SERPO Was A Big Fat Fake
I have maintained for over a year now (along with a few other researchers) that the SERPO story which surfaced in late 2005 and continued well into in 2006 was very likely a disinformation operation designed to ensnare unsuspecting UFO researchers and all those interested in UFO information in order to track connections and interests. This is remarkably similar to the events which surrounded Paul Bennewitz and the UFO community in the 1980s. The fact is less remarkable when we consider that some of the same people came out of retirement to lend support to the project.
SERPO was supposedly a planet orbiting in the Zeta-Reticuli star system where in 1965, 10 American men and 2 women in the military were sent in an exchange program for one alien who stayed on Earth. They were supposed to stay for ten years, but ended up returning 13 years later. The account posted on the SERPO site reads very much like certain documents and confidential letters that were sent to Bennewitz from 1980 to ‘87. On December 6th of 2005, some of the original players appeared on the Coast To Coast show with George Noory, along with Whitley Strieber and SERPO webmaster Bill Ryan.
I figured from what I was able to gather in private conversations and from open sources that the whole campaign was designed to cover up a super-secret military project, perhaps involving Unmanned Aerial Vehilces (UAVs.) Victor Matinez, a subsitute teacher in the Los Angeles area, was chosen as the public face of the SERPO story, and began by sending emails to selected members of the Ufological research community in the fall of 2004. The intrigue was built slowly, perhaps as a way to gauge the reaction, and to figure out who was interested, so as to cater to their prejudices. Martinez was emailed various statements by someone who referred to himself as “Request Anonymous,” and expected to forward them to UFO researchers, as well as post them on the SERPO website. Since Martinez’ background is apparently in writing and editing, he began to change the wording and grammar of the releases. He was reportedly told at one point to stop doing this, or he would be dropped for another contact. Apparently he couldn’t help himself, as Bill Ryan, a previously unknown personality was picked out of the blue to take over for Martinez. Ryan did as he was told and remains the point man on the now mostly dead issue. (He has continued with another site called “Project Camelot.”)
Why should “Request Anonymous” care about spelling and grammar errors? Shouldn’t he have been grateful to Martinez for his services in getting the truth out to the public? This would make sense if SERPO was really an attempt to get a secret UFO story out. A quick look at the SERPO site should immediately raise questions. “Request Anonymous” writes:
The 12 remained until 1978, when they were returned to the same location in Nevada. Seven men and one woman returned. Two died on the alien’s home planet. Four others decided to remain, according to the returnees. Of the eight that returned, all have died. The last survivor died in 2002.
The math is wrong. How could eight people return to Earth out of twelve when two died on the planet and four decided to remain? My contention is that this was a deliberate mistake designed as a calling card or message that would be recognized as such by those who were supposed to know where to look for more information elsewhere in the text. Martinez was dropped because he was garbling the message. Meanwhile, Ufologists and radio hosts were busy decphering their own meanings from the latest craze that flattered their prejudices and helped to spread the SERPO meme in cyberspace, on the airwaves, and in UFO publications. “Mistakes” like these sometimes hide in plain sight, but many UFO investigators are too busy looking at the finger to realize where it’s pointing. The disinformers used a story that had been circulating for at least 20 years and built on it to lend creedence to the campaign.
A group of researchers calling themselves the “TC Group” have been trying to get to the bottom of the story for awhile now, and appear to be closing in on some aspect of the truth. From the UFO Digest site:
According to the Open Minds Research Team Web site administrator and a report directly from their confidential sources posted this week, previous information provided to them about Project SERPO was false - at least partially false:
New information given to the Open Minds Research Team from their sources, known has the TC Group, was partially related to a method used by government authorities to track leaks, identify leakers and monitor the way such information is disseminated over the Internet, according to the site administrator. Starting in March 2006, the Open Minds Research Team had reported on their Web site that the TC Group had contacted them. This group allegedly had inside knowledge about the Project SERPO story and been trying to follow up on the authenticity of various aspects it.
The TC Group is reportedly one of several groups involved in investigating and disclosing information on this and related topics.
From what were believed to be reliable sources providing information to the TC Group, the Open Minds Research Team received and posted information from this group that claimed Project SERPO was, in part, a false cover story.
Sources told the TC Group that the Project SERPO story was released within the military and intelligence communities to protect other real information about related activities within those communities.
