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from confidential, anonymous Source, September 8, 2022
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Dear Norio;
I enjoyed the recently released documentary about your life’s work, on Vimeo (“THE CONSPIRATOLOGIST”). It really sums up your numerous accomplishments, while revealing to us your deeper humanness. I feel you are under-appreciated for the work you have done, and your open-mindedness about these topics.
I’m writing to offer you additional thoughts concerning Manzano Base and the deep-underground aircraft facility that the close personal witness observed, back in 2018. I’ve been thinking about how this facility fits into the larger world of defense-related research and development, its purpose, and also the timing of how the revealing of these places to the public was engineered, and is related to the foundation of the modern UFO “research” phenomenon.
First, it’s important to say up front that, while some of my conclusions are speculation – – an attempt at understanding the backstory and the bigger picture – – there is no doubt whatsoever that there exists today a deep underground facility housing advanced stealth aircraft, under KAFB. It’s important to not conflate these two, the fact and the speculation, because so much confusion has arisen in the UFO research community from people not clearly separating fact from speculation. The fact of a reliable eyewitness seeing, on eight different visits, this underground facility and the aircraft within is undeniable. We should carry on with this fact as our guide-star, while we speculate further its larger implications.
Background on Starfire Optical Range (SOR):
I was recently thinking about what I know of SOR – – Starfire Optical Range – – where adaptive optics was invented and refined, as part of a larger effort at weaponizing laser optics, that started as far back as the early 1970s with the first airborne laser system built in a KC-135 aircraft, here at KAFB. In the early 1980s when President Reagan announced SDI – – Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars”- – this research into directed energy weapons had already been ongoing for over a decade, here in New Mexico. Reagan’s announcement wasn’t the start of these programs, rather it was an attempt at generating legitimate congressional funding outside the backchannels of black projects, which by definition are intrinsically limited.
The follow-on airborne laser (ABL) platform was built, also here at Kirtland AFB, into a 747 jumbo jet, and by that time (early 1980s) the COIL (Chemical Oxygen Iodine) laser had been developed (also here at KAFB), which promised higher power than the CO2 laser used in the earlier KC-135 platform. Concurrent with the ABL program was development of a large-aperture ground-based facility to direct laser energy into the upper atmosphere and space. It was built atop a hill on KAFB, just south of Manzano Base. The major innovation of SOR was adaptive optics, which uses a sodium laser focused into the ionosphere to create an artificial “guide-star”; the perturbations of this star by atmospheric turbulence is then read by a telescope and the main mirror is carefully and quickly warped, to compensate for atmospheric turbulence. Then, a high-energy (of a megawatt or higher) laser can be fired up through the atmosphere, whose beam-degrading turbulence has now been largely compensated for, enabling strategic-level energies to be directed at objects high in the atmosphere or in space.
Adaptive optics is now the norm with civilian ground-based astronomy, but in the 1970s and early ’80s it was one of the most highly classified technologies in America, and it was all developed here, in New Mexico. SOR’s 3.5 meter telescope is one of the largest in the world using adaptive optics. A 2015 report by CBS News on Starfire Optical Range implied that its main purpose was as an anti-missile and anti-satellite weapons system.:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rare-look-at-space-command-satellite-defense-60-minutes/
Proximity of SOR to Manzano Base:
When I first learned from the eyewitness of the deep-underground aircraft facility under Manzano Base, I had assumed its proximity to Starfire Optical Range was purely coincidental; that both Manzano and SOR were located at KAFB only because Kirtland is the center of USAF R&D efforts, my assumption being these were unrelated programs that happened to be located at the same site. But then that NYT article struck me. Is it possible that SOR serves, not only as an R&D facility but, as a defensive site for KAFB? Or specifically for Manzano Base?
What kinds of weapons could SOR defend against? Logically, surveillance satellites come to mind, since SOR is able to direct megawatt laser power levels into space. But what about nuclear-tipped ICBM reentry vehicles? It’s not impossible that SOR could also defend against incoming warheads directed at Kirtland. However, such a capability would have to be engineered and tested first, and ICBM test warheads aren’t test-fired into New Mexico. But they are fired from Vandenberg AFB, on the California coast, southwesterly toward Kwajalein Atoll, where the US has an extensive test and instrumentation facility that measures the performance of test warheads in real world conditions. Coincidentally, the trajectory from Vandenberg to Kwajalein takes the missiles directly over the Hawaiian island chain, where atop one of Hawaii’s largest mountains happens to be a USAF laser facility nearly identical to SOR.
So, while this remains mere speculation, circumstantial evidence suggests there are facilities in place to test ground-based, strategic-level weapons-grade lasers against ICBM reentry vehicles, and that ongoing developments in the last several decades could have resulted in an operational space – and ICBM -defensive system, here in New Mexico.
