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Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth
The shocking true story of the United States government’s quest to hide the reality of extraterrestrial contact, even at the cost of its citizens.
In 1978, Paul Bennewitz, an electrical physicist living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, became convinced that the strange lights he saw hovering in the night sky were extraterrestrial. He reached out to newspapers, senators, and even the president before anyone responded. Air Force investigators listened to his story, as did Bill Moore, the author of the first book on the infamous Roswell UFO incident.
Unbeknownst to Bennewitz, Moore was hired by a group of intelligence agents to keep tabs on Bennewitz while the Air Force ran a psychological profile and disinformation campaign on the unsuspecting physicist. In return, Air Force Intelligence would let Moore in on classified UFO material.
What follows is a scandalous true tale of disinformation, corruption, and exploitation, all at the hands of the United States intelligence community.
In 1978, Paul Bennewitz, an electrical physicist living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, became convinced that the strange lights he saw hovering in the night sky were extraterrestrial. He reached out to newspapers, senators, and even the president before anyone responded. Air Force investigators listened to his story, as did Bill Moore, the author of the first book on the infamous Roswell UFO incident.
Unbeknownst to Bennewitz, Moore was hired by a group of intelligence agents to keep tabs on Bennewitz while the Air Force ran a psychological profile and disinformation campaign on the unsuspecting physicist. In return, Air Force Intelligence would let Moore in on classified UFO material.
What follows is a scandalous true tale of disinformation, corruption, and exploitation, all at the hands of the United States intelligence community.
288 pages, Paperback
First published February 8, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
April 6, 2018
Crashed spaceships. Alien abductions. Cattle mutilations. Bases that don't officially exist like Dulce Base in New Mexico. Thanks to countless movies and TV shows, these conspiracy theories regarding government cover-ups regarding the UFO phenomenon are known to millions around the world. The origins of such ideas are far more humble, troubling, and far closer to home as Greg Bishop reveals in his 2005 book Project Beta.
Project Beta traces the incredible but true story of electronics engineer and businessman Paul Bennewitz who lived near New Mexico's Kirtland Air Force Base. When in 1979 he noticed strange phenomenon at and near the base that he captured on tape and film, he brought it to the attention of the government and military. In time, he would believe that reports of abductions and cattle mutilations were harbingers of a malevolent extraterrestrial invasion.
Which, as time would reveal, is precisely what those very people wanted him to believe.
Bishop explores how a disinformation campaign was launched, nominally by the US Air Force's Office Of Special Investigations (AFSOI), against not just Bennewitz but the world of Ufology at large. It's a story with a cast of characters including AFSOI agent Richard Doty whose job it was to pass information onto Bennewitz and others including Bill Moore who would make a Faustian bargain in the hope of discovering what the government actually knew only to pay a heavy price. Also drawn into this web are New Mexico State Police officer Gabe Valdez and filmmaker Linda Molten Howe whose investigations into facets of the enigma leave them entangled as well.
And what a web did Doty, the AFSOI, the NSA, and other agencies weave. They created a many-headed Hydra that would drive Bennewitz not only to write a lengthy report sent to countless people in government that lends the book its title (reprinted in full here for the first time) but into a severe mental state. They also created a schism still evident in the world of Ufology decades later with no one quite sure of what to believe. In doing so, they birthed a mythology which has blossomed into something with a terrible beauty all its own.
The question readers might be left asking is simple: Why? What did Bennewitz stumble across and why did those he told in government and military do so much discord? Was it to protect any number of things from the early development of stealth technology in the 1980s to drones in more recent times? Is it to cover up what the US government actually knows about UFOs? Or is the truth somewhere in the middle perhaps, having been irrevocably distorted by the ongoing need for “national security”?
At the end of the day, neither Bishop nor his book claims to have all the answers. What they have is a fascinating tale that takes the reader on a journey into the birth of modern UFO lore and how it would eventually seep into popular culture. It's also a modern Faust tale of deals made with the devil that backfired spectacularly.
Only this one is all too true.
Project Beta traces the incredible but true story of electronics engineer and businessman Paul Bennewitz who lived near New Mexico's Kirtland Air Force Base. When in 1979 he noticed strange phenomenon at and near the base that he captured on tape and film, he brought it to the attention of the government and military. In time, he would believe that reports of abductions and cattle mutilations were harbingers of a malevolent extraterrestrial invasion.
Which, as time would reveal, is precisely what those very people wanted him to believe.
Bishop explores how a disinformation campaign was launched, nominally by the US Air Force's Office Of Special Investigations (AFSOI), against not just Bennewitz but the world of Ufology at large. It's a story with a cast of characters including AFSOI agent Richard Doty whose job it was to pass information onto Bennewitz and others including Bill Moore who would make a Faustian bargain in the hope of discovering what the government actually knew only to pay a heavy price. Also drawn into this web are New Mexico State Police officer Gabe Valdez and filmmaker Linda Molten Howe whose investigations into facets of the enigma leave them entangled as well.
