X Descending (18 page)

The following chapters contain information about some of Paul’s experiences prior to his nighttime films from Albuquerque. I have made every effort to give a fair and accurate account based on information I have collected, most of it from letters and personal conversations I had with Paul and others. I have also expanded on a number of subjects relating to later events and some of the individuals who involved themselves with Paul, his efforts, and ultimately with the community of UFO researchers and the public at large. Some of what I have written in the past is included, but it has been expanded and revised where necessary to bring it up to date.

The events that began with Paul Bennewitz filming vehicles over the Manzano Weapons Storage Area provide the most compelling case yet of national security descending on a witness to this phenomenon. This case has also produced some of the only verifiable military documents, whether disinformation or not, signed by individuals who are still alive and could be questioned about the events. Thomas Cseh and Richard Doty are two, but there are many others who are named, some of whom are now known to have been involved and could still be questioned about what they know. While Air Force agents took steps to destroy any credibility that Paul may have had, they also made a point of subverting and diverting others who got too close. Was this a legitimate security operation, an abuse of power, or some of both? That question is as much a part of this case as anything else. Nighttime films were made, a call was made to Air Force Security Police, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“Be curious always! For knowledge will not acquire you; you must acquire it.”

—Sudie Back

The first that I heard of anything relating to Paul Bennewitz came by way of Tommy Blann, though I cannot remember Tommy mentioning any names at the time. He had heard intriguing accounts of someone in New Mexico who was reportedly seeing strange lights and picking up strange frequencies in the area around Albuquerque. My best recollection is that it was sometime between 1980 and 1983. Tommy seemed to have contacts everywhere, but I have no idea how he had come across the information.

By 1984, news began to come out that things had been happening near Albuquerque and that there were Air Force documents attesting to some of it. From there the trail led very quickly to Paul Bennewitz. Over the next few years I had many telephone conversations with Paul, and probably an equal number with Major Ernest Edwards, who had been Paul’s initial contact at Kirtland Air Force Base. Paul and I exchanged a number of letters and he eventually sent me several photographs and sketches, including a good bit of information on his early investigations. In turn, I sent him information on a number of things I was working on, including information on the 1980 Cash-Landrum encounter, a case in which he seemed very interested.

From our first conversation, Paul was clear and precise. It was obvious that he was very meticulous in his thinking, which was exactly how Ernest Edwards would later describe him to me. However, when our conversations turned to bizarre concepts and ideas—ones that, by the mid-1980s, he had become convinced were true—I was as hesitant as anyone would have been. Aliens communicating on a ready basis, video transmissions supposedly from alien craft, his matter of fact talk about alien pragmatism and their activities around the Archuleta Mesa…to say it was all very hard to believe would have been an understatement. I was already aware that some bizarre ideas had been attributed to him, but it seemed unrealistic to me that the Air Force would call a meeting—on base—solely to hear Paul talk about aliens. No one I spoke with at Kirtland AFB, neither Ernest Edwards nor Richard Doty, ever struck me as the type to involve their commanders in something like this if there was nothing more to it than talk. So I slowly began to ask questions and work backwards, starting with the AFOSI documents.

It was clear that by the middle of 1980, Paul had actively begun contacting high-level people as he attempted to draw attention to what he thought was going on. The tone of the AFOSI document (Attachment C) reporting on Richard Doty and Jerry Miller’s visit to Paul’s home certainly suggests he was taken seriously enough to warrant their visit. As I saw it, if Richard Doty had already visited Paul at least once at Thunder Scientific, and then had decided (or been asked) to take Jerry Miller along to examine any equipment and evidence at Paul’s home, then there had to be something Paul had that needed to be seen. Miller’s presence raised questions as to why his opinion was important, and to whom. How Miller came into the picture has always been a mystery, though it always seemed rather convenient that a former Project Blue Book investigator happened to be right at hand. Regardless, as I began to ask Paul more questions about the documents, the events that had led up to them and how he ended up calling the Air Force in the first place, an entirely different picture began to emerge.

To expand on the information presented earlier, the mid-1970’s brought a bizarre wave of cattle mutilations to the United States, a wave that seemed to be concentrated in New Mexico and Colorado. These strange animal deaths sometimes coincided with reports of unusual lights seen nearby, and eventually this led to popular speculation that UFO’s were somehow involved. Paul had become aware of such stories by local residents in northern New Mexico, stories of round lighted objects that hovered low over the trees and sometimes gave off a turbine-like sound, but that could also move very rapidly. Beginning in the middle of 1979, with his curiosity peaked by these reports, he made several trips to northern New Mexico. I had the impression at one time that his family might have owned land in the area or spent time there for other reasons. Whatever the circumstances, it was through his interest in cattle mutilations that Paul eventually met New Mexico State Police officer Gabe Valdez, whose jurisdiction included the area of the Jicarilla Indian reservation. Valdez had become widely known for his interest in the mysterious mutilations occurring in northern New Mexico.

