Paul Bennewitz, Mirage Men, Project Beta, X Descending & Disinformation

The upcoming release of Mirage Men is going to stir up some contentious UFO events from the 80s:
There's a more recent version with more footage, Mirage Men trailer on Vimeo

The film seems to center on Rick Doty who was either a loose cannon or wannabe trying to insinuate himself into the UFO scene, OR an agent of deception, an intelligence officer conducting a counterintelligence operation as part of an officially sanctioned US government program.

The known primary targets:
APRO, the Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization
Paul Bennewitz, UFO witness
Ron Lakis, director of the KPIX documentary, The UFO Experience
Peter A. Gersten, the "UFO Lawyer"
Linda Moulton Howe, UFO documentary filmmaker and author
Lee Graham, UFO researcher
Timothy Good, UK UFO author
Bob Pratt,UFO author

Other players:
Stanton Friedman, UFO author
William L. Moore, UFO author
Jamie Shandera, television producer
John Lear
William Cooper, and many, many more!

Not to mention the "Aviary"...

There are a few noteworthy books on the topic:
The Bennewitz Papers by Christa Tliton, out-of-print, reprinted in
Underground Alien Bio Lab At Dulce: The Bennewitz UFO Papers

Project Beta by Greg Bishop

Mirage Men by Mark Pilington

X Descending by Christian P. Lambright

MJ-12, the Greys, the Dulce Base, and a lot of other ideas can be traced to the events and players of this era. A lot of what started then is still reverberating today. Whatever was behind the events, the message was pushed that UFOs were extraterrestrial, and the craft were physical. This, along with the Roswell story promoted by Moore and the others gave the sagging "Extraterrestrial Hypothesis" an enormous boost.

I'm interested in what others here think of the events, the books written about them, and what the lasting effects the situation has on the UFO field.

Elements of this Doty-driven information even crept into the Cash-Landrum UFO case, and may have affected the way the lawsuit against the US government was pursued.

UFOs represent a clear challenge to everything the PTB have spent and invested into controlling the human race. Naturally they sought to co-opt the thing and convince man that they were associated with the phenomenon. These folks will challenge anything that challenges their power even fighting against the power that seeded man on earth in the first place. Which will in fact be their end.

What a bunch of bunk. Anything associated with Linda Molten Howe is complete fantasy. What you have here are people trying to play the other angle of the UFO conspiracy book and lecture circuit. Not that there are aliens and UFO being covered up by the Us Government. But that the whole thing was fabricated by the USG.

Anybody that trusts anything that comes out of the Doty, Moore, Shandera, Friedman camp is buying into lies. The Roswell story was promoted by these charlatans to do one thing and one thing only: generate interests in UFOs to sell books and UFO conference tickets. I'm convinced that Friedman is complete liar and that he has known that the Roswell story was bunk all along.

These ufologist want more than ever to think that they are oh so important and that what they are doing is so important that the US Government has taken notice of them and meddling in their affairs. Guess what? It's all a bunch of hokum. These people merely want notoriety and book sales. It's all a scam and this Mirage Men junk is feeding into that scam to, guess what? Sell books and movies.

These people live their lives stretching half truths and creating complete fabrications from whole clothe. You can't tell if they are outright liars or if they actually believe the craziness that they are spewing. Now this junk gets passed down generation to generation. It started with Moore, Shandera and Friedman, then Doty, and Howe got in on the action. Now you have the likes of Walter Bosley(complete fraud) and Greg Bishop getting in on the action.

When confronted, Greg Bishop once said about Bil Moore, that he didn't care if Moore's story was true or false and that he didn't feel as if it really mattered. Excuse me? Then I guess this whole ufology junk is nothing more than a bunch of grown adults running around in the desert doing cosplay and acting out some real life role playing game. Oh and selling books, mustn't forget about selling those books.

Hard to see Richard "Dick" Doty as a loose cannon in the Bennewitz affair. The disinformation program was obviously well-funded and I believe his rank at the time was Staff Sergeant for AFOSI---which many know is the Air Force equivalent of the FBI including counterintelligence which, of course, utilizes cointelpro as a part of that function.

That elements of the MJ-12 stuff would start being circulated by the same folk that were at the very same time feeding Paul Bennewitz wild tales of underground Alien bases sponsored by the U.S. government would seem a good clue as to how trustworthy any of that information is.

