522: DEEP DIVE / UNREDACTED: How Paul Bennewitz and Ed Ruppelt Saved the World from Aliens and the CIA

The Why Files: Operation Podcast

Science, Life Sciences, Fiction, Society & Culture, Documentary, Science Fiction

4.8 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In August 1988, Paul Bennewitz had a mental breakdown, convinced of an alien and government conspiracy against him. His supposed proof of UFOs over New Mexico drew the attention of an Air Force counterintelligence agent. This agent fed Bennewitz's belief in aliens for years, ultimately leading to his institutionalization.

The summer of 1952 saw a flurry of UFO activity over Washington, D.C. Edward J. Ruppelt of Project Blue Book seemed the only one taking it seriously amidst bureaucratic obstacles. After a scientific panel recommended downplaying UFO reports to avoid hysteria, Ruppelt retired. His subsequent book criticized the change in UFO policy. Both he and Bennewitz asked too many questions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In August of 1988, Paul Benowitz went insane.
0:04.4	For almost a decade he had been researching and documenting
0:07.6	UFO activity around Albuquerque, New Mexico.
0:10.4	He had films of UFOs over Kirtland Air Force base. He had archives of transmissions
0:15.7	intercepted from alien spacecraft. He had proof of an alien incursion. He reported his findings
0:22.3	to the Air Force. They told Paul, you're on to something, keep going. He did, and it broke him.
0:29.0	Paul Benowitz was convinced aliens and the government were working together plotting against him.
0:35.0	He was convinced his wife was an alien.
0:37.5	He barricaded himself in his garage with sandbags.
0:41.1	Then he was committed to a mental hospital more than once.
0:44.0	When the UFO World heard about Paul's case, some people were shocked.
0:49.0	Other people took credit for Paul's declining mental health.
0:52.0	Why? Well, because for those people, credit for Paul's declining mental health.
0:52.7	Why?
0:53.7	Well, because for those people, making UFO believers go insane wasn't an unfortunate accident.
0:59.3	It was their job.
1:07.0	Born in 1927, Paul spent his childhood playing with radio equipment.
1:14.0	When he was 17, he joined the Coast Guard and served in World War II as a radio electronics engineer.
1:20.0	After the war, he worked as an engineer for television stations in San Francisco and Tucson.
1:25.3	In 1949, while studying at Arizona State University, he married Cindy Bunch.
1:30.9	In 1953, they moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
1:34.0	There, Paul started his own electronics lab.
	...

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