Uncovering 80s UFOlogy... Live! with Charles Lear

AP Strange:

Pardon me while I have a strange interlude. But there is nothing else. Life is an obscure oboe bumming a ride on the omnibus of art. Among the misty corridors of pine, and in those corridors I see figures, strange figures. Welcome back my friends to the AP Strange show.

AP Strange:

I'm your host AP Strange and this is my show. And today's show is brought to you by the Bob Lazar Laser Tag Arena. Set up to look like Area 51, you'll be given a laser gun that has element one fifteen in it. And, at night, the red lights come on and all bets are off. So, come down to the Bob Lazar Laser Tag Arena for birthday parties, bachelor parties, and, little bits of disclosure.

AP Strange:

So today on the show, I have a returning guest and with me to talk to him is returning guest cohost. He's good tonight, he's gonna be my the the Bill Moore to my Jamie Chandra, Black Wolf John Oates.

Blackwolf John Oates:

I should have cut my hair in bangs for this then. I'm sorry.

AP Strange:

Yeah, that's alright. And we have a returning guest on tonight because last time we had Charles Lear on, we talked about his book, The Flying Saucer Investigators, and he has other books out too. We barely even really got to the eighties and nineties, so that's really what we're focusing on today because that's the work, that's the era that his current writings are going to be about in his future book, but he has one out with an excellent cover by Red Pill Junkie called Crash Saucers and The Emergence of the Popular Modern UFO Mythos in the Late Twentieth Century. Definitely got that all off the top of my head and don't have the book sitting right in front of me right now. So welcome, Charles.

AP Strange:

Welcome back.

Charles Lear:

Hey, good to be here, man.

AP Strange:

Yeah so this will be a lot of fun. I'm not even really sure where to start with this. Do

Charles Lear:

you want to

AP Strange:

give my listeners a little overview of what inspired this specific book and and What

Charles Lear:

inspired this specific book was I wrote a couple of I I'm a regular blogger for Martin Willis at podcast UFO. I write a blog every week. So I wrote first, a blog about abductions. I wanted to see where the Grays release started coming from, you know, the the emergence of them and, how the abduction story developed into the narrative everybody's familiar with. And that just got repeated ad infinitum in the eighties and nineties, ad nauseam, actually.

Charles Lear:

And so I wrote, that turned out just to be like a a two part series, and I got into the whole mess with, David Jacobs and Emma Woods and that whole sordid tale. And Bud Hopkins and his star case, the Brooklyn Bridge abduction with Lin and the Palatano and the UFO abduction soap opera that turned into. And then I took on UFO cover up live because it occurred to me that all the idiocy that was the eighties culminated in UFO cover up live, and I ended up doing a three part series on that behind the scenes kind of thing. And when I had the two of them, because I wanted to, you know, get started with the UFO investigators, and this, of course, was some of the stuff I would have had to have covered. And I thought, you know, this is gonna be a real labyrinth of material because you're dealing with Benowitz, Doty, Moore, the whole Roswell thing, just a whole mess of twist and twists and turns.

Charles Lear:

So I figured, well, why don't I get all this stuff out of the way? And I figured I could expand the two blogs into the book, and I did so. I did a hell of a lot of research, and made a lot of discoveries along the way. I was absolutely shocked at how idiotic the Ross book, the Roswell incident actually was because I never And read how idiotic, UFO cover up live was as well. Right.

Charles Lear:

And a lot of just idiocy after idiocy, throughout this whole saga. And Yeah. Anyway, so I

AP Strange:

put This is funny.

Charles Lear:

I'll I'll I'll put that book out. So now in this next book, I can focus on the stuff I feel is more credible and just say, for this, you go go back to the other book because I don't wanna deal with it anymore.

AP Strange:

Yeah. I mean, you almost have to when approaching the UFO subject kind of, like, cordon off different aspects of it. There's different threads that you can pull on, and you're like, okay. Well, this is the extra kooky stuff. And it's funny because the extra kooky stuff often gets dressed up as the more credible stuff because it's like, well, hey.

AP Strange:

Look. We had a whole TV special and our studio, checked the background of this guy Falcon, and he's legit. You know? He has credentials.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. And and and it's legit because this is actually old footage, and this is a guy who was the producer of the ABC News when this old footage was shot, but we're showing it to you as if it's live and not telling you.

AP Strange:

Right. And I feel like that's kind of the era that I would have started getting into this stuff. Like my interest in weird subjects began with ghostly stuff because of experiences I had when I was a child and whenever I'd get the big books of unsolved mysteries of course UFOs is part of it, but I it always kinda turned me off because you put on TV and it was always alien abduction stuff and Roswell stuff, and neither of those really, like, seemed likely to me. I like it it just kinda turned me off. I didn't really like I like Stan Friedman.

AP Strange:

I like seeing him on TV, but, like, pretty much all the rest of it. I'm like, I'm not really you know, I'm not sold on this whole idea of

Charles Lear:

You you didn't buy planet. Come on.

AP Strange:

What? Victor?

Charles Lear:

Oh, I don't think I've earned my money home. Remember the guy in shadow with the alien puppet?

AP Strange:

Right. And the strawberry ice cream?

Charles Lear:

No. No. That was that was Dodie.

AP Strange:

Oh, right. Right.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. They're they're they they have this.

Charles Lear:

Anyway, you were very astute. Let me put it that way. Because back in the eighties, I was buying a lot of this stuff. And I was I was like, there was this whole conspiracy UFO UFOs and conspiracy theory were, like, really together, and you had guys like Jim Martz. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

And, it it really went hand in hand. It it it really got kinda kicked off with, like, Cooper and Lear. And back then, I was into all that kind of stuff. And there was this whole thing, like, I remember there's a website and a series of books, Everything You Know Is Wrong. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

And like, I was into it and I was buying it. Right. Much older and wiser now. But, you know, it was

AP Strange:

Yeah. The disinformation books. Those were cool.

Charles Lear:

But but the thing is is that yeah. Yeah. The thing is is that though the this stuff was coming fast and furious compared to how it was in the fifties and sixties and seventies. Because all of a sudden, first thing that came we got was a VHS in the eighties and nineties where everything became affordable. And all of a sudden, can bring home all these UFO documentaries.

Charles Lear:

And if you, you

Blackwolf John Oates:

know Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Were, like, really interested in it, you could watch all of them.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Right.

Charles Lear:

Then I'm

Blackwolf John Oates:

sorry, go ahead.

Charles Lear:

And then the Internet came along. And what was really interesting about the Internet is, I heard you, AP, say before, you know, one thing about, ufology is you don't need any credentials to say you're a ufologist. You just I'm a ufologist. But, you know, in the fifties and sixties, you pretty much had to write a book or at the very least put out a zine. Right.

Charles Lear:

And, you know

AP Strange:

Or enlist with, like, Apro.

Charles Lear:

Or Yeah. Right. Or Yeah. But when the Internet came along, all of a sudden, Bill Cooper and John Lear posted on it was actually just pre Internet on a bulletin board system started by Jim Spicer called Paranet. Bill Cooper and John Lear separately posted and Lear had crazy credentials as far as, know, I think he had something like over a 100 air records had flown, I think it'd flown over a 100 different types of planes, had multiple airspeed records and military career.

Charles Lear:

And he was the son of Bill Lear, who invented the Learjet and the eight track tape.

AP Strange:

Right.

Charles Lear:

And with those credentials, well, anything he says people are gonna buy. But

AP Strange:

And he took full advantage.

Charles Lear:

And he sure did. That's where, you know, he basically spewed out all the stuff that was coming from Bald Benowitz about the underground base in Dulce, New Mexico, vats of cattle and human parts being mixed up to create sustenance for the aliens who absorbed it through their skin.

AP Strange:

That always seemed like a tell to me or maybe some irony that the deep underground military base in short, if you make that a

Charles Lear:

Acronym.

AP Strange:

Acronym It's just dumb. Yes.

Charles Lear:

It's quite telling. Yeah. And Bill Cooper told a story of seeing a UFO tumble up out of the water. He was aboard a submarine, the USS Tiro, and him and his crewmates, he said, saw a UFO tumble up out of the water and then tumble back in. A big one.

Charles Lear:

Put And so these guys, all all they did was post on a bulletin board system, and out of nowhere, they became superstars. Right. And that that was a huge difference between the sixties and the seventies and the eighties and the nineties. So then all of a sudden, all these people started crawling out of the woodwork. You had Robert O'Dean.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. This you know, he kinda looked like Gandalf. You know? I mean, you know, he had that long hair and a big old gray ponytail, and he was so earnest. And, he talked about, he his claim was that, when he was at a shape supreme allied headquarters Allied Powers Europe, I think it is.

Charles Lear:

He actually was stationed there, but he was a clerk. Right. But, you know, he, of course, makes himself look really big. Trying to what was he? Yeah.

Charles Lear:

He was a command sergeant major. Somebody retired as, cosmic top secret clearance, but he claimed that, you know, he was working at two in the morning, and the superior officer saw that he was having trouble staying awake. So he said, here, read this. This will keep you awake, and you gave him the top secret document, talking about the

Blackwolf John Oates:

As you would do.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Right? NATO's NATO's investigation of UFOs and the possible threat and, you know, the conclusions that they're real and they're driven by aliens and that we've recovered craft and, you know, the that whole rigmarole.

AP Strange:

Right.

