The 1980s - When Ufology went Screwball Crazy

originally posted by: mirageman


It cannot be refuted that what happened was the injection of a continuous stream of pollutants into the already murky world of Ufology some 3 decades ago. The like of Lear, Doty and Moore being merely public faces for this massive output of disinformation. We are still to detoxify much of it today. Some of it is so ingrained that it has been accepted as the truth by many.

Yet - if there really is nothing at all to the UFO topic then it begs the question; why so much interest, and interference, from the intelligence communities down the years?

The most likely reason for going this direction is all the money that had already changed hands.

MJ12 wasn't just spreading disinformation. It was steering large amounts of money into private accounts, where it was expected to be used in the secret conflicts with aliens. Things the public was never asked about. Perhaps things even Congress never got asked about (but should have).

It's not just the aliens they want swept under the rug. It's everything else. Stuff that looks really misguided now, but seemed necessary at the time.

Now they realize the aliens aren't here to take over. They want what they want (such as abductions, and cattle mutilations), but conquest of the world itself holds no interest for them.

But there is still this huge shadow government put in place by MJ12, which no longer has much of a purpose, but also doesn't want to go out of existence. Too many people making their living off that breadline. And the money, having such a dubious legal status, is almost has hard to give back as it was to procure.

Awesome thread and fantastic OP!

I think the 80's and 90's UFO awakening (for lack of a better word) were a product of the 60's. The pardigm shift in the attitude and beliefs of the population in general was profound. In the 60's-70's people began to question the role of government and by the 80's they were by and large unwilling to trust the government or believe excuses etc.

You also couple that with a revolution in communication that started in the early 70's with the XEROX Alto, that would lead to the online era of the 90's. This revolution allowed groups to communicate in near real time as opposed to months or years. This communication revolution was in the beginning available to truly dedicated people (unlike the cattle car approach we have today) and the discussions and content reflected that.

You also have to acknowledge the rise of the dedicated skeptic. Unlike the previous generation of skeptics who could simply wave away UFO topics with a 'Your crazy" comment, the dedicated skeptic brought much more to the table. Tom Mahood is one such skeptic I have interacted with, and there are 1000 more like him.

To add some further information about the activities of AFOSI Agent Richard Doty

Researcher Alejandro Rojas spent serious time looking into the claims of Richard Doty back in 2013. Doty has said in a number of interviews he was simply “doing his job” and was ordered to do so by his superiors. These jobs appear to include breaking and entering private property, creating and releasing bogus but official looking secret documents, and lying to two U.S. Senators.

As some of this behaviour involved criminal acts, allegedly under orders from government employees , Rojas filed FOI requests and asked for a response from the Air Force on this matter. He was originally informed someone would give an official verbal response.

However, after he had received the documents requested, the USAF then claimed they had nothing further to say on the matter. Alejandro Rojas did receive a number of documents in response to his questions under FOI.

You can see the documents here : Doty FOIA documents

However in response to questions about any criminal activities the response was covered by legal exemptions :



Alejandro Rojas also filmed a 30 min youtube video based on his investigations. It includes Doty’s role in feeding Paul Bennewitz the false information about UFOs and ET and an alien base at Dulce, New Mexico. All of which eventually turned Bennewitz paranoid and mentally unstable.





Doty remained steadfast that he had nothing to do with creating any documents with Bill Moore in regards to MJ-12.



He also stated that he was cleared of any involvement with the MJ-12 documents. But under closer inspection he does not issue an outright denial, only that he was cleared.





Rojas concluded:

Due to the extent at which the mythology created by Doty’s official or non-official disinformation campaign has worked its way into an alleged hidden history of Air Force and U.S. government secrecy, and due to the negative impact these events had on Mr. Bennewitz and his family, we deserve a response from the Air Force on their involvement, or non-involvement in this matter.

Mr. Doty is now a sergeant for the New Mexico State Police, based out of Grants, and he continues to make wild accusations about the Air Force’s secret knowledge of UFOs and aliens. If he was not under orders to fabricate these documents, as he claims, then his employers and those he continues to attempt to perpetrate hoaxes upon, deserve to know this.