This is almost exactly what happened in the Bennewitz scenario and later disinfo released in connection with the project. Certain information on undergound bases, alien exchanges, and alien “weapons” were confidentially leaked to certain researchers like John Lear and William Cooper. The leaks were monitored to see who got the info passed on to them first, and what they did with it. Since a lot of the information dealt with secret defense projects, when the same rumors began to circulate amongst unfriendly agents, the AFOSI and others could track who was talking to whom.
In the case of SERPO, some of the most vocal members of the UFO community have swallowed it again.
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Feb 22 2007 
February 22nd, 2007 at 2:16 am
The “Open Minds” Research Team is the mouthpiece for Bill Ryan and Victor Martinez (and behind them, Kit Green, Rick Doty & Hal Puthoff). The “TC Group” was most likely created by the same individuals who compiled the Serpo story.Rick Doty is the source of the original “Request Anonymous” email received by Victor Martinez.
Christopher ‘Kit’ Green, MD, Hal Puthoff, Bill Ryan, Victor Martinez and Rick Doty - the “Team of 5″ - were all involved in perpetrating the Serpo saga with the help of Dan Smith (King of Eschatology by UFOlogy parade) and Ron Pandolfi.
Nick is definitely on the right path. “CF” is Ron Pandolfi.
http://www.bestpossibleworld.com/nexu66.htm
February 22nd, 2007 at 4:48 am
There’s actually more to the SERPO Hoax than that as I began to document back in January of 2006. It seems that it may very well be a psy-ops run by abovetopsecret.com with the collusion of atty Wayne Jaeschke. See my blog post here:
http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2006/03/abovetopsecretcom-exposed.html
for details and links to the other posts that chronicle the development of the scam.
Then, there is this post:
http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2006/03/abovetopsecretcom-project-serpo-psy.html
that includes the actual image of an email by Jaeschke about SERPO. Scroll down to the Yahoo! mail image.
Bill Ryan tried desperately to get me involved in this business but as you can discover by reading the linked pages (including the forum pages where ALL correspondence between me, Bill Ryan, and the ATS perps is posted, with the exception of the letter that I had to post on my blog because when I posted it on my website, exposing the hoax, Jasechke used all his legal wiles to have my server take my website down.
Meanwhile, while you are at it you might enjoy my recent BBC interview posted here:
http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2007/02/laura-knight-jadczyk-interview-on-bbc.html
since it touches on the subject of “aliens.”
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:56 am
From a purely literary perspective the drivel @ serpo.org is dreadful. If someone took the time to author this work of fiction, at least it could have been done with a little style. Instead we get list after list, and pronouncements like “…we couldn’t figure out how to tell time on Serpo…”, etc., etc. It was a waste of time boys - a big waste of time…
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Shawnna,
That info appears to square with things I have found, but where did you get it? Green and Pandolfi were two of the original “aviary” birds. Are the SERPO people attempting to exert their own damage control by referring to the “leaks” as fiction mixed with a little truth?”
If you are referring to Nick Redfern, where did he mention Pandolfi and his “CF” moniker?
Very interesting.
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Laura,
I enjoyed your coverage and insight into this morass of disinfo. The Jaeschke email was most edifying.
Most of the readers of this site were probably not taken in by the SERPO hoax, but it got a lot of air time last year. Like the Bennewitz affair, it was confined to a small, but vocal segment of the UFO community, but used to obfuscate defense secrets and bring moles out into the open. How far this went remains to be seen.
The Camelot website is interesting since it doesn’t seem to evince any particular agenda (at least yet) apart from reviewing theories about suspicious deaths of UFO researchers and scientists who dabbled in forbidden subjects.
February 22nd, 2007 at 3:24 pm
ssmrconed,
…and you’re one of the people who saw it as junk from the start!
February 22nd, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Laura - ATS had nothing to do with creating Serpo - neither did Jaeschke. Jaeschke, myself and others were involved in getting Victor Martinez to ’spill the beans’ with respect to his original Anon email. Tracing the IP of that email shows Doty to be the source of all Serpo releases - as well as the “Paul McGovern” comments. All of this has been posted - with evidence - at Reality Uncovered.
ATS did - because of some of their actions - contribute to it’s longevity and foster the OM forum into becoming the mouthpiece for Bill Ryan & Victor Martinez.
Greg - Dan Smith has posted some email exchanges he’s had with Nick on his website - link at the end of my original comment. I’ve followed Dan Smith for quite some time.
