Over the last few days I have written  articles on the Majestic 12 documents, the Paul Bennewitz affair, Stan Friedman’s FBI file, and (briefly) the mysterious “Falcon,” someone “on the inside” and who may have been the primary source for the aforementioned Majestic 12 documents. All of the above people and subjects were inter-connected in various ways. But, who was the Falcon? Well, let’s have a look. In 1999, Gerald K. Haines – in his position as the historian of the National Reconnaissance Office – wrote a paper titled “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90.” It’s now in the public domain, thanks to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. It can be read at the CIA’s website. Haines’ paper detailed the history of how, and why, the CIA became interested and involved in the phenomenon of UFOs. Although Haines covered a period of more than forty years, I will bring your attention to one particular section of his paper, which is focused on the 1970s-1980s. Haines wrote: “During the late 1970s and 1980s, the Agency continued its low-key interest in UFOs and UFO sightings. While most scientists now dismissed flying saucers reports as a quaint part of the 1950s and 1960s, some in the Agency and in the Intelligence Community shifted their interest to studying parapsychology and psychic phenomena associated with UFO sightings. CIA officials also looked at the UFO problem to determine what UFO sightings might tell them about Soviet progress in rockets and missiles and reviewed its counterintelligence aspects.”

The Soviets, then, were camouflaging their secret rocket tests by spreading false and fantastic tales of UFOs. Haines also noted something that is absolutely key to the story that this book tells and particularly so with regard to the Majestic 12 papers: “Agency analysts from the Life Science Division of OSI and OSWR officially devoted a small amount of their time to issues relating to UFOs. These included counterintelligence concerns that the Soviets and the KGB were using U.S. citizens and UFO groups to obtain information on sensitive U.S. weapons development programs (such as the Stealth aircraft), the vulnerability of the U.S. air-defense network to penetration by foreign missiles mimicking UFOs, and evidence of Soviet advanced technology associated with UFO sightings [italics mine].”

What about those “U.S. citizens” that Haines referred to? Let us see. The 1970s and 1980s were the decades in which Paul Bennewitz was most active, at least in terms of his UFO research in and around Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was almost certainly one of those Americans who Haines was talking about and whose actions the CIA’s counterintelligence people were worried about. That the U.S. Air Force was very concerned by the possibility that Bennewitz was unknowingly being used by the Soviets, was reason enough alone to practically force-feed Bennewitz with almost unending, nightmarish horror stories of dangerous and deadly aliens under Dulce, New Mexico. And, then, have Bill Moore report back on the extent to which those same horror stories were destabilizing Bennewitz’s increasingly paranoid mind. All of this strongly suggests that Moore may have been as much a victim as Bennewitz was: both men may have been fed wholly bogus material. Interestingly, Haines actually references Shandera and Moore’s work on the Majestic 12 documents in the “Notes” section of his very own paper.

Another aspect on this particular part of the story: Maybe Moore was used, but not just by U.S. intelligence. It should be noted that, as Greg Bishop said, the Falcon had what was described as an eastern European accent. He may well not have been an American, which suggests the incredible theory that the Russians may have been running the program to learn all they could from Bennewitz. Or, maybe, there was more than one Falcon, which really serves to complicate matters. Based on private data provided to him by sources in the know, Greg Bishop has concluded that the Falcon was a man named Harry August Rositzke; he ran covert programs for the CIA, after cutting his teeth in the heart of the Second World War-era Office of Strategic Services.  Rositzke, a Brooklyn native, was an expert on the matter of Soviet intelligence, the KGB, and Russia’s programs designed to destabilize the West with carefully crafted propaganda. Rositzke, who died in 2002 at the age of ninety-one, wrote a number of non-fiction books on the world of espionage, including The KGB: The Eyes of Russia and The CIA’s Secret Operations. Rositzke, it’s important to note, did not have a European accent. That revelation adds further weight to the possibility that there may have been competing Falcons; one, Rositzke, an American trying to protect U.S. government secrets. The other? An unknown European (or Russian) character posing as an American official, and using the same alias of the Falcon, and trying to further disrupt U.S. intelligence.