Charles Lear:

So, you know, he comes out of nowhere and just uses, says, hey. Well, I was a lieutenant current you know, I was in NATO and, you know, believe me because of my credentials. And then after that, you get Corso, the day after Roswell. And so, you

AP Strange:

know, it's all mess.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah. Oh,

Charles Lear:

yeah. And then not to mention all the people who popped up on Art Bell show. I think you can speak to that, Black Wolf.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Oh, good Lord. Well, I was gonna say earlier, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I mean, I came to all this stuff through like the Scholastic books, like Daniel Cohen books, it was like, just like listing UFO sightings and like, know, Lions of Mora, things like that, all the famous ones. And it's just kind of this disjointed series of like people seeing things. But I remember my exposure, a lot of this stuff was, I had a friend when I was in college, my friend, I first started college, he was a couple years older than me, and we were both like horrible insomniac chain smokers. And he was on like paranet, and I had no idea what it was.

Blackwolf John Oates:

And he'd keep me up all night, just telling me all this stuff about underground bases and Dulce and all this shit. And what got me was there's a coherent narrative to it. Mean coherent in quotes, because it's insane, but there's a progression of this story. And so it's like, I mean, I guess that makes sense. Like it would, yeah, I mean, yeah, of course they would make a truce with us and then live underground and then have a laser fight with a guy and blow his arm off.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Then they would Area 51 and then Robert Lazar. This all just had this coherency to it that random sightings didn't.

Charles Lear:

It's amazing, yeah, that narrative how it And

Blackwolf John Oates:

then I would hear those idiots on Art Bell and I'm like, well, now they're famous, so it has to be real. Like these guys are like, they're writing books about it now. Like, I didn't know that this was just my idiot friend staying up late and reading Paranet and then taking notes and then telling me about it, like, cause we were at a donut shop until four in the morning, you know? And just go, it has to be real. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

So that

Blackwolf John Oates:

was, I think that's what made it so attractive too, is that there was a story.

Charles Lear:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what's amazing is that, you know, it all seemed to make sense. Oh, we know who they are, we know where they come from. And I think part of Dean's thing was that the report said there were four distinct types of aliens. So you know you had the humanoids, the really big human looking ones, really big human looking ones, reptilians, and greys.

Charles Lear:

So there you go.

AP Strange:

Although one

Blackwolf John Oates:

now That seems to be right.

AP Strange:

Yeah and I mean and recently like just in the past year we've had kind of a in the news you've you've had stories about I guess the CIA or or the Department of Defense. I guess it was common practice to seed fake stuff out to people almost as like a hazing or to or to to determine whether they could keep a secret or not. Yeah. So they had to admit that they used to do that, like, give people fake classified documents about aliens and then

Blackwolf John Oates:

Like, them awake, of course.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Well, no. But you gotta see if it pops up somewhere and you know you can't trust the guy. You know? Right.

Charles Lear:

Like, I gave him the specific information. Hey. You know, there's this underground base, under the, Prospect Park in Brooklyn. You know? And if that shows up as specific as it is and that's the only guy you told that to, ping, you know, who he got.

AP Strange:

Well, right. Yeah. And they kinda got Cooper with that, not in a government way, but they kinda seeded information to Cooper that he ended up sharing, and they knew that they made it up.

Charles Lear:

So Well, that that was actually John Lear and his buddy, I think his name was John Grace.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Right.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. They they invented the O. H. Crow papers just out of nowhere. You know?

Charles Lear:

And they say this is all this information we're getting from this captured alien.

AP Strange:

Right. And then Cooper was saying he saw it and they go Yeah.

Charles Lear:

On air while he's being interviewed, Cooper said, he yeah. I saw this, and Lear took him aside and said, hey, Bill. What are you doing? Me and John Graves made this up. Cooper stuck to his gun zone and claimed he really saw it.

Charles Lear:

And Lear actually is quoted saying, that's what I began to wonder about Cooper.

AP Strange:

Right.

Blackwolf John Oates:

You can't say Bill Cooper didn't

AP Strange:

have moxie. I mean,

Blackwolf John Oates:

he was he was all flash.

AP Strange:

He was great.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. I tell you, I, like I said, I I would listen to him. He he was a real good speaker. He had facts, like, on his fingertips and I was when I was a young conspiracy idiot, I I was like, oh, I started buying them until it's like, until you listen to them long enough and then all of a sudden, he starts taking these turns and you're like, wait a minute. It's kinda like David Ike.

Charles Lear:

You know, when he's talking about, like, you know, banker conspiracies and all this stuff. This is before I knew that a lot of this stuff comes from anti Semitic kind of stuff. But, you know, I'm listening to David Ike talk and following and following and following and all of a sudden he does his turn and it's the reptilians who are about

Blackwolf John Oates:

And they're lizards.

Charles Lear:

And they're lizards. And what? Wait a minute.

AP Strange:

Well, mean, Cooper really tipped his hat because he barely coded it. He included the entirety of the Elders of Zion paper. In Behold a Pale Horse and you're just like he's like, yeah. But you just take out the word Jews and put Illuminati in. That's it's real.

AP Strange:

You know? It's just Yeah. Not that it's the Jews. It's just about the Illuminati instead.

Charles Lear:

You know? Well, the anti definition, the Mason League really came down on David Ike. And because they they basically say, do place lizards with Jews, and that's what he's talking about?

AP Strange:

Yeah. That's pretty obvious.

Charles Lear:

No. It's David really believes it's lizards.

AP Strange:

Well, I also think he's a bigot, but I don't Yeah. Two things don't have to be mutually exclusive. You know?

Charles Lear:

Oh, speaking of that, Wendell Stevens. There's there's a guy. Oh, because he he was buddies with Robert O'Dean and they hung out. They lived in Tucson and back in the day, they were like, they were on a lot of videos and I remember just like I said, I I was buying into a lot of this stuff and mean, you know, it was like Gandalf and his Robert O'Dean was like Gandalf and Wendell like kind of struck me. He like, you know, this cute elfin kinda guy.

Charles Lear:

And then now, you know, you you read it, you find out that, oh, convicted child molester.

AP Strange:

Oh, good god.

Charles Lear:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. He spent, I think he did seven years in prison, and it wasn't his first offense. He admitted to, like, three counts. There there were, like, seven against him or something like that.

Charles Lear:

And, part of it was, like, offering obscene materials to minors and possession and sex with a 14 year old girl. And then it comes out that in his some of his papers and his archives are subscriptions to antisemitic and right wing fascist literature. So it's like, wow. Know? Wow.

Charles Lear:

Yeah.

AP Strange:

Yeah. That's quite of a dirt guy can you be?

Charles Lear:

Right?

AP Strange:

But just to be clear, which one are we talking about?

Charles Lear:

That's Wendell Stevens.

AP Strange:

Wendell Stevens. Wow. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

AP Strange:

Because he published a lot of stuff like he would just kind

Charles Lear:

of stuff.

AP Strange:

Right?

Charles Lear:

I think like 22 books, something like that.

AP Strange:

He's kind of responsible for the proliferation of the alternative three story I think right?

Charles Lear:

Billy Myers. Yeah. That he's like the guy who got Billy Myers out.

AP Strange:

Right. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

And he was famous for having the largest collection of UFO photos or flying saucer photos. He would trade and yeah. He built up a massive collection. I'm not sure where they are. It might be, anomaly archives in Texas.

Charles Lear:

I'm not positive. But yeah. I mean, he was famous for that. But he managed to, like, stumble onto, like, every idiot case you can imagine. Umu.

Charles Lear:

I think you wrote a book. Umu. Umu. Yeah. One with the the saucer with the weird symbol on the bottom of it and another.

AP Strange:

I love that case though. That's like a really cool story.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. But anyway.

AP Strange:

Yeah. But you're talking about how they looked and this is something that for listeners Black Wolf and I both rewatched UFO cover up live. I have to say it with the punctuation to get it really over.

Blackwolf John Oates:

UFO cover up live?

AP Strange:

Like that, yeah.

Charles Lear:

UFO cover up exclamation point colon live.

Blackwolf John Oates:

No. It's UFO cover up question mark. Oh, right. Yeah. It's a question.

Blackwolf John Oates:

UFO cover up live?

Charles Lear:

You know? Oh.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Well, I don't know because then you still got the upward inflection with the exclamation point at the end. So I think it would be more like UFO cover up live.

Charles Lear:

I guess you got it.

Blackwolf John Oates:

I think you nailed it. I think you got it. Yeah.

AP Strange:

That's it. Very awkward. Very awkward indeed. Whoever came up with that, should have been canned. But but having watched it yesterday, you've mentioned the guy looking like Gandalf and and and Steve's looking like a little elf or something.

AP Strange:

And and and that was the first thing that struck me, and I was messaging Black Wolf yesterday. We're going back and forth like, these guys are all awkward as hell looking.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Haircuts. Oh, the haircuts.

Charles Lear:

He had them he had them all reading from cue cards. The the producer was really inexperienced. Yeah. And a lot of them were just not good at reading cue cards.

AP Strange:

Especially Wouldn't.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Robert Friend who was director of Project Blue Book in the sixties. And, oh, he was just so brutally awkward.

AP Strange:

Yeah. It couldn't have been more obvious that they were reading off of

Charles Lear:

a card just off camera. And I'm I'm pretty sure the, that there's this whole feed where they're talking to these Russian nephrologists. Oh. And I'm pretty sure that was either prerecorded or they just had a really bad feed. But I think it was prerecorded and they, played it off like it was live because you can see him I think he actually asked a question as the guy was answering it.

AP Strange:

Yeah, they're talking over each other, yeah.

Charles Lear:

Not quite synced up.

Blackwolf John Oates:

I was having a good laugh at that very awkward they kept re showing that footage of Shanderey and Moore in a black studio. They looked like insurance agents or like, you know, personal injury lawyers.

AP Strange:

Right. Yeah. Like Shandere and chasers.

Blackwolf John Oates:

They just, it looks, and they just, and Bill Moore's hair was just, we could not stop laughing. Bill Moore's hair and Bruce McAfee's hair were just glorious. Bruce McAfee was kind of groovy. Yeah. With the.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. More than.

