The Trickster and the Paranormal

by George P. Hansen

  This doesn’t prove a connection between the cases, but it raises reasonable suspicions, suspicions that the Air Force has not allayed. The pattern of dangling film, and then jerking it away, suggests a standardized method to sow confusion and damage the credibility of UFO investigators.

  In any event, there is circumstantial evidence that Doty’s UFO activities were officially sanctioned. Further, identifiable Air Force personnel were aware of some of Doty’s UFO activities, including Jerald Miller and Robert Collins; undoubtedly there were others. The allegations of Air Force activity against civilians (e.g., Bennewitz) provided sufficient grounds for a formal investigation. However, the Air Force may not have wanted Doty’s work to be investigated. Projects could have been jeopardized, especially if they deliberately harmed civilians. There are more reasons to think that the Air Force tried to cover up Doty’s work.

  In the late 1980s, CIA personnel had a meeting with Richard Weaver and Barry Hennessey, whom Doty indicated was once his superior officer. The CIA asked about Doty. The Air Force seemed embarrassed by this, because when I called Colonel Hennessey and inquired whether he had attended such a meeting, after a long, long, long pause, he responded with something like: “There wasn’t any reason to have such a meeting.” I did not press him and let the matter drop. I can only conclude that Hennessey was being intentionally misleading. Colonel Weaver later admitted to me that he had attended the meeting and was asked about Doty.

  Thus years before Weaver authored the 1995 Air Force report on Roswell, the CIA pointedly made him aware of Doty’s UFO activities.

  Here I want to review key points. It was the Air Force that spread the rumors about Roswell, not just in 1947 but also by Doty’s work in the 1980s. It was Air Force personnel who spread the rumors that a live ET alien had been captured; it was Air Force personnel who said that the aliens could manipulate human DNA, and it was Air Force personnel who claimed that the government had an agreement with the aliens. It was Air Force personnel who focused the public interest on the MJ-12 papers. Given all this, if Doty had done the hoaxing entirely on his own, the Air Force could have, and should have, made that clear. He used his military position and government property for those ends. Doty was a government agent; he claimed to be acting under orders of his superiors. Ipso facto, his activities were official (albeit possibly illegitimate). The failure to explain the situation makes the Air Force culpable.

  If Doty was operating under the orders of his superiors, and that fact became known, it could have had severe political repercussions for the Air Force. The Roswell affair sowed wide distrust of the government, distrust that went as high as the President of the United States. It is understandable that the AFOSI would want to obscure any role it played in that.

  Concerns over Doty should have been addressed in the 1995 Air Force report, but he was not mentioned. The question naturally arises: Did the head of the Air Force Roswell investigation, Colonel Richard L. Weaver, carefully steer the inquiry away from any embarrassing areas? The vast bulk of his report focussed on Project Mogul, the project that, years before, Robert Todd had identified as the likely source of debris that figured prominently in the case. Weaver published hundreds of pages regarding Project Mogul, but nothing on Doty.

  Suspicion must fall on Weaver, and a few words should be said about him. He and I exchanged a number of letters about the Roswell report, his role in it, and about Doty. He always responded promptly to my queries, and I have no reason to distrust any information he gave me. Weaver spent most of his military career with the AFOSI and acknowledged that he had known Doty in the mid-1980s when they both were stationed in Germany. He admitted that Doty was not interviewed for the Roswell investigation. He also stated that he was unaware of any role Doty may have played in Roswell. I think that he is probably telling the truth here. There were many rumors about Doty, but most Roswell promoters seemed to be embarrassed by his connections. Other than Linda Howe’s writings, there was little published linking him directly to Roswell, though the indirect links were numerous. Even if Weaver had known of Doty’s activities, I must admit that he could conceivably have dismissed them as not worth investigating.

  Weaver may have interpreted his task as limited to finding credible evidence of an actual saucer crash at Roswell. If so, it would be convenient, and reasonable, to completely ignore any Air Force projects involving phony stories of UFOs. That would meet the bureaucratic requirements, but such would not provide an intellectually honest account of the Air Force involvement with the Roswell story. The tax-paying public deserved better. After all, it was Air Force personnel who spread rumors about aliens and about Roswell, and government facilities were used for that purpose. The repercussions were enormous.

  Doty really couldn’t have been overlooked. After all, Linda Howe had published accounts that raised serious questions, not just about the Air Force, but particularly the AFOSI. Further, Jacques vallee in his book Revelations specifically called for an explanation of Doty’s

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  activities, and Vallee too raised questions about the AFOSI. In addition, Curtis Peebles had mentioned Doty as a key player in promoting the myth of aliens.

  I asked Weaver if he knew anything about phony UFO stories the Air Force might have used, and whether he could talk about them if he knew. He denied that the Air Force had any UFO projects, and without my suggesting it, he volunteered to take a polygraph test.

  It is possibly true that the Air Force never used phony UFO stories, but that is difficult to believe. Perhaps Weaver knew that he should not broach the subject during his investigation. It is quite plausible that he could have willfully ignored, and perhaps actively blocked, any investigation of such activities. He could thereby claim ignorance.