And what a web did Doty, the AFSOI, the NSA, and other agencies weave. They created a many-headed Hydra that would drive Bennewitz not only to write a lengthy report sent to countless people in government that lends the book its title (reprinted in full here for the first time) but into a severe mental state. They also created a schism still evident in the world of Ufology decades later with no one quite sure of what to believe. In doing so, they birthed a mythology which has blossomed into something with a terrible beauty all its own.
The question readers might be left asking is simple: Why? What did Bennewitz stumble across and why did those he told in government and military do so much discord? Was it to protect any number of things from the early development of stealth technology in the 1980s to drones in more recent times? Is it to cover up what the US government actually knows about UFOs? Or is the truth somewhere in the middle perhaps, having been irrevocably distorted by the ongoing need for “national security”?
At the end of the day, neither Bishop nor his book claims to have all the answers. What they have is a fascinating tale that takes the reader on a journey into the birth of modern UFO lore and how it would eventually seep into popular culture. It's also a modern Faust tale of deals made with the devil that backfired spectacularly.
Only this one is all too true.
July 16, 2016
Closer to a 3.5.
I forget what the conversation was that turned me onto this book, but considering the constant enjoyment I get from UFOs and first contact stuff as well a weird government conspiracies, this book is a nice little intersection for all of those things.
In this book, though, it's about the federal government allegedly actively waging a disinformation campaign with one man who was seeing more than he should have near a military base. The lengths and the depth of the disinformation campaign are impressive on their own, and the end result is something both fascinating and infuriating, given the source of the disinformation.
The book itself is a pretty quick, straightforward read, and that's probably where the flaw is. Little effort is made to make this an engaging read as much as a straightforward popcorn flick, and that's unfortunate because there are other books like it that make for a more compelling narrative with the description of the events. Still, there's a fair amount of meat here, and a fairly fascinating take on a piece of American lore that gets basically zero play.
Worth a read if you like UFOs and such, but far from a necessary one.
I forget what the conversation was that turned me onto this book, but considering the constant enjoyment I get from UFOs and first contact stuff as well a weird government conspiracies, this book is a nice little intersection for all of those things.
In this book, though, it's about the federal government allegedly actively waging a disinformation campaign with one man who was seeing more than he should have near a military base. The lengths and the depth of the disinformation campaign are impressive on their own, and the end result is something both fascinating and infuriating, given the source of the disinformation.
The book itself is a pretty quick, straightforward read, and that's probably where the flaw is. Little effort is made to make this an engaging read as much as a straightforward popcorn flick, and that's unfortunate because there are other books like it that make for a more compelling narrative with the description of the events. Still, there's a fair amount of meat here, and a fairly fascinating take on a piece of American lore that gets basically zero play.
Worth a read if you like UFOs and such, but far from a necessary one.
June 23, 2017
I'm fairly certain the mythology laid out in the Bennewitz Affair is what put the final straw in the coffin of ufology. Because the narrative lives on today. It is no coincidence that the X-files, airing shortly after the events in this book played out, ran with the mythology and ingrained it into the public. No fault of Chris Carter and the team behind the X-files. But for those seeking information about UFOs, things that are unidentified in the skies that appear to be of intelligent control, the story the AFOSI and NSA fed to Paul Bennewitz is what first comes to mind. And it was a lie.
The story that aliens came here in flying saucers in the 1940s, the story that a ship crashed in Roswell, NM, the story of abductions and cattle mutilations and underground bases and secret deals between alien invaders and government officials...this all solidifies with what some factions of the United States government decided to feed an inquisitive scientific genius who lived outside the Kirtland Air force base in the 1980s. The frayed ends made over decades before, were spliced together in a grand scheme to keep government secrets, secret.
Paul Bennewitz was photographing strange aerial phenomena and picking up odd electronic signals from the area of Kirtland Air force base, which was literally across the street from his home. He approached the base in order to report his findings and his suspicion that ET was here. In order to keep an eye on Bennewitz and his "findings", and in order to divert his attention away from picking up secret military and government projects, members of the AFOSI and NSA decided to put tails on Bennewitz, decided to coddle him and feed into his suspicions. They gave him a computer that was rigged to make it look like he was getting messages from ET. They fed him stories that he was really on to something. They befriended him and acted like his findings were true. And then he went insane, literally ending up in a mental hospital.
Paul Bennewitz's masterpiece, if you will, was a report he called Project Beta, which detailed his findings and offered it to the government for review. And they abused him for it, believing one man's psychological stability was worth destroying in order to keep government secrets, secret.
The Bennewitz Affair is a must know for anyone interested in how far government is willing to go to forge stories, even in the most fantastic vein, to keep secrets. You're not killed off. You're toyed with and used to divert attention and sometimes, not made to look crazy. But actually become crazy.