AP Strange:

Well, that reminds me we have another sponsor for tonight's show and it's Shandere and more UFO adjustment claims. Have you had an incident with a UFO? You may be. You may be. May be

Blackwolf John Oates:

may be on. You may have compensation coming your way. Yeah.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. There it is.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah. Maybe eligible for compensation.

AP Strange:

There we go. Contact Shandere and Moore.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Send them a send them a plain envelope with film in it and they'll get right back to you.

Charles Lear:

It's a stunt. I mean, the fact, you know, Moore had, Seligman, the producer, just worked up into such a frenzy. He to took an island out in the middle of the Great Lakes is one of the stories to meet up with these these aviary buddies, which probably included Dodie and Ernie Kellerstrauss and people of that Elt Kellerstrauss was a hawk. And and you yeah. And so, you know, Sullyman was, like, thinking that all this this whole thing was real.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Paranoid as I reading your, I forgot that you were the one who wrote that three part article, which I really enjoyed about it. I remember reading that like a couple of months ago. Is there any, I don't remember anything about how they got Mike Farrell. I just want to know-

Charles Lear:

I have no idea. Have

Blackwolf John Oates:

no How they got Mike, it's just the most random, you say, you could, okay, there's a UFO show that came out in 1988, it was an hour and a half long, It was about the UFO cover up live, and they got a host. Guess who it would be? You would never, never, never, never guess Mike Farrell. It was the most random person you could ever pull out. TV's Mike Farrell.

AP Strange:

You know? He seemed really disinterested too though.

Charles Lear:

I guess.

Blackwolf John Oates:

He seemed like. Is it a check on a clear? He knows when he got himself into. He's like, I cannot believe I have to do this.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Right. I mean, did

Blackwolf John Oates:

you it live, Charles?

Charles Lear:

Yes, I did.

Blackwolf John Oates:

I did too. I I was like nine and I still, I remember like being so excited about this. I made my parents watch it too. Yeah. I'm sure they absolutely hated me for it, but.

AP Strange:

Your poor mother. She's been subjected to so much.

Blackwolf John Oates:

My mother's been through RoboCop two and then, you know, it's put my mouth through a lot. But I think RoboCop two is Citizen Kane compared to UFO cover up live. That is brutal.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. I mean and the and the whole thing with, you know, Falcon and Condor, you know, and and Richard Doty. He's wearing his freaking glasses. I mean, you can see. It's totally

Blackwolf John Oates:

It's all new. It's Richard Doty. Oh, it's Doty.

Charles Lear:

And but it it it's it's footage they shot, I think, a couple years before for an ABC special that never aired. And it's not live. It's footage that more had been shown to people, and Jim Mosley actually mentions it, and John Lear mentions seeing the same footage that they showed on UFO cover up live.

AP Strange:

Yeah. And they made they made it sound like it was a question and answer thing.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They totally we've been lied to, man.

Blackwolf John Oates:

I I did enjoy some of, the people, like the way they pull out that couple who saw a UFO and the guy's got the jacket with the leather on it.

Charles Lear:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Blackwolf John Oates:

From New York, right? His wife looks like Joan Cusack in Working Girl, just this giant hair and Showing neck. It was glorious. And the the Gulf Breeze parts were just especially awkward as well. Right.

Blackwolf John Oates:

I'm not sure where everyone stands on Ed Walters here, but I would

Charles Lear:

Oh, yeah. Well, what's really funny is if you have Bruce Maccabee

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Vouching for the authenticity her percent real. And another photoanalyst, I I forget his name, showing, look. See this image? It's the same one copied and pasted. You see

Blackwolf John Oates:

the cut line right here. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Even the, like, clearly showing. It's, like, so obvious.

AP Strange:

Well, it's funny because it's, I think the Walters photos, they they look to me like a more modernized version of the Adamski ones. It looks very similar to me you know like but you know Black Wolf and I have talked about this too privately but it seems like Jeff Ritzman of the Peritopia podcast was all in with Walters too. He thought a lot of that stuff was really intriguing, which makes it gives you kind of pause because, like, I respect Jeff Ritzman's opinion and stuff. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Well, I mean, a lot of people say there was some actually stuff going down on Gulf Breeze. Right. You know, there were actual sightings. So maybe, you know, Walters took advantage of the fact that there was this stuff going around and said, you know, he could cash in on it. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

But yeah, I totally don't buy Walters.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah, always figured that there was something going on, but yeah, Ed Walters was just full of it

Charles Lear:

and he was

Blackwolf John Oates:

just cashing in, but I fully believe that. I mean, I remember when I was younger and hearing about that on the news because it was pretty big news across the Gulf Coast. I live in New Orleans, so now that was, it was made the news here pretty frequently. So I remember that going down. It was a pretty big deal.

Charles Lear:

What's crazy is the Gulf Breeze six. Are you familiar with that?

Blackwolf John Oates:

Oh, yeah.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. The the the the the bunch of, military, they were intelligence people from Germany.

AP Strange:

They station in Germany. Yeah. The American station.

Charles Lear:

American station to be clear. Yeah. They went AWOL. Didn't a

Blackwolf John Oates:

Ouija board tell to go?

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, they went AWOL to, I think, oh, I did it turned in there like, let's find the, I think, a antichrist who's coming in a Jesus is coming in a UFO, and they're also looking

Blackwolf John Oates:

Fekola apparently.

Charles Lear:

I think they're looking for the antichrist, and I think they they thought Ed Walters was the antichrist, but it it got nuts. But what's They

AP Strange:

should've gone to Mar A Lago.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. But what's crazy is is

Blackwolf John Oates:

I've been to North Florida. I think you probably could find the antichrist there pretty easily.

Charles Lear:

But I I think there's a link between them and the the wacky stuff that was going on. Doty was Richard Doty was stationed over in Germany.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Of course, he was.

Charles Lear:

And Lindsay think Lindsay Air Base. And that's where he like, right after the and and I think there's a tie between that and them. But but I think, oh, some of the guys from, I think there was somebody over there from the whole, Men Who Stare Goats kinda people.

AP Strange:

Really put it off for somebody?

Charles Lear:

It it it wasn't him but it it was I think somebody involved in all that spoon bending and remote viewing kind of stuff was over there. So I think and if the the Gulf Breeze six at least happened around the same time that, Jim Shannon was getting the, first Earth Battalion thing going around. So there was that kind of stuff going through the pipelines in the military at the time. So I can see, you know, military people using a Ouija board might not have been so wacky back then. But, yeah, Doty, right after the whole Paul Benowitz affair, he got sent over to Germany to work counterintelligence.

Charles Lear:

And it seems like Benowitz was, his first counterintelligence gig. And in my mind, they they said, oh, okay. Either you've stirred up quite a hornet's nest here. Why don't we get you the hell out of the country? You can go to do some counterintelligence in Germany, and he screwed up there.

Charles Lear:

Apparently, he got caught lying about his, I think his, Russian contacts, and he got stripped of a Fozy, and he sent him back to, Kirtland, and he finished out his last year as head of the mess hall. Right. It's like Yeah.

AP Strange:

When he was, like, talking about having clearances at Kirtland, like, he was just in charge of the kitchen, I think. So really? Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Not an easy job. Yeah. But he's still running around lecturing like he would

AP Strange:

Well, I mean,

Charles Lear:

all the deal.

AP Strange:

All due respect to chefs, but you know?

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. But yeah. I'd I'd that that's something I I think it's really interesting when you put the context of when you put the the whole eighties thing and leading up to UFO cover up live into the same into context with, the whole thing that was going on in the military at the time.

Charles Lear:

We had people like John Alexander, who was one of the aviaries. And the aviary, by the way, was just bird names given to all the military contacts, Chandra and Moore were meeting with. They just made up the names themselves. There was no organized group called the Avery. Moore says this repeatedly.

Blackwolf John Oates:

I was so disappointed when I found that out. Yeah. I really hope they gave themselves those names.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. And it wasn't Blum actually wrote a book. It kind of, you know, like

AP Strange:

As this is with everything else, it takes a life of its own where it seems like this is a splinter cell of government intelligence, and they call themselves the aviary. You know? Like So much cooler.

Blackwolf John Oates:

I I I would have thought if they did, and I was

Charles Lear:

But you put it in the context of, you know, the first Earth Battalion and the remote viewing program going on at the same time. And and Maccabee actually wrote a piece called Hawk Tales where he talked to Ernie Keller Strauss. And Kellerstrasse is talking about, you know, all these tales of, like, well, I think a friend of a friend saw an alien body in, you know, in the Mamzano weapons area and blah blah blah. But one thing Maccabee said was that the remote viewing program, because a lot of the some of the remote viewers were claiming to be in talk touch with the saucer people, they wanted to verify that there actually were saucer people. So they reached out to ufologists.

Charles Lear:

And Maccabee says there there was a connection, maybe perhaps an unwanted connection between the remote viewing program and, Uphology. So which kind of explains why you have people like John Alexander, help put off all these people coming out to more and giving him the information that they're hearing. And there's this whole feedback loop going on between people in the military and intelligence. I heard from a guy who heard from a guy then telling a ufologist, and then the ufologist says, well, I heard from a military intelligence guy. So I heard from a guy who heard from a guy turns into, I heard from a military intelligence guy that this stuff is real.

Charles Lear:

And, yeah, and it just keeps, like, feed feeding back on itself, and all this stuff just spirals into, well, into the mess we have today.

AP Strange:

Yeah. I mean, it's still happening now. When we have these congressional hearings, it's like okay what evidence do you have? Well I was told by somebody who heard from another person that was

Charles Lear:

It's the same stuff, it's the same stuff.