One night in July of that year, Paul had an opportunity to ride along with Gabe Valdez as he made his rounds in the mountains near Dulce. Paul described it as a thrilling and chaotic ride, sometimes running without lights, as they went up and down the dark mountain roads. But on that night ride, he had also seen strange lights moving along the ridges. The next day, before heading for home, Paul returned with a Polaroid camera and took pictures of the places he and Valdez had been during the night. One particular image was a photograph that showed, in the background, a section of the Archuleta Mesa.

They were just simple snapshots, but it was one of those photographs that soon kicked his interest into full gear. On returning to Albuquerque and showing the photos to his wife, she pointed out that in one of them there was a strange angular object hanging in the air above the treetops (
Figure 15
). What Paul saw in that picture, along with everything else he had seen,was enough to motivate him to make a second trip north to Dulce...and the mesa.

Before the next trip, Paul invested in an expensive Hasselblad camera. It was, he said, the same type that had been used by astronauts on lunar missions. At the very end of October, this time accompanied by one of his sons, he returned to the spot where he had taken the Polaroid photos in July. They brought binoculars and two cameras: the Hasselblad, now fitted with a telephoto lens, and another camera described only as a standard GAX Japanese model. He also described bringing some type of night scope, one that apparently had been loaned to them. They spent several nights observing and exploring the area. In the early hours one morning, using the night scope, they watched a strange object floating in the darkness and moving slowly along a cliff. He described it as definitely saucer shaped, and though it usually remained very dim, on occasion it would flare up brightly. He also told of sighting a huge object that he termed a “launch ship”, accompanied by smaller vehicles that seemed to be running docking exercises. Paul’s account of what he and his son saw and filmed was fascinating and at one point humorous. During one nighttime sighting he described hearing his son “cussing and muttering” while trying to keep an object in the viewfinder. Nevertheless, throughout his description of the trip he meticulously pointed out that all their observations were noted and recorded.

Paul had the photographs and films from this trip developed by a lab that would allow him to observe each step. One of the most unusual images was a daytime photograph that had been taken as he overlooked the Navajo River canyon. In the center of the picture was a bizarre multi-spectral swath of colors, patterns of light that seemed to be streaking by in front of the trees and mountains in the background. Just as puzzling was its strange shape. It was nothing like the typical lens flares or reflections that are often mistakenly called UFO’s by amateur photographers. Whatever had generated this strange pattern certainly left the appearance, or at least the impression, of something moving at a mind-numbing speed from left to right at the exact moment the he had snapped the shutter.

The high quality of the Hasselblad camera would certainly seem to argue against extraneous light and reflections from within the camera. Paul, perhaps understandably, seemed convinced that the camera had caught a “saucer” streaking past and leaving bands of light on the film. His attempt to explain how this could happen—how the object could pass by without being seen by the naked eye, how it could manage to come from some distance and get to the right spot at the moment he snapped the picture—stretched the limits of imagination. On studying the image, I saw no way to say with any certainty whether it was anything more than an extremely odd streak of light that had found its way onto the film. But, something bright had certainly gotten into the picture. Paul, on the other hand, felt strongly that the image was one more bit of evidence that there were alien forces in the area. Whether everything that he and his son saw on that trip was exactly what Paul thought it was, is a question that perhaps only he or his son could have answered. By then however, Paul was convinced that the Archuleta Mesa was a haven of otherworldly activity. Understandably, he was determined to get more evidence, even if it meant going back alone.

Looking back through the material that he gave me, it is frustrating now to realize there were so few exact dates given. A set of legal-sized hand-written pages, stapled together under the penciled-in title "Hunter Of The Gods", contained a narrative of the events interspersed with detailed notes on his observations, the equipment used, and his interpretations of what he had seen. He did stipulate July of 1979 as the month he began to take things very seriously. There is some indication that it was toward the end of the month, and the night ride he took with Gabe Valdez was apparently
the
major experience that occurred near that time. The second trip, the one he took with his son, definitely took place in October. From what I have been able to piece together it was almost certainly within the last few days of that month. After that, it would be several weeks before his next and final trip of the year. Fortunately, there are enough details in the information he gave to narrow down when this last trip must have taken place, and, from that, it is possible to narrow down when his focus must finally have shifted to the area east of Albuquerque.

Paul’s final trip of 1979 provided examples of what I came to see as a major disconnect between evidence and interpretation. Two aspects of his experiences near the Archuleta Mesa caused me no end of confusion. On the one hand, there was his methodical approach to gathering data, recording his experiences, and spelling out details, even down to shutter speed settings. His descriptions of the objects he saw and the minutiae in the details he provided are compelling testimony that he was observing something real. On the other hand, his apparent predisposition to interpret what he saw as alien craft was a leap in logic that I have never been able to fully comprehend. Likewise, that same predisposition seemed to leave him open to ideas that were, in his own words, “idiotic”.