Bob Oeschler tape-recorded a conversation on the MJ-12 subject with Bobby Ray Inman (Deputy Director of the CIA (DDCI) from 1981 to 1982, and director of Naval Intelligence as well as of the National Security Agency). Inman stated “that MJ-12 meant something to him," and that “he has been aware of a program to ‘indoctrinate the public’ in UFO matters prior to his retirement.”

August 2, 2002 Conversation with Bob Emenegger coproducer with Alan Sandler of the government sponsored UFO documentary from 1975 called “UFO's, past, present, and future.” Emenegger also provided this documentary to Steven Spielberg who incorporated the landing scene in the documentary as part of his movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Emenegger talking to History Channel

Interviewer Grant Cameron 

GC: I am posting two items on the Internet, and both involve you so I wanted to check on a couple of things with you? 

RE: Sure 

GC: The one thing that I am posting is – you referred to it as your “CIA memo” in your book.

RE: Sure. Huh-huh.

GC: I obtained it through Jacques Vallee, and it is being posted as a historic document with everything in it. My question to you regarding that is – How did you determine that this was a CIA memo? What is the story of how you saw it? 

RE: Well I think his name was Mendinhall. Is that correct?

GC: That name doesn’t ring a bell. 

RE: Well who was the author of it, because I have talked to him on the phone. 

GC: Lundahl? Arthur Lundahl?

RE: Lundinhall. No -  its just Lundahl isn’t it? 

GC: Ya. Arthur Lundahl.

RE: Ya. I kept thinking it was like Lundenhall. Because I talked to him on the phone about it number one. I was told about it by Bob Friend you know, and I think it was confirmed by Coleman, and so I have no reason when people like that tell me about it and I asked the man himself if he would appear in the special. He really got uneasy about it. He just didn’t want to do that.

GC: You are talking about Lundahl from the CIA?

Lundahl on left with CIA Director and President

RE: Ya. Huh Huh. 

GC: What did you see – a handwritten or typed? 

RE: It seems like it was provided to me as a handwritten – that’s the way I recall it. If Jacques had a copy of it that is good enough for me. 

GC: But you got it from J. Allen Hynek right? 

RE: I got it from – you ask who did I get it from originally?

GC: Yah.

RE: I think it was Bob Friend who brought it up because he was involved in it for the Air Force. The Air Force was called in because it was a UFO incident.

GC: But the actual copy. I think it is 11 pages I have. It is handwritten. Is that the one you used in your book? 

RE: Certainly the information that I used. 

GC: But you didn’t see a document that had CIA on it? 

RE: I don’t recall it having a heading on it like CIA. 

GC: There is some confusion as to. The story that I have is that J. Allen Hynek saw it in Friend’s office. 

RE: Now that’s probably right. 

GC: And he handcopied it in his hand writing. 

RE: Now that’s very very possible, because I really – you know – at that time we had so many other things to cover. That is not one that I concentrated on other than allowing Bob Friend to tell the story, and tell me along with Hynek – those who were involved that’s how I knew about it. It is not like I was a researcher. That was probably never made clear to anyone but I was provided with all the information. 

GC: And Lundahl basically confirmed it?

RE: Yes, because I said, “I would like you to participate in this. We are going to talk about that incident. Would you be on camera?” He got kind of – he said well “No I wouldn’t. Its kind of embarrassing now. There are still some of the agents. He said “Some of the agents are still working, and I think that was the essence of it. I really can’t tell you a whole lot more about it, except that it was an absolute incident confirmed all the way around. I don’t think that Bob Friend would have walked through the halls of that CIA building which was a parking structure, and tell this whole story, so I have to assume that those people who were involved are speaking – but I don’t remember anyone making up a story.

GC: And Coleman basically went along with it as well?

RE: Well they all had a chance. As a matter of fact, you know, one of our agreements was to go over the script at the Pentagon, and if there was any question about anything they had the right to ask about it. Strangely enough, no one even questioned the thing about the landing at Holloman Air Force Base. It was like, “Well OK.” I thought it was very interesting. 

GC: Well a question that I wasn’t going to ask you, but now that you have brought it up. What was your impression at the time as to what was going on?

RE: from the beginning you mean? 

GC: What is your impression when you get people like Coleman coming up with these bizarre stories? What was their actual role? What were they trying to do?

Coleman in middle. Sitting for 1988 show UFO Cover-up Live,

RE: Well as you know. I was not a believer, nor was my partner. I am sure that you know all of this. We went to Norton Air Force Base to discuss other things, among them 3-D moving holography, laser and cancer, all of the R&D advancements – ARPA kind of projects, and the UFO thing was brought up to us. I just couldn’t believe, but said Oh Well I’ll go along with it, and one conversation led to another, a contact with the Pentagon. Everyone couldn’t have been more open about what we were doing. Anyone along the line could have questioned, and said which I expected, “What the hell are you guys talking about?” This included George Weinbrenner, if you recall. 