Source

In the interesting documentary "Mirage Men" (no relation!) Doty hinted that 20% of his information was truth disguised in lies without giving away any clues. Maybe that was a lie as well?

a reply to: mirageman

Hiya MM, have you got a copy of the Coast interview? Art Bell, Greg Bishop and Rick Doty. If you don't, and want a copy I'll send a link.

Good thread. There were enough shenanigans in 80s ufology to write an academic book. You've managed to squeeze it all in and done it justice.

a reply to: Kandinsky

Thanks for the positive comments - as always my friend.

Indeed one could fill a book (and some people have done) with the various mischief making and deception from 80s ufology. Of course back then I lapped it all up like a gullible teenager. Maybe because I was one for a huge chunk of that decade! But I really miss those days of wanting to believe.

Now I was sure I had an old copy of that C2C interview. I remember Doty claiming it was all "doing his job" and his appearance was something of coup on the show. I probably do have it archived on an old CD somewhere. But if you have a fresh link that would fantastic. Sometimes you pick up on things with hindsight that were not apparent on first listen.

a reply to: mirageman

Check your PMs

The link between Moore and Berlitz is one that was interesting. Berlitz had a magic ability to create myths and legends and perhaps Moore learned the tricks of the trade? I've wondered if he's the link that connects the 70s myth makers with the 80s ones. However it was, or became to be, there was a factory effort to inject a lot of BS into the public consciousness back then. Motives are open to speculation and apparently ranged from money to psyops to plain mischief and maybe something more that we can only sense.

It's all by-the-by nowadays and the fascination has faded for me even it's not entirely left.

a reply to: mirageman

I've looked a little into UFO Coverup Live! I think I have a few interesting facts for you. I've taken these from a recent interview with Richard Doty, numerous interviews with Tracy Torme, "Exempt From Disclosure" by Robert Collins and a few Coast To Coast interviews from back in the day.

The show was originally conceived as a way to encourage disclosure, but quickly degenerated into an overly scripted farce.

- Produced by Michael Seligman, a former colleague of Bob Emenegger at Grey Advertising
- Associate Producer - Curtis Brubaker who went to college with John Lear and built sci fi TV props. - also worked on Disney's Alien Encounters (both Shandera and Emenegger had Disney connections)
- Associate Producer - Bill Bracken - a prolific producer with no connection to anything remotely 'alien'
- Segment Producer - Tracy Torme, writer of Fire In The sky and Star Trek TNG fame

Apparently, Bill Moore was keen to be involved, and along with Friedman, brought Jaime Shandera into the mix. Moore and Shandera revealed to Seligman that they had inside sources. They arranged to meet on an Island in the Great Lakes.

According to an interview with Torme, due to bad weather, I believe only Seligman went out on the boat with the two sources. From reading Robert Collin's "Exempt From Disclosure" you can gather that the two sources of Moore and Shandera were likely Ernie Kellerstrauss and Robert Collins and they piloted the boat to pick up Seligmann.

Whatever Seligmann was shown and told, he came back upset and according to Torme scared and paranoid. He then insisted everything was read from cards and scripted.

Curtis Brubaker brought over John Burroughs and Larry Warren for a segment on the Rendlesham Incident. Burroughs alleges Brubaker did not trust Warren and wanted Burroughs to secretly record Warren talking about silver suited aliens in the forest. For Warren's part he claims he felt uncomfortable with Brubaker and the way CoverUp Live! would present what happened, and decided not to go ahead.

In a recent interview for Phenomenon Radio, John Burroughs interviewed Al Ward the hypnosis who conducted Burroughs' original regression. Many people have wondered why this hypnosis session has never been broadcast in the USA. The reason is Brubaker decided it would be better in a followup show about the RFI that never happened. Al Ward revealed that Brubaker was reporting back to Bob Emenegger about the results of the hypnotic session whilst it was going on!

During the show there was a wireframe computer graphic of a grey alien, whose creation was overseen by Brubaker, according to Doty. The graphic contains numerous codes on it, that Doty says are random nonsense. Others see Wright Patterson department and division codes.