Yes - I believe Kit and the rest of the “Team of 5″ created the TC Group for damage control as a result of the outing of Doty being the source of Serpo releases, as well as my publicly showing he lied about his law credentials and degree.
As to where I got the information - I have been part of the core group of Serpo investigators since day one. I do have a significant amount of evidence - some circumstantial - to support my comments.
February 22nd, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Greg et al -
I just wanted to point out that the main piece of evidence you use debunking Serpo, other than the vague “curious similarities”, is an anonymous internet post. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely agree with the title you gave your post. I just found proving an anonymous internet posting false by citing another anonymous internet post to be, well, amusing.
BTW, TC has sent emails to other web forums, in which the identity of the writer is clear - at least to those aware of what is going on “behind the scenes”. (Yes, of course, well, we can’t ever be 100% sure that two sets of anonymous missives are actually from the person.) This is just IMO: the Serpo tale itself may be the appetizer, but the whole soap opera (SerpOpera?) behind the scenes is the main course.
Hypothesizing that Serpo is disinformation a la Bennewitz, that is, a smokescreen covering up something, only seems like a valid theory if you have something you can credibly claim is being hidden. At least with Bennewitz, we have something rather concrete - he was intercepting radio signals and taking pictures of things flying over Kirtland AFB. If you google on “unmanned aerial vehicles”, you’ll get over a million hits - googling “Serpo” gets about 150,000 results - so it doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job obscuring UAVs …
If anything, a more probable hypthesis is that the Serpo hoaxer was using Serpo to help fan the flames of “exopolitics” (for whatever reason).
If I may, I’ll posit an alternative hypothesis (but one that still relies on the research in Project Beta). Do you remember that when Bill Moore met the Falcon, he was given some information, which he then checked on; it did not pan out, and Moore went back to Falcon to say “no bueno”; and Moore was told that that had been a test, and that he passed? (Remember also that Bill Moore had been a teacher, just like Victor Martinez? And Moore ran a newsletter - the equivalent at the time of Martinez’s email list? That may or may not be significant, but is at least a curious coincidence.) Is it possible that Doty (assuming he is “Request Anonymous”) initially passed the Serpo story on to Martinez as a similar (but not necessarily identical) “test”?
(I am not entirely convinced that these would be competency tests of Moore and Martinez investigative skills - they could have actually been the “litmus test” themselves. In other words, “If we can’t get it past Moore, we won’t be able to get it past anybody”.)
But, it at least looks like Moore did an investigation and gave an “uh-uh” - and “passed”; while Martinez took the ball and milked it for all it was worth (mixing metaphors) - and, judging by the fact that he got replaced, he “failed”.
On the other hand, the statement that Martinez was dismissed for making his own edits to the material does seem to support the idea that there might be some message hidden in the Serpo releases. In that case, this argues against Doty being the author: Doty’s writing is very sloppy (in spelling and grammar), so how would anyone know what was just his sloppiness and what was the purposeful mistake?
Finally, your penultimate paragraph may require some elucidation as far as its applicability - what you say may in fact have happened with Cooper and Lear, and IIRC, Nick Redfern included in “On the Trail of the Saucer Spies” some further examples of “checking for leaks”. But it is unclear (to me) how this “leak checking” would work in the case of Serpo - the stories went from “Anonymous” to Victor Martinez/Bill Ryan, where they were then immediately spread far and wide on Victor’s mailing list & Bill’s serpo.org web site. From there, they can spread pretty freely and (possibly) anonymously, to other web sites, forums, and then on to radio, etc. I am just not sure how anybody can be “checking for leaks” when the initial release of the info isn’t a discrete control “leak” but in fact a “broadcast”.
February 23rd, 2007 at 9:27 pm
There are aspects of the SERPO claims which are far too reminiscent of “Nightmare,” one of the original first season Outer Limits episodes.
“Nightmare”: Broadcast 1963
SERPO planet: Earth party went there in 1965
“Nightmare” planet’s inhabitants: Ebonites, of the planet Ebon
SERPO planet’s inhabitants: Ebens
“Nightmare” planet: 7 personnel of Unified Earth army (according to IMDB, there were 12 credited human actors in that episode)
SERPO planet: 12 military personnel
“Nightmare” premise: The government explores the reactions to mind games involving aliens
SERPO premise: Perhaps the same idea?
