A popular request for a topic, we’re going to look at Bill Moore’s famous (infamous) speech at the 1989 MUFON International UFO Symposium that threw a spotlight on the topic of government disinformation in the UFO sphere.
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The Saucer Life 
I have talked with Greg Bishop, both publicly and privately, about Bill Moore and his involvement with the Bennewitz affair.
To me personally the situation becomes indefensible the moment Bennewitz started to deteriorate and became a danger to himself and others. Imagine if he had committed suicide at his frustration of failing to stop the ‘alien invasion.’ Or even worse, imagine this whole thing had happened in the 2020s instead of the 1980s, and Bennewitz had gone into the kind of shooting rampage that have turned all too common to even bother to report in the United States (farfetched? No one can say that in the age of QAnon anymore).
All of that would have been on Moore’s hands. Because at the end of the day, he valued his chance to learn whatever he could about how the government dealt with the UFO issue, more than whatever repercussions would befall on Paul Bennewitz; a man who considered him a friend, and welcomed him into his home.
Just how can anyone look at himself in the mirror after playing something like that is beyond me.
Some would say that kind of ‘grayscale’ attitude is what is needed to win wars and be successful at espionage, which is why I’ll never make good James Bond material I guess…
PS: BTW I am sure was not particularly unique in my position when just a few years ago some members of UFOTwitter invited me to join certain ‘secret’ groups in which I was promised “special access” to Luis Elizondo and whatever undisclosed BS they were promising to their sycophants. I declined all those invites and to this day I have never regretted my decision.
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I just finished my copy of Wayward Sons and have Mirage Men in the mail to me. So the timing of this episode was quite spot on and is one of my all time favorites. Well done. As to “what would I do?” I’d like to pretend I’d be wiser, but in the moment…to be “in”… to be an active participant and *maybe* learn something… Hard to say.
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Have read Project Beta and Mirage men and am puzzled as to why Doty, Moore etc. did this. Bennewitz worked as a government contractor and was apparently a traditional conservative patriotic pro-military type. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to just say basically ‘Yeah, we’re experimenting with some fancy new tech here. Can’t tell you about it, but be quiet, do your patriotic duty and when we can we’ll sort you out with some lucrative work in the future’ ? Instead they waged a campaign of psychological warfare against the guy. Was it because he was already into UFO stuff and they’d ascertained secretly that he was prone to mental health issues and they just decided to push them along? Nothing really makes sense in the ufo/intelligence crossover world.
Red Pill – is very noticeable how we’re seeing lots of what might be termed UFO influencers popping up despite the lack of decent evidence and seeming insistance these things have only been spotted since the early 2000s. Strangely no releases of the alleged Holloman footage or gun camera films from the cold war or high resolution imagery taken with modern high speed cameras that would drive legitimate interest in the subject. We’re still at the Trust Me Bro stage.
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Rob, my own personal take on it (having talked to Greg about it) is that initially they did try to ask Paul to back away, but he continued with his shenanigans nonetheless. Or maybe they got freaked out by how easily this brilliant guy with no higher education degrees had managed to break their super secret code transmissions, and began to suspect he was part of a larger espionage ring. Who knows.
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Then as now, folks sure do love their misinformation.
I love my misinformation, as for the misinformation of others I am not so sure. But a very informative podcast installment as usual 👽
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If I was Bill Morre… I’d take it, other comments on this webpage eloquently point out the shoddy ethics, but in a field that largely consists of blind alleys, rumours and funhouse mirrors the desire to get info from what you desperately want to believe is THE SOURCE would be incredibly powerful.
Reinforcing my view here is that people in general get a kick out of the idea being part of the secret privileged knowing elite. Everyone likes to feel special and I think there are a lot of paranormal researchers who would be sorely tempted if they were approached by the Men In Black and told:
‘You know too much, now we need to recruit you. Here’s your black suit’.
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You nailed it Sam. The allure of being “special” is hard to walk away from.
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Cheers Matthew, I won’t deny I deny I felt a bit self-conscious putting forward the selfish option in this scenario! XD
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