more scared, He gets more and more paranoid,
Speaker 1: to the point at which he has to be His
Speaker 1: family's fears for his health and puts him in a
Speaker 1: mental health facility for a couple of months. People have
Speaker 1: this idea that, oh, he was in he was in
Speaker 1: the balloon, even for the rest of his life. Like now.
Speaker 1: He went to a place for maybe a month or two,
Speaker 1: he came out, and then he pretty much stopped the
Speaker 1: level activity that he had. He was still interested in
Speaker 1: the subject, but he realized if he got too close
Speaker 1: he would probably fall over that cliff again, and him
Speaker 1: and his family didn't want that anymore. And this is
Speaker 1: the final part of the Benewitz legend, that he was
Speaker 1: intentionally driven crazy by the government. And while you can
Speaker 1: argue about whether he was already paranoid and all the
Speaker 1: disinformation campaign did was to give him the final nudge,
Speaker 1: there's really no disputing the reality that in order to
Speaker 1: preserve some military secrets, government agents prayed on his mental health.
Speaker 1: Author of the Unidentified Mythical Monsters Alien Encounters in Our
Speaker 1: Obsession with the Unexplained, Colin Dickey, and then I came
Speaker 1: across the story Paul Benewitz, and I was frankly flabbergasted
Speaker 1: by the depths of cynicism and uh sort of disdain
Speaker 1: with which a you know, a government operation would treat
Speaker 1: not just an American citizen, but a veteran and someone
Speaker 1: who worked for the government and deeply loved his government.
Speaker 1: The Air Force could have called in Paul Benewits and said,
Speaker 1: you know, look what you saw was classified, and you,
Speaker 1: being a good patriot, we're just going to ask you
Speaker 1: to just stop sending up those images. And I have
Speaker 1: no reason to think that Paul Benowitz, who's not only
Speaker 1: was a patriot, but his livelihood he worked. His company
Speaker 1: was Air Force Contractors, so there's no reason he would
Speaker 1: have sacrificed his livelihood. But they don't do that. Instead,
Speaker 1: they say, we are going to pump this guy with
Speaker 1: an elaborate campaign of disinformation, this very bizarre and elaborate,
Speaker 1: sustained campaign to take a you know, a law abiding
Speaker 1: and patriotic American citizen and basically more or less drive
Speaker 1: him crazy, to like push him to the point where
Speaker 1: nobody would take him seriously because he was advancing these
Speaker 1: wild and unverifiable theories about aliens. It's a really sad
Speaker 1: and tragic story. I mean, there's there's so much like
Speaker 1: pathos involved in there, and also I think it does
Speaker 1: speak to a kind of weird cynicism that seems to
Speaker 1: drive some levels of the U. S. Government and among
Speaker 1: the people in the UFO community who knew the story.
Speaker 1: It made the case that the enemy above thread of
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory wasn't just something they'd see on the news
Speaker 1: or in the movies. It was something that could be
Speaker 1: directed towards them. And they weren't wrong. You see, Paul
Speaker 1: Benewitz wasn't the only person who Richard Dody in the
Speaker 1: Air Force Office of special investigations targeted. One operation in
Speaker 1: particular would change the face of the UFO mythos and
Speaker 1: lead to a public repudiation of the disinformation campaign Next
Speaker 1: time on Strange Arrivals. Strange Arrivals is a production of
Speaker 1: i Heeart, three D Audio and Grimm and Mild from
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey. This episode was written and hosted by Toby
Speaker 1: Ball and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Josh Thame, with
Speaker 1: executive producers Alex Williams, Matt Frederick and Aaron Manky, and
Speaker 1: special thanks to Wendy Connors, creator of the Faded Discs
Speaker 1: archive of UFO related to audio on archive dot org.
Speaker 1: Learn more about Strange Rivals over at Grimm and Mile
Speaker 1: dot com, and find more podcasts from my heart Radio
Speaker 1: by visiting the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.