The Outer Limits Control Voice concludes, “The exploration of human behavior under simulated conditions of stress is a common placed component of the machinery called War. So long as man anticipates and prepares for combat, be it with the neighboring nations or with our neighbors in space, these unreal games must be played; and there are only real men to play them. According to established military procedures, the results of the Ebon maneuvers will be recorded in books and fed into computers for the edification and enlightenment of all the strategists of the future. Perhaps they will learn something.”
George W. Bush: “There’s an old saying in Tennessee - I know it’s in Texas, it’s probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on … shame on you. Fool me. We can’t get fooled again.”
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/6301971493/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/002-9192952-9574411?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=130
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0667820/fullcredits#cast
http://www.davidjschow.com/limits/ol_episodes5.html#nightmare
February 24th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Shwanna,
Correct me if I’m wrong, but tracing IP addresses reveals where something was sent from, not who sent it. It may prove that whoever sent the messages was sending them from the same IP as Doty, or appeared to be. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he was involved.
Reality Uncovered is a very good site, but the SERPO material is covered in so much detail, I got a little confused. It appears from what I read that Green appears to have washed his hands of the whole experience, or at least claims that he was never involved to a great extent. Was he still in southeast Asia at the time?
Also, how did you and your colleagues become interested in researching SERPO?
February 24th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
daath23,
Much of the evidence is circumstantial, but I’m sure that’s the way the originators wanted it. I also involved myself in a bit of bombast to get a point across. If the title was “SERPO Was Probably A Big Fat Fake, Most Likely” I don’t think as many people would be moved to read it.
My contention that the SERPO project was covering up something else was based on the history and motivations of the players involved. You’re right to ask what evidence I have that something concrete was indeed covered up. It was mostly a guess based on previous experience, but various sources and friends have discussed this with me as well.
Your example of using Google as evidence seems weak, since not only were UAVs almost unknown in the 1980s, the subject may now cover a multitude of hardware under the umbrella of “UAV” that have little to do with conventional aircraft.
I don’t think Richard Doty’s writing is near as “sloppy” as you claim. His chapter in “Exempt From Disclosure” for example, is no masterpiece, but is certainly better than just competent.
The check for leaks comes from what the people do with the “broadcast”: Monitor email and other communications to see what people do with the info and what conclusions they draw from it. Any public or private discussion of clues hidden in the text would also be beneficial to the “broadcasters.” You turn on a light and see what moths come to circle around it.
Â
Your comments on using Martinez as a litmus test like Moore is very perceptive. I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe someone did “pass” and is monitoring us as we write! Maybe it’s you.
February 24th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Carol,
Good call. The rumor of some sort of “exchange” has apparently been floating around since at least the 1980s. Of course, it is also the basis of the CE3K Spielberg film. Chicken or egg? I don’t know.
“Ebonites?” Were they black aliens?
I was under the impression that the term “Eben” was derived from EBE (”Extraterrestrial Biological Entity.”) Someone may feel the need to set me straight on that one.
You may know about my post on the Hill abduction which also references an “Outer Limits” episode.
February 25th, 2007 at 2:01 am
Greg - the IP issue has been outlined in what I consider painful detail - the original Anon email to Victor Martinez, as well as the comment from “Paul McGovern” came from Rick Doty’s computer. This IP link to Doty has been clearly documented so I won’t go into the technical aspects here. If you want to read about all of that - start here.
http://www.realityuncovered.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1706&highlight=#1706
Additionally, Bill Ryan has told Zep and Ryguy that Doty has all of the Serpo documents on his computer. I suppose it is possible someone else intent on perpetuating the crap in UFOlogy could have accessed Doty’s computer to do it but I believe that is highly unlikely.
Now - what I will acknowledge is that Doty most likely did not accumulate all of this information without help from someone. That someone I believe is ‘Kit’ Green. I also believe ‘Kit’ has been the puppet master for decades, and most likely has some help from others (Pandolfi, Macabbee for example).
WRT to your comment to daath23’s opinion about Doty’s writing - I have numerous emails from Doty - he is a sloppy writer. I also know that Victor Martinez did the editing of EfD so I don’t think using anything ‘Doty’ supposedly wrote in that book should be used as an example of Doty’s writing.
WRT what you read at realityuncovered regarding Kit Green - I believe that article was an attempt to show that Bren - the Admin at Open Minds forum lied to his moderator staff about the information he supposed obtained from Kit Green in order to convince them that he had access to the ‘insiders’. I also know that at the time that article was written, Ryguy and Zep were desperately trying to endear themselves to Kit in order to obtain information.
