Did Bill Moore essentially create most of the UFO story?

[Burnt State]

My point is that otherwise reluctant witnesses become, in the larger societal mythology, unwitting seers by default in the overall scheme of things when looked at from an historical point of view. No one individual credible witness of a high strangeness sighting could be regarded as a force to change our belief systems. But collectively and over the decades, perhaps they do.

I've stumbled back into the Vallee camp again. It's just that the UFO seems intent on making itself into a kind of mythological belief system rather than a part of our rational world.

Vallée still seems to offer the critical perspectives that best shape our limited understanding of the phenomenon and some of its larger impacts on society. At times I can't help but feeling that the religious aspects of it should be engaged from a more critical perspective. When you look at the language we use: believers, seers, prophet, leader, experiencer, witness and then combine this with the roles different people have played in either uncovering gospel texts (MJ12) or who are the gospel writers (Contactees, Space Brother Ambassador, and for others it's Keel, Clark or Vallée) it seems that the phenomenon is stimulating some age old social needs that cause us to behave with a kind of fervour about the whole thing. That thread Don Ecker posted some months ago about the Heaven's Gate cult is an important touchstone in this discussion.

I agree with you that the unfortunate witness is the 'seer' in the way you outline, and that they are the primary fulcrum in this puzzle. What also resonates for me about strange lights/crafts in the sky is that they are here to make us think and they are here to change us. Standing opposite blind faith & belief is the critical and rational perspective of science. Is this the great quandary we need to solve? Is this puzzle here for us to come to deeper understandings about our belief systems in general and the choices we make that direct human culture?

I would cite the ongoing debate surrounding creationism in the education system in America, and our "faith" that the science behind nuclear energy is safe, as two examples of tensions that exist on either side of these positions. Are UFO's here to give us a third perspective, something that is neigher science nor religion, but a new way of understanding reality altogether?

 

[Burnt State]

Thanks Vance for reawakening this thread up from the beautiful days of slumbeing midsummer. There was a couple of interesting ideas burbling around in here including the notion of constructed communities, building a franchise, the UFO as commodity and meal ticket, yet operating in the context of the industrial military complex and post war paranoia...

Also, lost in the middle of thus surrounding morass was one other critical element - the UFO witness as seer! They have been privileged and cursed with unique imagery, strange sightings in the heavens. In the past we would have celebrated such visions by seers as critical events for the tribe to respond to. We would build shrines, make dances and music, drinking the good wine and stuff. Nowadays the UFO witness is branded, labelled, shunned, is questionable, is mixed in with both the deluded and the scheeming hoaxer.

Maybe we need to re-evaluate our relationship to the witness and try to find better ways to work with them to help interpret what they saw? At the same time we need to shed the shawls of constructed and fabricated paradigms, if that's possible to do and rewrite UFO history.

 

[Trajanus]

I haven't spent much time pondering the MJ-12 documents themselves, as I think they smack too much of fiction to take seriously.

KDR and others reject them on the basis of various errors not the claim of crashed craft and dead ETs, if that's what you consider "fiction."

Are we talking about undeveloped film mysteriously dropped at Jaime Shandera's doorstep?

Well, Friedman pointed out that it wasn't "mysteriously dropped" but simply delivered by a mailman.

I still think Haut's press release to the public, announcing to the world that an alien spacecraft had been recovered by our government, was not a security slip up. But it was rather part of a well orchestrated psychological operation, or dis-info as distraction for purposes still not known.

IIRC that is in fact what the affidavit claimed.

 

[withoutlimits09]

Just started reading the Philadelphia Experiment by Charles Berlitz and Bill Moore...

If you read my original thoughts on this thread, I mentioned that Bill Moore is the guy who wrote the first book on Roswell, worked closely with the government in shaping the Bennewitz story, and was one of the people who "obtained" the first MJ-12 documents. I noted that those three cases make up about 75% of what ufology has been over the last 20-25 years!

I just read the Bio of Charles Berlitz, the principle author of both the PE and also the Roswell book...

Berlitz spent 13 years on active duty in the U.S. Army, mostly in intelligence.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Going on the interviews on the Paracast and Darkmatters it's clearly shows the field been muddy by UFO research who shit on there own instead working to find answers together . Don't agree all UFOs are human made only the physical craft maybe . Like Don and Gene has stated read and investigate yourself and make up your own minds folks. Also don't listen to armchair investigators unless it's the NSA or CIA who have friends in high places . It seems Bill got under a few folks skin but in the end he look out for his nation security.

 

[TrivialSublime]

Going on the interviews on the Paracast and Darkmatters it's clearly shows the field been muddy by UFO research who shit on there own instead working to find answers together . Don't agree all UFOs are human made only the physical craft maybe . Like Don and Gene has stated read and investigate yourself and make up your own minds folks. Also don't listen to armchair investigators unless it's the NSA or CIA who have friends in high places . It seems Bill got under a few folks skin but in the end he look out for his nation security.

