Apr 16 2009
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Was Bill Moore A CIA Agent?
Looking through old posts, I found a comment on UFO Researchers And The U.S. Government which stated that Bill Moore was a CIA agent. Someone at the Dulce conference also told me this.
A look at the post referred to by the commenter reveals that his accusation is apparently based on inference rather than verifiable facts. Moore was teaching drama and English at a high school in Minnesota in 1977, but by 1979 he had written The Philadelphia Experiment along with famed paranormal author Charles Berlitz. The poster claims that this is a suspiciously short time for Moore to have gotten involved in any sort of writing. He goes on to write, “Soon after meeting [Stanton] Friedman Moore became the author of The Roswell Incident, even though Friedman was much more qualified to write such a book, having done the lion’s share of research on Roswell.” Sure, if by “soon” you mean three years.
Moore used information from Friedman (specifically interviews with Jesse Marcel) but actually did much of the research for the book, traveling to Roswell many times in 1979 to interview witnesses for the first time since 1947. Berlitz was hired as co-author due to the small success of The Philadelphia Experiment, and his name recognition with the reading public. This was a condition imposed by the publisher, Grosset and Dunlap. Berlitz took the information from Moore and Friedman and shaped it into a book on a tight deadline. The post also refers to Friedman’s “nervous denial” in response to inquiries about Moore. Is the perceived nervousness (inferred from written statements, not interviews) due to shadowy CIA connections, or the fact that Moore and Friedman had a contentious falling out for many years?
If we should be suspicious of anyone it is perhaps Berlitz, who spent many years as an Army Intelligence agent working for the OSS, which later became the CIA. Karl Pflock wrote about Berlitz in the March 15, 2004 issue of “Saucer Smear”:
Since The Field’s usually watchful paranoids dropped the ball or were too frightened to pick it up, I decided Something Must De Done. I contacted one of my many Reliable Sources, a man who knew Berlitz very well. Here’s what he said:
“He was a Lt. Col., I think. Served from about 1940 until maybe just after Korea. Most of his wartime service was in South America (Argentina, Brazil) socializing with, and keeping tabs on, the various pro-Nazi factions in that region. As such, he fell under the purview of the OSS, the Army group that would later become the CIA. I recall him once telling me about getting picked up by some other American agents and having a devil of a time convincing them he was one of them. After the war, I think he went to Europe to train Army language instructors in the ‘Berlitz method.’”
Pflock, however, had a long career with the CIA, so what are we going to believe? Pflock was quite helpful to me during the writing of Project Beta, giving me information on people who I wanted to talk to in New Mexico and elsewhere, and not only former intel personnel. Was there a grand conspiracy to keep me from the truth as well? I sincerely doubt it.
Granted, the accusation about Moore quoted at the beginning of this article was posted in 2001, but the author has made no effort to update his information. Also, the statement “Unknown to the public is the fact that Bill Moore was recruited as an agent of the CIA” is quoted from an uncredited post.
We must also look at the suspicions surrounding Moore and his motivations for writing The Roswell Incident. If he (and Berlitz) wrote it at the behest of the CIA, what was the reason? Why start rumors about an old UFO crash? What did this accomplish besides a headache for the Air Force, who had to officially deny the alien rumors not once, but twice? Were all the witnesses interviewed by Moore (and later Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt) in collusion with the government? Is the whole Roswell mythos built on an old disinformation operation? What light does this throw on the premise of Nick’s book Bodysnatchers In The Desert?
Unfounded extrapolation of “puzzling evidence” is rampant in the conspiracy and UFO communities, and almost guarantees that no one with any authority will ever take the information seriously. Not that anyone would really be interested in the internal squabbles of the UFO research community anyway.
If someone has documented evidence that Moore was involved in an official capacity with the CIA, I’d like to see it. If the association was unofficial, there would of course be no record, and the matter will remain open. Personally, I do think that he did have had some contact with the spy agency, if only through the shadowy figure known as “Falcon,” who was the head of a (possibly CIA) operation designed to flush out Soviet spies working in the U.S. in the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. In this sense, he was ostensibly working for the Agency, but not as an “agent.” Of course, people will use this fact to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but this makes the baby much more interesting, at least to me.
I suppose I am engaging in inference as well, but it’s primarily based on talking to some of the principals involved, not a fixed belief system or suspicions about things I’ve read on the internet. You play the game or you don’t. If the game scares you away, you don’t have a chance to win, or learn how it’s played.
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on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 4:43 am and is filed under Close Encounters, Conspiracies, Crash Sites, Evidence, Eyewitness Accounts, Government Projects, Roswell, UFO Sightings, UFOlogists, UFOlogy, UFOmystic Exclusive, Wake Up Down There. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed.
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April 16th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Of course, we would also have to determine what exactly do we mean when we call him a CIA ‘agent’.
Would that mean he was on the CIA payroll? That he actually owned a parking space at Langley??
Or that he might have done some errands for them from time to time.
Anyway, I don’t think that 2 years is too brief a time lapse to go from High-school teacher to professional writer.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:18 am
RPJ,
This is exactly what I was suggesting with the post, without being blatant about it. I figure ufomystic readers to be an observant lot!
I don’t believe that Moore was paid for any of his work. He would probably have had a better office and car, etc. if that was the case. At least he didn’t when I first met him in 1987, and it got worse from that point on!
April 17th, 2009 at 4:29 am
Heads-up — the amazing slasher film UNHOLY (2006) is based loosely on the Philadelphia Experiment (or Nazi-CIA mind control for time travel invisilibity). The plot is so intense and complex that your I.Q. will shoot up (paradoxically) as slasher humor.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:52 am
I wrote an article for my newsletter entitled Moore is Less in the late 1980s. It was an attack on Bill Moore’s literary and research skills, especially when it came to The Roswell Incident. I pointed out the fact that a reliable source I knew (and person close to Stan Friedman) said that Moore wrote the entire book using Friedman’s work without ever actually visiting Roswell, NM. Moore read and responded to my article. He hated the tone, but did not dispute my claim that he hadn’t visited Roswell until after the book was completed. His research work and book on The Philadelphia Experiment (which I have thoroughly researched) was equally bad. He also admitted to passing disinformation to people in the UFO research community. He did this at the MUFON Symposium in Las Vegas (might have been in 1989, if I recall) and that confession remains on video (from The UFO Underground: Rebel Researchers DVD available on Amazon).
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:44 am
oddly,
I notice that while you have many problems with Moore, you appear to have no problem with selling DVDs of his lectures.
I also noticed on your website that you have repackaged a video I taped, edited, and produced in 1988 called “UFOs: The Turning Point” without notifying me. This material is copyrighted and I would ask that you take this item out of your catalog immediately, as well as forwarding all profits you have made on it so far.
I also wonder if you have received permission from MUFON or Moore, or anyone else you include on the DVD to use video from the 1989 conference. MUFON is a non-profit organization, and you would be making money from their hard work.
If you are willing to steal material for your own profit without consulting the owners, I have less faith in your abilities to debunk certain stories, or truthfulness in reporting, particularly as some of your witnesses (such as Al Bielek) have been thoroughly discredited.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Well, lookee there, oddlyfamiliar is also known as Bill Knell, and if you want the lowdown on this guy, just listen to the December 8th, 2008 episode of The Paracast. With the help of our friend, well-known UFO researcher Frank Warren, we out Knell and all of his shady dealings and misrepresentations. I would strongly suggest that you contact MUFON, Greg, and alert them to his activities. As I’ve said, anyone who would like to educate themselves about Knell should definitely listen to that Paracast episode, it’s one of our best.