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Was Bill Moore A CIA Agent?

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This guy is responding to a comment on a forum written in 1998 recounting the Moore/Doty/Bennewitz affair and suggesting FRIEDMAN RECRUITED Doty for a mission. So this guy picks it up and rehashes it. It's just a speculative post by soeone on a mailing list. No big deal.
 
This guy is responding to a comment on a forum written in 1998 recounting the Moore/Doty/Bennewitz affair and suggesting FRIEDMAN RECRUITED Doty for a mission. So this guy picks it up and rehashes it. It's just a speculative post by soeone on a mailing list. No big deal.

Thought it was from 2001.

I posted it because there has been some discussion on the topic here before and thought some people would want to read it.
 
Thought it was from 2001.

I posted it because there has been some discussion on the topic here before and thought some people would want to read it.

Oh, that's cool. I just wanted to put things in perspective. The 2001 post quotes the 1998 post if you follow through from our link to the ones postd there.
 
Just adding to all this, there is a really interesting piece from an issue of UFO magazine from 2002. This was when Don Ecker was still the "Director of Research" (!!).

Anyway you may find it on scribd.com and here is the enormously large link:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/4213792/W...e-occurred-in-this-UFO-troubled-field-Read-on-

If you want to download it and read it at your leisure (and why do Americans pronounce it "leeeeeshurrrr"??) you will have to register and log in.

Anyhow it just underlines how mad the late 80s were in the wonderful world of ufo-logy. And just think in those days there was no Michael Horn, no Bassett ... no Greer ... no Sereda ... no ... well you get the general idea :p
 
I think we should distinguish between "agent" and "willing tool".

Some people are seduced by the promise of access to inside information, and will agree to do favours for their sources in return (despite the fact that what they get in return is typically worthless). It's amazing what people will do just to be able to kid themselves that they're In The Know.
I'm guessing Moore was what I believe the KGB used to call a "useful idiot".
 
I think we should distinguish between "agent" and "willing tool".

Or just a good old fashioned TOOL! He was a pathetic liar that wanted to make himself feel good by playing cloak and dagger. I honestly think that was the extent of it. Percieved ego stroking. I doubt any of the "players" involved actually acted in an association with doctrine or design on the part of the government.
 
Just a few words from someone who's talked to Moore and other UFO researchers, and researched the stories a bit more than simply looking around on the internet:

It's weird reading all these jabs at Moore, who is a friend of mine. The general attitude seems to rest on the assumption that he was a desperate egomaniac and liar. In over 20 years, I have found him to be neither. Nothing he has told me has turned out to be a lie, at least not yet. Maybe I'm lucky or a just a dupe.

If anything, Moore woke the UFO community up to the fact that they were all tools, or potential tools of people who don't care a bit about solving the UFO puzzle, but also don't mind using the subject to cover up projects and track people who are of interest. Before that, the field was rife with wacky stories cooked up as misdirection and bait. It still is to some extent (i.e. SERPO), but some people have wised up.

I don't have an anonymous online persona, so I have to occasionally watch what I say. Maybe I should make one up! The original post at UFOMystic was simply because someone had recently bought up the idea of Moore as a CIA agent (which I mentioned at the beginning of the post.)
 
Just a few words from someone who's talked to Moore and other UFO researchers, and researched the stories a bit more than simply looking around on the internet:

It's weird reading all these jabs at Moore, who is a friend of mine. The general attitude seems to rest on the assumption that he was a desperate egomaniac and liar. In over 20 years, I have found him to be neither. Nothing he has told me has turned out to be a lie, at least not yet. Maybe I'm lucky or a just a dupe.

If anything, Moore woke the UFO community up to the fact that they were all tools, or potential tools of people who don't care a bit about solving the UFO puzzle, but also don't mind using the subject to cover up projects and track people who are of interest. Before that, the field was rife with wacky stories cooked up as misdirection and bait. It still is to some extent (i.e. SERPO), but some people have wised up.

I don't have an anonymous online persona, so I have to occasionally watch what I say. Maybe I should make one up! The original post at UFOMystic was simply because someone had recently bought up the idea of Moore as a CIA agent (which I mentioned at the beginning of the post.)
Greg,
I have to defer to your direct knowledge and I don't buy the agent thing, but didn't he make his own bed to some extent?
He admitted 20 years ago to cooperating with Richie The Clown Doty in feeding alarming nonsense to Paul Bennewitz, with arguably tragic results.
While that doesn't in itself make him a bad person (we've all done things not to be proud of), it certainly leaves him open to criticism. One of the regrettable aspects of it (apart from the effects on Bennewitz and his family) is that it taints the good work he did - how are we supposed to know what was for real and what was propaganda he was being passed (wittingly or unwittingly)?
 