In a recent interview for Greer's "Unacknowledged" Doty made the following claims:


1) A segment interviewing him as Doty (not Falcon) was filmed removed due to Seligmann claiming time limits
2) That the director of the Falcon segment kept trying to coach Doty on what to say to the point that Doty walked out
3) Doty suggest that only a fraction of the story Falcon tells is him. The rest is dubbed by someone, whom Doty suspects is Robert Collins

Whoever the director of this segment was, it was not Torme, who was in Gulf Breeze, having decided to stay as far away from what he saw as disaster as possible. That leaves Brubkar or Braken.

Do we believe Doty's recent interview claiming he was dubbed and most of the outrageous claims were not his? What was Seligmann told or shown? Why was Rendlesham excluded?

a reply to: mirageman

Wow, great thread and well done! It's fun looking back at all of this.

I remember having problems finding books in the libraries then since they were always checked out already. The interest was very high.

The Billy Meier madness was going on with all the fake photo's and his nonsense including the church or whatever it was. He was creative with garbage can lids and the other junk he fashioned for his photo's. I think he was actually quite mad.

It doesn't get as much attention as some of the other stories but the flap in Wytheville Virginia happened during the 80's and is featured on Unsolved Mysteries. i had a personal sighting of the strangest thing I have seen in my lifetime and have a thread about it here on ATS. I live 40 miles or so from Wytheville and had no idea a flap was going on. it went on for almost a year and just stopped I guess. Alot of speculation said it was military and some said an experiment to see how the people would react. The guy who worked at the local radio station in Wytheville had alot to say as he got a visit from men claiming to be reporters, only to find out they didn't work for the paper they claimed to work for. His house was broken into, photos were stolen and the guy had a hell of a time. What happened to the ufo flaps? Hell for that matter the mass sightings period? the last one I remember is the Phoenix lights. We also had the Ohare incident which seemed interesting but turned up very little as far as evidence. I miss the 80's and all the intrigue of Ufo's and the paranormal in general. In the digital age nothing is as it seems. The 80's were interesting and someone invents a time machine I would be the first to volunteer to go back! Great thread!

a reply to: Kandinsky

Fun fact, according to Wikipedia, Berlitz was in army intelligence for over a decade. Not surprising for someone who owned a foreign language company Berlitz spoke Russian, a random skill he shared with co-author Bill Moore.

If there’s one thing you can say about Berlitz, he knew how to sensationalise and market a mythical or paranormal topic that would generate huge sales.

a reply to: ctj83

Very interesting and in depth information there about that UFO Cover-Up? Live! Show.



It seems on the face of it all that, besides being entertainment, it was to get the UFO subject out there into the wider public consciousness. Perhaps a step towards further disclosure by forcing the hand of the secret keepers.

Where have we heard of that recently?

But it seems that perhaps there was a darker reason behind it all. It was not a push for the truth at all but one to hide reality in obfuscation and the show was actually just a continuation of the "Cover-Up" itself.

There is a line of thinking that says all the sci-fi and documentaries has been a long slow acclimatisation before the real truth comes out. When disclosure actually happens people will hardly notice it because of all the noise generated about UFOs and alien contact down the years. There will be no UN President flanked by ET ambassadors live on global satellite TV. It will be something low key and simple like the announcement of a mysterious signal or artifact has been discovered and it matches something found many years ago. We didn't know what it was or where it came from but now we can confirm it is of intelligent design and not from this planet.

This conditioning is not aimed at the UFO community, who are a tiny minority, and have been used to spread the wild stories as well. It is for the general global populace, many who hold very rigid and strict religious beliefs. So when any such announcement is eventually made it is not shocking or causes disruption and mental meltdown in these people.
We all know what happens when people's beliefs are challenged.

It is just a theory of course. But we seem to be entering a new phase of it some 30 years after UFO Cover-Up Live.

a reply to: keenmachine

Do you think your sighting was connected in anyway with the Hudson Valley sightings

What happened to the ufo flaps? Hell for that matter the mass sightings period? the last one I remember is the Phoenix lights.

The Phoenix Lights marks the moment when the golden age of Ufology blinks out like those lights in the Arizona skies.
Sure, there were cases afterwards and continue to this day. But as I said earlier in the thread.