A must read for anyone interested in the history of UFOs because the narrative here, is a lie concocted by intelligence agents that this writer is certain, have no problem continuing with. It keeps very human secret technology seen in the skies from being taken seriously when someone reports it. After all, if it's crazy to believe in UFOs, no one will believe you. Hiding in plain site is the best strategy.
The story that aliens came here in flying saucers in the 1940s, the story that a ship crashed in Roswell, NM, the story of abductions and cattle mutilations and underground bases and secret deals between alien invaders and government officials...this all solidifies with what some factions of the United States government decided to feed an inquisitive scientific genius who lived outside the Kirtland Air force base in the 1980s. The frayed ends made over decades before, were spliced together in a grand scheme to keep government secrets, secret.
Paul Bennewitz was photographing strange aerial phenomena and picking up odd electronic signals from the area of Kirtland Air force base, which was literally across the street from his home. He approached the base in order to report his findings and his suspicion that ET was here. In order to keep an eye on Bennewitz and his "findings", and in order to divert his attention away from picking up secret military and government projects, members of the AFOSI and NSA decided to put tails on Bennewitz, decided to coddle him and feed into his suspicions. They gave him a computer that was rigged to make it look like he was getting messages from ET. They fed him stories that he was really on to something. They befriended him and acted like his findings were true. And then he went insane, literally ending up in a mental hospital.
Paul Bennewitz's masterpiece, if you will, was a report he called Project Beta, which detailed his findings and offered it to the government for review. And they abused him for it, believing one man's psychological stability was worth destroying in order to keep government secrets, secret.
The Bennewitz Affair is a must know for anyone interested in how far government is willing to go to forge stories, even in the most fantastic vein, to keep secrets. You're not killed off. You're toyed with and used to divert attention and sometimes, not made to look crazy. But actually become crazy.
A must read for anyone interested in the history of UFOs because the narrative here, is a lie concocted by intelligence agents that this writer is certain, have no problem continuing with. It keeps very human secret technology seen in the skies from being taken seriously when someone reports it. After all, if it's crazy to believe in UFOs, no one will believe you. Hiding in plain site is the best strategy.
June 23, 2020
Truth is Stranger Than Fiction
I read M. Pilkington’s “Mirage Men” and watched the eponymous documentary shortly before perusing this book. Pilkington’s focuses more on the fascinating character of Richard Doty, USAF Intelligence operative, and, as a result, “Mirage Men” remains a more captivating read. But G. Bishop’s book provides more facts and insights into the chronology of the Bennewitz affair and related US Government disinformation activities during the 1970s and 1980s.
Pilkington leaves the reader with greater opportunity to question the true success of USG disinformation campaigns, and the still credible possible of true and continuous extraterrestrial exploration of Earth. Bishop, however, seems less interested in dissecting the impact and ramifications for the future of UFO research. He is laser focused on trying to explain the 5 Ws surrounding Project Beta, Paul Bennewitz, and covert military activity in New Mexico over the past 50 years.
I recommend watching the documentary and then following up with these two books for detailed background.
Overall, I came away from the three stories profoundly convinced that Black Ops and Secret Military projects lie behind most of the Post Roswell Alien lore. And, for me, the question of alien visitation is now nearly moot. It seems incontrovertible that the American civilian volunteer UFO research community has been routinely infiltrated and exploited by Soviet agents and US intel agencies since the 1950s.
Thus, the much desired “Disclosure” will likely come in the form of slow, sporadic admissions by our government that we have used UFO cover stories, to build up a fictional UFO lore to help hide stealth, SDI, space plane, nuclear powered space craft and anti-satellite tech, for 70 years.
To paraphrase Ray Bradbury in the Martian Chronicles: “There we are now. WE are the Martians.”
I read M. Pilkington’s “Mirage Men” and watched the eponymous documentary shortly before perusing this book. Pilkington’s focuses more on the fascinating character of Richard Doty, USAF Intelligence operative, and, as a result, “Mirage Men” remains a more captivating read. But G. Bishop’s book provides more facts and insights into the chronology of the Bennewitz affair and related US Government disinformation activities during the 1970s and 1980s.
Pilkington leaves the reader with greater opportunity to question the true success of USG disinformation campaigns, and the still credible possible of true and continuous extraterrestrial exploration of Earth. Bishop, however, seems less interested in dissecting the impact and ramifications for the future of UFO research. He is laser focused on trying to explain the 5 Ws surrounding Project Beta, Paul Bennewitz, and covert military activity in New Mexico over the past 50 years.
I recommend watching the documentary and then following up with these two books for detailed background.
Overall, I came away from the three stories profoundly convinced that Black Ops and Secret Military projects lie behind most of the Post Roswell Alien lore. And, for me, the question of alien visitation is now nearly moot. It seems incontrovertible that the American civilian volunteer UFO research community has been routinely infiltrated and exploited by Soviet agents and US intel agencies since the 1950s.
