Enigmatic personalities behind the initial Dulce Base rumors

(Archuleta Mesa in the background – – photo taken by Norio Hayakawa)

When it comes to the “Dulce base” topic, it is really not about the “base” itself ….(since, apparently and evidence-wise so far, it does not seem to exist), but rather about the various personalities that have initially promoted this myth.
Let’s examine some of the enigmatic personalities, how it all started  (from around 1978 to 1983) , etc. and how, ultimately, deluded con artist Phil Schneider took advantage of the Dulce base myth  (Phil Schneider will appear towards the bottom of this page):

PAUL BENNEWITZ:

Owner of Thunder Scientific Corporation (contractor to Kirtland Air Force Base), located right next to the entrance of Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, NM, presently operated by his sons.
From around 1979 Paul Bennewitz began to witness some strange “plasma” looking lights hovering over Manzano underground nuclear storage area, not too far from his residence in the Four Hills area of Albuquerque.
Some researchers (such as Greg Bishop) theorize that he was looking at some tests of Project Starfire  (laser-based optical tracking system as well as directed energy weapons research allegedly being developed at that time by Air Force Research Laboratory.   The problem with this theory is that the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Starfire Optical Range did not begin their projects until around 1994.  Some others speculate that a contractor within the Sandia Laboratories  (next to the Manzano base)  were conducting some tests of prototypes of remotely-controlled aerial platforms  (present-day UAVs).   But exactly what Bennewitz witnessed and filmed are still unknown.

Paul Bennewitz later became convinced that those objects were somehow related to an underground base in northern New Mexico near Dulce, a suggestion seemingly pushed then by a Richard C. Doty of AFOSI at Kirtland Air Force Base.
Articles on Bennewitz soon began to appear in newspapers such as the Albuquerque Journal and Albuquerque Tribune.
Paul Bennewitz began to suffer from paranoia and was later institutionalized.
He passed away in 2003.  His remains are buried in Veterans Cemetery in Santa Fe.
Paul Bennewitz’ sons refuse to be interviewed, the main reason being that Thunder Scientific Corporation still does business with Kirtland AFB.
They sell military grade humidifiers and callibration instruments, many of which were developed,modified and improved by the late Paul Bennewitz.
I am not sure if Paul Bennewitz’ wife, Cindy Bennewitz, still lives at the residence, which is located close to the original Manzano underground nuclear storage facility  (which allegedly was closed down in 1992)  in the Four Hills area of Albuquerque.

MYRNA HANSEN:

In 1980 she claimed to have been abducted near Cimarron, NM and claimed to have been taken to an unknown underground location.
She was at at that time a resident of Eagle Nest, New Mexico.
Paul Bennewitz interviewed her at his house, together with Leo Sprinkle who did a hypnotic regression.
Paul Bennewitz later on decided that she must have been taken into the Dulce base.
This was allegedly only after Bennewitz begun to suspect that there was a base in Dulce.
Later on, a Richard C. Doty (who was with AFOSI Kirtland AFB at that time) suggested to her that she might have been taken to an underground weapons storage facility in northern New Mexico.

TOM ADAMS:

He was investigating cattle mutilations in the late 1970s.
Tom Adams first heard about the Dulce base from reading Paul Bennewitz’ article in the newspaper and other sources from around 1981.
It is alleged that Tom Adams knew “Ann West”).

“ANN WEST“:

Her true identity was not initially confirmed, although it was Tal Levesque who claimed that she had been on Facebook with a different name (Cherry Hinkle, who claimed that her “half-alien” cat has lived for 29 years).
She was said to have been an acquaintance of Tom Adams.
“ANN WEST” (Cherry Hinkle) claimed to have drawn the initial pictures of the vats of the Dulce base in 1987, yet claimed to have never heard of Paul Bennewitz before.
She allegedly knew Tal Levesque.
She also claims to have known a “Thomas Edwin Castello”.
Tal Levesque claims that she visited him and his wife and also “Thomas Edwin Castello” in Santa Fe.
Tal Levesque claims that Ann West is dangerous and is part of the “invisible government”.
However, Levesque’s claim (that Ann West is part of the “invisible government”) sure sounds like lunacy.

