1979

Iran – The CIA fails to predict the fall of the Shah of Iran, a longtime CIA puppet, and the rise of Muslim fundamentalists who are furious at the CIA’s backing of SAVAK, the Shah’s bloodthirsty secret police. In revenge, the Muslims take 52 Americans hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

In February, 1979, Alfred Hubbard attended an LSD reuinion party, hosted by Dr. Oscar Janiger, along with Laura Huxley, Sidney Cohn, John Lilly, Willis Harman, and Timothy Leary, among others. (Lee and Schlain, 213)

Around 1979, SRI funded a project of Tart’s which screened university students and faculty for psychic ability. (Schnabel, Jim, Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America’s Psychic Spies, Dell, 1997, pg 225-6)

In an article entitled “The Fund for CIA Research, or Who’s Disinforming Who?”, the anonymous authors (the Associated Investigators Group) accuse Bruce Maccabee of working with the CIA, providing them with information, and letting the CIA affect his leadership in FUFOR. According to the article, Maccabee’s main contact with the CIA was through Dr. Christopher Green.

In a written response, Maccabee rebuts that most of his contacts with the CIA have been in the context of his work with the Navy, and are unrelated to his UFO research. He says that he did give CIA employees informal lectures at the request of Ron Pandolfi, but that the CIA has never attempted to influence his research. [A similar rebuttal was written by Aviary guy Dan Smith and Rosemary Ellen Guiley of Fate Magazine, and New Age Land Central, in later years, after similar accusations were made. ]

“I never contacted any companies. What I did was tell Jack Acuff, Director of NICAP at the time, that I would like to speak to experts in the field of radar. He, in turn, put me in contact with a scientist, Dr. Gordon MacDonald, at the MITRE corporation. I was invited to discuss the NZ sightings with him and several other scientists at MITRE in McLean, Va. and I did (and they generally agreed with my conclusions). Then, a week or so later, I learned that MacDonald had contacted a man at the CIA who contacted me and offered to provide technical consultation if I would provide a briefing to some CIA employees. At first I was leery of doing anything with the CIA, but I knew they had radar experts, so I stipulated that if they would give me some feedback I’d tell them what I know. So I briefed them and I received some helpful comments…” [When you dance with the Devil, the Devil doesn’t change – the Devil changes YOU!]

“After I discussed the NZ case one employee, Dr. Christopher “Kit” Green (KG), invited me to visit the CIA again a week or so later to have a general UFO discussion with him and a couple of other employees…”

“After that last meeting with KG in the spring of 1979 I didn’t see him again and had no contact with the agency until June, 1984 when I was contacted by Dr. Ronald Pandolfi regarding my Navy work. He had been tracking developments by the “other side” in that field of research and wanted to know what the US state of the art was.” (Bruce Maccabee’s response to the AIR report)

Formerly with the CIA, Dr. Green’s work involved UFO research. “Dr. Green attained a Ph.D. in Neurophysiology in 1969 and in1976 received his M.D., Doctor of Medicine, degree. Green was awarded the CIA’s National Intelligence Medal for his work on a ‘classified project’ from 1979 to 1983, precisely the years in which Maccabee was meeting with him at CIA headquarters. Green uses somewhat of a cover story to describe his CIA work, calling himself a ‘Scientific Advisor on the Advisory Board to the Directorate of Intelligence, CIA.’” (The Associated Investigators Group, “The Fund for CIA Research, or Who’s Disinforming Who?”)

Esalen also held seminars in quantum physics, and was the birthplace of the Physics/Consciousness Research Group. Some results of these seminars are documented in Zukav, Gary, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Morrow Quill, 1979

Iranian “Students” capture the American Embassy in Tehran and take 52 hostages on November 4th. An American rescue attempt fails. The group’s spiritual leader is the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Interest rates rise to unprecedented levels. Actions by the US Federal Reserve Board are generally viewed as either inefficacious. or counterproductive.

Afghanistan – The Soviets enters in Afghanistan. The CIA immediately begins supplying arms to any faction willing to fight the Soviets. Such indiscriminate arming means that when the Soviets leave Afghanistan, civil war will erupt. Also, fanatical Muslim extremists now possess state-of-the-art weaponry. One of these is Sheik Abdel Rahman, who will become involved in the World Trade Center bombing in New York.

El Salvador – An idealistic group of young military officers, repulsed by the massacre of the poor, overthrows the right-wing government. However, the U.S. compels the inexperienced officers to include many of the old guard in key positions in their new government. Soon, things are back to “normal” – the military government is repressing and killing poor civilian protesters. Many of the young military and civilian reformers, finding themselves powerless, resign in disgust.

Nicaragua – Anastasios Samoza II, the CIA-backed dictator, falls. The Marxist Sandinistas take over government, and they are initially popular because of their commitment to land and anti-poverty reform. Samoza had a murderous and hated personal army called the National Guard. Remnants of the Guard will become the Contras, who fight a CIA-backed guerilla war against the Sandinista government throughout the 1980s.

Barry Goldwater U.S. Senator, Retired Air Force Reserve Brigadier General, and pilot. “It is true that I was denied access to a facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, because I never got in. I can’t tell you what was inside. We both know about the rumors (concerning a captured UFO and crew members). I have never seen what I would call a UFO, but I have intelligent friends who have.” From a letter April, 1979

“I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don’t know about–and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them.”

“I remember the case in Georgia in the 1950’s of a National Guard plane going after a UFO and never returning. And I recall the case in Franklin, Kentucky, when four military planes investigated a UFO. One of them exploded in midair and no one knows why.”

“Hell no, you can’t go. I can’t go, and don’t ask me again.” Senator Goldwater quoting General Curtis Lamey’s response to the senator’s request to visit the “Blue Room” at Wright Patterson Air Force Base where, Goldwater claims he was told physical evidence exists confirming the existence of alien spacecraft.

“Yes.” Senator Goldwater’s response to Larry King’s question: “Do you think our government knows UFOs are real and are keeping this fact from the American public?”

“I certainly believe in aliens in space. They may not look like us, but I have very strong feelings that they have advanced beyond our mental capabilities. ” and added, “I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don’t know about-and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them.” He said he was refused permission to check the Air Force files on UFOs.

Victor Marchetti “We have, indeed, been contacted – perhaps even visited – by extraterrestrial beings, and the U.S. government, in collusion with the other national powers of the earth, is determined to keep this information from the general public.

“The purpose of the international conspiracy is to maintain a workable stability among the nations of the world and for them, in turn, to retain institutional control over their respective populations. Thus, for these governments to admit that there are beings from outer space… with mentalities and technological capabilities obviously far superior to ours, could, once fully perceived by the average person, erode the foundations of the earth’s traditional power structure. Political and legal systems, religions, economic and social institutions could all soon become meaningless in the mind of the public. The national oligarchical establishments, even civilization as we now know it, could collapse into anarchy.

“Such extreme conclusions are not necessarily valid, but they probably accurately reflect the fears of the ‘ruling classes’ of the major nations, whose leaders (particularly those in the intelligence business) have always advocated excessive governmental secrecy as being necessary to preserve ‘national security.” “How the CIA Views the UFO Phenomenon“, Victor Marchetti, May 1979. Marchetti was a former CIA official.