Paul Bennewitz operated a small electronics company, called Thunder Scientific Corporation, in Albuquerque, New Mexico; he was a brilliant physicist and inventor. In early 1980 he became involved in observing and filming objects which he had sighted on the ground and in the air near Kirtland Air Force Base and the Manzano range which was near his home. He reported these sightings to the agencies involved alerting them to his presence and investigations.
Paul Benewitz became involved with Dr. Leo Sprinkle, a psychologist and respected UFO researcher, and together they worked with a young woman who remembered being abducted and witnessing cattle mutilations. Bennewitz had become convinced that aliens had implanted some sort of communication device in the woman's head, and that they were using this device to control her actions.
Since Paul Bennewitz was a physicist, he had a certain amount of electronics equipment at his disposal, and he set out to determine whether he could detect the electromagnetic signals he believed aliens must be using to exercise control over their alleged victims, and to try to devise a way to shield victims from the control of these signals.
Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent named Richard Doty approached Bill Moore, a UFO investigator and author, regarding Bennewitz and it soon became apparent to Bill that he was expected to supply information to this individual about the activities of Paul Bennewitz and APRO in exchange for being given `sensitive' (or presumably classified) information on UFOs.
Bill realized that, whatever it was Bennewitz was involved with, he was the subject of considerable interest on the part of not one but several government agencies, and that they were actively trying to defuse him by pumping as much disinformation through him as he could possibly absorb. Bill decided to play along with these government agents so he could learn more about the disinformation process by witnessing it firsthand.
Bennewitz, for his part, continued to make what seemed to be increasingly bizarre claims, most of which gave every appearance of having been influenced by a heavy blanket of disinformation mixed with a small, but significant, amount of truth. The problem was always one of keeping a level head and trying to sort the fact from fantasy - something which Paul Bennewitz was having a hard time doing.
"By 1981", according to Bill, "Paul was gathering data from a variety of sources and amalgamating it with information being fed to him by a number of government people in whom, for some reason, he seemed to have an implicit and abiding faith. The story that emerged from this melange of fact, fiction, fantasy, here-say, hard data and government disinformation was absolutely incredible!
Yet somehow, Paul believed in it and set out on a one-man crusade to tell the world that malevolent aliens from space were in league with our government to take over the planet. What had begun in 1979 as an effort to learn whether the behavior of a woman who claimed she had been abducted by UFO aliens was being influenced by some sort of radio remote control had, in the space of less than three years, blossomed into a tale which rivaled the wildest science fiction scenario anyone could possibly imagine."
Bill reports that government surveillance of Paul's activities, some of which Paul was astute enough to detect and some of which Bill learned about but Paul seemed unaware of, included wire taps and even break-ins. "Paul took these activities as proof positive that he was onto something big. Unfortunately, he seemed largely unaware that the same people who would go to such lengths to spy on him also had the capabilities to mount an effective disinformation campaign."
Bill Moore says, "I know that this whole body of information [Paul's reported findings] if false, be- cause I was in a position to observe much of the disinformation process as it unfolded. And I can tell you it was effective, because I watched Paul become systematically more paranoid and more emotionally unstable as he tried to assimilate what was happening to him. He had guns and knives all over his house, had installed extra locks on his doors, and he swore that `they' (meaning the aliens) were coming through his walls at night and injecting him with hideous chemicals which would knock him out for long periods of time. He began to suf- fer increasing bouts of insomnia. I knew at that time that he was not far from an inevitable nervous collapse. His health had deteriorated, he had lost considerable weight, his hands shook as if from palsy, and he looked terrible. I tried to counsel him to drop the entire UFO thing before his health was completely destroyed. Not long afterward I heard he had been hospitalized and was under psychiatric care."
Lots to think about for sure!