AP Strange:

Prevy to information from somebody that was there. You're like okay how many degrees of separation are we again? Really? Yeah. But

Charles Lear:

yeah. I mean, you know, it it's just ufology is just really bad at cleaning house. You know? Right.

AP Strange:

A lot of these guys are still around. They're like,

Charles Lear:

yeah, bro.

AP Strange:

Cody's still around, you know? Yeah. John Alexander is a he's especially spooky guy. He's still around, I think, right? Like, he's just.

Charles Lear:

He's still

AP Strange:

out there.

Charles Lear:

Check out his website. It's awesome. Okay. So, yeah, it's it's still out there. I think it's still it's it's pretty, dated as well, but he just lists, oh, you know, telepathy experiments with dolphins and all kinds of wonderful stuff.

AP Strange:

Well, I'd be willing to believe that. I mean, that's like the John C. Lilly stuff, you know, like, from the seventies. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Alexander is definitely a pretty open minded guy. That's why I

AP Strange:

You know? Yeah.

Charles Lear:

But he he he was a pioneer in, non lethal, combat. Non lethal.

AP Strange:

And I think psyops. Right? Like Mhmm. So you take that for what it's worth. You know?

AP Strange:

Yeah. And then John Lear, of course, passed away a couple of years ago. So

Charles Lear:

Yeah. He's a fascinating guy. For me, it seemed to me like and I've said this before. It it seemed to me like John Lear assumed that most people when you followed you are just making this stuff up and kinda like pro

AP Strange:

So he was playing the game as well?

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kinda you know? And it's like, you know, wait, wait, nod, nod.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. We all know this is fake, but it's fun. Right? Yeah. They just made stuff up.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Know. Was able to to deliver some of the craziest shit with a complete, with such perfect intonation and the soul stealing machine on the moon. That is incredible. A machine on the moon stealing souls.

Charles Lear:

I had nerd that morning.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Went on the air and said that with a straight face. That's amazing. That takes

AP Strange:

so long. Wait, so let's unpack that one a little bit, Black

Charles Lear:

Wolf, because I hadn't heard that one.

AP Strange:

Wanna know about this machine on

Blackwolf John Oates:

the I'm please, if I'm wrong, someone correct me. I apologize. I'm a 99% sure it was John Lear said that there was a machine on the moon that the Grays were using to collect souls.

Charles Lear:

That's awesome.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Is it on the dark side? No, well, I

AP Strange:

don't know.

Blackwolf John Oates:

I don't know. I guess it's one of those, I'm sure, I'm sure Hogan can tell us, but it was, yeah, there was a machine on the moon stealing souls. Maybe not stealing, I'm collecting them. I say collecting souls. I don't know if it was necessarily like evil and stealing souls, but that was like, when we die, there's a machine in the moon that's gonna collect our souls, which is not that far from Scientology, if we're being honest here.

Blackwolf John Oates:

We're not getting that far off that stuff. I remember the Lear test was my absolute favorite. The Lear test where he gave his spiel about everything that's true about UFOs and the cosmos, and you had to hear it. If you heard the Lear test, you would have to decide whether you would tell people about it or if you keep it a secret too. Was the whole thing.

Blackwolf John Oates:

He was like, that Venus is inhabited. They've been showing us fake pictures of Venus and that there's, like, five different alien races and they're doing all these different things. And then he would say to Art, you know, Art, knowing what I've told you just now, would you tell the American people the truth about UFOs?

Charles Lear:

Comes

Blackwolf John Oates:

out I could do it. And of course, Brookings Institute would come up and then we just move move brookings brookings art

AP Strange:

brookings well I mean because if you're you know I think you have to come up with an origin point right? And a lot of people are going to pick like Venus or Mars or the moon because those are the closest things the contact e era certainly you had a lot of that. And specifically I'm thinking like Trevor James Constable, I want to do a whole episode on him someday, but his first first book he's just channeling Ashtar the whole time. Ashtar there's like an invisible Ashtar following him around and and there's talk about satanic moon people. There's just like this race of people on the moon that are that are basically aligned with hellish forces that Ashtar is opposed to.

Charles Lear:

Oh I only I only knew Constable from the air critters.

AP Strange:

Yeah nobody ever talks about his first book They Live in the Sky because it's really hard to find but it's super interesting. And I had two copies of it I sent one to Aaron Golias but he's no longer doing the saucer life so that's a bummer. He never got around to it. Yeah. Yeah.

AP Strange:

No. He just he called it quits and good opportunity to wish him the best because it was a great run. That was really one of my all time favorite Eight years. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Yeah, a lot of people are starting to fade out.

AP Strange:

Yeah, well, no, I mean, you know, go out on your own terms and do it when you want to. I mean, I'm all for it. He doesn't owe us anything. He gave us tons of free content for

Charles Lear:

eight years. Yes, he did.

AP Strange:

I I think I started listening at episode four or so, so I was like, wow. Has it been that long? Have I been listening to Ghoulies for that long? Yeah. But, yeah, what I was getting to though is, yeah, you do need to like pick some origin point and and this gets into somebody that that Black Wolf and I joke around about a lot.

AP Strange:

It's Richard Hoagland and and his ideas about the moon and Mars and the face on Mars. Never shut up about it. He's still talking about it to this day.

Blackwolf John Oates:

I remember I remember the commercials for like his VHS tape that used to come on at night. Do you remember those commercials? Maybe maybe it was just a local they like it was like a a VHS tape, of course, like 4499 or whatever you could buy. It was it was a good old Dicky Hoagues doing his lecture with the the bow tie and the leather jacket. It's just it's that silver fox of it all is beautiful.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Right.

Charles Lear:

But but I mean, he his background is pretty amate I just you know, because I I I looked him up just to really find out who he was, and just from his Wikipedia page, they they pull no punches. It says, Hoagland has no education beyond the high school level. Okay? But what's crazy is that he was a curator of astronomy and space science at Springfield Science Museum 1964 to '67, assistant director at Grand Grass Science Center in West Hartford, Connecticut from '67 to '68, was a science adviser to CBS News during the Apollo program 1978 hat on. To '71.

Charles Lear:

And what's crazy is he he started a a oh, he started a petition. Yes. That's what the word I was looking for. He started a petition to a letter a letter writing campaign and, persuaded Gerald Ford to name the first space shuttle the Enterprise. And but then he Oh, he's

AP Strange:

a Trekkie, so it could

Charles Lear:

be all that bad. Yeah. Yeah. But

Blackwolf John Oates:

he Enterprise Mission. That was his, website for years.

Charles Lear:

He got, the International Angstrom Medal for excellence in science apparently by mistake because it wasn't authorized. Yep. It wasn't authorized by, the people who give it out, Uppsala University or the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah. Someone went rogue on that and gave it to him and didn't tell anybody.

Charles Lear:

I think it was mister Anstrom himself.

Blackwolf John Oates:

He always brought that Art always used that in his introduction. Anstrom award winning scientist.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. They they they they they

Blackwolf John Oates:

Former science adviser to Walter Cronkite.

Charles Lear:

And Yeah. He stated in, angstrom said in, May 2000 that it was a word to Hoglund was a mistake. He acted in good faith with good intentions. But, and then he, claimed of, design the, Pioneer 10 plaque, which was actually designed by Sagan and, his wife and Frank Drake, which was total BS as well. But Right.

Blackwolf John Oates:

That Hogman can't work himself into. It there isn't a single event in human history that Hogman can't work himself into.

Charles Lear:

But, you know, it's an interesting thing. Like, he he he was he was going, man. I mean, come on. Self taught astronomer. And, you know, it's kinda funny.

Charles Lear:

It's like, astronomy and paleontology are two things that, like ufology, you can just get into as you you find

AP Strange:

You can make the claim for sure.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Well, if you if you find something that nobody else has spotted, you get to name the star or, you know, or whatever. You put it at the attention and bada bing. You know, you're you're an astronomer. And the same thing with paleontology.

Charles Lear:

You find, you know, you find kids, like, find bones and allergies. Species that's never been discovered before. And by god, you're a paleontologist if you wanna keep going. You know? I mean, Ray Sanford.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Yep. Well, he could, like, psychically find him, I guess.

Charles Lear:

But Ray Ray Stanford's his track he he his his main thing was finding trackways. So he would take them out of the ground. So a trackway is like a huge slab of stone. Right. But he had them all in his house, and I there's a picture of him in his house.

Charles Lear:

He had to reinforce his floors, and he's literally got, like, pathways. It's like somebody who collected old newspapers and had piles and, you know, that pathway. His house was just filled with these trackways and other Of course. Not only for trackways, but, you know, bones and but yeah. And he had to reinforce his floors in order to so his house can cave in.

AP Strange:

Well, was a hoarder of fossils then.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Fossil hoarder. Yes. Indeed.

AP Strange:

Yeah. I know Red Pill wrote an obituary for him because he passed away this past year I think.

Charles Lear:

Yeah, I wrote one too because he was a friend of podcast UFO. He would call up Martin on a regular basis. Oh, cool. And he actually, when I first started writing, was the first guy to call me out because I accidentally, I was writing a thing on Westall, '66, the whole Australia, was that Australia?

AP Strange:

Yeah. Yeah. The the school landing?

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. And all the kids. And there was I was just there were some saucer nests described, and I just found a picture of a saucer nest and popped it in as an illustration. And Ray said, Charles, you have to be very careful.

Charles Lear:

You didn't there were no pictures taken of saucer nests at Westall. And, you know, if you present a picture like that, you're you're being, disingenuous and making you know? And he just really laid into me for putting that up. I said, thank you, Ray. You were and after that, I, like, was I've been really careful because I'm like, holy shit.