Thus, the much desired “Disclosure” will likely come in the form of slow, sporadic admissions by our government that we have used UFO cover stories, to build up a fictional UFO lore to help hide stealth, SDI, space plane, nuclear powered space craft and anti-satellite tech, for 70 years.
To paraphrase Ray Bradbury in the Martian Chronicles: “There we are now. WE are the Martians.”
January 12, 2020
Given how large a presence the UFO phenomenon maintains in our culture, this book is well worth the read, even if you're not terribly interested in UFOs. The ideas are everywhere, and Project Beta lays out how some government players had a large role in actively encouraging the development of the UFO culture through disinformation campaigns intended to both keep prying eyes away from their real secret projects, and to identify the prying eyes as well. At the heart of the story is Paul Bennewitz, whose life and mental stability were intentionally destroyed as a victim of these operations.
Richard Doty, one of the key officials feeding disinformation to Bennewitz actually served as a consultant for The X-Files, from 1994 to 1996 and he even wrote the screenplay for an episode- "The Blessing Way" and was an extra on two other episodes- "Anasazi" and "Paper Clip"
Much of this disinformation is still drawing support by those who want to believe and don't attempt to dig further than initial researches which confirm what they want to believe- in actuality, this is the true strategy behind successful disinformation- leading someone to something that appears true on an initial glance, creating an impassioned true believer.
To be clear, Bishop is not a "debunker" and does believe in UFOs. However, he is part of a growing group of researchers who do not believe in the "extra-terrestrial hypothesis" as an explanation, and instead believes there is something else unknown which produces this phenomena. He does not discount the possibility entirely, but the evidence seems to point to other directions and he even points out that the air force has witnessed legitimate UFO sightings they cannot explain, which are distinctly separate from the kinds of disinfo stories intentionally "leaked" to the public.
Although this idea is growing, it is not new and has been written about by others, including John Keel, Jacques Vallee, and even Carl Jung.
Richard Doty, one of the key officials feeding disinformation to Bennewitz actually served as a consultant for The X-Files, from 1994 to 1996 and he even wrote the screenplay for an episode- "The Blessing Way" and was an extra on two other episodes- "Anasazi" and "Paper Clip"
Much of this disinformation is still drawing support by those who want to believe and don't attempt to dig further than initial researches which confirm what they want to believe- in actuality, this is the true strategy behind successful disinformation- leading someone to something that appears true on an initial glance, creating an impassioned true believer.
To be clear, Bishop is not a "debunker" and does believe in UFOs. However, he is part of a growing group of researchers who do not believe in the "extra-terrestrial hypothesis" as an explanation, and instead believes there is something else unknown which produces this phenomena. He does not discount the possibility entirely, but the evidence seems to point to other directions and he even points out that the air force has witnessed legitimate UFO sightings they cannot explain, which are distinctly separate from the kinds of disinfo stories intentionally "leaked" to the public.
Although this idea is growing, it is not new and has been written about by others, including John Keel, Jacques Vallee, and even Carl Jung.
December 22, 2021
Perhaps I’ve finally crashed and burned out flying these UFO books. Bishop does a fair job telling this modern tale of woe, though in my opinion the book suffers from some inconsistencies common to the genre. I found myself wishing that the author was more thorough in demarcating the source(s) for some of his assertions. There are so many actors (and agents) here that it is sometimes hard to tell who is telling whose story. I would find myself questioning whether certain facts or assertions were supported by the author’s own opinion, documents, or people, and how trustworthy or even who those people were. Perhaps this ambiguity is inevitable under the circumstances, but I have often gotten the feeling that these UFO books want to have the cake and eat it too, i.e. to somehow gain the respect (and attention) of the official authorities, but nevertheless maintain the attitude of unbridled speculation expected within the subculture. I will give an example: “When the NSA experts got a good look at this gadget, they were once again shocked that a man with little more than a master’s degree in physics had taken a few months and perhaps a few thousand dollars to tear a gaping hole in their multimillion dollar electronic house of cards. Techies ‘in the know’ informed [Richard] Doty that [Paul] Bennewitz ‘was really a genius at figuring things out.’” (p. 157) You too can stump the government's million-dollar boondoggles with only a "master’s degree in physics"! Who are these ‘techies’ exactly I wonder? How trustworthy is Doty (a rhetorical question) and what’s his motive for conveying such praise? Does Bishop find this information credible? Doty in particular seems untrustworthy (yet strangely likable!) in nearly every account I've read, yet much of the narrative appears to hinge upon his description. I would recommend the movie Mirage Men as I think the depiction of Doty in that film is much more in your face and closer to the truth as a master manipulator