The Importance of Kirtland Air Force Base:
If such a ground-based laser weapons system has been developed, there is only one site in the continental United States it is currently defending, that being Kirtland Air Force Base. It’s important to note this distinction, because in the annals of UFO conspiracy theories there are much more important, notable sites worthy of defending, such as Groom Lake (Area 51). Or Edwards Air Force Base. Or a plethora of other bases around the country that serve as home to our strategic bomber and missile forces. So, why Kirtland?
I speculate one reason “why Kirtland” is because of Manzano Base, and the other facilities deep underneath, both known and speculated about. What other facilities? We know from public records that President Eisenhower had a command center in Manzano, in the early-mid 1950s. Also, in the book Ravenrock, the author states that an identical version of NORAD (in Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs) was built into Manzano. Then there’s personal testimony from an acquaintance who was an independent computer consultant, who stated that after 9/11 he was “called into the mountain” for several weeks, implying after that tragic day some kind of command center had been activated. Finally, the eyewitness to the underground aircraft facility states that during the 3-5 minute freight elevator ride underground, they passed dozens of other floors, visible through the wire mesh walls of the elevator car, whose purpose remains undisclosed.
Another reason for the importance of Kirtland might be the proximity of both Manzano and SOR to KUMMSC, Kirtland Underground Munitions Maintenance Storage Complex, that opened in 1992 and is supposedly where the nuclear weapons were moved from Manzano Base. KUMMSC is supposedly the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. While it has been openly stated that many of these weapons are stored at KUMMSC awaiting disassembly at the Pantex plant in Amarillo, the naming of the facility as related to “Maintenance” implies ongoing attempts at preserving their functional utility as weapons of war.
Nearby to KUMMSC, SOR and Manzano is also the campus of Sandia National Laboratory (SNL), whose primary mission is weapons engineering in support of maintaining the enduring stockpile – – the largest such stockpile being nearby at KUMMSC.
Certainly KAFB is not the only strategically important site worth defending. But it appears to be the only one with a strategic-level laser system capable of being defended against both satellite and ICBM threats.
Kirtland, Groom Lake and Counter-Intelligence Programs:
I’ve tried to paint the picture that evidence points to Kirtland Air Force Base as being strategically important in the continental United States, important enough such that the only laser-based space – and missile-defense system is located here, but now I’d like to discuss intentional efforts to conceal or deflect knowledge of these facilities.
Most of what I’ve covered thus far is based either on eyewitness testimony or verifiable sources in the open literature. But there’s another level at which I’m forced to employ circumstantial evidence more intensively, involving what appear to be purposeful counter-intelligence programs aimed at obscuring the true purpose of secretive facilities, under the cover of the paranormal or controversial.
I’ve identified at least three known instances where controversial fake narratives were concocted and purposefully spread, in order to conceal classified research and development efforts. The first such incident, though poorly planned and executed, served as the prototype for all subsequent efforts, that being the July, 1947 Roswell Incident. Within a three day period a fake narrative involving crashed saucers and recovered bodies became, after several detailed newspaper articles later, a mere crashed weather balloon. Ham-handed as it was, there is little doubt it was an attempt at concealing classified activity pertaining to, at the very least, the 509th Composite Bombing Group (the only nuclear-certified and experienced bomber squadron in the world, stationed at nearby Roswell Army Airfield); the nearby White Sands Proving Grounds efforts at testing captured German V2 rockets; and CIA efforts at developing a balloon-based air sampling system for monitoring Soviet nuclear activity. All of these activities have been well-documented in the open literature, but their proximity together in New Mexico makes the likelihood of some outlandish, fabricated cover story more interesting, and likely.
The second example of a purposefully concocted cover story is crucial to the Manzano narrative, because it involves Paul Bennewitz and his observations of mysterious lights over Manzano, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Of course, us knowing in retrospect the history of directed energy weapons development at Kirtland makes Bennewitz’s behavior seem less like serious research and more like a deep and troubling obsession. But the early 1980s were the height of the Cold War and the threat was very real, as were efforts at finding some strategic advantage over the Soviets. When Bennewitz went to the trouble of contacting the Air Force Office of Special Investigations about the lights he was observing over Manzano, it should come as no surprise that he quickly became the target of a concentrated counter-intelligence operation, aimed at finding out if he had purposefully harmful intentions, and then obscuring the true nature of those ongoing activities under the cover of alien craft, Majestic 12 documents, cattle mutilations and “alien bases at Dulce”. Through agent Richard Doty (along with NSA surveillance equipment installed in Bennewitz’s computer, under the guise of enabling him to listen in on alien broadcasts), the Bennewitz affair became the conduit through which the UFO research community was specifically targeted with disinformation, intended to both conceal the true nature of classified activity while also sewing the seeds of confusion and resentment in the UFO community, which would embroil them in conflict, further preventing them from coming to the knowledge of the truth.