JOHN LEAR:

Lear heard about Dulce allegedly from “Ann West”.
Lear befriended TAL through John Grace (a.k.a. Val Valerian).
According to Tal Levesque, John Lear retouched the Dulce drawings of “Ann West” that he received in 1987.
Lear first came up with his Hypothesis in 1988 about Dulce and also about Area 51.
John Lear has never been taken seriously by the UFO community.
Some people suspect that John Lear purposely throws in some ridiculous-sounding items as part of PSYOPS.
He recently claimed that there are cities on the back side of the moon.

(The enigmatic Jason Bishop, a.k.a., TAL Levesque when he appeared on a Japanese Nippon TV special two-hour program on Area 51 and Dulce in March of 1990)

TAL LEVESQUE, a.k.a., TAL or Jason Bishop:

His real name is Thomas Allen LeVesque (“Le Vesque” in French means “The Bishop”, thus his a.k.a.).
TAL Levesque claimed that he worked in Santa Fe as a security person for a private company around 1980 or 1981.
He claimed to have begun contact with “Thomas E. Castello” who, Tal Levesque claims, worked in the same company in Santa Fe.
“Thomas E. Castello” allegedly revealed his secrets to Tal
(the secret was that there was an underground U.S./alien bio-lab under Archuleta Mesa, next to Dulce and that he had worked as a security person at that facility).

Tal Levesque claimed that he was visited by a tall Reptoid at his home in Santa Fe in 1979.
At the time of his passing away in 2018, he was living in Mariposa, California.

In 2015, Tal Levesque made a confession to author Adam Gorightly that the whole Thomas E. Castello story was a made-up story and that the whole Dulce Base story itself was basically not real.   You can read about this in Adam Gorightly’s fascinating book SAUCERS, SPOOKS AND KOOKS – – UFO Disinformation in the Age of Acquarius published in 2021.

It was Jason Bishop (a.k.a., TAL Levesque) who originally came out with the so-called underground tunnel systems map with Dulce, New Mexico as its central hub….CLICK FOR ENLARGEMENT:

(A few years ago I had corresponded with Jason Bishop’s relative Carolyn LeVesque of Arroyo Grande who told me that he has always had some type of psychological problem (i.e., a form of mental “delusion”), to put it mildly – – probably from indoctrination from reading too many SHAVER MYSTERY science fiction novels of the 1950s that dealt with underground civilizations):

Click the following for more on JASON BISHOP (a.k.a., Tal Levesque, a.k.a. TAL)

“THOMAS EDWIN CASTELLO“:

Of course, there are many persons with the same name.
However, an “alleged” retired Air Force Colonel who claimed that he was involved in Dulce, claimed that there has never been a Thomas Edwin Castello that was ever employed as security personnel in Dulce.
(The late Gabe Valdez also stated that there was never such a person connected to the alleged Dulce base).

CHRISTA TILTON:

Some researchers seem to say that she came to the scene slightly after “Ann West”.
They say that Christa Tilton and Tom Adams were initially partners and that she was in touch with Myrna Hansen.
According to Tim Beckley, Christa Tilton later on got together with Wendell Stevens.
Christa Tilton was said to have distributed her manuscript, “The Bennewitz Papers” in 1987.
She claimed that she was in touch with a Richard C. Doty (formerly with AFOSI at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque).
Christa Tilton was featured on a Japanese TV program about the Dulce base back in 1989 and 1990.
Christa Tilton flew over the Archuleta Mesa and over Soldier Canyon with Junichi Yaoi of Nippon TV in 1989.
She appeared on Japanese TV a couple of times and claimed to have taken a photo of a circular structure over Soldier Canyon, which is slightly SW of Dulce.
Tilton, in her manuscript “The Bennewitz Papers” expressed her belief that the whole “Thomas E. Castello” story was a fabrication.
“Ann West”, in turn, reportedly claimed that Christa Tilton’s information was nothing more than disinformation of the highest degree.

BRANTON…….a.k.a., Bruce Walton, a.k.a., Alan B. de Walton:

Beginning in the early 1990s, “Branton” compiled a book called the DULCE BOOK….and aslo DULCE WARS.
Walton allegedly got most of the information from TAL…some from John Lear, some from Val Valerian (John Grace).
Tal Levesque claimed that Bruce Walton was incarcerated in 2009 in Utah for felony charges.
(Google Search – – Bruce Walton incarcerated in Utah)

Click here for more on BRANTON

GABE VALDEZ:

The late Gabe Valdez was a retired New Mexico State Patrol Officer who was in charge of the Dulce area for many years (from the early 1970s to the late 1980s)..
He passed away on August 6, 2011 at his residence in Albuquerque.
Valdez claimed that the government was most likely responsible for the cattle mutilations which started happening from around 1975.
He claimed that the government may have begun to periodically monitor the radiation levels of certain cattle some years later, after the 1967 underground nuclear explosion (Project Gasbuggy) which took place about 22 miles southwest of Dulce.
Valdez also stated that the government “staged” several UFO incidents in the Dulce area (Archuleta Mesa, etc.) by use of high tech equipment such as prototypes of holographic image projections as well as unmanned aerial vehicles or remotely-controlled platforms that were made to resemble “flying saucers”.
Valdez believed that bio-warfare experiments were conducted at Dulce and that “UFO/alien” stories were concocted by the government as cover stories to conceal various Black Projects in the area.

Click the following for a very rare interview with Gabe Valdez, courtesy of John Gomez, during which Valdez states that “all UFOs are man-made” (to which I disagree):

A very rare and important interview with the late Gabriel Valdez

WILLIAM “BILL” MOORE:

It was Moore who first propagated (or “revived”) the story about Roswell in 1980 when he (together with Charles Berlitz) published the book INCIDENT AT ROSWELL (until this book came out, most Americans had no interest or knowledge about the Roswell incident since it was long forgotten and dismissed as misidentification by the U.S. Army in 1947).
He claimed that around the same time that he began to propagate the Roswell story, he was working with Richard C. Doty of Kirtland AFB and participated in a disinformation ploy to saturate Paul Bennewitz (who was pursuing his independent investigations on Dulce) with false information on the Dulce base.
This he claimed in a 1989 MUFON Conference that took place in Las Vegas, Nevada.
However there is no verifiable documentation whatsoever that Moore participated in such disinformation ploy in any official capacity except for his verbal “confession” that he made at a 1989 MUFON conference in Las Vegas, Nevada).

RICHARD C. DOTY:

Initially with Kirtland Air Force Base AFOSI around 1979, 1980 and 1981 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
He was not a high-ranking officer.
He claimed that he participated in disinformation in official capacity, along with Moore.
Again, there is no documentation that he participated in such disinformation ploy at Kirtland AFB AFOSI in any official capacity, even though Paul Bennewitz’ name and Doty’s name appear on one or two Kirtland OSI documents because Kirtland AFB invited Bennewitz to testify to what he allegedly was seeing over the Manzano storage areas.
Later on Richard C. Doty became a promoter of the SERPO PROJECT (which some researchers seem to describe as being a total fabrication).
Project Camelot seems to have bought Doty’s story hook, line and sinker. After leaving AFOSI at Kirtland, Doty started working as a New Mexico Highway Patrol Officer.  He is presently thought to be living in Grants, New Mexico.

PHIL SCHNEIDER:

Phil Schneider was never a part of the initial Dulce base rumors.
Apparently he must have read many articles concerning the alleged Dulce Base by the time he came out into the scene in 1995 and started giving lectures.

It was said that in 1989, in one of the early interviews, Bob Lazar allegedly claimed that there was an altercation between the U.S. military and “alien entities” in an underground installation.  Lazar never specified any location.  Phil Schneider also heard about the Bob Lazar story.

Apparently, knowing that no one had yet come up with any claim of personal involvement in the alleged 1979 “altercation”,  he conveniently cast himself into the scene, claiming that he was a survivor of the Dulce “Wars”.   In other words, Schneider hijacked Bob Lazar’s claims and made himself a protagonist in the “Dulce War” story.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON PHIL SCHNEIDER

P.S.

The most sane persons, surprisingly, may have been Paul Bennewitz himself and Gabe Valdez.
It is quite possible that Paul Bennewitz had long only pretended that he had been “brainwashed” by some within the AFOSI, while he continued to conduct his own investigations into Dulce.
But, nevertheless, he couldn’t himself overcome his growing paranoia.  Another possible scenario may have been that there was a dissension among the AFOSI and an element among the group may have accidentally provided Bennewitz with some crucial information on an alleged crash of a U.S. military’s prototype stealth aircraft near Mount Archuleta.

Here is my take on the whole Dulce matter:

THE DULCE BASE MAY NOT PHYSICALLY EXIST, BUT PARAPHYSICAL PHENOMENA SEEM TO HAUNT DULCE, NEW MEXICO

Dulce base may not physically exist, but paraphysical phenomena seem to haunt Dulce, New Mexico

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Norio Hayakawa’s CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE NEWS SERVICE

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