... I think the end of the Cold War and the birth of the mass market satellite TV, the internet and other technologies meant two things. First of all there was no longer as much need for Special Projects to be hidden behind the UFO phenomenon. Secondly certain events that would have lingered as classic UFO stories had they happened (even in the 80s) are now resolved a lot more quickly. As examples the Norway spiral in 2009 was fairly quickly resolved as a missile test gone wrong and [so was] the Russian meteor explosion from 2013 caught on dashcams ..

a reply to: mirageman

There’s another interesting aspect which goes almost ignored. During her 80s investigation of the Rendlesham Forest Incident, Jenny Randles was offered a cache of documents which seemed to be the MJ12 documents with some variation of the Aquarius teletype.

Randles dug into the background of the person who offered them and scared them off. Supposedly the documents were returned to Wright Pat.

Two things stand out. First, an attempt to distract from the RFI with MJ12 documents. The second is that RFI segmented were either planned or planned and filmed for UFO Coverup? But dropped.

Also in the proto MJ12 was an entire appendix on alien autopsy’s! Included were supposed autopsy photos with a traditional grey laying prone and cut down the middle with a central single organ that does everything.

This can be found in the computer generated alien for UFO Coverup and Falcons story. Yet was never part of any version of MJ12 we see.

So how can that be?

Doty’s recent claim (“Unacknowldged”) of his Falcon audio being at least 2/3rds dubbed would be easy for an audio expert to verify. I’ll say this, I think it’s all Doty but much of the audio of him talking sounds different than the initial segment.

It would also explain the inexcusable decision to overlay a inappropriate soundtrack throughout.

a reply to: ctj83

So overall do you think the original conception of the UFO Cover Up? show became compromised during pre-production?

Perhaps being influenced by certain vested interests promoting their agenda and ridiculing the Rendlesham story before it became well known in North America.

I was about 10 when UFO Cover Up Live was broadcast and as an avid UFO buff at that age I sat and watched it with the family, and yes it was broadcast live (or delayed until the evening) here in NZ which was quite neat... mum hated the idea of the greys since shes a UFO believe from the 40-50's ie Adamanski and the nordic space brother era and the idea of the 'Grey' was one she found repugnant.... shrug, she still has that mindset.

For me I lapped it up, as it sort of injected grand conspiracy things i hadnt heard of such as the whole Falcon, Condor, EBE story (it was quite the talk at school the next day although 90% of the kids called it bull mainly because of the Icecream part, although most of them apart from one or two including myself had no interest in that sort of thing). The Gulfbreeze segment was great since it was the first mass sighting type event id heard of. Thing is i must admit given the shows impact on me as a kid after all these decades and seeing evidence of the whole lie that was the menagerie ie Falcon, Condor 'strawberry icecream' etc and looking at it now the clearly faked Gulfbreeze photos it disappoints me alot and makes me rather sad. That being said i wouldn't say its all bad, there was some nice stuff from Russia, the Landrum? case was brought up and the the women involved interviewed along with some other UFO sightings. Also very much appreciated the 5 types of UFO encounters breakdown they did which id not heard of until then.

I still have it on video tape... i still think it was a genuine production to get the talk of UFOs going in the public mind. I mean this sort of thing was NOT talked about in the general public (at least not in my country) until UFO cover up aired, and it was super fringe before then and had been for a good 2 decades, even then it didnt really catch on for a good 5+ years which is when in the 90's you started to get shows like Sightings and Unsolved Mysteries. But yeah id say while the intentions where good, it was duped by some very nefarious people into putting out some now fairly decently proven fake material.

Show definitely had a pretty big impact on me as a kid, and to me a positive impact on the public as a whole... no matter if it was made for the wrong reasons or not.

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: keenmachine

Do you think your sighting was connected in anyway with the Hudson Valley sightings

What happened to the ufo flaps? Hell for that matter the mass sightings period? the last one I remember is the Phoenix lights.

The Phoenix Lights marks the moment when the golden age of Ufology blinks out like those lights in the Arizona skies.
Sure, there were cases afterwards and continue to this day. But as I said earlier in the thread.