Although I certainly do defer to Greg's vast knowledge and direct experience I might point out that people on this board are not just cruising the Internet for anecdotes. Just a couple of weeks ago we all had the opportunity to review Moore's entire Mufon speech as printed in two issues of the Mufon Journal (in a thread started by Robert Hastings) where Moore admits to his duplicity in the Bennewitz affair. That counts as original source material.

That speech was long, strangely delivered, and not well received by the 'UFO Community.' No matter what he says his motives were, the aftermath of the speech resulted in Moore's integrity being questioned. The fact that he 'never lied' is directly contradicted by his own admission that he knowingly passed disinformaton to Bennewitz. Moore has since faded from the scene. I don't know all the reasons for that, but I can't help but think his own tarnished reputation is part of it.

I would also like to point out that in my original response to the OP I stated that the link was just a post by someone on a board over ten years ago and no big deal, so that has already been established. That people here have chosen to continue the discussion about Moore is not a bad thing, especially since many people here may not have been around when the whole Moore/Bennewitz affair went down and may not know what happened.

If you want to say that what Moore did was a GOOD thing by virtue of the fact that he exposed the operation that showed we were being led astray, OK. I can see that. But it's the same thing as a bank robber exposing the fact that your safe is not strong enough. That's very nice for the robber to have done that, but he still is going to jail. Moore participated in the acts he described. He may not have lied to Greg, but he sure as hell lied to Bennewitz. Perhaps Bennewitz would have gone ape shit crazy anyway, but Moore's little nudge surely did not help. And had Moore actually told Bennewitz what he knew, things may have turned out differently. Of course, we will never know because Moore didn't do that.
 
If you like this thread you'll definitely have to tune in to the May 10th show, where Greg and I discuss Moore in some detail as relates to MJ-12. While I have the greatest respect for Greg, who is a very good friend, I think he's wrong with respect to Moore, who is in my opinion one of the truly despicable characters in the long and often sad history of ufology. And no, for the record, I don't think Moore was a CIA agent, or anything as far as the government was concerned than a useful and ego-driven patsy. More's the shame for Moore.

But, as always, Greg and I agree to disagree on this issue. :)
 
He must be bad if he's been exiled from ufology. Who ever heard of such a thing? The ufological field accepts all kinds of frauds :p
 
What I think happened was that Moore got himself involved and got caught in a web that he couldn't or didn't want to get out of. Bit off more than he could chew, morally.

The only piece of disinfo he passed to Bennewitz was the Aquarius document, which he did with a warning not to take it too seriously. Strangely enough, Bennewitz never used the document publicly to prove anything. So while Moore did not nudge Bennewitz over the side, he told him to watch his footing and didn't grab his hand as he went over. He probably wouldn't have grabbed hold anyway. I agree that this is not morally defensible, even though Bennewitz was basically his own worst enemy with regards to what he believed and what he rejected.

I'll give one example of documents received by Moore with which no one in the UFO community seems to have much problem. The UFO sightings at Kirtland in August of 1980 are well-known through two documents originally given to Moore in February of 1982. Known originally as the "Kirtland Documents," they describe a radar jamming incident of unknown origin, and a UFO sighting and landing on the grounds of the base. Bruce Maccabee has done his own analysis. The radar jamming was confirmed by the FAA authorities at Albuquerque International Airport. The UFO sighting/ landing was confirmed (at least the document was) by Maccabee, who got a duplicate through FOIA.

People seem to have no problem with documents that support their preconceptions. Moore has changed his opinion on the original MJ-12 document (the Eisenhower Briefing (EB) memo) from "probably genuine" to "probably (mostly) disinfo." You can say that this is convenient for Moore, but I continue to believe that none of the documents he was given or allowed to view were conccoted by him. Stan Friedman continues to claim that it (EB) is wholly genuine.

I tend to think that the whole government UFO issue is so riddled with disinfo that we should stop peppering the authorties with requests for documents, since it is my belief that they know little more than we do. The one exception may be the work done by such people as Robert Hastings, who (although he has a very low opinion of Moore and his ilk, and perhaps myself) continues to try and prove that the U.S. Government does indeed have an interest in the subject and that UFOs are or were considered a threat to national security, with sightings near military installations.

