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By Charles Lear

This is the last of what has turned into a five-part series looking into the events that led up to, and the people who would become involved with the television production UFO Cover-Up? Live!, which aired on October 14, 1988. It seems that the show’s producer, Michael Seligman, believed that it would be the vehicle for an earth-shaking  UFO disclosure. What resulted was a clumsy and awkward production where the only disclosure anyone remembers is that aliens like strawberry ice cream.

Robert Skvaria wrote a three-part series of articles titled, “The Cover-Up Behind UFO Cover-Up? Live!” for Diabolique magazine, the first of which was posted on May 17, 2022. Skvaria spoke to Curtis Brubaker, who came up with the idea for the show, and Tracy Tormé, who produced the segment of the show devoted to the Gulf Breeze, Florida, sightings and the pictures taken by Ed Walters.

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By Charles Lear

In last week’s blog, we looked at the Majestic-12 papers and how UFO researchers came to believe that they had been hoaxed. Air Force Office of Special Investigations Special Agent Richard Doty was thought to have been responsible for faking the documents and author/researcher, William Moore, introduced them to his fellow researchers and then presented them to the media. This week, we’ll look at how Moore and Doty became involved in the television production UFO Cover-Up? Live!

Along with the excitement and confusion generated by the MJ-12 documents, there were rumors that there was a modern version of the MJ-12 group leaking information about the GOVERNMENT’S secret UFO program. This group reportedly used the names of birds as code names and became known as “The Aviary.” This seems to come from a “UFO Working Group” made up of people who were members of or had connections to the military and intelligence communities and had a genuine interest in the UFO subject. This was first written about by Howard Blum in his 1990 book, Out There. Read more →

by Charles Lear

In last week’s blog we looked at evidence that seems to support the idea that self-proclaimed disinformation agent, Richard Doty, who was a special agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, was acting on his own. We also looked at evidence that seems to support the idea and that William Moore, an author and UFO researcher who confessed to being in a partnership with Doty, was driven by the desire to make some money from the information Doty was giving him in exchange for his cooperation. Together, they put many UFO researchers into a state of confusion. We ended with the introduction of the “Majestic-12 Papers” into the UFO community. Read more →

by Charles Lear

In last week’s blog, we introduced two people, Richard Doty, a self-professed Air Force Office of Special Investigations disinformation agent, and William Moore, a UFO researcher and co-author of the 1980 book The Roswell Incident, who had a profound influence on the UFO narrative in the 1980’s that culminated in a television presentation, UFO Cover-Up? Live!” What was discussed (scripted) on the show was the now familiar narrative of greys, crashed flying saucers, GOVERNMENT recovery of crash debris and alien bodies, and subsequent cover-up. Moore and Doty have since come forward as having been partners in what they claimed was a GOVERNMENT disinformation program targeting UFOlogists. We closed with the hypothesis that Doty was acting on his own and that Moore played along because he had a need to believe and stood to make some money from the “inside information” that Doty was feeding him and his fellow researchers. This week we’ll look at evidence to support that hypothesis.

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By Charles Lear

If one was to pick a point when UFOlogy went off the rails, October 14, 1988, is one to consider. That was the date that a television show, UFO Cover-Up? Live!, aired on 130 syndicated channels throughout the United States. It was a flop, but an examination of the people who were involved in the production provides insight into how it came to be that a few dubious individuals left us with what have been convincingly argued are bogus stories and documents that support the idea that the GOVERNMENT has recovered crashed alien spaceships and bodies. A lasting belief is that this came about as the result of an organized GOVERNMENT disinformation program targeting the UFO community. A question this writer is examining is whether or not this too is bogus. Read more →

by Charles Lear

Throughout the history of UFOs there are stories that become well known throughout the UFO community and beyond, and more often than not, their origins can be found in archives available online. Sometimes a story that becomes popular and accepted as plausible can be found to have had dubious origins. If enough people choose to believe it and trusted researchers champion it, a story can become so embedded in the mythos that it will repeatedly rise from the dead no matter how many knives get stuck in it. Then, there are stories that never go beyond their original report and remain as a single mention in the records.

Tucked away in the Archives For the Unexplained collection is a March 1, 1974 edition of UFO POTPOURIE, a collection of news clippings put out by John Schuessler “In cooperation with: The Mutual UFO Network Inc. (MOFON) [sic]” and “ The UFO Study Group of Greater St. Louis, Inc.” Schuessler was one of the founding members of MUFON in 1969 and was a principle investigator of the Cash-Landrum case in the 1980s. He became the international director of MUFON in 2000. Read more →