The final words go to Encyclopedia.com, who stated of Rositzke: “After he retired, Rositzke spent his time on his cattle farm and wrote books about spy activities between the United States and the Soviets, always maintaining that secret intelligence agents helped to stabilize political relations by providing America with much-needed information.”

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Some of the most sensational UFO accounts are those that revolve around these strange craft coming down to earth. The Dreamy Draw Recreation Area, in the U.S. state of Arizona, is a rugged desert park next to Piestewa Peak, formerly called Squaw Peak Mountain. The area is known for its quaint beauty, hiking and horseback riding trails, and opportunities for all manner of outdoor activities. Looking out over these vistas tales of UFOs and aliens might be the furthest thing from one’s mind, but if the local lore is to be believed this was the site of a very unusual case in which a UFO came crashing down to earth, complete with alien bodies and which according to some is still there somewhere.

The story begins in 1947, in fact not all that long after the more famous alleged UFO crash at Roswell. While the story has changed into slightly different variations over the years, the main lore has it that in October of that year, two men by the names of Silas Newton and “Dr. Gee” witnessed a strange object come thundering down to earth to crash near the mountain, and the curious pair went to investigate. They supposedly arrived to find strange wreckage and the area strewn with several bodies of four-and-a-half-foot tall humanoid creatures with oversized heads, all of them dead. The men purportedly then collected these bodies and stowed them in a meat freezer until they could figure out what to do with them and who to tell. Apparently, they wouldn’t have the chance to tell anyone, as the men were soon after visited by mysterious men in black suits, who whisked the bodies away and told the witnesses in no uncertain terms that they were not to say a word to anyone about what they had seen and found.

Dreamy Draw Recreational Area

After this, the story goes that the government moved into the area with U.S. Army personnel, and not only that, but the Army Corps of Engineers had then went about building the Dreamy Draw dam right over the remains of the fallen spacecraft. It is said that the place didn’t need a dam at all, and the only reason it was built at all was to cover up the evidence of the crash, at least according to the tale. The case is most well-known from the 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers, by Frank Scully, but there have been numerous people since then who have stepped forward with further information on the otherworldly events. One letter sent into Legends Magazine is from an anonymous sender who has a lot to say about the site, and the letter reads:

I have more to add on the crash at dreamy draw. I’ve been hiking there for years and have noticed the bizarre features at the water retention site – built by the U.S. Army corps, – the dam area – which is off limits to all, has an “excessive” amount of posted signs – threatening 5yrs/$10,000 fine every 50 ft, there is also electronic monitoring of the “vault” – which is more like a concrete “bunker”- from WWII, this pillbox is located at the low point inside the “fake” retention area. Firstly, I’ve never seen any water there, for its location is not where watershed from squaw-peak mtn could be trapped. Why is it there? Behind a huge iron door inside the bunker, [I believe] grants entry to inside the vault to monitor / keep secure what is entombed within the dam structure itself. There is a spillway on the outside of dam – you can’t get near it – but its fake, made to look functional. Most of all, I know how un-thorough the government has been with crash site clean-up, maybe they couldn’t get everything – just west of secure area, there’s a hill with a rocky out-cropping and underneath in the shady areas, mold is growing – abnormally diverse and thick, shouldn’t even be there, I’ve counted 5 types/colors, its bizarre – nowhere on that mountain/trails, have I seen moss/fungus so pronounced.

Closer looking around the outcrop, I noticed the rocks in places, looked more like metal than rocks, silverish – some kind of liquid had made contact and dripped down inside the crevices, I pulled some of the rocks from the fissures and found it more abundant as it had clotted up in places. It looked organic, but nothing you could identify it with, this stuff now dried up was obviously a liquid at one time, must have been like soup, thicker than water – in the way it pooled down in the cracks of rock. The dried-goo was opaque/pearl green and I noticed it had reacted different to various rock types, the soft sandstone shale it bonded with/ dried on top, the harder quartz looked like a corrosive had made contact and pitted/dissolved areas like acid, this didn’t make much sense

