SUBJECT: E B E's FILE: UFO1035
PART 16
One leader who was not immediately alarmed was Walter H. Andrus,
Jr., director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), one of the two
largest UFO organizations in the United States (the other being
the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies [CUFOS]). In 1987,
before Lear had proposed what some wags would call the Dark Side
Hypothesis, he had offered to host the 1989 MUFON conference in
Las Vegas. Andrus agreed. But as Lear's true beliefs became
known, leading figures within MUFON expressed concern about
Lear's role in the conference. When Andrus failed to respond
quickly, MUFON officials were infuriated.
Facing a possible palace revolt, Andrus informed Lear that
Cooper, whom Lear had invited to speak at the conference, was not
an acceptable choice. But to the critics on the MUFON board and
elsewhere in the organization, this was hardly enough. One of
them, longtime ufologist Richard Hall, said this was "like
putting a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage" (Hall, 1989). In a heated
telephone exchange Andrus called Hall's objections to Lear "just
one man's opinion" and claimed support, which turned out not to
exist, from other MUFON notables. In a widely-distributed open
letter to Andrus, Hall wrote, "Having Lear run the symposium and
be a major speaker at it is comparable to NICAP in the 1960's
having George Adamski run a NICAP conference! " (NICAP, the
National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, of which
Hall was executive secretary in the late 1950s and much of the
1960s, was a conservative UFO-research organization which
attacked as fraudulent the claims of Adamski, who wrote books
about his meetings with Venusians and distributed photographs of
what he said were their spaceships.) Hall went on, "You seem to
be going for the colorful and the spectacular rather than for the
critical-minded approach of science; you even expressed the view-
in effect-that having a panel to question Lear critically would
be good show biz and the 'highlight' of the symposium. Maybe so,
but it obviously would dominate the entire program, grab off all
major news media attention, and put UFO research in the worst
possible light." Hall declared, "I am hereby resigning from the
MUFON Board and I request that my name be removed from all MUFON
publications or papers that indicate me to be a Board Member."
Fearing more resignations, Andrus moved to make Lear barely more
than a guest at his own conference. He was not to lecture there,
as previously planned, and hosting duties would be handled, for
the most part, by others. Lear ended up arranging an "alternative
conference" at which he, Cooper, English and Don Ecker presented
the latest elaborations on the Dark Side Hypothesis.
Meanwhile another storm was brewing. On March 1, 1989, an
Albuquerque ufologist, Robert Hastings, issued a 13-page
statement, with 37 pages of appended documents, and mailed it to
many of ufology's most prominent individuals. Hastings opened
with these remarks:
"First, it has been established that 'Falcon,' one of the
principle [sic] sources of the MJ-12 material, is Richard C.
Doty, formerly attached to District 17 Air Force Office of
Special Investigations (AFOSI) at Kirtland Air Force Base,
Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sgt. Doty retired from the U.S. Air
Force on October 1, 1988.
"How do I know that Doty is 'Falcon?' During a recent telephone
conversation, Linda Moulton Howe told me that when Sgt. Doty
invited her to his office at Kirtland AFB in early April 1983,
and showed her a purportedly authentic U.S. government document
on UFOs, he identified himself as code-name 'Falcon' and stated
that it was Bill Moore who had given him that name.
"Also, in early December 1988, a ranking member of the
production team responsible for the 'UFO Cover Up?-Live'
television documentary confirmed that Doty is 'Falcon.' This same
individual also identified the second MJ-12 source who appeared
on the program, 'Condor' as Robert Collins who was, until
recently, a Captain in the U.S. Air Force. Like Doty, he was
stationed at KAFB when he left the service late last year."
(Collins, a scientist, was assigned to the plasma physics group
at Sandia National Laboratories on the Kirtland Air Force Base.
Following his retirement he moved to Indiana and remains actively
interested in UFOs.)
Hastings reviewed evidence of Doty's involvement in the
concoction of various questionable documents and stories,
including the Ellsworth tale and the Weitzel affair. He also
noted important discrepancies between the paper Howe saw and the
MJ-12 briefing document. For example, while the first mentioned
the alleged Aztec crash, the second said nothing about it at all.
Hastings wondered, "[I]f the briefing paper that Sgt. Doty showed
to Linda Howe was genuine, what does that say about the accuracy
(and authenticity) of the Eisenhower document? If, on the other
hand, the former was bogus and was meant to mislead Howe for some
reason, what does that say about Richard 'Falcon' Doty's
reliability as a source for MJ-12 material as a whole?"
(Hastings, 1989). Hastings also had much critical to say about
Moore, especially about an incident in which Moore had flashed a
badge in front of ufologist/cover-up investigator Lee Graham and
indicated he was working with the government on a project to
release UFO information. (Moore would characterize this as a
misguided practical joke.)
Both Moore and Doty denied that the latter was Falcon. They
claimed Doty had been given that pseudonym long after the 1983
meeting with Howe. Howe, however, stuck by her account. Moore and
Doty said the real Falcon, an older man than Doty had been in the
studio audience as the video of his interview was being broadcast
on UFO Cover-up. . . Live. Doty himself was in New Mexico
training with the state police.
end of part 16
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