In the Mirage Men trailer, Doty notes that Paul Bennewitz was a patriotic American and therefore easy to dupe. How noble, our counterintelligence guys, eh?

Oh yeah, Richard Doty actually goes by "Rick" rather than "Dick" as I stated it above. I just call him Dick. Well…I bet I'm not the only one.

CardDown, do you happen to know when the documentary will be available for sale?

Latest word on the Mirage Men from their Facebook page:

The film will make it's way out into the world later this year. We'll post updates here, on twitter and the miragemen.com website.

I'm guessing it will have a limited international release followed shortly after by a DVD.
I'm interested in the subject, but also just in seeing some of the players featured onscreen- should be interesting!

reply to post by FlyingTeacup

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but those that believe the saucer-spy stories are going to be turned off by your edge. Remember that guy in Plan 9 from Outer Space that said, "All you people of Earth are stupid!"? That opening never wins many friends, I've tried it!

whenever you see Doty's name RUN. you cant trust anything the guy says ever. If he told me the sky was blue i would look out a window to check for myself. I used to have a lot of respect for friedman. used to. roswell is the man's bread and butter,if you'd really like GOOD info on roswell check out kal korff's "roswell, what they dont want you to know"

What confuses me about the Bennewitz situation is that a lot of what was later claimed to be "disinfo" were things that he was already talking about. I think that whatever mixture of fantasy and reality, Doty encouraged him in it and spread the package into the UFO community at large where some lapped it up.

I've not heard what Stanton Friedman thinks about the Bennewitz-Dulce tale, but he seems to believe almost every other UFO story except Bob Lazar's!

Originally posted by CardDown
What confuses me about the Bennewitz situation is that a lot of what was later claimed to be "disinfo" were things that he was already talking about. I think that whatever mixture of fantasy and reality, Doty encouraged him in it and spread the package into the UFO community at large where some lapped it up.

Yeah, it's hard to say on the Dulce mythology if it was already taking hold independent of the AFOSI/Doty disinfo campaign, or, as Chris Lambright postulates; the ambiguous dating of some of the Bennewitz story (mainly his filming) was earlier and Myra Hansen was "dropped" in his lap soon after. John Lear--CIA pilot Air America-- conveniently "parachutes" into "enemy territory" in this timeframe, too, and the Dulce bidness really takes off.

Either which way; Paul getting initially freaky 'bout Dulce on his own, or with the help of AFOSI and friends AFTER he filmed and started intercepting the signals, the picture is pretty clear that the US government--or some faction thereof--has indeed perpetuated and encouraged the ETH and some of the most enduring ufo mythologies extant.

I've not heard what Stanton Friedman thinks about the Bennewitz-Dulce tale, but he seems to believe almost every other UFO story except Bob Lazar's!

Hmmm..if Stanton doesn't believe Bob Lazar then maybe We should! Oops, nope, John Lear parachuted into the Lazar deal, too. Wait, WHAT?! Hmmmm

And who the heck is/are Mirage Men?

reply to post by CardDown


I just finished X-DESCENDING.

I liked the author and his handling of the subject.

I wasn't all that surprised by anything since I'd read most fo the stuff he referred to.

I was slightly surprised at how thick and complex the disinfo stuff seems to be. Not a huge surprise but somewhat.

I haven't read the appendices yet but they are likely to be somewhat redundant in that they mostly support the book.

It's probably worth it for those interested in the topic. He's pretty thorough and meticulous. However, if you are looking for big surprises . . . it's probably not going to give you those.

Originally posted by ImpactoR
And who the heck is/are Mirage Men?

Hi ImpactoR,

It's just the "name" that Mark Pilkington gives to denote those--especially government types--who have spread a variety of the "US government is in cahoots with the Aliens" themes.

Here's the book again:

Mirage Men

Originally posted by BO XIAN
I haven't read the appendices yet but they are likely to be somewhat redundant in that they mostly support the book.

Hey, Bo!

Actually, the appendices surprised me and I thought were good reading. The first, especially, gave me further food for thought on Doty.

EDIT: Also a big shout-out to CardDown for turning me on to X Descending. It was certainly a valuable addition to some of the subjects I've been so interested in.

I don't agree with all the conclusions, but I found Lambright to be intelligent and he does bring a lot of interesting information to the table. His detective/research work on the Doty/Laos/CIA bit in the appendices was impressive. I certainly don't regret buying it.

reply to post by The GUT
Thanks, TG. The Bennewitz case seems too have been at a major intersection of some kind of drama, and was, if nothing else, a turning point in Ufology. (After all, where would the X-Files have been without all that material?)