I'd say the Bennewitz family has more then a right and "under the skin " doesn't come near to aiding in the mental destruction of someone, national security be damned...

 

[Burnt State]

^yes, sir^

It's bad enough that people get messed up themselves with UFO's let alone having people invade your home and rearrange your furniture while you are in the middle of a UFO mania. There's a lot to be answered for there.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Hold on I never said Bill Moore did those things and have you got evidence to stand up in court ? Also are you suggesting Mr Bill Moore killed that individual?

 

[Heidi Lemmer]

From what I read on Bennewitz, he took some pictures/film to the base for national security concerns and Doty and Moore , having made contact with him proceeded to feed him material that blew him away, which he shared, but which overwhelmed him to destabilize. Funny thing about Bennewitz though, no-one asks about those original photo's that caused the government to conduct a dis info campaign through him. I'm not sure Moore gets a free pass in this. He met with a contact to feed Bennewitz this material. Maybe he believed in the material also, dunno. But no-one literally killed Bennewitz and maybe he should have stood back and questioned all the material suddenly coming his way. Thing is, he originally took photo's that blew him away. That probably altered his entire perception about life as he knew it. And when he naively brought this to the government they screwed with his mind.
The Bennewitz part of this remains seriously untold, which I think was the ultimate purpose of dis-info being fed to him. People are so easily distracted and remain so to this day. Bill Moore comes out more important that Paul B. does? Again, what about that original film he brought to the government that day? And the several meeting's they had with him on base examining his film?

 

[Trajanus]

I haven't spent much time pondering the MJ-12 documents themselves, as I think they smack too much of fiction to take seriously.

Lots of people dismiss them due to format issues, typeface too recent etc but the basic narrative--a crash with bodies--is widely believed.

Are we talking about undeveloped film mysteriously dropped at Jaime Shandera's doorstep? Gimme a break.

Dropped mysteriously? It was put there by the postman.

Whether related to the documents or not, I still think Haut's press release to the public, announcing to the world that an alien spacecraft had been recovered by our government, was not a security slip up. But it was rather part of a well orchestrated psychological operation, or dis-info as distraction for purposes still not known.

Haut claimed the same thing but gave a reason, consistent with belief in a genuine alien event.

 

[boomerang]

Lots of people dismiss them due to format issues, typeface too recent etc but the basic narrative--a crash with bodies--is widely believed.



Dropped mysteriously? It was put there by the postman.



Haut claimed the same thing but gave a reason, consistent with belief in a genuine alien event.

Points well taken. But the Roswell incident as a whole still comes across to me as a bit too neat and tidy to be a PR slip up later discredited. Nor do I consider Moore a credible source. That's just an opinion. But I feel as if we are still in that frustrating 'hall of mirrors' .

Of course, even competent of people make mistakes and the UFO phenomenon has always refused to make conventional sense. We could also factor in the notation that UFOs have a track record of taking an interest in humanity's nuclear weapons.

Unless a room full of indisputable official documentation is someday unearthed, I doubt we will ever know with certainty what happened in New Mexico in 1947.

 

[Trajanus]

Points well taken. But the Roswell incident as a whole still comes across to me as a bit too neat and tidy to be a PR slip up later discredited.

Indeed as I just said, Haut said in effect it wasn't. Before he died he said Ramey came to Roswell and ordered the press release.

We could also factor in the notation that UFOs have a track record of taking an interest in humanity's nuclear weapons.

Many UFO/contactee cases argue for that.

Unless a room full of indisputable official documentation is someday unearthed, I doubt we will ever know with certainty what happened in New Mexico in 1947.

Dunno if there can be "indisputable" official documentation. It would probably take material and bodies of indisputable ET origin.

 

[TrivialSublime]

Hold on I never said Bill Moore did those things and have you got evidence to stand up in court ? Also are you suggesting Mr Bill Moore killed that individual?

Actually Blowfish if I was going to accuse someone I would say it outright so try to follow along. I’ll quote myself since it seems to have been missed and stand by it “aiding in the mental destruction of someone “.

From all I have read (and you do your own research) these people including Moore colluded for what they deemed national security interests to go after someone. That’s not a debatable point unless you want to change history.

 

[Trajanus]

Who were the principle investigators of Roswell? Moore and Friedman!

Maybe early on but KDR has probably done as much if not more than anyone else.

Who "discovered" the MJ-12 documents? Moore!

Supposedly Shandera received them in '84, but IIRC they didn't become publicly known until '87.

It happened in 47 but no one said anything about it until the late 70's.

Na, Edwards mentioned it in his '67 book, as did a few others in the intervening years.

Bennewitz (alien bases, Dulce and Cattle),

IIRC Lear was responsible for that.

