1980 in UFO history
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 📅 Year
Contents 3
1980 in UFO history
| Year | 1980 |
|---|---|
| Events | 7 |
| Decade | 1980s |
| Topics | Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Disinformation & hoaxes (topic), Beings & bodies (topic), Crashes & retrievals (topic) |
| Timeline | 1980 on the UAP Timeline |
1980 in UFO history — the UAP Timeline records 7 events in 1980, mostly about secrecy & cover-up and disinformation & hoaxes. People named in these events include Richard Doty, Paul Bennewitz, William Moore, Linda Moulton Howe, John Lear.
Events
- Spread of the Bennewitz disinformation (1980s Undefined) — Doty's fake document spreads to the public and into books and media.
- Doty's psychological operations claim (1980s) — Doty says an Air Force unit ran psychological operations on people who saw secret aircraft.
- Weitzel letter (1980) (July 1980) — Air Force counterintelligence officer Richard Doty delivers a forged letter to a civilian UAP group.
- Hangar 18 (film) (July 1980) — The film Hangar 18 depicts a government cover-up of a crashed UAP.
- Bennewitz affair (17 November 1980) — Doty gives physicist Paul Bennewitz a forged document to confuse him.
- NSA Yeates affidavits (1980) (18 November 1980) — In a lawsuit, the NSA files a public and a secret affidavit about its UAP records.
- Larry W. and the 1968 capture claim (14 December 1980) — A source says a former soldier witnessed a UAP capture in 1968.
People
- Richard Doty — Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent who fed disinformation to UFO researchers in the 1980s.
- Paul Bennewitz — Albuquerque physicist targeted by Air Force disinformation in the Bennewitz affair.
- William Moore — Researcher who admitted in 1989 that he cooperated with intelligence agents in the Bennewitz affair.
- Linda Moulton Howe — Journalist and filmmaker who runs the Earthfiles website and has reported many crash-retrieval claims.
- John Lear — Pilot and son of Bill Lear who spread claims of alien treaties in the late 1980s.
- Bill Cooper — Author of Behold a Pale Horse.
- Brad Sparks — UFO analyst known for his catalogue of Blue Book unknowns and work on the CIA lawsuit.
- Craig Weitzel — Civil Air Patrol member whose 1980 UFO photos led to the forged Weitzel letter.
- Barry Goldwater — U.S. senator and Air Force Reserve general who said he was denied access to UFO material at Wright-Patterson.
- Eugene Yeates — NSA official whose 1980 affidavits explained why UFO records were withheld.
Programs, places and terms
Nearby years
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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