I selected some of the more “choice” examples and decided to hike back to the truck with them – cradled in my right forearm. I placed them on a floor matte in the truck-bed & drove home. Driving down the freeway I started rubbed my arm-not thinking about it like a tickle/itch, after doing this for some time I said to myself – “what is it” like a insect bite or something, realizing those rocks had rested there for approx 10 min hiking back, it was like cleaning your battery posts and making contact with the acid on your elbow or something- there was a welt there and so I washed it in the kitchen sink, but then decided to shower, it vanished quickly. A few days later, “the rocks”- disappeared from the side of my house, I later found my girlfriend had put them out in the yard as landscaping decor – adding they looked cool there, and liked the “weird colors”. I only go hiking on the weekends, but haven’t been in a few weeks – its been hot! I been to the out cropping 4 times and every time I return, I’ve noticed something more to add to the story.

What is going on here and is this person for real? There have also been reports of people in the area of the dam reporting strange phenomena such as sudden spells of dizziness or inexplicable panic attacks, as well as those who claim to hear an inexplicable humming in the area. One witness calling himself Trevor Freeman has said of his own experience with this to Weird Arizona:

So I went to check this place out after school. It’s Monday afternoon, hardly anybody is around. I’m pedaling around on my bike and I find the dam. It’s fenced off pretty well and there are LOTS of No Trespassing signs everywhere. Pretty high security for an earthen dam with no water behind it! I take some pictures, look around, and I see the outfall of the dam buried in the bushes. I ride around to the other side and hike down into the low area. There’s a large concrete box with a fence on 3 sides. As I am getting down towards the bottom, I hear this steady, low-pitched humming noise. I can’t figure out what it is! Is there really a UFO buried beneath this thing? As I glance around to see if anyone’s watching, a plane crosses the sky. The place is not TOO far from the airport, but it’s still close enough to hear jets taking off. That’s probably what I heard. The lesson is that you’ll never realize how much weird stuff is out there until you start looking!

It is all very intriguing, and the idea that a UFO crashed here and was covered up by a dam really stirs the imagination, but there are definitely cracks in the tale. One is that the supposed UFO crash doesn’t seem to have ever been covered by any actual news agency at the time. Everything we know about it comes from unverifiable accounts, secondhand reports, and rumors, as well as brief mentions in Scully’s book Beyond Flying Saucers, as well as Timothy Good’s 1987 book Above Top Secret, and little else. Also a rather glaring hole in the story is that it seems that the dam was actually not built until 1973, which seems to put to rest the allegations that it was made to cover up a 1947 UFO crash. UFO researcher and journalist Alejandro Rojas has dug into the case by visiting the area and poking around, and he has come away frustrated, saying:

What I sought to do is figure out what happened at Dreamy Draw… all I could find is there were rumors, there was a witness who claimed to have seen something happen either in Cave Creek or Paradise Valley or Dreamy Draw. Unfortunately, before I could speak to this witness directly he passed away.

Yet the conspiracy theories and reports remain, and there are even those who insist that the dam was not built in 1973, but rather much earlier, with the date of construction itself said to have been altered in order to aid the cover-up. The same goes for newspaper reports, with it being suggested that the same mysterious men in black who visited the original witnesses also went about silencing any news stories that might appear. It has also been pointed out that the whole Dreamy Draw Dam area is very locked up and plastered with no trespassing signs beyond what one would expect for a dam. Is there anything to this story, or is it merely a piece of UFO urban legend? We may never know for sure, and although this is most likely a tall tale, it has still managed to enter the lore of UFO crashes.

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Multiple Russian media sources have released shocking reports and photographs of a huge butterfly the size of a bird found living and seemingly thriving in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone – one of the most dangerous and radioactive places on Earth. Should the brave souls attempting to move back to their homes near the failed reactor get some bigger nets?

How big is too big for a butterfly?

“A butterfly with a wingspan the size of small bird was spotted in the Chernobyl exclusion zone by employees of the region’s Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve, who reported the encounter on the organization’s Facebook page.”