Charles Lear:

People are watching. I mean, people actually read this crap. Yeah.

AP Strange:

Well, people are quick to, keep you on your toes. Yeah. The trouble is a lot of them end up being wrong. I mean if it's Ray Stanford it's one thing but if it's just some rando on the internet

Charles Lear:

it's like

AP Strange:

okay well there's several things you can do with that piece of advice. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

But you know I mean you know at least Ray was fun you know.

AP Strange:

Yeah yeah I mean a lot of these a lot of guys from the past were fun some of them were more problematic and others were just like you know rubes. We've got plenty of rubes nowadays, I think. A lot

Blackwolf John Oates:

of rubes. Yeah, and that's the thing with this stuff is it's kind of fun to read about, it's kind of fun to kind of like, you know, fall into it and follow the trail, but the people involved with it were not fun. They were dead serious, you know, intelligence. Some

Charles Lear:

of them,

Blackwolf John Oates:

yeah, yeah. And they're just, there's no there's no joy to be found in this. It's all very serious. Then

Charles Lear:

Well, it's like Moore. Moore was just like, you know, he was so serious and then took himself seriously. And it's like,

Blackwolf John Oates:

dude. Himself that haircut. What is he doing? I'm a take you seriously. You have a bowl cut.

Blackwolf John Oates:

What are you doing, man? You have a pool.

AP Strange:

Just put the soup bowl. He put the soup bowl on his head and just cut around it. It's

Charles Lear:

And his whole his his his his whole 1989 speech where he quote unquote came clean, it's he actually said he hit the crowd up for money. He said, if you wanna support our work, you know, it costs a lot of money to go out and do some research. So, you know, contributions would be welcome. This is in his speech after he's just admitted to working as a as a CIA dis you know, with a CIA disinformation agent.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Right. God.

Charles Lear:

And he actually hit them up for money. Yeah.

AP Strange:

Well, in a way, though, I see a couple honorable qualities about Moore there just for owning up to it. And in a way, that calls out a lot of the people in the room too.

Charles Lear:

But he was doing it. I I think he was doing it because Lear and Cooper Lear was actually running that convention. Lear and Cooper were running away with the narrative, and he wanted to regain control of it. That's how I see it. I don't see it.

Charles Lear:

It it it because he people were already tired. People were already calling him out. Yeah. And, you know, I think he spoke, with Don Ecker as late as 1994. So, you know, he was trying to get back into it.

Charles Lear:

But he yeah. I think

AP Strange:

Persona non grata, though? Nobody wanted that.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. After that, forget about it. I think Greg Bishop talk who was there talked about, Bill English saying he was gonna run out and get a fire hose.

AP Strange:

I feel like there needs to be a movie about like that conference.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Well, Cooper and Lear like Cooper had I think the night before the conference, Cooper was drunk in Lear's hotel room drinking heavily and threatening him, saying, you know, I think he accused him of being a dis you know, of being a disinformation agent and Yeah. Trying to discredit him and, and and Lear was freaked out by all that.

AP Strange:

Well, Cooper was probably packing heat. I can imagine that guy didn't go anywhere without a gun.

Charles Lear:

I imagine too. Yeah. And, oh, and and then just, you know, Lear and his, basically, Lear and his dark side buddies, Cooper and English, and actually Don Ecker was part of that as well. He was studying, human mutilations. And they weren't allowed to speak at the main convention even though Lear was running it because Walt Andrews, head of MUFON, was getting so many complaints.

Charles Lear:

Richard Hall, who was, Donald Keogh's right hand man at NICAP, resigned from the board because, you know, Bill Cooper was speaking. And so Andrew said, look, John, it's okay to emcee, but you can't speak. And and, know, he had a nervous complaints about John Lear too. And Lear threatened to take the the whole convention down the street. He said, well, you know, it was arranged that Lear would have his own room and kind of like an annex.

Charles Lear:

And, you know, he charged people, I think, $15 a head to get in. And so he and his UFO darkspeak siders spoke the next day. And the stories that came out of that were just outrageous. I think, something like eight one I think it was English. Might have talked about 88 dissonant scientists being executed for threatening to expose Dulce.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. It was crazy. But, yeah, this is after you know? But, more speech. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

If you really look at it, you you can I when I looked at it, what I saw was him to really trying to point out that Lear and Cooper and their ilk were, everything that was coming out of their mouths was the result of a disinformation program that he was privy to, which is why in my mind he was admitting to it so he could regain control of the narrative?

AP Strange:

And you think he kind of took a step back because he couldn't get back in or do you think he's just threw up his hands eventually because as far as I know he's still alive but he nobody's heard from him in a long time.

Charles Lear:

No I think he'd had it.

AP Strange:

Right yeah yeah interesting.

Charles Lear:

Yeah I mean he tried to get out another book and I think it's, Todd Zichel. In a book, he was and I think he wrote it under, oh, I should get this out. In he wrote this report where he was calling out, really calling out Maccabee for being, for his ties to the CIA. And he also mentions Moore, and he mentions Moore trying to put out a book. And, Moore had a magazine a zine called Focus, and he had an ad for this book that, Zechel compare yeah.

Charles Lear:

Here it is. Yeah. He offered a book that he, Dodie, and Chandray were writing as a free benefit to people willing to send him $25 to resubscribe to his magazine Focus. The book titled The Scientist, The Government, and UFO's Personal Recollections of the Paul Benowitz Affair. It was supposed to be available in 1992.

Charles Lear:

And, you know, he described its promotion as tabloid like. Government cover up, disinformation, UFO abductions, alien underground bases, secret treaties with extraterrestrials, plots to take over the Earth and take over and enslave Earth, Dulce, New Mexico, blah blah blah blah blah. And so he said, hundreds of suckers reportedly sent in their $25 and got nothing for it as the book was never printed and focus folded. Moore is said to have gone on to be the executive editor for Far Out magazine put out by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynn. So at least Far

AP Strange:

Out, man.

Charles Lear:

Of his lease as late as 1992. So

Blackwolf John Oates:

They ended up running like easy riders or something like that.

Charles Lear:

But

AP Strange:

Yeah. Well, you know, there's always a grift and there's always drama. It's kinda funny you look at it like I'm not on Twitter anymore, but when I was, UFO Twitter was always such a disaster because it was just people arguing and sniping at each other. And you'd always see people like, well, we all want the same thing, know, like, we want disclosure. Right?

AP Strange:

And it's like, no, not really. But people acted surprised that everybody that was interested in UFOs couldn't get along with each other. I'm like look at the history of the subject man, like they never did you know.

Charles Lear:

Yeah but I mean wasn't as wasn't as bad back in the old days as it is now. And I I like the the whole feuds between Jim Mosley and Cora Lorenzen.

AP Strange:

Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Cora Lorenzen. She she apparently, she was, difficult to get along with, but, her she really added in for Mosley, and and she would set herself up constantly. And, you know, you know, that Jim Mosley claims to have the know, Mosley was doing this whole, bid on, the whole bender mystery. So and when he was putting out Nexus, this is way back in the fifties, when he was putting out nexus, he was parodying it. So he would put in one issue, he says, in the next issue, we have the secret of UFOs, and the next issue, we'll give it to you, essentially.

Charles Lear:

And then then he says, we have been advised not to. So it's a whole, parody of the whole Bender thing. Meanwhile, Coral Lorenzen takes it seriously and says, well, that's Jim Mosley. He's not telling us. He claims to know the secret and then blah blah blah blah.

Charles Lear:

And she's just like falling right into his traps. Know? Right. And, but you know, that's as bad as it got back then. It it's like you it's a lot worse nowadays.

Charles Lear:

Yeah.

AP Strange:

Well, it's amplified like everything else. You know?

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Oh, I mean, there was a a a great story about her and a drunk gray barker having a wrestling match because there was this really apparently really bad UFO footage that came to her attention during, I think, an APRO convention. And they they Goliath does a whole bit on this where, you know, after, the main convention, I took selected and invited people to go view this UFO footage, and Goliath went on, April after dark. You know? But you know?

Charles Lear:

So a lot of people were pissed off. They couldn't get in to see it. Apparently, Hynik was there and went running for the door as soon as it came on. He was like, oh my god. But then, Greg Barker got drunk in the hotel bar and came back and was trying to force his way in, and he and Lorenzen had a wrestling match.

Charles Lear:

That's a good one.

AP Strange:

Well, Ufology isn't all that different from professional wrestling.

Charles Lear:

No, it isn't. It really isn't.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah. I had a question out of curiosity. Where do all the, abduction folks fit in all this? Like how do, Bud Hopkins and, John Mack, are they connected to this whole, you know, Bill Moore, John Lear thing? Are they kind of their own separate?

Charles Lear:

Yeah, it's kind of interesting. They sort of were their own separate thing. It was just like real specialized. Yeah, they didn't seem to intermingle in anything I've really read. Hopkins was really tied up with Mufon.

Charles Lear:

So, you know, his Anderson oh, there's a there's a big thing with Anderson, Jerome Clark really backing him up when George Hansen, the guy who wrote Trickster in the Paranormal. Yeah. Yeah. Hansen actually, him and a couple of other authors wrote a paper about the whole Brooklyn Bridge fiasco. Linda Napolitano thing.

Charles Lear:

Pointing out all the, you know, the BS and basically pointing out all the flaws with the case and the flaws in Hopkins investigative methods. And there's a whole thing with one of them, one of the authors of the paper, being with Anderson, Jerome Clark, and Hopkins, you know, suggesting, well, you know, Linda Napolitano claimed that, she was abducted twice. And, one of the the the two police officers who Hopkins who came forward fourteen months later and Hopkins never met, only got letters and tape recordings of these guys saying they saw her floated out of her 12 story apartment window. The story was that came from Linda was that one of them tried to rape her. She was abducted twice.