and professional conman. ‘Let the reader decide’ only gets you so far. I found myself wondering how much we really know about what exactly happened to Paul Bennewitz and who exactly was responsible for it. In a court of law I think they’d call a lot of this ‘hearsay’. Another example - the account of the 3 witnesses who spotted a strange experimental craft in Texas “belching fire” and surrounded by “twenty-three CH-47 Chinook helicopters” (did they count every one?!) stretched the boundaries of my own credulity. (Did no one else besides these 3 see such an incredible air show? That surprises me.) “Richard Doty thinks the craft was an atomic-powered anti-gravity-type craft that was on a test mission to fly out over the Gulf of Mexico and . . . had engine problems.” (pp. 169-71) Case closed. Yes, that was sarcasm. A bit of searching on Google uncovers plenty of skeptical debunking of this famous incident (‘Cash-Landrum’), and the $20 million civil suit against the U.S. government was eventually dismissed. Bishop’s uncritical presentation here is a prime example of the type of writing that prevents ufology from entering the (‘respectable’ or ‘official’ at least) mainstream. Certainly the notes of a rocket scientist scribbled in archaic German and turned over posthumously to the Air Force could easily become a movie script, but we are promised that “[t]here is a point to all this wild speculation.” (p. 171) Yet, this surreal and paranoid landscape is inescapable, and at times overwhelms the narrative. “It was a choice between millions of dollars of research, hundreds of hours of training, and an unknown number of lives, or the sanity of one U.S. citizen who was convinced . . . that an alien race was out to take over the U.S. government, and then the planet.” (p. 177) Framed like that, it hardly seems a choice at all. In the heat of Paul Bennewitz’s mind and in his garage, one can readily imagine the frenzied attempts to shield abductee “Myrna Hansen” from alien beams within the confines of a Lincoln Town Car wrapped in aluminum foil. (p. 18) I exaggerate a bit as it was only the windows of the Town Car that were covered, but (according to the Internet) Hansen’s nom de guerre matches a famous Hollywood actress, so perhaps you can forgive my theatricality. There is such scant information available about the abductee “Myrna Hansen” that I found myself wondering, are they the same person, the abductee and the actress? Information about the ufology mythos incarnation of Hansen is confined almost entirely to the books available and in context of the Bennewitz affair. I found myself wondering if she is a real person or a pseudonymous or invented identity. In fact, at the time of this writing, a blog interview of Bishop includes a link from the name “Myrna Hansen” to the Wikipedia entry for the actress. (See the ‘Think About It’ blog entry “2005: Project Beta and Underground Bases An Interview With Greg Bishop”) I was left wondering, ‘whatever happened to her anyway?’ None of the books I’ve read on this topic include any significant details or follow-up about Hansen’s life outside of her status as an abductee. Bishop notes only that Hansen “now lives somewhere in Northern California.” (p. 232) Adam Gorightly in his book Saucers, Spooks and Kooks puts forth the argument that Hansen was part of the disinformation campaign against Bennewitz. Gorightly says Hansen claimed to be 26 in 1980, so apparently a different person than the actress on Wikipedia, but is the abductee Hansen a real person or some type of disinformation patsy? Along these lines, I’m willing to admit that these failings that bother me are perhaps inevitable, to a degree, given the muddy terrain. We are often left on our own to sift for the ‘gold’, or fool’s gold as it were, which includes a “Cloudbuster/Spacegun” tested by the likes of Wilhelm Reich and later spotted resting on the tarmac “at an Air Force base in southern England”. It appears entirely possible that the “electronic wobbulation [!]” may be only in your own mind, or it could be the latest in surveillance drones using cutting edge “anti-gravity” technology!!! (pp. 163-69) Who can say ultimately? And even if they did say, could we trust them? After a while this starts to seem like conflicting stories whispered in the dark to explain the elephant in the room. Is this the trunk? The tail? The⸺!? Cue insane laugh track. Regardless of which part of the elephant is finally under examination in this somewhat plodding yet still readable account of the art of deception in modern life, and as practiced both by ordinary folk and the bureaucrats charged with protecting us, I found myself doubting everything and everyone by the end, which is perhaps the danger, or lesson, of this book.
December 1, 2020
Wow! Fantastic work. Answers "WTF was happening?!" to the big waves of UFOlogy in the 1980s and '90s.
March 19, 2023
What the NSA ended up doing, is pushing a whole generation in to the UFO mythology - "The Ducle Base of horrors" files were legendary at the time. Information about Deep underground bases and Dulce were rippling through the UFO community and the computer security world. All based on a few different hoaxes and lies.
The Bennewitz information and then the Bob Lazar hoaxes all started this massive amount of "alien mythology" which ended up creating over 70 different alien races, that were supposedly all visiting human kind. The Zeta Reticuli information, MJ-12 and a bunch of other UFO lore.
Also with hoaxers like Bill Cooper - who took the information from William Moore and Bennewitz, and then Cooper started to expand on it. Not realizing that the Dulce files were a hoax. He was caught lying as well.