While thousands of people have died or been affected by the radiation released during and after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 1986, scientists monitoring the exclusion zone around the remains of the plant – a “zone of alienation” extending 30 km (19 mi) in all directions from the plant where maintenance workers can only stay for five hours a day – say it has become a radioactive nature preserve where flora and fauna have survived and in many cases thrived due to the lack of humans. One group that did not is insects. Virtually all invertebrates disappeared from the exclusion zone, causing some animals and birds to look for other food or move. That’s why the bird-sized butterfly spotted in the area recently had people both excited about its existence but concerned about its seemingly mutant size. (See the photos here — those in the image at the top are not the ones in Chernobyl.) Fortunately, entomologists jumped in quickly with an explanation.

“The office of the science department visited an unexpected guest – a rare butterfly Blue Ribbon (Catocala fraxini). He’s still called the blue order tape. The butterfly is listed in the Red Book of Ukraine (vulnerable species)

This insect is one of the largest representatives of butterflies living in Ukraine and in general in Europe. The length of his front wing can reach 45 mm and the wingspan in flight is up to 110 mm. Butterfly is nice in flight.

Blue tape – active at night, flies to the light. You can see the scientists ′′ on the light “.
When the rain stops, the butterfly will be moved to its favorite tree – poplars.”

The Chornobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve issued a statement on social media identifying the butterfly as known a blue underwing (Catocala fraxini). With wings extending to 4.33 inches in flight, blue underwings are often mistaken for birds in areas where they still live. A species whose territory once covered Europe, it is now nearly extinct in the UK and a threatened species in Ukraine.

Should those working in Chernobyl protect themselves from these huge butterflies?

Why, when other insect species stay away from the exclusion area, has this monster butterfly returned? While it may look like a normal blue underwing, the researchers don’t know if it has been negatively affected or even mutated by the radiation. Insects initially disappeared from around the 2011 Fukushima disaster area in Japan, but butterflies have since returned and show signs of abnormalities. In particular, pale grass blue butterflies are smaller, grow more slowly and have higher mortality rates than before. Occurring almost 30 years later and with much more free and open media reporting on it, more is known about the effects of that disaster than Chernobyl, which still suffers from government secrecy.

The scientists at Chernobyl and Fukushima say they’re studying the radiation damage on wildlife to better prepare for future disasters. That’s not comforting at all. While it may be exciting to them that a huge bird-sized butterfly can live in a radioactive area, there’s still plenty of dead canaries in this coal mine.

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UFO encounters happen all over the world, to all types of people, and some of these are stranger than others. Our tale here revolves around a humble factory worker by the name of Bruno Facchini, in the town of Varese, of northern Italy, about 55 km north of Milan. He was known locally as a good, honest, hardworking man who never made trouble and was not prone to tall tales, yet on April 24, 1950 he would gain quite the tale to tell. On this evening there was a serious thunderstorm, and so when it passed he stepped outside during his shift at work to check for any damage that might have been caused by the storm. When he got outside the storm had mostly moved off to become flickers on the dark horizon and some low grumblings from the thunder, but while the storm was gone something altogether odder was in its place. And so would begin one of the strangest UFO cases in Italian history.

Bruno Facchini

He says that he saw there not too far away a strange flickering glow or sparkle, which he at first took to be a damaged power transformer, but as he drew closer to investigate it turned out to be altogether weirder. He approached to see a somewhat circular, glowing object with a flattened top that sparkled and looked like a “crushed ball,” and as he approached even nearer, he could see that the object was “squared by vertical and horizontal stripes, placed at regular intervals.”  On the top of the outlandish object was a greenish glow, and even more bizarre was that there was a rectangular open on the bottom of the craft, and a ladder that seemed to have dropped down from it. Bathed in the eerie glow of the object were several small figures, as well as another at the top of the ladder, all of them wearing what looked like grey diving suits of some kind, complete with helmets, masks, and tubes. He says that the two beings outside seemed to have been engaged with welding something on the bottom of their ship.  

