X Descending

by Christian Lambright

  Moore's story of receiving the first telephone call in Omaha may be the most widely accepted version of events, but a different version appears in Howard Blum's 1990 book Out There. Blum, who interviewed Moore personally, reported that the first telephone call had reached Moore at a radio station in Washington, D.C. The content of the call is described similarly to Moore's version, but Blum identified the radio station as W.O.W., a rather specific detail. Furthermore, he went on to say that Moore got the call as he was leaving the station to meet with Stanton Friedman and visit the National Archives,68 again very specific details.

  Then, on September 8th, during the return trip from Washington, D.C., Moore was in Albuquerque giving another radio interview when a second telephone call came in. This time the call was from someone saying they were at nearby Kirtland AFB, but Moore said the wording was very similar to what he had heard previously. Moore was not in such a rush this time and the phone call resulted in his first meeting with a mysterious figure he has cryptically named “Falcon”. This meeting was the first step in his recruitment to inform on Paul Bennewitz, and assist in other ways he has never revealed.

  For these calls to begin with the words "We think" suggests that the caller was not acting alone and there had been some discussion about Moore (if not simply feeding Moore's ego.) How the first caller knew Moore was in Omaha, and possibly in which hotel he was staying, is curious to say the least. A call made on the spur of the moment would likely have gone to the radio station. Someone could have learned Moore's travel schedule; if Moore was on a promotional tour then it might have been as simple as calling his publisher and asking his itinerary. But determining the hotel in which Moore was staying, if the caller did reach him there, would have required at least some time and effort. Nevertheless, it is hard to reconcile a caller from Omaha tracking him to Albuquerque to try again to recruit him unless Moore had shown some interest. Any way you look at it, the implication is clear that Moore was the target from the outset. And yet, why not simply call him at home and avoid a cloak-and-dagger chase around the country? As plausible as the Omaha scenario might sound, there is another curious and perhaps far more credible version of how Moore was approached.

  In 1988, Lawrence Fenwick, a noted Canadian researcher and co-founder of the Canadian UFO Research Network, was interviewed by Tom Mickus, a System Operator for the computer bulletin board service, Paranet69. The interview, which covered topics ranging from the interesting to the bizarre, touched on Bill Moore and his recent activities. Fenwick described a lengthy conversation with Tracy Tormé, a highly respected television and film writer and producer, and friend of Bill Moore, who was working in Canada at the time. Tormé revealed some rather secretive details he had learned directly from Moore, including a brief mention of how Moore had first been approached. Fenwick recalled Tormé saying that Moore got a telephone call that led to a meeting at a McDonald’s restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona. No dates were given for the meeting, and this version depends, of course, on whether what Tormé was told by Moore was actually true. But having met and spoken with Tormé in the past, I believe him to be extremely credible. I also spoke with Lawrence Fenwick once years ago, and he did have access to some very unique information. It was Fenwick who told me that he had personally heard Bill Moore admit to changing portions of the Aquarius Telex…a fact, and changes, that few people would be aware of until much later.

  Still, the story Moore has asserted is that the first telephone call came in Omaha. Then, a second call, which may have come from the same individual, occurred several days later when Moore was in Albuquerque. If Moore's story of receiving these calls is true, it is hard not to get the sense that whatever plan was being enacted, it was designed with Moore in mind from the beginning. The callers were apparently confident that Moore would be amenable since they seem to have gone to whichever city he would be in to meet with him. And, a face to face meeting suggests they were not overly concerned about the exposure. However, if Moore was first contacted in Phoenix and he met with someone there, it would be interesting to know when that meeting took place. Was it before he took the position in charge of APRO Special Investigations? The only things certain are that Moore was a willing participant in the AFOSI operation, and in Albuquerque he worked closely with Richard Doty.

  Whatever the circumstances, the odds of the Weitzel Letter being sent to APRO, only to be handed by sheer random chance directly to the same person who, within a few weeks, would be recruited in Albuquerque to work with Doty, are too great to be purely coincidental. In Moore's own 1990 analytical report, The MJ-12 Documents, he actually states that Doty wrote the Weitzel Letter, making it even more difficult not to see Moore as the intended target all along, if “target” is the operative word. The fact that the Weitzel Letter arrived at APRO just at the time when it would be put into Moore’s hands raises even more questions. The fact that the Weitzel Letter arrived at APRO just at the time when it would be put into Moore's hands raises even more questions.

  Since Moore had just moved to Arizona in 1979, and it was not until mid-1980 that he was put in charge of APRO's Special Investigations—how could Doty have sent the letter and been sure Moore would receive it, unless he already knew Moore's APRO position? How might he have known that? Did Moore really decide the Weitzel letter was hogwash (it did contain the name of his future AFOSI contact?) How much did AFOSI know about Moore, and when did they know it. Was he actually recruited later in Albuquerque, or was he recruited at all?

  The Weitzel Letter notwithstanding, the question remains whether there is any evidence that the mysterious telephone calls actually took place? In my experience, there is none. We only have Moore's word for it, just as we have only his word that informing on Paul Bennewitz and helping AFOSI in other ways was a purely practical decision. The only thing that appears certain is that Moore worked with AFOSI and/or DIA, and with Doty, "Falcon", and perhaps others, in an operation to destroy Paul's credibility and control any problems caused by his activities.