My point is, these three "major" cases can all be a government ruse, fabricated to mislead the public and/or our enemies. They could have capitalized on a very real phenomena and put the pieces in place to create a frame work of cases that are nothing more than governmental invention.

I agree with KDR that Roswell is real and has a core of good testimony despite many attempts to mess it up with hogwash.

 

[withoutlimits09]

Maybe early on but KDR has probably done as much if not more than anyone else.



Supposedly Shandera received them in '84, but IIRC they didn't become publicly known until '87.



Na, Edwards mentioned it in his '67 book, as did a few others in the intervening years.




IIRC Lear was responsible for that.




I agree with KDR that Roswell is real and has a core of good testimony despite many attempts to mess it up with hogwash.

KDR would not have ever heard of Roswell if not for the Moore and Berlitz book.

Shandra was "business associate" of Moore's, again, a Moore tie in. He was never to really be heard from again...I guess his role in the OP was done and he moved on.

Edwards may have "mentioned it" in 1967, probably on the basis of the press report, but why no mention of crashed hardware, with bodies, autopsies, and high technology in '47, '48, '49, '50, '51. '52, '53,....'76, '77, '78...etc. Those accounts came AFTER and during the Moore/Berlitz book.

Bill Moore stated in his 1989 MUFON speech, that stories of under ground bases, evil aliens, and so forth, "has its beginnings in the Bennewitz case" - per Mirage Men documentary...Again, Bill Moore...

KDR is a hardcore Roswell believer, so we need to take his opinion of the matter as seriously as we do the die-hard skeptic...they are coming from the same place but opposite ends of the spectrum.

I find it miraculous that KDR's research, and others, were able to drum up dozens upon dozens of first hand witnesses who all "saw things," hell even the town mortician got in on the good stuff. This is just too unreasonable for me to believe. Did the Air Force conduct this investigation in a public stadium, with the whole town watching. Every principle player in research saw out of this world stuff, I just can't imagine why the Air Force needed to call some hick hillbilly mortician to come down to the airbase with little pine boxes..surely they have some engineers on "the most advanced and secretive air base in the world" who can build a damn box. I can't believe, multiple airmen claim "well we were alone with the boxes and were curious and decided to lift up the tarp, and wowzers, there was a little gray alien under there."

Kids played with debris, the mortician delivered the coffins, the unknown nurse with no security classifications got to see the autopsy, the lowly privates got to hang out with the bodies and look at them while everyone else was "gone." Coroso saw the bodies too.

It all just sounds like bullsh**t to me. If anything of that magnitiude had happened and that many people saw what the later claimed they saw, why did it take so long for it to come out, why did it come out only after professional intelligence guys (Moore and Berlitz) "investigated" cough...created..this narrative.

 

[Burnt State]

KDR would not have ever heard of Roswell if not for the Moore and Berlitz book.

Shandra was "business associate" of Moore's, again, a Moore tie in. He was never to really be heard from again...I guess his role in the OP was done and he moved on.

Edwards may have "mentioned it" in 1967, probably on the basis of the press report, but why no mention of crashed hardware, with bodies, autopsies, and high technology in '47, '48, '49, '50, '51. '52, '53,....'76, '77, '78...etc. Those accounts came AFTER and during the Moore/Berlitz book.

Bill Moore stated in his 1989 MUFON speech, that stories of under ground bases, evil aliens, and so forth, "has its beginnings in the Bennewitz case" - per Mirage Men documentary...Again, Bill Moore...

KDR is a hardcore Roswell believer, so we need to take his opinion of the matter as seriously as we do the die-hard skeptic...they are coming from the same place but opposite ends of the spectrum.

I find it miraculous that KDR's research, and others, were able to drum up dozens upon dozens of first hand witnesses who all "saw things," hell even the town mortician got in on the good stuff. This is just too unreasonable for me to believe. Did the Air Force conduct this investigation in a public stadium, with the whole town watching. Every principle player in research saw out of this world stuff, I just can't imagine why the Air Force needed to call some hick hillbilly mortician to come down to the airbase with little pine boxes..surely they have some engineers on "the most advanced and secretive air base in the world" who can build a damn box. I can't believe, multiple airmen claim "well we were alone with the boxes and were curious and decided to lift up the tarp, and wowzers, there was a little gray alien under there."

Kids played with debris, the mortician delivered the coffins, the unknown nurse with no security classifications got to see the autopsy, the lowly privates got to hang out with the bodies and look at them while everyone else was "gone." Coroso saw the bodies too.

It all just sounds like bullsh**t to me. If anything of that magnitiude had happened and that many people saw what the later claimed they saw, why did it take so long for it to come out, why did it come out only after professional intelligence guys (Moore and Berlitz) "investigated" cough...created..this narrative.