Facchini Incident Artist’s Impression

At first, he had the impression that these were human pilots who had crashed and were in trouble, and he says of what happened:

Next to a power line pole I saw a huge, round shape. From the illuminated disc, a ladder came down. A door opened. I could see inside the UFO, because a light diffused inside, there was another ladder leading to a higher level of the craft; on the walls, there were bottles connected together in rows and between them I could notice that there were gauges and tubes. In the middle [of the shape] there was a small ladder, lightened by a green light. Almost immediately, I understood that the light came from some sort of lamp handled by a standing man who seemed to be engaged in welding. He wore something like a diving suit and a mask. Driven by curiosity, I went closer, and I saw two other people, with the same clothing, moving slowly around the craft – I guessed that their diving suit was heavy and slowed down their movements. The craft, lighted by the welding tool, cast metallic reflections back.

I offered to help, but the only answer I received were some guttural sounds that were not understandable. I wondered what their intentions were. I had the feeling they were inviting me aboard. Suddenly I heard an uproar, like the amplified buzz of a bee, or a huge power generator. I saw another ladder in the interior of the craft, and all around, tubes, cylinders, and gauges. I understood that this was not a plane, and I was seized by panic, I started to run away. I was not so close anymore when I turned my head back. I saw one of the men raise some sort of apparatus he carried at his side and beam a ray of light in my direction. I started to run again, but immediately, I felt as if I was cut in two parts by some cutting tool or by a jet of compressed air and I fell flat. I kept running, but at the same time I had the impression of being reached by a blunt force or to be more precise, by a powerful jet of compressed air, and I fell to the ground, more than right on the edge of one of the border stones that bounded the fields.

They seemed not to be interested in my anymore. I am convinced they only wanted to scare me and had no intention to do anything wrong to me. They were busy in removing the scaffold and withdrawing the ladder. Then the door closed. All the lights went out. And the buzzing sound continued. Suddenly the sound became louder. The craft took off, gained speed and disappeared.

He now knew that these were no human pilots, and he was filled with horror and panic, and when he looked back, he could see the strange beings board their ship, which then shot up into the sky with tremendous speed and that buzzing sound that sounded like an angry beehive. The whole ordeal left him shaken and confused, and the following morning he went to the police to tell his far-out story. The skeptical officers who went to the scene were surprised to find large patches of burnt ground, as well as strange indentations and what seemed to be circular footprints of some type. There were additionally found shards of a strange, green metallic substance, which would later be analyzed to find that they were a sort of heat-resistant, “anti-friction” material composed of 74% copper, 19% tin, traces of Silver, Aluminum and Magnesium, and other trace elements, as well as some sort of unidentified lubricant.

Making this all even odder than it already is, around a week after his bizarre encounter, Facchini says that he began to have certain unusual physical symptoms, which he connected with the incident. He claimed that his back had become bruised and turned a sickly yellow, precisely where the beam had hit him, and he also complained of mysterious headaches and bouts of dizziness and nausea. A visit to the doctor would also supposedly turn up a strange black mark where the beam had hit. When he had an interview about his experiences in 1981, he claimed that he was still suffering from lingering physical effects such as headaches and inexplicable hot flashes and fevers, as well as profound psychological trauma. He has never backed down from his story, but we are left to wonder what happened to him. Was any of this real at all, or is it a delusion? With no hard evidence and those metal shards having since disappeared we are left to speculate, and it remains a very strange case with no concrete answers.

Most people who have an interest in UFOs will know how the controversial Majestic 12 documents surfaced. December 11, 1984 was a date destined to become infamous in the field of Ufology. On that day, a man named Jaime Shandera, who was a television producer at the time, received in the mail a thick, manila envelope. It was postmarked Albuquerque, New Mexico and lacked a return address. At the time, Shandera was working closely with Bill Moore – a writer who had spent a lot of time trying to uncover the true story of the Roswell “UFO crash” of July 1947. Greg Bishop says in his 2005 book Project Beta: “two more envelopes were inside, each enclosed within the next like Russian dolls.” Bishop added: “From the third one, a 35mm roll of film rolled out of a black canister. When developed, the black-and-white film revealed two sequences of eight pictures each – pictures of something that would pass into history as the notorious ‘MJ-12 document’ or ‘Presidential Briefing Papers.'” Those papers appeared to be nothing less than decades-old, highly-classified papers on a Top Secret program of the U.S. government. Those same papers revolved around crashed saucers, dead aliens, autopsies of extraterrestrial creatures, and a secret agency/think-tank known as Majestic 12. For the next few years, Moore and Shandera dug deep into the Majestic 12 papers. And, in 1987, they went public with the papers. The controversy began. And, more than thirty years later, those documents are still talked about. But, here’s the most important question of all: what was it that led Shandera and Moore to receive that roll of film? To answer that important question, we have to go back a few years earlier. That’s when it all really started.