Arguments for any issue are usually based on one's preconceptions or belief system, and if we are lucky, the facts may reveal themselves to anyone sufficently open-minded to accept them. I'd like to think that I would be able to discern this in spite of my biases.

The interviews referenced by Gareth may be helpful listening for anyone interested in this part of UFO history. As far as I know, they are the only ones Moore has given since the late 1980s.
 
In response to Greg Bishop’s two posts on this thread, I offer the following:

First, Greg, no I don’t have a low opinion of you. You are obviously sincere in your beliefs and have been candid in your remarks here. I do, however, think you a bit naive in your assessment of the MJ-12 Affair and Moore’s role in it. But that’s an observation, not a judgment.
<?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /><O:p></O:p>
I am currently gathering material for incorporation into a third update to my “Operation Bird Droppings” (OBD) article and will, therefore, only touch on a few subjects here, and briefly. <O:p></O:p>
<O:p></O:p>
GB: If anything, Moore woke the UFO community up to the fact that they were all tools, or potential tools of people who don't care a bit about solving the UFO puzzle, but also don't mind using the subject to cover up projects and track people who are of interest.<O:p></O:p>
<O:p></O:p>
RH: This is either revisionist history or demonstrates an ignorance of the facts. <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
><ST1:place w:st=
</ST1:place>Moore would have undoubtedly kept his mouth shut about the OSI op, and his involvement in it, had I not personally pushed him into publicly exposing all of that. Read his article about MJ-12 in the January 1989 MUFON UFO Journal. He was all piss and vinegar, chastising ufology for questioning his methods in the handing of the supposedly legitimate information given to him by his “sources” (disinformation agents Doty and Collins) and more or less saying if you weren’t for him you were against him (and Friedman).
<O:p></O:p>
On March 1, 1989, I circulated my “The MJ-12 Affair: Facts, Questions, Comments” to dozens of ufologists, including Moore and Friedman. Although I recently provided a link to that article (published in the June 1989 MUFON UFO Journal) in my OBD article, it appears—from some of the comments posted on this thread—that many of you still have not read it. It is at:<O:p< p>


<O:p< p>After Moore failed in his attempt to intimidate me into a retraction, by showing up unannounced at my front door, I sent him a letter saying I would seek to have a court restraining order issued against him if he tried that again. He then LIED about that letter, Greg, by saying it was actually from my attorney, in a letter he subsequently sent about the incident to Caveat Emptor magazine. (Still waitin’ for you to produce that non-existent letter, Bill.)
<O:p></O:p>
<st1:City w:st="on">Moore</st1:City>’s <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:place w:st="on">Las Vegas</ST1:place></st1:City> “confession” speech, published in two parts in the November and December issues of the MUFON UFO Journal, now available at:

<O:p< p>


<O:p< p>Upon reading these, one will find that the first installment is prefaced by a bit of commentary, by an unnamed Journal staff writer, which clearly references my own March 1st article as the catalyst that resulted in <ST1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Moore</st1:City></ST1:place>’s public mea culpa. For you, Greg, to say that Moore did ufology a big favor in his speech, by pointing out how government operatives could lead people astray, simply ignores the fact that I (and Todd Zechel, and Barry Greenwood and Bob Todd) all worked diligently to push him into a corner from which he could not escape, thereby forcing his “confession” which, as I pointed out in OBD, was a combination of fact, half-truths and lies. <O:p></O:p>
<O:p></O:p>
So, who exactly did ufology a favor, Greg?<O:p></O:p>
<O:p></O:p>
GB: It's weird reading all these jabs at Moore, who is a friend of mine. The general attitude seems to rest on the assumption that he was a desperate egomaniac and liar. In over 20 years, I have found him to be neither. Nothing he has told me has turned out to be a lie, at least not yet. Maybe I'm lucky or a just a dupe.<O:p></O:p>
<O:p></O:p>
RH: Well, now that you’ve said it yourself, try giving the idea some serious thought. In any case, one LIE in <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:place w:st="on">Moore</ST1:place></st1:City>’s speech concerned an article titled “The Squire and the Knave” that circulated anonymously shortly after my own exposé on Moore and his birds—Falcon/Doty and Condor/Collins—was published. <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:place w:st="on">Moore</ST1:place></st1:City> claimed that he didn’t write the piece, in which Bill was the Squire and I, of course, was the Knave. It’s all self-serving, Moore-glorifying nonsense, hardly worth the read, except for the fact that the, ahem, unknown author called me a “plagiarist.” That, of course, was false—I am still not clear about what the alleged charge related to—and clearly actionable in the legal sense. Which is undoubtedly why <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1:place w:st="on">Moore</ST1:place></st1:City> denied being the author. <O:p></O:p>
<O:p></O:p>
Well, Mr. Moore, I have proof that you did indeed write “The Squire and the Knave” and did, therefore, libel me in it. Care to sort this out in court? Greg Bishop seems to have faith in your basic integrity. Shall we put that premise to the test? <O:p></O:p>
<O:p></O:p>
I will close here by saying that Moore did candidly admit to some things in his speech, including spying on, and disseminating disinformation to, APRO’s founders, the Lorenzens, Paul Bennewitz, and a few other folks, including researcher Lee Graham. Furthermore, although he has yet to acknowledge this little caper, <ST1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Moore</st1:City></ST1:place> also called one of my Sandia Labs sources, who was providing me with credible information about nuclear weapons-related UFO activity, and told him that I was a CIA agent. <O:p></O:p>
<O:p></O:p>
As I told Rich Dolan a few years ago, “...after I began communicating with various talkative Sandia Labs employees in 1984, about nukes-related UFO sightings, Moore suddenly called up one of them, out of the blue, and warned him not to talk to me because I was supposedly ‘CIA’. Boom, just like that, all of these guys got spooked and clammed-up. It took me years to win back their confidence and get ‘the rest of the story’. So, <ST1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Moore</st1:City></ST1:place>’s actions in that particular instance were highly suspicious, in my opinion. Was he an intelligence operative who was ordered to put a roadblock in front of me? Who knows?”
<O:p></O:p>
Anyway, I still maintain that the facts about MJ-12 will not fully emerge until Bill Moore, Richard Doty, Bob Collins, Tim Cooper and other key players in this farce are placed under oath in a court of law. I, and others, are now giving serious thought as to how that might be accomplished in the near future.
<O:p></O:p>
--Robert Hastings
Ufohastings.com
</O:p<></O:p<>
</O:p<></O:p<></O:p<>
 
Going to take the time to do now what I should have done a while ago. Read all the material in your links Robert. Out of interest, what do you think the chances are of getting your time in court with these guys? Not much hope?

Coincidentally, I was listening to the Culture of Contact interview with Greg Bishop today during a 3hr car trip I had to make. Greg in that interview you mentioned that you discovered who "falcon" was, but it wasnt Doty.

Just curious if you ever publicly disclosed who you believed falcon was. Obviously some people think its Doty as RH mentioned above.
 
<st><st><strike>Bill</strike></st></st> err Robert, your first link to Moores speech doesnt work. I assume its meant to point to November 89?

*fixed*
<strike></strike>
 
I think the truth is that MJ-12 is a dead issue. If you think it was a hoax, or disinformation, or whatever, as I do, then why bother with it? Life is short, and the focus should be on investigating new cases, and not getting caught up in stuff like this. Honestly, who cares what Bill Moore, or even Rick Doty, was up to back then, or might be up to now? If people are dumb enough to fall for it, then there isn't much you can do about it.

Talking about MJ-12 is a side-show that only the hard-core in ufology care about. It has nothing to do with serious UFO research, or with an attempt to get some answers with respect to the UFO enigma.

This is the conclusion I have come to re: MJ-12, and Bill Moore.

Paul
 
I think the truth is that MJ-12 is a dead issue. If you think it was a hoax, or disinformation, or whatever, as I do, then why bother with it? Life is short, and the focus should be on investigating new cases, and not getting caught up in stuff like this. Honestly, who cares what Bill Moore, or even Rick Doty, was up to back then, or might be up to now? If people are dumb enough to fall for it, then there isn't much you can do about it.

Talking about MJ-12 is a side-show that only the hard-core in ufology care about. It has nothing to do with serious UFO research, or with an attempt to get some answers with respect to the UFO enigma.

This is the conclusion I have come to re: MJ-12, and Bill Moore.

Paul
Oh noes!
If MJ-12 is all fake then "Falcon" and "Condor" were lying to us!!!
And that means...(gulp)...my plans to become rich after the Invasion by selling strawberry ice ceam and MP3s of Tibetan music to our Alien Overlords are all for nothing.
Bugger.
 
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