  I have no doubt that many researchers have suspected Moore of being an "inside man" all along. I am certainly convinced there was more to his role than I initially suspected. And yet, if he had been a paid agent acting under cover for one of the intelligence services, why make any of the admissions he did in his 1989 Las Vegas speech? It is a fair question and not easily answered. But as a tactical move, there may be some counterintuitive logic to it. Moore's 1989 admission that he had worked with AFOSI, appearing as a confession and perhaps atonement for any mistakes, may have been a brilliant way to allay suspicions of any deeper role he had. Appearing to have made poor choices, he emerged as a civilian author/UFO-investigator once again, and though his reputation was sullied, no one was the wiser.

  Nevertheless, by his own admission, Moore did assist AFOSI, even though he tried to present himself as a stalwart investigator out to uncover the real truth? There were instances when he actually helped others who were pursuing information. It was Moore who told Stanton Friedman to send his FOIA requests directly to the various AFOSI District Offices rather than AFOSI Headquarters. It was also Moore who subsequently sent the request to AFOSI HQ that ultimately exposed the effort by Noah Lawrence to undermine Friedman's FOIA requests. Of course, since Moore was working with Doty at the time, one could argue that telling Friedman to submit a request directly to the local Kirtland AFOSI office was a ruse to ensure Friedman would obtain the documents revealing the 1980 Kirtland AFB UFO sightings (Attachments A and C.) A FOIA request submitted directly to the Kirtland AFOSI office would have been, and perhaps was, a clever way for the documents to be "found" and put into circulation. Perhaps Lawrence's interference, blocking access to local files, created a situation that made it necessary for the documents to turn up some other way.

  Whatever Moore's true role and participation was, it is highly unlikely he would have been privy to the full extent of the operation against Paul Bennewitz. And, though Moore probably did not know everything, he still has not told al
l he does know. To this day he has only named Richard Doty as a person he knew had some connection inside—Doty, whose name was already well known by then from the Weitzel Letter and the later Kirtland documents.

  The more significant “Falcon”, and any other notables Moore might have come in contact with, have never been named. (According to Greg Bishop, “Falcon” died circa 2001, though no substantiation or source is provided.70) Add to all the above the claim by researcher Lee Graham that Bill Moore once identified himself as a government agent—complete with a government ID card—and Moore’s involvement continues to raise suspicions.

  NSA and Project Aquarius

  The search for evidence of a Project Aquarius was something on which I spent a good deal of time during the late 1980s and 1990s. In retrospect, it was another tantalizing name that led to a relatively fruitless effort to determine whether such a project existed. Presuming a Project Aquarius did exist, there was also the problem of proving whether it actually had anything to do with the UFO phenomenon.

  In the course of searching for material relating to Paul Bennewitz, I came across the document that has come to be known as the "Aquarius Telex" (sometimes the "NASA Telex" or "MJ-12 Telex"). Though its questionable origins are far more obvious now, back in the 1980s it created something of a firestorm among researchers because of the implications of the information in it. It not only made reference to an analysis of some of Paul Bennewitz's films, but included the first tantalizing hint of a Project Aquarius. Paul would later tell me that he had never given out any of his films, though he realized it was possible someone could have copied them or taken them without his knowledge. Though most researchers were well aware that this document could be disinformation, it was intriguing and needed to be investigated. It is widely known that the term “MJ Twelve” was also first seen in this telex. Even now, it is not at all certain what the term means, and “MJ-12” and “Majestic 12” are today accepted as variations of the term, though neither was in the original telex. Nevertheless, despite its questionable provenance, entire books are available on this topic and information is available to anyone who looks, so I will not go into that subject here.

  Sometime after I first saw the Aquarius Telex, I began to hear rumors that Bill Moore had modified it in several ways. Checking further, I eventually spoke with Lawrence Fenwick who had been told by Bill himself that the reference in the document to “NASA” had originally been spelled “NSA”. This news brought an entirely different dimension to this document, especially for the many people who have long suspected the NSA of having some involvement with the subject of UFO’s.

  To anyone not familiar with the National Security Agency I strongly recommend the book, The Puzzle Palace, by James Bamford, as well as his other books on the subject. He describes the NSA as "the largest, most secretive, and potentially most intrusive American intelligence agency." With the job of intercepting and analyzing virtually all types of communications, signals, and electronics intelligence, the NSA is in a prime position to collect invaluable data, on any subject, from all over the world. It has already been the target of several lawsuits, by CAUS and others, attempting to gain access to information the NSA was maintaining on UFO's. Nevertheless, despite the Aquarius Telex's suggestion of NSA involvement, no real evidence of the existence of a NSA Project Aquarius had been found by the mid 1980s.

  When a request for information under FOIA is filed, it is not uncommon to receive a reply stating there is no information “responsive to the request,” or that the search will entail “search and manpower fees” that the requester has to pay, sometimes in advance. Paying fees can be a gamble because, even after paying the fees, if it is determined that the documents found are properly classified then the requester might get nothing for his money! Paying for nothing is not a situation most hard-working people are comfortable with, so quite often the request simply dies there, conveniently perhaps, for the responding agency. By the mid-1980s, I had written enough FOIA requests to be familiar with the usual responses.

