In September 2009, me and Greg Bishop (left) visited the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based National Cemetery, where a man named Paul Bennewitz is buried. Bennewitz’s life, career and UFO investigations – that so worried the U.S. Air Force and the National Security Agency in the late-1970s and early-to-mid-1980s, to the extent that they drove him nearly insane and to the point of nervous-breakdown and beyond, as they sought to bring his flying saucer studies to a halt – were the subject of Greg’s 2005 book, Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth, which is essential reading for anyone with an interest in how and why the world of officialdom has coldly and callously manipulated the UFO research scene, and those in it.
On locating the cemetery, we drove in carefully, and finally located Bennewitz’s grave. I set up my digital-recorder, while a visibly-moved Greg could not help but ponder upon how Bennewitz’s passing was very likely hastened by the stress and anxiety generated by the Air Force and shadowy elements of the NSA.
Greg said, somberly: "I wish I could have told him 'thanks,' for having the story there to be written, and that I’m sorry he had to go through what he went through."Amen to that.
Thanks for posting these pictures. Yeah, that was a strange day. I didn't expect to be emotional about it. I had never met or talked to him, and I guess I felt somewhat conflicted. I used that picture of you at the grave marker for your interview profile image at radiomisterioso.
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