I cannot speak to Kit’s location wrt to the Serpo saga.
BTW - how committed are you to exposing the truth behind Serpo? I have to agree with daath’s comment that “proving an anonymous internet posting false by citing another anonymous internet post to be, well, amusing.”
Especially since it appears the TC group consists of the same individuals as those behind the Serpo crap.
As to how I got interested in researching Serpo - I saw the original post made by ‘Centrist’ on ATS and ended up volunteering to be part of the group that documented a Serpo Summary for ATS.
Serpo has become a tar baby for me unfortunately. I hope to be getting rid of it very, very soon.
Always,
Shawnna
February 27th, 2007 at 12:32 am
Greg:
Look at the plus side - at least Bill Ryan got some all-expense paid trips out of it, so it worked out well for him.
Hmm… in the legal world, we might just call that “motive”.
Paul
March 1st, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Shawnna,
Thanks for your answers/ comments. My contention from the beginning of this saga was that many of the same people (Green, Puthoff, McGovern, Doty) who were involved with the Bennewitz saga were circling around SERPO. Unlike those who are “committed” to getting to the bottom of this, I would guess that those who are working the hardest on exposing SERPO don’t have as many things on their free-time plates as I do. See my subsequent post on this subject.
March 1st, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Paul,
I don’t quite know what to make of Ryan. Perhaps he knows what’s going on behind the scenes, and perhaps not. There are other motives if you want to go that route.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Greg:
There are, of course, always other possible motives, but I’ve usually found - especially in ufology - that the simplest explanation, i.e. dirty, filthy lucre, is at the root of most of these things. Not all, but most. Ego would rate second.
As for official disinformation, I give the government more credit than to cook up a crackpot story like Serpo.
Paul
March 6th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Paul,
I had it on what I consider good authroity that the motive was at the very least an exercise in disfinfo for military or counterintelligence purposes. One of the fringe benefits might have been for a book deal. Considering the number of UFO books that have made any decent money, I put that one at the bottom of the list, expecially since it would have had to be split amongst at a few people.
March 8th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Yes, the Ebonites were black. But they were not bowling balls.
I was looking into a dragonesque Papua New Guinea cryptid known as the Ropen today, and was intrigued by the resemblence a wood carving of it (depicted in the form of a witch doctor)
had with the Ebonite. Local reports seem to indicate that a creature resembling a pterosaur is still occasionally sighted in the region.
Ebonite
http://www.sideshowtoy.com/ebonite.html
Ropen (figures 10 and 11)
http://www.genesispark.com/genpark/png/crsarticle.doc
I don’t know what the usual pronunciation of the acronym EBE is — can anyone give a key to pronouncing it? Presumably this would have come in a chain from Bill Uhouse and Bill Hamilton, right? Is it “Ee Bee Ee,” “Eeb” or “Ee bee”?
I have to say I find that using both Eben and EBE as the name for the “EXTRATERRESTRIAL BIOLOGICAL ENTITY” is inherently clunky. It’s like you would use “UFO” as a common acronym in place of Unidentified Flying Object, but you decided to use “ufoen” as the adjective.
FWIW, on the Urban Dictionary site, readers have submitted definitions for Eben as “Chinese for ‘abnormally retarded’” or “Self righteous, pompous, know-it-all.”
I found some background material regarding the EBE/Eben usage on Linda Moulton Howe’s interview with Bill Hamilton regarding Uhouse and Burisch. The end of it features some solemn intoning that “There is something significant about 2003 (EBE 3 was said to have been going home that year), according to other sources that I have, but I have not been able to determine what that significance is.”
Ooops, doesn’t seem to have happened in any significant way.
http://www.boomspeed.com/joseph2/J-Rod2.htm
March 28th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
H.P. LOVECRAFT: AN ABDUCTEE by T. Peter Park
While we’re collecting “Ebens,” we mustn’t forget HP Lovecraft’s dream of being Eben Spencer, a Civil War soldier and surgeon. Joseph Trainor has documented some curious ways in which Lovecraft’s dream has real-world foundation. Eben Spencer may have had contact with an alien.
Eben isn’t a totally unknown name — I have an ancestor of that name myself.
February 11th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Ho Hum… Bill Ryan is at it again…
See: Bill Ryan and Project Camelot Psy-ops
http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2008/02/bill-ryan-and-project-camelot-psy-ops.html