  In 1985 I wrote a series of requests to a number of agencies but, for no particular reason, this time I requested "any and all information" on three separate projects all at once, in the same letter. Asking about these three projects in the same request resulted in an interesting discovery. The NSA response to my request stated they had "no records" pertaining to the first two of the three projects. The response went on to say that the fees for a search for records on Project Aquarius would be approximately fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000.00), and that they would not proceed with the search unless I sent them half of that amount. Clearly they recognized that project name, but the very stiff fee to fully search their records was either a hint that there was a lot of information, or maybe they thought I had the money...

  In the ensuing months, as the NSA and I exchanged letters, I finally obtained an admission from them that they did, in fact, have records dealing with a Project Aquarius. Although they denied that it had anything to do with unidentified flying objects, they were adamant that any release of information about it posed a "grave threat" to our national security. From one perspective I had nothing, from another I had found the first connection between the NSA and a Project Aquarius outside of the mention of Aquarius in the “Aquarius Telex”. Obviously it was not proof that the NSA or the Project Aquarius they were referring to had anything to do with the UFO phenomenon, but the name of project considered extremely sensitive to the NSA had definitely found its way into the "Aquarius Telex."

  Finding this agency and this project name together in the context of an operation to misinform Paul Bennewitz raises an important question. What is the likelihood that whoever created the telex simply picked the name “Project Aquarius” out of thin air and then, purely by chance, used it in close proximity to “NSA” simply to spice up the document? It is certainly possible, but in the context of events at the time it seems far more likely that whoever created the document knew Project Aquarius was a valid NSA project name and would pass muster, at least on the surface. Perhaps revealing the name of a valid NSA project and attributing it to NSA, even accidentally, would not generate a security investigation. However, for a highly classified project, would using or misusing the project name not raise any concerns over security leaks? Even if Project Aquarius had nothing to do with the UFO phenomenon, as now appears to be the case, it seems that whatever agent or agency produced the "Aquarius Telex" chose a project name that had a unique appeal.

  The "Aquarius Telex" is a clear example of a document that, on its face, related to Paul Bennewitz, but actually served to draw researchers away from him and on to other pursuits that would eventually lead to nothing. It did entice researchers to spend countless months and years hammering any number of federal and military agencies with FOIA requests, not to mention arguing among each other. But as intriguing as it seemed to be, all the while it simply diverted attention away from Paul Bennewitz and the evidence he had.

  Linda Howe and Briefing Papers

  Sometime after the the 1980 Kirtland AFOSI documents were released, and as news of Paul Bennewitz’s experiences became public knowledge, television producer and journalist, Linda Howe, took an interest in the events around Kirtland Air Force Base. As part of a production deal with HBO, Linda began to contact people involved with the Kirtland/Bennewitz incidents, and one of those she arranged to interview, perhaps the most significant one, was Richard Doty. The meeting they had, and what resulted from it, has all the earmarks of a ploy to waste her time in hopes that the HBO production would fall through, and to spread even more disinformation.

  Linda is a fascinating woman who, in 1980, produced the award-winning documentary, A Strange Harvest, examining the cattle mutilation mystery. I first met her on a trip to Crestone, Colorado in the latter half of the 1980s. Several researchers were meeting there, and I was invited to go along on what was a nice opportunity to meet with friends at a beautiful location. After the meeting, John Lear, Linda, and I rode back to Albuq
uerque together in the wee hours of the morning, the three of us crammed in the front seat of John’s truck.

  It was on that long drive from Colorado, talking about whatever came to mind, that Linda spoke about her meeting with Richard Doty. The details of what happened, including her claim that Richard Doty had shown her a set of bizarre documents, are fairly well known now. In short, Linda said that Doty had taken her to an office on Kirtland AFB where the meeting was to be held, and while there, he had reached into a drawer and handed her a folder containing a set of documents. The documents she was shown contained bizarre revelations, including allegations that alien intelligences had influenced the history of mankind.

  As we drove through the cold New Mexico night, Linda talked about the strange way Doty acted during the meeting. He directed her to sit in a specific chair and his manner had been very guarded as she read over the documents. At times she would ask questions, but he would only reply with nods or motions. It was peculiar enough that she still remembered it. Then she made an off-hand comment that stayed in my mind from that moment on. Doty's behavior, she said, gave her the feeling that the chair she was in was “bugged”.

  Since her meeting with Doty, accusations and denials have flown back and forth over whether she was actually shown any documents at all. Richard Doty has denied it, but Linda has stood by her claims. I, for one, could not see why Linda would make up such a story, or need to, and the rather specific details in her version were always consistent. What seemed important to me was that if what Linda said was true then Counterintelligence personnel had acted intentionally to interfere with a journalist pursuing a story that began with Paul Bennewitz. If they would set up such a bizarre situation to mislead a journalist, all part of an effort to stop an HBO special, then whatever they were trying to keep secret must have been very important.