William Moore
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 👤 Person
Contents 6
| Type | Person |
|---|---|
| On the Timeline | 6 events, 1956–1989 |
William Leonard "Bill" Moore (born 31 October 1943) is an American author and UFO researcher, prominent from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. He co-wrote the first book on the Roswell incident and helped circulate the Majestic 12 documents, and in 1989 he publicly admitted taking part in an Air Force disinformation operation against physicist Paul Bennewitz.[1][2]
Early career
Moore graduated from Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania, in 1965 and taught language and humanities at several high schools. He became Arizona state section director of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and left teaching to work as a freelance writer.[1]
Books
With Charles Berlitz, author of popular books on the Bermuda Triangle, Moore wrote The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility (1979), about an alleged 1943 Navy experiment that made a ship invisible, and The Roswell Incident (1980), the first book about the 1947 Roswell events, which argued that an alien craft had crashed. Critics described the first as a repeat of an unfounded legend and the second as a collection of hearsay, but The Roswell Incident launched the modern Roswell story.[1][3]
Majestic 12 and intelligence contacts
In the early 1980s Moore developed contacts with people in Air Force intelligence, including Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) agent Richard Doty at Kirtland Air Force Base, who he believed could give him access to genuine secret documents. In December 1984 his associate, TV producer Jaime Shandera, received an anonymous roll of film showing the Majestic 12 "Eisenhower Briefing Document", and in May 1987 Moore, Shandera and Stanton Friedman circulated the documents. Researchers have noted that all early recipients of the papers were connected to Moore, and the FBI later concluded that the main document was bogus.[1][4]
The 1989 admission
At the MUFON symposium in Las Vegas in July 1989, Moore stunned the audience by admitting that he had been co-opted by AFOSI and had passed information about Paul Bennewitz's activities to Air Force agents, watching as false documents and stories were fed to him, in return for promised access to genuine information. According to Mark Pilkington's Mirage Men, details Moore supplied were used to create bogus documents. Moore said he had been misled with false promises. After the speech he largely withdrew from UFO research.[1][5]
On the UAP Timeline
- Allende letters and the Philadelphia Experiment (April 1956) — Morris Jessup receives letters claiming a secret Navy experiment at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
- Hill AFB landing claim (1958) (1958) — An anonymous military source claims a UAP deliberately landed at Hill AFB.
- Spread of the Bennewitz disinformation (1980s Undefined) — Doty's fake document spreads to the public and into books and media.
- Weitzel letter (1980) (July 1980) — Air Force counterintelligence officer Richard Doty delivers a forged letter to a civilian UAP group.
- Bennewitz affair (17 November 1980) — Doty gives physicist Paul Bennewitz a forged document to confuse him.
- Vallée on the disinformation campaign (1989) (17 September 1989) — Vallée writes there is a large disinformation campaign around UAP.
References
- Bill Moore (ufologist) — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Robert Goldberg, Enemies Within (2001) — Google Books · books.google.com · archived copy
- Barna William Donovan, Conspiracy Films (2011) — Google Books · books.google.com · archived copy
- Brian Dunning, "The Secret History of Majestic 12", Skeptoid #528 · skeptoid.com · archived copy
- Mark Pilkington, Mirage Men (2010) — Google Books · books.google.com · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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