It should be mentioned that there’s an intriguing connection between Roswell and the Doty-Bennewitz affair. Prior to Berlitz and Moore publishing THE ROSWELL INCIDENT, the 1947 event was little remembered in popular culture except by diehard UFOlogists. Indeed, up to that time, the most notable UFO film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (released in 1977), made no mention of Roswell. Yet, a mere decade later and Roswell is all over popular culture, including films, books and television. Moore did most of the research legwork for the Roswell book, with Berlitz supplying his name from the notoriety of his widely popular Bermuda Triangle book. The intriguing connection is this: when Moore was in New Mexico doing his research, he stayed for months at Paul Bennewitz’s house, adjacent to Manzano Base!
I’m certain the Bennewitz affair was a stroke of sheer luck falling into the lap of Richard Doty at AFOSI, especially considering Bennewitz’s connection with William Moore and the Roswell book that had just come out. What is clear to me is that the disinformation campaign executed by Doty succeeded in deflecting attention away from Manzano and the research activities at Kirtland, toward places like remote Dulce, and later Area 51.
The third example is Area 51 and the Bob Lazar affair, of which you are intimately familiar. Watching the recent documentary about you, I was fascinated by the details of the house where you met Lazar at, that appeared to not be lived in, and the two mysterious companions of Lazar’s, who appeared to act more like security agents than friends; and in the company of those two mysterious strangers, Lazar tells you and the film crew where to go to film evidence of actual flight tests; and you and the film crew go to that location and actually film aerial phenomenon. It’s clear to me that the Lazar affair was a yet more sophisticated counter-intelligence program aimed at deflecting attention away from actual classified research, by promoting the idea of Area 51 being related to recovered alien craft and little grays.
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt:
If you took a public survey and asked people if they’ve ever heard of both Area 51 and Manzano, most people would say yes to Area 51 and no to Manzano. Area 51 and its legends of playing host to recovered saucers and little gray bodies seems to have been purposefully concocted as a counter-intelligence operation. My argument is both the Bennewitz and Lazar affairs together succeeded as a grand strategy of moving public attention away from Manzano and KAFB, and toward the deserts north of Las Vegas. I’m not denying the reality of classified activity at Groom Lake and Tonopah Test Range, but that the objective was to obscure an even more secret project here in New Mexico.
There’s another component worth discussing, which is the nature of the “True Believer” UFO researcher and lack of ability to remain objective, even under the weight of evidence to the contrary. Such is the nature of religious belief. I’m certain you’ve observed this in your many years of involvement. Take the Bennewitz affair. It’s obvious to an unbiased observed that he was used as a dupe to promulgate the legend of UFOs over Manzano, to deflect attention away from ongoing classified projects; and later via Linda Moulton Howe with the legend of Dulce and cattle mutilations.
It’s also obvious to an unbiased observed that those two Lazar security guys at the house weren’t actually investigating Lazar, because they permitted him to tell Norio and the film crew where to go to see those lights in the sky near Groom Lake. It appears their presence was to ensure that Lazar actually did tell you and the film crew where to see the lights, because seeing the lights would help reinforce the legend being concocted. Afterward, when Lazar lost his clearance for doing just that, it too added to the legend being portrayed, of Lazar being persecuted for spilling the beans about the aliens at Area 51.
It’s also obvious to an unbiased observed that those MJ-12 documents, given to Bennewitz by Doty, weren’t “real” Above-Top Secret documents, else Doty would be in federal prison for violating the espionage act. Both of these are very obvious to the unbiased observed, yet they remain invisible to the “true believers” in the UFO community, who completely lack objectivity and whose minds are held captive to confusion, fear and uncertainty. Exactly what the counter-intelligence programmers wanted.
Conclusion:
I’ve tried to connect some dots in this piece, between the proximity of SOR to Manzano and KUMMSC as representing a strategic defensive system; between Doty/Bennowitz and Lazar/Area 51 as a systematic program at deflecting attention away from Kirtland, via a highly successful cultural urban legend involving alien craft at Groom Lake; and a purposeful strategy of confusion and doubt targeted toward the UFO research community to keep it divided and thereby fail to logically connect the dots.
I look forward to hearing from you. Stay well and write when you can.
Sincerely,
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……..
Norio Hayakawa’s CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE NEWS SERVICE
E-mail = noriohayakawa@gmail.com
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NORIO HAYAKAWA 