William Moore released those "Dulce base of horrors" files into the UFO world, for reasons as he claimed... "To test the UFO community".
He was trying to make money.
And that information started to effect very real people like Bennewitz and Bill Cooper.
Bill Cooper didn't realize that Moore was feeding the UFO community UFO mythology... and then he started to expand on the mythology .. he was lying as well.
So we have many different players in this game.
The government trying to hide information about secret real black budget projects they were doing. And UFO stories were a pretty good cover. Especially when cattle mutilations were linked to them.
Then you had players like Moore, who was making money and feeding the UFO community false information, then people like Lear, Greer, Friedman and a bunch of "UFO-ologists) and then people like Bill Cooper, who were actually caught lying, expanding on mythology like "The Ducle Base of Horrors".
You had Bob Lazar who just had a bankruptcy (in 1986) and then he was busted for pandering in a Nevada Brothel, just after he made claims he was working on the most secret programs of humankind. Area 51 and an unknown element (ununpentium)
And then we had Congressman Steven Schiff of New Mexico, trying to get the FOI documents that pertained to Roswell.
This is what fed in to the modern UFO community today.
We knew back then if we could get the Roswell files, the whole secret about UFOs would finally get revealed.
But we did get access to the FOI documents about Roswell. And it turned out that it was to do with Project Mogul, a secret spy ballon to spy on the Soviets, which the military didn't want the public knowing about.
I think Roswell was half accident and half on purpose.
The initial reports about a crashed alien craft in Roswell, was to a small town. And I'm sure many of them thought it was aliens. And I don't doubt that the some parts of the military thought something screwy was going on as well, as they had no knowledge of Project Mogul. The military and government are highly compartmentalized. On a need to know basis.
So people actually believed Roswell was a real alien crashed craft incident, and so did the military most likely when it first crashed. But then they got information from higher up, to stop the story.
Then by doing this, they noticed something.
That when people started to focus on aliens, they would stay totally far away from the real things the military was doing... They would be looking for aliens, when they are doing nuclear testing, or underground testing, and then testing our food supply in order to make sure there wasn't too much contamination.
This is where the lore of Cattle mutilations comes in. And those black helicopters that look military but that were advanced technology ... given to us by aliens. The "Men in black" in some lore were half men, half aliens.
This is where a large part of UFO mythology comes in, which is still very alive and effecting people ... to this very day.
This book is definitely a piece of the puzzle... and a great analysis.
The Bennewitz information and then the Bob Lazar hoaxes all started this massive amount of "alien mythology" which ended up creating over 70 different alien races, that were supposedly all visiting human kind. The Zeta Reticuli information, MJ-12 and a bunch of other UFO lore.
Also with hoaxers like Bill Cooper - who took the information from William Moore and Bennewitz, and then Cooper started to expand on it. Not realizing that the Dulce files were a hoax. He was caught lying as well.
William Moore released those "Dulce base of horrors" files into the UFO world, for reasons as he claimed... "To test the UFO community".
He was trying to make money.
And that information started to effect very real people like Bennewitz and Bill Cooper.
Bill Cooper didn't realize that Moore was feeding the UFO community UFO mythology... and then he started to expand on the mythology .. he was lying as well.
So we have many different players in this game.
The government trying to hide information about secret real black budget projects they were doing. And UFO stories were a pretty good cover. Especially when cattle mutilations were linked to them.
Then you had players like Moore, who was making money and feeding the UFO community false information, then people like Lear, Greer, Friedman and a bunch of "UFO-ologists) and then people like Bill Cooper, who were actually caught lying, expanding on mythology like "The Ducle Base of Horrors".
You had Bob Lazar who just had a bankruptcy (in 1986) and then he was busted for pandering in a Nevada Brothel, just after he made claims he was working on the most secret programs of humankind. Area 51 and an unknown element (ununpentium)
And then we had Congressman Steven Schiff of New Mexico, trying to get the FOI documents that pertained to Roswell.
This is what fed in to the modern UFO community today.
We knew back then if we could get the Roswell files, the whole secret about UFOs would finally get revealed.
But we did get access to the FOI documents about Roswell. And it turned out that it was to do with Project Mogul, a secret spy ballon to spy on the Soviets, which the military didn't want the public knowing about.
I think Roswell was half accident and half on purpose.
The initial reports about a crashed alien craft in Roswell, was to a small town. And I'm sure many of them thought it was aliens. And I don't doubt that the some parts of the military thought something screwy was going on as well, as they had no knowledge of Project Mogul. The military and government are highly compartmentalized. On a need to know basis.
So people actually believed Roswell was a real alien crashed craft incident, and so did the military most likely when it first crashed. But then they got information from higher up, to stop the story.
Then by doing this, they noticed something.