I think comparing the available books and accounts is interesting- it almost makes for a Rashoman type narrative. I think many players hold pieces to this puzzle.

Several points are interesting, two on my mind right now:
Bill Moore claimed to see some kind of glowing orb(s?) that passed through Bennewitz's walls.
Chris Lambright is convinced that Bennewitz actually filmed some kind of UFO. Despite any delusions, it seems clear that there were some genuine experiences driving his obsession.

reply to post by CardDown

Yeah, I found Moore's "glowing balls thru walls" rather interesting, too. Of course it comes from Moore, but it did remind me of a tale that involved some of Moore's friends/Intelligence Contacts/Handlers:

...I happen to think that much of the Remote Viewing program was less about psychic spying than it was about meme propagation, if not outright MKULTRA brain zapping of patriotic military volunteers. I think there’s no better illustration of that than this odd tale of some spooky events supposedly experienced by the scientists involved in testing Uri Geller. What you want to remember is that the most compelling and dramatic facts of the case (the code words, the one-armed man) come to us via the testimony of Dr. Green (given the pseudonym “Kennett” in this excerpt from Remote Viewers.) Also keep in mind that Targ and Puthoff had a background in cutting edge laser technology. Lasers, as you probably know, are what you use to make holograms.

One day in the lab, several members of the Livermore [LLNL] group were monitoring [Uri] Geller during a metal-bending session. They recorded him with audiotape, filmed him with videotape, and photographed him with a variety of still cameras, including one that was sensitive to thermal infrared radiation.

After the experiment they developed all the film and saw something very strange. The infrared camera had caught what seemed to be two diffuse patches of radiation on the upper part of one of the laboratory walls. It was as if someone had briefly shone two large heat sources, either from inside the lab or outside pointing in. The patches grew in intensity for a few frames, then over the next few frames diminished to nothing.

The Livermore Group were understandably puzzled over this, but it was only the beginning of the strangeness that would soon consume them. When they checked the audiotape they had made during the experiment, they found amid everything else a distinctive, metallic- sounding voice, unheard during the actual experiment but now clearly audible, if mostly unintelligible. All they could make out were a few apparently random words strung together.

aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com...

Things get spooky around these particular spooks for some reason. I don't suggest the above has anything to do with Bennewitz, then again Lambright does absolutely tie advanced laser research to the Kirtland branches.

In Mirage Men, Mark Pilkington also relates Moore's "balls of light" story and adds the following from Rick Doty as told to Greg Bishop:

….Richard Doty claims that he and two National Security Agency (NSA) agents observed one of these balls as they were snooping around the house one night. 'It was orange with sparkles in it,' Doty remembered. Doty asked the NSA men if it belonged to them--they were set up over the road at this time, beaming signals at the Bennewitz home--but they denied it. All three tried to see if the light was being projected from anywhere, but were unable to find it's source.

Mirage Men

If true, then it's interesting that Doty asked the NSA men "if it belonged to them." That language might be suggestive of knowledge of earth-bound technologies that could cause such.

Now THAT--these balls of light--is something I would have pics of whether I was Bennewitz, Doty, or Moore, so I can't personally make much of the the two tales.

It should be pointed out, however, that history is replete with similar tales and descriptions in regards what usually fall under the paranormal heading, although BOLs do make up--maybe even the majority--of UFO reports as well.

Hi folks!

Consindering, as portrayed in this thread, that the lore of Dulce in big parts is the product of U.S. government activities, the case of Dulce nearly seems to be closed. But...

I remember having read accounts of the native citizens living in that area, wherein it was spoken about strange, even seemingly paranormal activities in/on Archuleta Mesa.

What if... there indeed is something strange going on in that area, of which the U.S. government is aware of - maybe not really greys in a D.U.M.B. But maybe something of the likes of the Skinwalker Ranch. And Doty and the others used Bennewitz to create a myth even wilder, just to distract the people's attention; away from what was really going on.

(Sorry for my bad english, I'm from the other side of the pond)

@ the Gut: Keep up the good work!

Mirage Men North American premiere:
Fantastic Fest: Sept 19 -26, 2013, Austin Texas
Mirage Men: North American Premiere

Good news! Once it moves further through the film exhibition circuit, video release will follow thereafter.