Charles Lear:

So it was suggested that the police get involved, which panicked Hopkins and Andres, and and and Jerome Clark as well. And so they really stuck by Hopkins. And not only that, Hopkins later wrote, to, I think, Hansen, ordering him his words to cease his to cease his investigation and leave it to us and move on. So that's like an interaction between other ufologists in the general population and, abduction specialists. But, yeah, it seems really to have been its own tight little thing.

AP Strange:

Well, seemed to me that with with Hopkins and Jacobs, probably Mac probably to a lesser degree, but with those two at least, it was all about getting a book deal and writing a book you know. They they didn't really care about necessarily the the bulletin boards or the know the government intrigue aspects of it if they could get a good book out and sell a lot of it you know which of course ties to like the whole, know, Whitley Strieber's wrapped up in all of this stuff too because I mean Hopkins were kind of tight, know. Mhmm. So with the success of communion, mean, that's kind of a gold mine there.

Charles Lear:

Yeah.

AP Strange:

I feel like that was a big driver for both Jacobs and Hopkins is to have that next big book. A lot of people don't Hopkins book Intruders did really well. Mean a lot of people have I have a copy of that somewhere you know. Yeah. But

Charles Lear:

you know a lot of people don't realize Leslie Kane was romantically involved with Hopkins.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Yep, that's true.

Charles Lear:

And and she's well look at the ruckus she just caused in 2017. Yep.

AP Strange:

Right. Yeah. I mean and and it was presented as, like, journalists that didn't already have, you know, an interest in this or breaking the story with the New York Times, and you're like, Leslie Cain though? I mean, like

Charles Lear:

Yeah. You know? It would be like Linda Moulton Howell. Right. Writing and breaking a story at the New York Times.

Blackwolf John Oates:

I for one miss Linda Moulton Howe. I actually miss that woman. I drew great joy from her appearances on Dreamland and Coast to Coast. I just found her endlessly fascinating. I mean-

AP Strange:

Yeah, the half cats.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Well, she uncovered legitimately interesting things. It's just that she was so credulous.

Charles Lear:

She

Blackwolf John Oates:

believed literally everything and she had it all on like cassette. You could hear her clicking the cassette recorder on the phone. It was so adorable and so low tech. And I just got, just took endless joy from listening to her with her little voice. Oh, she was so much fun.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. You know, people were just like earnest and even if they're deluded, but, know, not on the grift. Yeah. It's like somebody I I I'm I'm I'm more with them, you know?

Blackwolf John Oates:

She's like doing leg work. She's traveling around the country, interviewing people. And yeah, she wasn't like-

Charles Lear:

It's like Stan Freeman, you know? The same thing, you know? Yeah.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Made one movie in the eighties. She made that Strange Harvest documentary. Yeah. She never made another movie. She didn't have a book.

Blackwolf John Oates:

She had her terrible cheap website and her consent recordings, and she was just hitting the pavement, man and she was doing the work and I, as goofy as it might be, I have to respect that.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

No, I I I'm with you on that, definitely.

AP Strange:

Yeah and Stan Freeman was on the circuit forever like right up till the end almost. Yeah. Yeah.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Do you think Stan Freeman could give his his lecture by memory at the by the end? I bet he could, right? I mean, he had that thing memorized. There's no way.

AP Strange:

Yeah. If he had been in a coma, he could have been still doing it, I'm pretty sure, you know.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. I

Blackwolf John Oates:

mean, I've I've read, I think it was on on the Wikipedia page for UFO cover up, lock, that Stan Freeman was deeply embarrassed by his his involvement on that. He said he was like hoodwinked. He thought it was something completely different and when he saw it, he was deeply embarrassed.

AP Strange:

He was the most normal looking person on. What's his face? Yeah. Stan Freeman looked like Tom Cruise compared to the rest of those nerds.

Blackwolf John Oates:

We The movie star good looks of top of Mike Farrell, of course, being

Charles Lear:

but he said, we have proof. We have proof. He had the smoking gun.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Oh, man. All that Roswell stuff. Mean, Roswell was always just so

Charles Lear:

actually I mean, he goes way back. He was a giant rock.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

And and, actually, Jim Mosley complained in Jim hello, sirens. Greg Bishop show, he always used to, comment on the sirens outside his window.

AP Strange:

Yeah. That's weird because I got him here too at the same time.

Charles Lear:

Oh, right on. Yeah. Okay. But we where were we? Oh, yeah.

Charles Lear:

Jim Mosley actually complained in shockingly close to the truth that Freeman was the guy who undercut it would would under basically, call up people who had scheduled Jim Mosley to speak because Jim Mosley was, like, a a big speaker back in the day. Everybody wanted

Blackwolf John Oates:

him

Charles Lear:

because he, came cheaper than Kehoe. That's how he got into it. And, so he was a go to guy. And, then, Friedman, he complains about Friedman calling people and saying, you don't want Jim. You want me.

Charles Lear:

And I think underbidding him wow yeah but yeah and that's way back when so Freeman have been around forever

AP Strange:

yeah and I remember that and he actually oh man he actually won a bet with one of the big skeptics was it was it Randy?

Charles Lear:

Was, was it? Yeah. Think it

AP Strange:

was yeah.

Charles Lear:

What no I think you were right. I think it was Randy. I think it was Randy.

AP Strange:

No I think you were right actually.

Charles Lear:

Somebody looked that up.

AP Strange:

I think it was I think it was Philip J. Class that had said that the certain majestic 12 documents couldn't have been real because the army never used a certain kind of typewriter that this was apparently made with at the time and and Friedman had gone through like hundreds of records to find just one document from an army air force base where it was that same typeset prototype. Was class. That was class. Yeah.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yes it was.

AP Strange:

But I actually saw Kathleen Martin do a presentation about about Friedman. She talked about this up at the, Exeter Festival a few years ago. But yeah, but then he kept the check from class. I don't think he ever cashed it. He just kept it like in a frame on his wall.

Charles Lear:

Oh, right on.

AP Strange:

Like a trophy. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Cool stuff.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. There's yeah. I found there's some some telling stuff in the, the the MJ 12 documents that are well, I mean, they got the date wrong of the the whole rods when when the the the records was discovered. I think that they they the date's wrong because they the alien bodies I think were out too long because it was actually discovered by Brazel. I think it was June 14.

AP Strange:

Mhmm.

Charles Lear:

So this was before it was definitely discovered before the whole Arnold sighting. So it was before anybody flying saucers were even a thing. So they screw up the dates in the MJ 12 documents related to that. What And yeah. And the other thing too is a whole FBI release of the the documents are they they they have bogus written across it.

Charles Lear:

The the memo is first memo is to, I think,

AP Strange:

there was

Charles Lear:

an accusation that somebody had these documents illegally. It might have been more, and the FBI a local FBI special agent was looking into it, and Afosi sent him a letter saying, we know these are bogus. So Doty was working for Afosi. And so Afosi, like, said, these are bogus and don't tell anybody. Keep this top secret.

Charles Lear:

So back then, that was released now. If you get the the FBI documents, you can see this memo from a Fozy to the special agent saying, we know these are bogus. So and and ask him to keep it secret. So that really that's really telling in my mind. But

AP Strange:

yeah yeah yeah and I mean well Stan Friedman stuck with the MJ 12 thing right till the end.

Charles Lear:

Right to the end.

AP Strange:

All the way.

Charles Lear:

Yeah got $16,000 too from and Whitley Strieber. Yeah. Good old Whitley.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Well

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah. Wait.

AP Strange:

Strieber probably probably claimed to have seen some of the documents himself too. There's nothing that could have happened to anybody

Charles Lear:

that has an also mentioned Strieber in his more mentioned Strieber in his '89 speech. Yeah. It's saying, you know, I I I was jealous and, suspicious of him. Didn't think much of him. But then I met the man, and, I've I've I've come to respect him and, look out at it.

Charles Lear:

Look out for this guy. He's he's he's got something to say.

AP Strange:

He has an up and cover.

Charles Lear:

Well well, yeah, because he

Blackwolf John Oates:

was writing On the cover.

Charles Lear:

The book. He was writing the book that Moore tried to write with Bob Pratt, the fictionalized version of his shenanigans with Doty. So Whitley actually wrote the book, And he this so this is like you know? Yeah. Because I I've actually read the book too.

Charles Lear:

It's it's pretty brutal. I'm trying to look for it, what the book is called. Yeah, here it is. Says because Moore did a whole question and answer thing. He asked the questions and answered them himself at the end of his speech.

Charles Lear:

And then he he asked himself what he thinks of Whitley Strieber and his abductee claims. And then he answered that he was very skeptical and jealous of him, but took the time to get to know him so he could assess things for himself. And he said that Streeper has earned his respect, admiration, and friendship, and that he's a man to be taken seriously and that you'll be hearing from him before it's all over. And so '19 Streever published a book on 09/11/1989 titled Majestic and acknowledged Moore, Chandray, and Freeman for their assistance in preparing the book. So, you know, Moore's already in bed with Streever at that point.

AP Strange:

So Majestic's not a bad book. I kinda like that one, actually. Yeah. A I

Charles Lear:

never read that one.

AP Strange:

Yeah. It's it's pretty funny. It's interesting. I mean, it it's fiction. Right?

AP Strange:

But it incorporates all these elements that, know, I I didn't even realize. I guess I just didn't notice when I read it years ago that that that he acknowledges Moore and Shandrea at the beginning of it, that's that's funny. Yeah. But it's a lot like UFO narratives and especially Roswell type narratives that whole alien crash landing and stuff. It's definitely fiction.