That when people started to focus on aliens, they would stay totally far away from the real things the military was doing... They would be looking for aliens, when they are doing nuclear testing, or underground testing, and then testing our food supply in order to make sure there wasn't too much contamination.
This is where the lore of Cattle mutilations comes in. And those black helicopters that look military but that were advanced technology ... given to us by aliens. The "Men in black" in some lore were half men, half aliens.
This is where a large part of UFO mythology comes in, which is still very alive and effecting people ... to this very day.
This book is definitely a piece of the puzzle... and a great analysis.
December 19, 2021
EXCELLENT BOOK!!! This was absolutely one of the most impactful books for me regarding the UFO topic since I have read it. It was responsible for changing my outlook and perception of events that occur around the world and lead me to question not if the "aliens" are up to something, but if our government is making it appear that the "aliens" are up to something. The lengths to which the US Government went through and the amount of time and resources invested tells the reader that this was a very important topic. The question one leaves wondering is whether all the trouble was spent so that Bennowitz would not uncover classified technology OR was it because they did not want him to uncover advanced technologies/classified extraterrestrial exchanges, visitations, technology, etc...?
Subsequent interviews with government spook, Richard Doty, have been just as fascinating.
Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO MythProject Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth
Subsequent interviews with government spook, Richard Doty, have been just as fascinating.
Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO MythProject Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth
July 20, 2023
Paul Bennewitz was a gifted electrical engineer that lived near Kirtland Air Force Base, which also houses Sandia National Lab in New Mexico. In the 70s and 80s, he started investigating people who claimed to be abducted by UFOs and reported lights in the sky over the base that he saw from his home. He created devices that he believed were picking up message and signals from UFOs and reported all this to the Air Force. The Air Force became concerned he may blow the cover of secret projects he was misinterpreting as UFOs and so fed him false information about UFOs. They feigned interest in his UFO research and even took him on serial tours over Dulce, NM where they told him an underground alien base existed. They constantly harassed and surveilled him, with Paul saying he would regularly abducted by aliens and given injections. Even after his former Air Force handlers told him it was all a lie, he still believed. He had a mental breakdown and died in 2003.
The story itself felt slow. It is meant as a case study of government misinformation related to UFOs. Much is discussed about other UFO researchers that collaborated with the government to spread false information and helped to trick Bennewitz. Dulce, NM is a moderately well known UFO location and much of the UFO/X-Files mythos is asserted to originate from the Bennewitz case. He published his researches in a report titled “Project Beta” that discusses his findings. However, Bennewitz described things that even the author states didn’t come from the government. Hard to say what was true and what was false.
The story itself felt slow. It is meant as a case study of government misinformation related to UFOs. Much is discussed about other UFO researchers that collaborated with the government to spread false information and helped to trick Bennewitz. Dulce, NM is a moderately well known UFO location and much of the UFO/X-Files mythos is asserted to originate from the Bennewitz case. He published his researches in a report titled “Project Beta” that discusses his findings. However, Bennewitz described things that even the author states didn’t come from the government. Hard to say what was true and what was false.
August 30, 2022
Fascinating look at the hoaxing of Paul Bennewitz by Richard Doty and Bill Moore - but Bishop is unfortunately all too willing to believe Doty's claims his activities were sanctioned by the government and take him at his word. (If you accept he was hoaxing in one respect, why take any of his testimony as valid in any other respect without significant independent corroboration?) Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...
March 2, 2024
This book is not badly written, but it has a debunking feeling all over it, it is highly ideological, and depreciates Bennewitz and the whole phenomenon, he always chooses negative words for everything. So it is sort of bad propaganda and unfair. Read with this information in mind.
August 17, 2019
The definitive account of this weird story.
January 28, 2021
Incredible.
May 1, 2011
It's difficult to reach any profound conclusion about the volume of events discussed in PROJECT BETA: THE STORY OF PAUL BENNEWITZ, NATIONAL SECURITY, AND THE CREATION OF A MODERN UFO MYTH; much like the title alone, the information presented isn't necesssarily additive to any other result but "don't believe what you were just told."
Of course, this fact goes hand-in-hand with the book's subject: Bennewitz, an inventor and businessman, discovers possibly 'irrefutable' scientific evidence that something 'alien' is taking place involving the DOD's Sandia Labs. Monitored and decoded radio transmissions give the appearance that the Earth is being considered ripe for invasion by an unseen alien force. Rather than find his efforts stymied by the military, Bennewitz finds himself a sort of confidante by a plethora of insiders, all whom poke and prod the man to continue his work in possibly fradulent avenues. For the next decade, he finds himself pushed to his psychological limit, believing that he has somehow been placed in a clandestine race to save mankind partnered with Air Force investigators unwilling to do anything about it.