... I think the end of the Cold War and the birth of the mass market satellite TV, the internet and other technologies meant two things. First of all there was no longer as much need for Special Projects to be hidden behind the UFO phenomenon. Secondly certain events that would have lingered as classic UFO stories had they happened (even in the 80s) are now resolved a lot more quickly. As examples the Norway spiral in 2009 was fairly quickly resolved as a missile test gone wrong and [so was] the Russian meteor explosion from 2013 caught on dashcams ..

i have wondered if it was connected to the Hudson valley sighting as I have seen a pic of a craft of pretty enormous size and with all the colors of lights around it. It's the closest picture to what I saw. So many different colors of lights just zipping around this thing in a circle and then it midstream the lights would head the other way in a faster pace. Craziest thing I ever saw. At the end of the unsolved mysteries episode a wytheville woman describes it to a tee. i knew we had seen the same craft at about the same time as I live 30 minutes from Wytheville.

yeah it seems there was lots of ufo things before 2000's but now that each person has a good quality camera (smart phone) the amount of witness reports went way down. seems contradictory. i saw an alien though so i know there are thousands of races on our planet

a reply to: BigfootNZ

I might be wrong but I don't think was screened here in the UK. Back then there was no satellite or cable TV. The 4 terrestrial channels were all there was. "Unsolved Mysteries" and "Sightings" didn't arrive until the 90s here either. By then ITV was making "Strange But True" and "X-Files" was being shown on the ultra-conservative BBC.

However it is obvious, to anyone watching "UFO Cover Up? Live" now, that the whole thing was heavily scripted and even the guests had words put into their mouths.

a reply to: mirageman

There are three mysteries at the heart of the 1980s madness and UFO Coverup live?

- The Real Identify Of Moore's main informant Falcon. Who was the real Falcon - and if he wasn't part of AFOSI - then why does everything and the silly MJ12 mythology get laid at Doty's door? Why was Doty's segment as himself dropped? If he was dubbed as Falcon why? Clearly to establish him as a fall guy being responsible for more than he did.

- The Grey Autopsy. Why was Randles offered a different version with what seems to be an abandoned UFO autopsy appendix, that can be found echoed in the Coverup? Live CGI and in Santilli's film to a disturbing degree.

- The Holography Platform. You can find interviews that suggest everyone from Seligmann, to Doty, Shandera, Moore saw an 'alien artifact'. The "Yellow Book". Maybe "Yellow Book" is EXACTLY what the name says - technology (CD ROM) developed in the late 70s. maybe fused with 'heads up display' holography technology seen by Emenegger during his 70s documentary - also invested by Phillips (with Hughes Aircraft). I'll go so far as to suggest the video playback was based on Phillips 1983 Cd -Video technology. Not alien, just a cool portable multimedia system.

So why did UFO Coverup Live go wrong? Fear of whatever some of them were shown.
Why was it created? Another attempt at disclosure.

It's interesting to note that Emenegger was offered an interview with a live alien in the late 1980s. If it is related, it would explain the whole 'live' structure, but done with video links, that the show aimed for.

I'll leave you with a made up scenario that I think might have happened - but it's totally my guess work.

- Emenegger was offered a live interview with an alien
- it would have likely not been studio based, so over a video link from some location
- Emenegger has already told us of being impressed with animated holography in the 1970s
- Perhaps a version of the holography digital video platform would have created an onstage projection that would then have been transmitted to the Coverup Live studio screens.

My guess, In the end, it all fell through. As usual, the rug was pulled under Emenegger. The CGI alien wireframe we see at the end might have been the remains of the special effects work attempted. 100% guess on my part, almost certainly wrong!

a reply to: ctj83

....why does everything and the silly MJ12 mythology get laid at Doty's door? Why was Doty's segment as himself dropped? If he was dubbed as Falcon why? Clearly to establish him as a fall guy being responsible for more than he did.

It would seem that way. Doty retired from the Air Force on Oct 1st 1988. A couple of weeks before the UFO Cover Up show went out live and a month or so after Paul Bennewitz had a nervous breakdown and was admitted into care.



But after he left he was still involved in the craziness years later even attending UFO conventions as a civilian. He then appears in the Mirage Men movie, about 20 years later, bigging himself up and his role with the Air Force.

He's practically gloating in this clip regarding his interactions with Linda Howe.



Disclaimer : I have no affiliation to anyone involved in the production of the Mirage Men movie.