  Weaver deserves sharp criticism for his neglect of the Doty matters. But he was a member of the Air Force, near retirement, and undoubtedly sensitive enough to avoid probing areas that might cause his employer problems. The Air Force investigated itself. The outcome was no surprise.

  Other Sources

  It is far too simple to explain the resurgence of the Roswell story as only a creation of Doty and his colleagues. That story and many related ones are too pervasive to be explained by a single source. Doty and Collins are not the only identifiable government people who have spread rumors about ET aliens. Dr. Bruce Maccabee, an optical physicist with the U.S. Navy, has passed on similar ones.

  Maccabee appears credible; he has a doctorate in physics, long held an official position with the government, authored numerous professional papers, and appeared on many TV shows. In 1991 Maccabee published an article stating that “a credible intermediary” told him that a person who works with the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that there are hundreds of people with high security clearances working on a project regarding extraterrestrial aliens. The aliens have bases in the U.S. and are now apparently “out of control.” Project personnel were alarmed by the many reports of people being abducted by UFOs.35

  The genesis of the story, true or not, could shed considerable light on these rumors, which have been circulating for years. One would think that extraordinary measures would be taken to have the informants come forward and tell what they know. If the story was not true, that also would be important. It might point to the source of rumors that have consumed the time of innumerable researchers. Mac-cabee is a prominent and influential figure within ufology, and his affiliation with the Navy gives him considerable prestige. He served as president of the Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR), a group particularly active in trying to inform and influence politicians regarding UFOs. Why wasn’t every effort made to obtain congressional immunity from prosecution for the informants? Nothing like this happened. Instead, FUFOR promoted the half-century-old Roswell case with its many dubious claimants and secondary witnesses with failing memories. This diverted attention from current projects that could be investigated directly.

  Maccabee’s other activities also raise suspicions. He endorsed the authenticit
y of the UFO photos from Gulf Breeze, Florida taken by Ed Walters. Walters was a convicted felon, and he also was discovered to have been proficient at making phony ghost photographs before his UFO photos, and he had a reputation as a practical joker. Walters appeared on the Oprah television talk show on September 7, 1990. There Philip J. Klass confronted him and pointed out that he had claimed to have been abducted by a flying saucer. Walters denied it. However Walters had published that claim earlier. Klass was correct. So either Walters was lying on national TV or he “forgot” about his abduction, but in either case his credibility was destroyed. Nevertheless, Maccabee was impressed by Walters, and he contributed a foreword and a 45-page “Investigation and Photo Analysis” section for Walters’ book The Gulf Breeze Sightings (1990). Did Maccabee really believe that Walters’ photos were genuine? Or was Maccabee intentionally touting material he knew to be false in order to discredit ufology generally, throw investigators off the path, and keep them busy with bogus cases? Given the evidence, these are plausible suspicions.39 In 1993 a widely circulated report by the Associated Investigators Group (AIG) titled “The Fund for CIA Research” (a take-off on the Fund for UFO Research) raised many of these same issues. Further, it documented Maccabee’s heavy involvement with the CIA on UFO matters and pointed out that he had hindered civilian access to documents on UFOs. Maccabee’s tight association with the CIA was again confirmed when it was revealed that the CIA had commissioned him to prepare a report for U.S. presidential science advisor John

  Gibbons.41

  The motivations of Maccabee will probably never be known for certain. My own guess is that he really believed in the cases he promoted. He seems easily influenced by persuasive personalities. When in their thrall, he shows little capacity for independent analysis. In any other field, his endorsements would have utterly destroyed his reputation and career. Not so in ufology. He is still regarded as a leading expert within the field.

  Doty, Collins, and Maccabee are not the only government employees to promote the stories of ET aliens. Some amazing claims were made at the 1992 conference on Treatment and Research of Experienced Anomalous Trauma (TREAT) held in Atlanta, Georgia in April. That conference was devoted to UFO abduction phenomena, and one of the presenters was government-trained remote viewer Major Edward A. Dames (U.S. Army, retired). He claimed to have located an underground cavern of ET aliens in New Mexico. This startling announcement received wide attention among UFO researchers and was congruent with similar rumors circulating in the late 1980s and early 1990s that can be traced to Richard Doty and Paul Bennewitz. If Dames was just an isolated individual, his reports might be easily ignored. However he was president of Psi Tech, and John B. Alexander, then head of a non-lethal weaponry program at Los Alamos National Laboratory, sat on the Board of Directors of Dames’ organization. Major General Albert N. Stubblebine, III (U.S. Army, retired), former head of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, was the Chairman of Psi Tech. Both Alexander and Stubblebine attended the TREAT conference, and their prominent association with Dames gave the claims considerable credibility.