Of course, the principle problem with constructing an account about disinformation is that the author is showing you his cards at the poker table. Greg Bishop knows that the reader will understand the nature of disinformation as he's stripped the theory naked as part of the story he's telling. However, what he doesn't do very well is 'reconstruct' these events to any ultimate conclusion, despite Bennewitz's obvious mental abuse. Few of the details Bishop discusses can be substantiated because of the massive disinformation campaign, and any reasonably intelligent person can probably reach the midpoint of PROJECT BETA and have the revelation, "How am I to know for certain that I'm not the one being misinformed here?"
Still, author Bishop manages to craft a novel that is equal parts intriguing, frustrating, and confusing. The reader cares for Bennewitz -- despite some reservations about the man's stability -- and any reader would genuinely hope that some of these players who confess to be 'good friends' with the man would break their patterns of deceit long enough to help the inventor keep his fragile sanity. Bishop appears to justify their continued abuse of Bennewitz by routinely underscoring how much these men and women cared about the kindly inventor, but that becomes an increasingly difficult 'reality' to accept given Bennewitz's eventual destination.
Of course, this fact goes hand-in-hand with the book's subject: Bennewitz, an inventor and businessman, discovers possibly 'irrefutable' scientific evidence that something 'alien' is taking place involving the DOD's Sandia Labs. Monitored and decoded radio transmissions give the appearance that the Earth is being considered ripe for invasion by an unseen alien force. Rather than find his efforts stymied by the military, Bennewitz finds himself a sort of confidante by a plethora of insiders, all whom poke and prod the man to continue his work in possibly fradulent avenues. For the next decade, he finds himself pushed to his psychological limit, believing that he has somehow been placed in a clandestine race to save mankind partnered with Air Force investigators unwilling to do anything about it.
Of course, the principle problem with constructing an account about disinformation is that the author is showing you his cards at the poker table. Greg Bishop knows that the reader will understand the nature of disinformation as he's stripped the theory naked as part of the story he's telling. However, what he doesn't do very well is 'reconstruct' these events to any ultimate conclusion, despite Bennewitz's obvious mental abuse. Few of the details Bishop discusses can be substantiated because of the massive disinformation campaign, and any reasonably intelligent person can probably reach the midpoint of PROJECT BETA and have the revelation, "How am I to know for certain that I'm not the one being misinformed here?"
Still, author Bishop manages to craft a novel that is equal parts intriguing, frustrating, and confusing. The reader cares for Bennewitz -- despite some reservations about the man's stability -- and any reader would genuinely hope that some of these players who confess to be 'good friends' with the man would break their patterns of deceit long enough to help the inventor keep his fragile sanity. Bishop appears to justify their continued abuse of Bennewitz by routinely underscoring how much these men and women cared about the kindly inventor, but that becomes an increasingly difficult 'reality' to accept given Bennewitz's eventual destination.
January 19, 2014
Required reading for anyone who's interested in UFOs as a social/historical phenomenon, the military-industrial complex, spycraft, and madness. Should be read in conjunction with Mark Pilkington's more recent "Mirage Men," which covers much of the same material, and a lot more, in a more readable style. These books will help you to begin thinking about UFOs in the same way we think about questions like "Why are we here?, "What is the meaning of life and the universe?," and "What are good and evil?" These are questions that really have no answer, or at least no single answer. "Do UFOs exist?" and "What are UFOs?" are questions that also belong in that category. Answers like "yes," "no," and even "maybe" don't begin to cut it.
August 8, 2007
This book sets out how military intelligence used UFO lore and credulity on the part of a particular believer to cover its own top secret research. It is proof a conspiracy not to cover up actual flying saucers and alien bodies, but to mislead believers and by extension, the public, into a new system of belief that can be conveniently employed by the authorities to manipulate the public and cover up their own tracks. The book also describes how the flying saucer mythology can grow from one man's "discoveries" to a phenomena of mass psychology and the spreading of "memes."
September 12, 2020
I'm not sure if this is a good entry for the UFO initiate or not, but it's definitely an eye opener for anyone interested in going a little deeper, perhaps into the idea that the UFO tropes we have with us now may be rooted in cold war-era disinformation. Also, this serves as a good companion read to "Messengers of Deception" by Jacques Vallee, which focuses on UFO cultists (see the chapter "The Political Overtones" - the list of common themes encountered in contactee interviews is amazing, terrifying, and certainly worth the read).
June 13, 2012
disinfo within disinfo. in order to cover the truth, they use the truth to perpetuate another disinfo which in turn hides the initial truth. its like reverse psychology. this book outlines such campaigns to discredit otherwise credible/contributing people.
August 3, 2015
I've been meaning to read this book for some time. I knew some of the story from the movie Mirage Men. It was really impressive how much supporting information Greg was able to dig up. This is an important book in the study of Ufology.
June 21, 2017
Project Beta is a fascinating look at how the UFO conspiracy community and the United States intelligence community cross pollinate and feed on each other. Highly recommended.
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