In September 1980 – while promoting his newly-published book (with Charles Berlitz) The Roswell Incident – Moore took part in a number of radio-based interviews around the United States. At the end of one such interview, a secretary told Moore there was someone on the line who wanted to speak privately with Moore. The voice at the other end belonged to a colonel who was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base, which is located in Sarpy County, Nebraska. The man said to Moore: “We think you’re the only one we’ve heard that seems to know what he’s talking about.” The colonel desired a meeting. And soon, too. Moore scribbled down the colonel’s number, promising to get back in touch as soon as possible. The proactive colonel didn’t wait for Moore to reach him, however. Instead, he contacted Moore – for a second time. Once again, the man trotted out those same sixteen words: “We think you’re the only one we’ve heard that seems to know what he’s talking about.” By now, Moore was more than intrigued. A meeting was quickly arranged. The pair was to rendezvous in an Albuquerque restaurant, one which was on Moore’s journey home, for good food and – hopefully – enlightening conversation. The mysterious informant was described by Moore as being elderly and gaunt. Greg Bishop said the man had a “hint of an Eastern European accent.” From that day on, the wizened old man would become known to Moore as the “Falcon.”

Greg Bishop says that, “…[Moore’s] new acquaintance told [him] that he represented a group of intelligence agents in the U.S. Government who were tired of the secrecy surrounding the UFO subject and were eager to release more accurate information to the public. They wanted to do this through a reputable researcher. He would be given small bites of the story over time, and could do with it as he wished. Would Moore be interested in participating in such a program?” Yes, Moore was interested. Very much so. But, there was the matter of a certain unholy alliance that Moore knew he would have to enter into; like it or not. He knew that if he didn’t play the game, then his chance of getting to the heart of what Uncle Sam knew of UFOs and aliens – dead, alive or even both – would irreversibly slip out of his grip. So, Moore agreed to do whatever had to be done. Everything soon took off. In the early 1980s, Moore found himself periodically on the receiving end of instructions to travel to certain locations around the United States, where he would meet with anonymous, insider-type characters, including, yet again, the Falcon.

On each occasion, seemingly highly-classified material on UFOs was handed over to Moore – always in manila envelopes and in various, widespread places. Those locations included a motel-room in upstate New York, and a certain building in the heart of Los Angeles, California. On one occasion, in April 1983, a friend of Moore, Nic Magnuson, picked up a collection of documents for Moore at Seattle, Washington’s Sea-Tac International Airport. The handover was made by “a short, elderly, balding man” who gave to Magnuson a newspaper that contained hidden within its pages one of those priceless manila envelopes. The collective documentation referred to such enigmas as “Project Aquarius,” “MJ12 [an alternative term for Majestic 12],” “communications with aliens,” even to decisions taken by elite figures in the domain of intelligence-gathering to keep the White House firmly out of the ufological loop. A secret that was so astounding that not even the president of the United States could be told the truth? Possibly, yes.

For Moore there was very little doubt the papers amounted to absolute dynamite. If they were true, that is. That was the biggest issue of all: were they genuine? Or, was Moore being used by people in the intelligence community; manipulative characters who were trying to push Moore away from his significant Roswell research and further down a pathway filled with questionable document upon questionable document? The questions were valid ones. It would not be long at all before Jaime Shandera would receive the Majestic 12 documents that caused so much controversy – and for so many years.