AP Strange:

Know, he's presenting it as fiction. That's

Charles Lear:

But didn't didn't it like the the the main narrator in the book that say I'm

AP Strange:

here to

Charles Lear:

correct him what Here to correct a almost fatal mistake I made or something like that.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

It's like really

AP Strange:

It's been a while, but I

Charles Lear:

It's pretty damn over the top.

AP Strange:

I felt like I could read you could read it in an afternoon. I don't I don't think I did.

Charles Lear:

I think I did read it in an afternoon.

AP Strange:

Yeah. It's not that long. It's like what? 220 pages or something, you know. It's a it's a quick read.

AP Strange:

Well And And he had a lot of fiction out like the Wolfen was one of them and like Cat Magic.

Blackwolf John Oates:

He's got a copy of Wolfen. Just bought a copy of that at a book fair. So I'm gonna read that finally.

AP Strange:

No it's funny because that always was the question with him too where people would claim that he was a fiction author and he would get his fictional stories mixed up with things that he experienced. He'd take great exception to that. I know what I've experienced.

Blackwolf John Oates:

When I set myself up for this kind of ridicule art, would I do that?

AP Strange:

Oh. With a huge advance that he got with the book. Yeah. Maybe.

Charles Lear:

You know, I actually heard did you hear the the Area 51 caller live that that the most infamous one?

Blackwolf John Oates:

Oh my god, man.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Yeah. Don't I

Blackwolf John Oates:

don't think I heard it.

Charles Lear:

I heard it at moment. I heard it when it aired. I was it was, like, awesome. I was, like, on the edge of my seat the whole time. Oh, Art?

Charles Lear:

Yeah. I can't talk long. They're coming. It's like, oh my god.

AP Strange:

Well, that guy was a hell of an actor though. Mean, that is just believable audio.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah. Yeah. That was fantastic.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Who

Blackwolf John Oates:

was the guy that was the area fifty one worker that Art had on? Was interviewed. Oh, who was it? It's driving me crazy now. Is it Victor?

Charles Lear:

It The same guy? Was the

Blackwolf John Oates:

guy who worked at Area fifty one.

Charles Lear:

Victor was a guy who smuggled out the alien footage, which was, you know, That was it. That that was it.

AP Strange:

Was on

Charles Lear:

Artville, okay.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yes, I remember hearing, he was interviewed, I think it was, it may have been David Jacobs was on with him. Can't remember. Was somebody, it was a pretty big Uphology fellow from the time. I can't remember who it is now. It had been like, oh, it was one of like, oh, never mind.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Can't remember now. Don't want keep talking. Don't want to listen to me babble on. I remember that. I got to look it up now though, so carry

AP Strange:

But for listeners, if you go on YouTube, you can find this Area fifty one call.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Oh, yeah.

AP Strange:

Guy is calling in a panic about discoveries or disclosures that he has to get to art before it's too late. And then then there was a blackout at the studio. They were off the air, dead air for I don't know how long. Was it like five or ten minutes something like that?

Charles Lear:

Yeah.

AP Strange:

Yeah. And then he comes back and and and yeah. Listening to that audio, if you listen to that guy, I mean I'm almost certain he was an actor and I think Art was in on it. But what an actor because the guy really does sound like he's scared for his life. Like, he's that that voice is it's it's it's pretty chilling if you find that video on YouTube and just listen to it.

AP Strange:

Know, you can it's easy enough to find.

Blackwolf John Oates:

So Alright. I've I've found this, and now this makes me even better because I forgot about this. He was on with Sean David Morton, which there's-

Charles Lear:

Oh my God.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Oh, okay. There's some real, that's the seal of approval there. That's real good But stuff there was, I forgot about this, that people still think to this day that Victor was Whitley Strieber. It was Whitley Strieber with his voice changed. And if you listen to it, it does tell Whitley Strieber.

Blackwolf John Oates:

He has the exact same speech patterns as Whitley Strieber. And Whitley Streiber didn't wanna be on that episode because he didn't wanna take it he didn't wanna take away from it.

AP Strange:

Alright. So Whitley Streiber was being modest and that should tell you something.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Oh. Oh, that's that's it. That's close it right there. Ended right there. That's the truth.

Blackwolf John Oates:

But no, I forgot Sean David Morton was involved. So, yeah, there's there's integrity for you right there.

Charles Lear:

Who was it that added in for Sean David Morton? Like, big time.

AP Strange:

I think there are more

Charles Lear:

than one. Yeah. I know know it was, like, big on UFO watchdog.

Blackwolf John Oates:

But Oh, boy. The guy who does, like, the, the hall of shame for UFO watchdog. Yeah. That guy. Can I remember his name now?

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sean DeVitt Morton. There's just

Charles Lear:

That's classic.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah. He he did he did he did federal prison time, didn't he?

Charles Lear:

I think Yeah. I he was on a on a run. I mean, for tax fraud.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah. He ran some kind of Ponzi scheme with, you know, all that.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's been a while. That's another thing I'd have to look up.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Never ending grifts. Ending. Alright what's your what's your take because we we've mentioned it briefly but we didn't get into it and this came up recently somebody had told me they were reading this book and I was like, boy. Well, they didn't Philip Corso and the day after Roswell like

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. You know, he's he he I I read an article in, Psychology Today. Now psychology is probably the least scientific science there is.

AP Strange:

It's a soft science.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. But, it's an interesting take on why people, somebody like Philip J. Korsak because a miss mystery is his his military career looks exemplary. Yeah. He he's, you know, got a a lot of, I guess, awards, medals, whatever.

Charles Lear:

A lot of accolades, I think is the best way to put it because I don't know what medals he has. But, anyway, his military career looks exemplary. And the article in Psychology Today was about people like that who have these successful careers who make up these UFO stories, because that all of a sudden makes them stand out, makes them interesting and memorable as opposed to you were a good soldier.

AP Strange:

You know?

Charles Lear:

Because who the hell would know who Philip Corso is without making up the, a UFO, you know, the the whole day after Roswell stuff. And there are so many holes in that tail as well. If you'd like

AP Strange:

Well, as I understand it, that was originally written to be a treatment for a screenplay to be a movie.

Charles Lear:

Okay. But there I

AP Strange:

think that was the case. And Bill Burns had to, like

Charles Lear:

Oh, yeah.

AP Strange:

Massage it into a book. Yeah. Right. And then there's the whole thing.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. And then there's, a bunch of FBI files were released on Corso because he was gonna work for, I think, a senator, and they wanted to do background check on him. And so in one instance, one of the people we worked with in intelligence called him a parasite. Saying he takes other people's information and passes it along as if it was his own.

Charles Lear:

And I think it part of it is basically the he was a fabricator of stories. And but yeah. It's an interesting psychology, I think, that shows up over and over and over again is like where you have people who, you know, have they're highly credentialed and have exemplary careers, and they come out and this is also pretty typical of eighties and nineties. Ufology is, like, these sorts of people would come out of the woodwork with these crazy UFO stories, and you'd buy them. You're supposed to buy them because of their credentials.

Charles Lear:

And and and why would they make something up? Well, this is a reason. You know? It it makes them bigger than they are. And also somebody who is exemplary is like, I think, Doty's an example of this.

Charles Lear:

If you look at his career, you can, find his service records online. You know, this is a guy who's taking classes, who worked himself up from being a gate guard, up to, a master sergeant and work got himself into a foci. You can see his requests. He took a the CIA trained disinformation agent. Well, he he took a six week course and six weeks of counterespionage, I believe.

Charles Lear:

But, you know, he was a guy who was striving to be bigger than he was. And I think that's a kind of part of the personality trait of somebody who would come up and just make up a u a UFO story, all of a sudden, bing. You are bigger you know, you're bigger than life.

AP Strange:

Well, yeah. I mean, I think that's an important distinction to make that that that you're making right now is that it's not always monetarily driven. The grip doesn't have to be monetary. Some of them just think it's cool to be the UFO guy and want to be thought of that way. There doesn't have to be a buddy involved.

Charles Lear:

Yep. And there's another thing too with pathological liars. Just the lie itself is a high.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Getting away with it. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Just just just straight out telling it. And and, like and there are a couple of instances where relatives of these people, like, there there are a couple there there was a famous oh, a really good Men in Black story. I think the guy was a doctor. And

AP Strange:

it it Yeah. The one up in Maine, Old Orchard Beach.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. And what was the the the story? He told a really good story.

AP Strange:

Oh, Hopkins. Herbert Hopkins.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and then I think it was his son came no. I think it was a nephew of his came out and said, well, he drank really heavily, and he told told tall tales all the freaking time.

AP Strange:

Yeah. He loves sci fi

Charles Lear:

and stuff. And this was one of them. And yeah. And the the another guy, well, the, you know, the relatives of Carlos Allende responsible for the Philadelphia experiment. His relatives came out and said the the same thing about him.

Charles Lear:

You know, he faked a heart attack so well. He actually read up out of the symptoms of a heart attack and then faked it, so well that the EMS people, had to check him three times to make sure it wasn't real. And yeah. And there's there's just example after example after example. Like, the guy who resurrected the, Aztec UFO case, I forgot his name.

Charles Lear:

It was at a nineteen seventy four convention in Florida. His son, the same thing, came out and said, you know, dad used to make up stories and by god, you better believe him or face his wrath and rejection. And, yeah, so that comes up over and over and over again. But, like, the the eighties and nineties were just it was all over the place, that sort of thing. And sort of

AP Strange:

Great time to be a liar. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. And and Stan Friedman sort of started that with you know, he he insisted on having nuclear physicist after his name whenever he was anywhere. Stan Freeman, nuclear physicist.

AP Strange:

Physicist.