  Alexander is exceptionally well connected in paranormal areas. He has written articles on parapsychology and was a president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. He was the Army liaison for a review of remote-viewing research by the National Research Council, the research branch of the National Academy of Sciences. He also served with the office of the U.S. Army Inspector General on an investigation of the Cash-Landrum UFO case. But there are even more convoluted associations involving ufology, near-death studies, parapsychology, rumors of aliens, and John Alexander. There are even some bizarre connections with the Kennedy assassination, through the person of one Gordon Novel. This character has many curious associations with the CIA and was somehow able to evade the extradition attempts of prosecutor Jim Garrison during his investigation of the Kennedy assassination. Garrison concluded that Novel’s intelligence associates were protecting him. Whatever the truth of the matter, other peculiarities in his background are disturbing. Novel was convicted of illegally transporting electronic surveillance equipment in Nevada. Later in Georgia, he pleaded guilty to illegal possession of firearms. After being charged with fire bombing in Louisiana he jumped bail, but after recapture, his trial ended in a hung jury. Novel achieved even more notoriety for making a dubious claim of having seen a CIA photograph of J. Edgar Hoover engaging in homosexual activity. Recently Novel has been reported in the company of John B. Alexander and Harold Puthoff, and in fact Alexander has flaunted the association, perhaps in an attempt to intimidate others.

  Martin Cannon, an investigator who has written on government mind control projects, received a call from Alexander’s wife on May 30, 1993. She left a message on his answering machine saying: “Martin, as an ex-friend I have to warn you. John and Hal [Puthoff] are really pissed off at you. And they’ve given the matter over to Gordon [Novel] to handle. Watch out.” Cannon had no idea what had provoked the threat, but in his book The Controllers he had suggested that perhaps some UFO abduction accounts were actually due to screen memories imposed on the victims of a government mind control program in order to conceal other atrocities. Cannon was well aware of Alexander’s interest in UFO abductions and of Novel’s background. He was quite alarmed, and the day he received the message, he called and played me the tape. I suggested that he alert a number of people in the media, and he also notified the FBI.

  But Cannon was not the only one targeted by Alexander. Armen Victorian of England is one of the most effective researchers to use the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to uncover government involvement in paranormal areas. Victorian requested some information about research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, but it was denied him. Undeterred, he placed a second request, seeking copies of all paperwork relating to the denial. Victorian thereby obtained a memorandum written by John Alexander to Gilbert Ortiz, dated 28 September 1993. In that memo, Alexander discussed Victorian and specifically complained about his role in the exposé of Bruce Maccabee, the Navy physicist who spread rumors of ET alien bases on earth that are known to the U.S. government (the mentioned exposé was that by the Associated Investigators Group, 1993).49

  Alexander’s memo revealed that the CIA had requested “British Intelligence and the police to assist in resolving problems with” Victorian. Alexander did not discuss court action, legal remedies, or regulations that might be used to deny information. Rather it implied retaliation by government agents without due process, a serious abuse of power. Victorian subsequently reported that his home and car were broken into, computer disks and other records stolen, and that someone tampered with his mail.50 After an account of all this appeared in the January 1, 1995 edition of British newspaper The Observer1 his problems seemed to stop.

  There are other players in this extended drama of remote viewing, UFOs, and threats against civilian researchers. One is Cecil B. Scott Jones, whose multitudinous connections were documented in a 24-page paper by Robert J. Durant in 1992. That exposé, “Will the Real Scott Jones Please Stand Up?”, was widely circulated in the UFO and parapsychology research communities.52

  Jones was exceptionally connected in government circles, and Durant pointed out that he was on a first-name basis with the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Jones spent much of his career in Naval Intelligence and later went to work for Senator Claiborne Pell, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He served as Pell’s Special Assistant from 1985 to 1991, concentrating on New Age, parapsychological, and UFO topics. His contacts in the New Age and paranormal subcultures are as impressive as his government connections. He served as president of the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) and on boards of many organizations. During his employment as Special Assistant, part of his work included escorting Prince Hans-Adam of Liechtenstein to UFO conferences and parapsychology laboratories. The prince is extraordinarily wealthy, and the Wall Street Journal estimated his personal fortune at over two billion dollars. He
also holds the majority voting interest in the Bank of Liechtenstein, which controls additional billions. 53 He has been an important funder of UFO research.

  After he left Pell’s employ, Jones could be found at the Washington beltway office of his Human Potential Foundation, which was funded by Laurance Rockefeller and Pell. Jones had ample support for his own activities, but as Durant noted, information and money seemed to flow to Jones, but not from him. Some doubted whether he acted for the benefit of civilian paranormal research.

  Jones installed Patrice Keane as the Executive Director of the ASPR, and John Alexander aided him in political efforts there. None of these three ever published a scientific paper in a refereed parapsychology journal, and under Keane’s direction the ASPR established no research program, and its financial plight became increasingly grim. Some saw parallels between Jones’ activity at the ASPR and the CIA’s involvement with NICAP when it went defunct.

  Jones made one of his most curious presentations at the International Symposium on UFO Research in May 1992 in Denver, Colorado. The title of his talk was “Controlling Government Response: Self Interest in a Nation State System,” and it was published in the symposium’s proceedings. The paper began vaguely but moved to focus on the devastating 1908 explosion in the Tunguska region of Russian Siberia, which was probably caused by a large meteorite.