Some good criticisms here. So you think that the narrative has since grown into a mythology many believe in based on a combination of fabricated and then disconnected narratives - the whole thing getting assembled into a storyline of crashed aliens? Stories of the dead nurse in the hotel room that just could not be suicide are the things said just to construct an elaborate story?

Why do you think the report is first published in the news- we have a crashed saucer? Was that just a James Carrion cold war tactic? This part of the story continues to confuse.

 

[TrivialSublime]

Another question in general if it was made up or hyped was Jesse Marcel Jr. part of it, I had heard him a number of times over the years and he never really seemed to seek fame.

 

[boomerang]

I think it all boils down to the "standard" scenario for UFO incidents: Seemingly credible people recalling high strangeness events. I'm thinking about witnesses like Marcel Sr. and Jr, General Exon, Walter Haut, and some managers of the local radio station who are on video record (don't ask me exactly where) recounting how they were told by Washington authorities in no uncertain terms to clam up or lose their broadcast license.

All so much small town urban myth hatched in the public imagination and grown over time? Maybe. But I somehow don't think so.

 

[Trajanus]

Edwards may have "mentioned it" in 1967, probably on the basis of the press report, but why no mention of crashed hardware, with bodies, autopsies, and high technology in '47, '48, '49, '50, '51. '52, '53,....'76, '77, '78...etc. Those accounts came AFTER and during the Moore/Berlitz book.

Edwards wrote that the people in Roswell weren't talking. Marcel began to talk in '78, of unusual, crashed hardware. But there was the '48 aztec story which included bodies. It may have been deliberately associated with a con man to undermine any rumors stemming from the previous year's events.

KDR is a hardcore Roswell believer, so we need to take his opinion of the matter as seriously as we do the die-hard skeptic...

KDR has been objective. He's rejected many stories and witnesses.

I just can't imagine why the Air Force needed to call some hick hillbilly mortician to come down to the airbase with little pine boxes..surely they have some engineers on "the most advanced and secretive air base in the world" who can build a damn box.

LOL, KDR investigated the "hick" mortician and trashed his story.

I can't believe, multiple airmen claim "well we were alone with the boxes and were curious and decided to lift up the tarp, and wowzers, there was a little gray alien under there."

I wouldn't dismiss it unless it can be shown e.g. the guy wasn't even near Roswell at the time.

Kids played with debris, the mortician delivered the coffins, the unknown nurse with no security classifications got to see the autopsy, the lowly privates got to hang out with the bodies and look at them while everyone else was "gone." Coroso saw the bodies too.

Like the mortician, Corso is full of it.

It all just sounds like bullsh**t to me. If anything of that magnitiude had happened and that many people saw what the later claimed they saw, why did it take so long for it to come out,

Anyone who's read much about the case should be aware of the threats to keep quiet.

why did it come out only after professional intelligence guys (Moore and Berlitz) "investigated" cough...created..this narrative.

They didn't create it. Marcel and others did.

 

[withoutlimits09]

Edwards wrote that the people in Roswell weren't talking. Marcel began to talk in '78, of unusual, crashed hardware. But there was the '48 aztec story which included bodies. It may have been deliberately associated with a con man to undermine any rumors stemming from the previous year's events.



KDR has been objective. He's rejected many stories and witnesses.




LOL, KDR investigated the "hick" mortician and trashed his story.



I wouldn't dismiss it unless it can be shown e.g. the guy wasn't even near Roswell at the time.



Like the mortician, Corso is full of it.



Anyone who's read much about the case should be aware of the threats to keep quiet.




They didn't create it. Marcel and others did.

Okay, so Corso, a high ranking officer is a liar and embellishes, therefore we have shown that good solid military men, late in their life will confabulate events in attempt to assosiate with something larger and more sensational than the truth. Awesome, got it. So what is stopping the others from doing the same?

Oh, the mortician was proven to be full of crap, awesome, so there are liars among the Roswell "witnesses" who also make stuff up. Awesome, got it.

The witnesses were so afraid to talk that they remained silent...before finally talking with great detail. It doesn't sound very persuasive to me that the witnesses were sacred into secrecy only to spill their guts to Moore and Berlitz, two guys with heavy ties with intelligence, and arguably with Moore, disinformation campaigns.

So again, we have established several of the Roswell witnesses, including high ranking men like Corso lied. We have learned the local mortician was full of crap, and the nurse story probably never happened... You don't dispute this.

So now we are left with some choices...Roswell was either a crashed UFO event complete with aliens and witnesses were sworn to silence, but not real silence, because they eventually talked. Or, like most the characters in the narrative, embellishment, confabulation and the heavy hand of military intelligence played a role in taking a very earthly encounter and turning into something other worldly...

Which is more likely, aliens from another planet? or a mixture of myth, folklore, aging witnesses, confabulation, and the heavy hand of military intelligence all coalescing in the creation of a Roswell myth.