Charles Lear:

Always together. Always together. And he actually wrote. He says, you know, we have a telling people I'm a nuclear physicist, they believe anything I said. You know, not that he he wasn't one of the more earnest people and not that he was making stuff up, but he was well aware of that.

AP Strange:

Well, he did have a degree. Right?

Charles Lear:

No. He he did never had a PhD.

AP Strange:

Wow. Well, yeah, not a PhD.

Charles Lear:

He wasn't he wasn't a doctor. Yeah. I think he had a master's. But But

AP Strange:

you see people play fast and loose with this stuff all the time. Like, when you see doctor David Jacobs, you know, I think he's a medical doctor or a psychiatrist, but he's not. He just has a PhD in, like, what, history?

Charles Lear:

History. Yeah. And and John Mack with with with psych John Mack actually had a degree of psychology. Yeah. And was a doctor, but if you read his documentary, yeah, speaking of credulous, read his biography.

Charles Lear:

He he was quite credulous. Yeah. He was I

AP Strange:

haven't read that one.

Charles Lear:

He was into a lot of, new age stuff. And, you know, it's the other thing you put it into context, back when, you know, everybody forgets about Shirley MacLean running around. Yeah. With the yeah. And so there's

AP Strange:

Those were the days.

Charles Lear:

Shirley MacLean ufology. You know? That was going on back then too. So, but yeah, it was quite a mishmash in the eighties and nineties.

AP Strange:

Yeah. I mean, I feel like I have a higher tolerance for the new AG stuff. Like, it's easier for me to read like to Ella because it's just like a fun it's it's like a fun flight of fancy knowing that this is really kooky new AG stuff. But but when when when it comes to, like, these documents that exist somewhere and you have to uncover them, and he said, she said stuff. I mean, the intrigue of it was fun back then because it really did seem like a bunch of guys that were, you know, playing cowboys and Indians but with flying saucers and government files.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. And and and

AP Strange:

running around LARPing.

Charles Lear:

You know? And and, you know, it Roswell was as and the whole MJ 12 is as close as we got to what seemed like an actual smoking gun. You know? And it's like, we're so close. And it all just kinda went.

Charles Lear:

You know? Right. But yeah. I mean, the narrative was tight. It peeped the doc the foil was strong.

Charles Lear:

People were getting documents out everywhere, and it really seemed like we were gonna get the answer. And, yeah, like, when you you know?

AP Strange:

Well, that kind of shifted to the Bentwaters case where, like, that started to become a, like, a different kind of Roswell. Yeah. Yeah. And and then that got beat into the ground and so many different narratives came out of that and conflicting documents and conflicting accounts and then at a certain point when there's too much, there's no telling what's right at all, like what actually is true. Yeah.

AP Strange:

Yeah. It all kind of falls apart when you get down to the bare basics yeah

Charles Lear:

no I you know I just find it's best to kick back and enjoy the enjoy the show you know

AP Strange:

the best you could do is document the people involved and what their claims were and you know the reader can decide if you can give good background in context for it which I think you do really well in your books and in your articles.

Charles Lear:

Oh yeah, that's you know that's how I stay sane and it's morass You know? It's like just, yeah. The the people it it it's just really about people. You know? And at least that's what I'm interested in.

Charles Lear:

And and that includes the witnesses too. And Yeah. You know? And I it it seems to me like there is definitely something strange going on. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

I mean,

AP Strange:

even going back to the UFO cover up live where you had the Cash Landrum segment.

Charles Lear:

Yeah.

AP Strange:

They seemed like the most earnest out of anybody. You know, they were the the most down to earth people for the witnesses for that. Yeah. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. They've been speaking for a bit too, so they were very poised compared to to to a lot of the other guests.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Yeah. They were like was kinda shocked at the old at DLA. It's like, I'm mad as hell. I didn't tell the government. I love that lady.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Oh. Yeah. And what's funny is is that, because, Dodie actually says on UFO cover up live that that was a reverse you know, them test it was Testing

AP Strange:

reverse engineer engineered alien stuff. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that actually showed up in a profile, that I there was this whole mess between, Karl Lorenzen and John Schuessler.

Charles Lear:

John Schuessler was a a Mufong guy, but he also had his own investigative view. I think Texas based, investigation team, group. And because Moore was hanging out with Doty back during that time, he passed information along to the Lorensens at APRO that this was an, this was a military craft. The military craft gone awry. And so the Lorensens thought they had the inside scoop on this.

Charles Lear:

So Carl basically is calling John Schuessler out, and there are letters back and forth between them, and they're getting kinda nasty and and she ultimately accused Schuessler and Heineck of being disinformation agents and and it's all in these files and it's all of a sudden, you you know, you realize the the first person, was, oh, who's the guy who runs, the saucers that time forgot?

AP Strange:

Oh, Kurt Collins.

Charles Lear:

Kurt Collins. Thank you. I always wanna say Curtis Fuller, but it's Kurt Collins. And, I actually have a correspondence with him on email on occasion, but he's the one who who

AP Strange:

He does great work for listeners. Go check out Saucers at Time Forgot. Website's awesome.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. He's also got a site called Blue Blurry Lions because he's particularly fascinated with the Cash Landry case. So he's the guy that that really brought these documents out, and it was at a time when, app profiles were in private hands. And I actually got a chance to go out to, National UFO Historical Research Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico run by David Marler. And I pulled that file, and there was this, yeah, this, people volunteers.

Charles Lear:

He had a young volunteer there who, you know, they they hang with you while you're looking through the files. And I just the story poured out of me to this kid, and he was just like his eyes were big as saucers listening to the the story that's coming out of this raw material. You know? And it's it's really crazy how you just see this this whole disinformation stuff get thrown into the mix, and and then it comes back at UFO cover up live. But this was, like, way back in the Apple files and, like, you know, '19 Yeah.

Charles Lear:

'80.

AP Strange:

Yeah. Contemporaneous with the event.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Yeah. And you just

AP Strange:

Of course, I got it covered in National Geer National Enquirer. Yeah. That case like, so that was that was that's a weird one. It's a it's definitely a weird story. Yeah.

AP Strange:

It's worth looking into, you know. But yeah the intrigue around it too I mean at the time imagine if you're in it in 1980 and investigating this and like like it's wild to look back on now and see how this all snowballed but like when you're in the moment it must be really hard to see you know.

Charles Lear:

Yeah well Bill English okay.

AP Strange:

Yeah.

Charles Lear:

He was like one of the dark siders and he was famous for, he said he saw a special Blue Book file that, I think, 14 number 14 or something like that that, had pictures of alien autopsies and the whole bit. But, English, when the call about the Cash Landrum case came in to the Apro offices, English was there, and he took it out from under Apro and went and investigated it on his own. And he he I think he he told Betty Landrum Betty Cash and Vicki Landrum. He told Vicki Landrum that her friend would most likely die. Jeez.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Which upset the hell out of her naturally. And this is in the correspondence between Schuessler and Lorentz. Know?

AP Strange:

Trust me. I'm a ufologist. Your friend doesn't have line. Yeah.

Charles Lear:

So You trust me. I'm a She

AP Strange:

Let let Betty know to get right with god because So

Charles Lear:

she's gotta apologize for English and and and and his handling of the the case. And I I think, you know, they're they're he did tapes of it, and they're demanding Cash and Landrum are demanding the tapes that he he he did back, and they're saying, well, we can't find them. Yeah. There's this whole just scuttle about between them all. That that's actually in the opera files.

Charles Lear:

But yeah, it got pretty messy and especially when you throw Bill English into the mix, it's like, my god.

AP Strange:

Wild. Okay. We've been going for a while now. I mean, we could do this all day probably because it's just such a wealth of material to dissect and laugh about. Black Wolf, do you have any any final questions for our guests?

Blackwolf John Oates:

Only thing that only thing that comes to mind is that, you know, meant to ask about Project Serpo, but god knows we could go on about that for hours too. So I don't know if there's any time for some Project Serpo rap.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Well, I mean, it shows up in the Mirage Men where the guys say, you know, we investigated and found the IP address of the first email talking about this. And guess whose it is? Richard Dodys. I

Blackwolf John Oates:

think, I think Serpo was the last thing that I remember reading online thinking it was remote. Think that was the last thing. Cause I was like, maybe 2000, maybe 2001 somewhere in that time period. Just credulous enough to believe that this might be true. I think that was the last thing.

AP Strange:

Project Serpa might have killed like the whole Ufology thing for a while between that and the Roswell slides like that. Because, like, we were pretty quiet for a while up until 2017, I guess. You

Charles Lear:

know? Yeah.

AP Strange:

It just took the whole thing right off the rails. You know? But Yeah,

Charles Lear:

right on. Well, yeah, it's been great talking with you guys, man. Always good. Yeah, this

AP Strange:

has been a lot of fun. What's what's next on your on your plate? Where can people find you and what projects do you have coming up?

Charles Lear:

Oh, I'm a regular writer, podcastuf0.com. I do an audio blog as well, every damn week. Yeah. And Martin puts that up on YouTube, and I'm working on the UFO investigators. I'm pondering whether to just put out what I got on the seventies and then go separate.

Charles Lear:

Volume one. Yeah. Because the seventies is so much fun.

AP Strange:

Yeah.

Charles Lear:

And I'm real yeah. It it's a lot more enjoyable than the eighties and nineties. I mean, the eighties and nineties are enjoyable for other reasons. But yeah. Anyway, that that's where I'm at.

Charles Lear:

So Okay. Anyway, always great talking to you, man. And pleasure to meet you, Black Wolf.

Blackwolf John Oates:

Right back at you, man. It's been a blast.

Charles Lear:

Yeah. Alright. Peace out, guys.

AP Strange:

Alright. Later.

Charles Lear:

Cheers.