Adam Gorightly - Saucers, Spooks and Kooks: UFO Disinformation in the Age of Aquarius

I CANNOT CONFIRM or deny that we lied.

The Air Force is committed to providing accurate and timely information within the confines of national security.

- Brigadier General Ronald Sconyers statement at a press conference when asked if the Air Force purposely misled the public by promoting UFO explanations to cover up sightings of top secret U.S. spy planes.

Have you ever considered starting your own religion? If thats not your cup of tea, how about settling for creating a modern myth that will permanently imbed itself in world culture? If thats the case, Adam Gorightly has just the recipe for you.

Adam goes forthrightly where few have dared to tread. Never one to shy away from the tough stories in his books and articles, he has tackled such twilight subjects as the Manson family, the Kennedy assassination and just about every fringe topic in-between. An admitted kook whisperer and avowed crackpot historian, Adam is the adult in the room, not the crackpot. Like any good cultural historian, he knows that the fringe has a way of gravitating to the center. He is a one-man expeditionary force with a canny ability to navigate the shadowy borderlands and come back safely with the goods.

In this mighty tome, Gorightly takes on arguably the most intractable and enduring myth of modern times - the UFO. Specifically hes targeting one particularly tenacious tenet of the UFO myth - Dulce Base.

Most saucer enthusiasts are familiar with this piece of UFO lore. In a nutshell, Dulce Base proponents claim that the Dulce area in New Mexico is home to an underground base which is populated by humans and space aliens working in collaboration. Allegedly, the U.S. government and the aliens made a deal in which extraterrestrial technology would be given to the government in exchange for allowing the aliens to operate an on-going alien/human breeding program. At some point, a misunderstanding or disagreement triggered a massive shoot-out between workers and the ETs in which 66 humans were killed. Let that sink in for a moment.

Dulce is a sleepy village within the Jicarilla Apache reservation in a remote area of northwestern New Mexico. Rumors had begun to seep out of Dulce in the mid-1970s. Unidentified craft of all descriptions as well as helicopters were zipping around. Strangely surgerized mutilated cows were said to be falling from the sky.

As word got out, more and more investigators (including me) made the journey to Dulce to see what was going on and to talk with New Mexico State Policeman Gabe Valdez, who was the unofficial point-man on the ground in Dulce. Most investigators left Dulce feeling more perplexed than ever. After my first Dulce trip I recall thinking that whatever/whoever was behind the Dulce follies had a good sense of theater.

With his characteristic acerbic wit and amused ironic detachment, Gorightly builds on the ground-breaking reporting of Greg Bishop (Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security and the Creation of a Modern American myth) and Christian Lambrights book X Descending. Both books tell the story of a hapless Albuquerque scientist/businessman, Paul Bennewitz, who was driven to the brink of insanity and an early grave by a highly-focused military disinformation operation directed against him. Bennewitzs only crime was being a concerned citizen who was curious about the unusual nocturnal phenomena that he witnessed at Kirtland Air Force Base.

Gorightly takes this tawdry tale to the next level with his granular reporting of the workings of every wheel and cog in the governments disinformation and myth-making machinery. In the process Adam details the motives and machinations of all involved - both spook and kook. What he finds is the perfect storm of converging vectors zealous UFO true believers collide with hardened military manipulators, a deceivers vs. believers combustible amalgamation.

In this hot mess there was bound to be collateral damage as all parties involved connived to bend the Dulce myth to their own purposes. Careers were ruined, lives were shattered and many innocent bystander cows met their premature demise. What began as an operation to steer the inquisitive Mr. Bennewitz away from the action at Kirtland AFB and redirect his focus to Dulce, ended up developing a life of its own. Dulce became a strange attractor, luring into its gravitational field virtually anyone with an interest in the subject and who had an agenda, either personal or institutional.

As Gorightly hints, perhaps the government was attempting to kill several birds with one stone. Not only did they hope to destabilize Bennewitz and fragment the UFO research community, but they recognized that the UFO mania surrounding Dulce would provide the perfect cover to run several clandestine programs. These might have included weapons testing, covert operations training, and perhaps a read-out of nuclear contamination caused by the Project Gasbuggy nuclear detonation near Dulce in 1967.

In the late 1970s I advanced the theory that the cattle mutilations were part of a secret test program to determine the extent of environmental nuclear contamination, specifically at Dulce and also nationwide. Time may tell how much truth there is to that theory, but it has yet to be either definitely debunked or confirmed.

So why does any of this matter now? In his Intro, Adam asks if the Dulce myth was spun out of whole cloth by opportunistic myth-makers or even more bizarrely, was the U.S. government involved in helping to create these myths? Was the Dulce Project so successful from the militarys perspective that they kicked out the stops and cultivated Dulce as a kind of paranormal playground and laboratory for developing exotic technologies, prototype false flag operations, PSI OP (psychological warfare) exercises and advanced social/mythological engineering techniques? Yes we should be shocked, shocked that our government could possibly be engaged in such nefarious activity.

Consider if you will, one possible scenario provoked by Gorightlys elucidation of the facts of the matter. In the years after Kenneth Arnolds famous 1947 flying saucer sighting, the U.S. military tried its best to figure out what the heck was going on with UFOs. Two major studies (Project Bluebook and the Condon Report) set out to debunk the notion of ET-manned craft, which had steadily been gaining traction in public awareness.

Privately the military men came to the conclusion that they couldnt figure out the true nature of UFOs, but since they didnt seem to pose a serious threat, it would be best to sweep the subject under the rug. They then set about debunking reports and discrediting the UFO believers.

Since the militarys primary function is to protect and defend the country, they couldnt very well say we dont know what these things are, but since theyre not blowing up the White House or anything, dont worry about it. Well keep an eye on em. Then somebody looked at public opinion polls which showed that about half of the American public believed that UFOs are real. The social engineers in the government realized that this was a myth that needed to be managed, hopefully in a way that would work to the advantage of the established power structure.

Then maybe some fancy think tank came up with a brilliant Machiavellian solution: How about this? On one hand we vigorously deny the reality of UFOs, and on the other hand we discreetly float suggestions and evidence suggesting that we are fully aware of the ET presence. Let people think that we have recovered craft and bodies from saucer crashes and maybe even leak stories to indicate that were actively working with the aliens. Yeah thats it, theyve given us technology which will guarantee U.S. world supremacy and permanent hegemony. So dont worry about it people. Weve got this. Its complicated but trust us, its all for your own good.