One of the most famous myths of our time, combining many aspects and clotheing the ancient sense of numinous in the clothes of scientific and technological progress, has become the myth of UFOs, more precisely, of aliens from other planets … This myth has firmly taken root in modern culture and mass consciousness, and even if you don't believe in aliens, you've probably heard of the "green men" and most likely watched the X-Files … As one American publicist notes, people are more convinced of the reality of flying saucers than of the Second Coming …
Most curious of all, the origins of these myths were by no means visionaries or clinical madmen, and the case of Paul Bennewitz, dating back to the 80s of the last century, is one of the most striking examples of this. The main figures participating in it are already indicative. Paul Bennewitz, physicist and talented engineer, UFO enthusiast. The author, UFO researcher and, as it turns out, agent provocateur William Moore. And finally, the US Air Force Special Investigation Agent (AFOSI) Richard Doty.
Richard Doty.
The story begins in 1979, when Paul Bennewitz, in his early fifties, owned Thunder Scientific, which developed temperature sensors, compasses and other equipment for the Air Force and NASA. Bennewitz himself lived with his wife and children on a posh estate that offered stunning views of the surroundings of Mount Manzano, a double peak that at the time housed one of the largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the United States.
Paul Bennewitz.
In July of that year, from his rooftop, Bennewitz began filming the strange lights flying in the air around the Manzano area, and recording radio broadcasts that he believed were associated with them. A responsible citizen, not to mention his firm as an Air Force contractor, in 1980 he decided to tell local security officials what was going on. Undeniably a brilliant scientist, Bennewitz, like many brilliant people, was somewhat eccentric, and came to the conclusion that the lights could be nothing more than highly advanced manned alien vehicles. He also suggested that their intentions were extremely friendly, which he informed the BBC.
“And here,” as researcher Mark Pilkington notes in his book Mirage People, “things get pretty weird and very sinister. Bennewitz, who died in 2003 at the age of seventy-five, was a good man and a true patriot of his country. The Air Force could easily get rid of him with "thanks for contacting us, these are our secret planes, so it is preferable that you just ignore them and not tell anyone what you saw." Instead, they, or rather AFOSI, decided not only to encourage Bennewitz in his harmless delusions, but to reinforce them to the point that ultimately push him to the edge of madness. Over the next few years, AFOSI handed him fake government documents about UFOs, handed him a computer that allegedlytook messages from evil aliens and even created a fake UFO base in distant New Mexico. All this for one eccentric scientist."
Special Agent Richard Doty's role was to befriend Paul Bennewitz and channel his fantasy even deeper in the spirit of Wells' War of the Worlds. At the same time, Doty was in secret contact with at least one respected UFO researcher, William Moore, who provided AFOSI with an update on ongoing UFO research. Moore's information was then used to create fake government documents that confirmed the ufological community's suspicions that aliens were harboring at the highest level (the notorious group MJ-12). In addition, his fellow researchers were presented with a rich pseudo-history of interaction between humans and aliens, which stretched back at least two thousand years (hello to the "theory of paleocontact" and "alternative archeology"!). Moore, wanting to justify himself, declared,that he agreed to cooperate in exchange for the promise of genuine government UFO documents that would prove once and for all that aliens are indeed visiting planet Earth and that the US government is hiding the grandest thing in human history.
Promotional video:
As a result, Doty and Bennewitz became the channels, if not the primary source, of much of the UFO mythology that has emerged since the early 1980s. Stories about crashed plates, treaties of the US government with disgusting aliens, that strangers mutilate livestock and manipulate human DNA, eventually acquired strength and authenticity, as they were retold by countless books, articles, films and television programs …"
The Bennewitz-Doty-Moore case resulted in an interesting transformation of public perception of the image of aliens. After all the nonsense about "space brothers" that prevailed in the 50s and 70s, when aliens were usually perceived in human form (often even in the guise of blond and blue-eyed Aryan deities), the 80s saw how they clearly inhuman, dispassionate appearance of the "grays". "Close contacts" in mass culture are acquiring an increasingly sinister connotation, and no trace remains of good feelings and Spielberg's mood. The aliens became obsessed with strange medical experiments, cattle mutilation, implants, and interbreeding operations with humans. At the same time, very few people guessed about the role that the US intelligence community has always played in the myth of aliens …
Author: Dmitry Zelentsov