GC: Was he involved in the beginning or later on? 

BE: No, It all unfolded. One would call another. For instance Coleman would say “Hold on” as we were sitting in his office. He would put a call into George and say, “Do you want to talk to these guys?” A day later I think we went down into the bunker, and there confronted George. We couldn’t have – I think I was pretty straightforward. My first question was, “What about the landing of the craft at Holloman Air Force base.” 

He kind of went “Well I’ll tell you, and then we went off and talked about the Soviets, and all around the clock. I am sure I must have expressed this in the book. He talked about everything – spying on the Soviets, weather alteration, that that was the worry. Then he said, “I have the best scientists working on counter strategies for weather alteration.” I don’t remember if my partner was with me, or whether I was just sitting there alone. I don’t remember. Then he said scientists like this and he plopped this book in my lap, opened it up, and it said “To my good friend General George Weinbrenner. From Dr. Allen Hynek.” The book was on UFOs. It had nothing to do with weather, as if to say, “Yah. I know what you are talking about.” It was just wonderful. It was like a Kafka play.

GC: The other question I had was related to the live alien. This is related to Swan which I worked on for 20 years.

RE: Someone told a very interesting story about Swan and her background. I can’t recall where it was, but it gave much more insight into that woman’s psyche. I don’t know if that was something you wrote, or someone else had written. 

GC: Yes. The Canadians had looked at her, and I think navy intelligence, and then you had the aspect with the central Intelligence Agency. As to whether they followed up on it I am not too sure.

RE: Well, as I get further into it I can see the one Navy Intelligence commander. One was very susceptible or interested in all this. It may have slanted the way he felt about what he was doing. The only thing that was absolutely amazing to me was that they asked those three questions. I don’t know? Are they in the written document?

GC: Yes. You are talking about the thing with the Catholics?

RE: Yes, do you favor any or is there going to be a third world war? Can we see a vehicle or spacecraft, and then apparently everyone goes to the window. I suppose it is reported that way.

GC: Yes. It’s in the memo. 

RE: They seem to see something. I’m not going to say seem as they said they saw something and they asked for radar confirmation, and the fact that that quadrant was blocked out on radar. I think that was pretty hairy.

GC: And Lundahl did confirm to someone indirectly that they did see this thing out the window 

RE: And maybe you know, as the dust had settled, and it was a few years later when I was talking to him he was probably thinking back, “Oh God No I don’t want that. They will think I’m a crackpot. 

GC: He did have the reputation as having one of the largest UFO book collections around. One researcher I knew saw them and said it was one of the largest UFO collections he had ever seen.

RE: Oh he did !

GC: He was in to it, but because of his position he had to stay out of the limelight.

RE: You know if you are prone towards believing certain things you tend to fill in the blanks sometimes. I know that Bob Friend said that the Air Force wanted to develop it more. He went to his commanding officer who said, “Forget it, I’m taking over from here.” He never found out what happened after that.

GC: And the live alien is another one. . .

RE: That puzzles me. I don’t know what you mean by the live alien.

GC: Well the whole story – I have about 12 references starting in 1951 with the government sort of coming out and telling this story that they had a crashed flying saucer, and that an alien had survived. I think you were offered an interview.

HE: That I was. 

GC: Yah.

RE: Well I’ll tell you something. Something did happen. I thought it was very bizarre. I didn’t believe it especially. Paul Shartle, who by the way died in an automobile accident with his wife I would say a year ago. It would have helped so much. I was trying to get Hal Puthoff  - do you know Hal?

Paul Shartle on left. Emenegger in middle. Host Mike Farrell on right. UFO Coverup Live Show.

GC. Indirectly.

RE: I tried to get him to talk to Shartle, because I’m always trying to answer for other people. I did the same thing with Coleman. I said, “Call him!” I don’t want to interpret anything. But Paul Shartle once asked me if I would be interested in going down to like New Mexico, to meet with like some alien. This sounds like what you are talking about, although it never came about. I remember that strange event. Nor did I think it would come about, if that is what you are talking about.

GC: This was in the late eighties I believe.

RE: (Laughs) Yah. That’s right.

GC: Linda Howe was offered the deal and so was Whitley Strieber.

RE: You mean to go down and meet.

GC: Most of them were not to meet the alien. They were to meet what they called “the keeper” of the live alien. He was some guy who was a Captain and was now a Colonel. One of the stories was that he was in ill health, and that they were going to arrange this interview, and they could talk to this person who had lived with this alien.

RE: I heard all of that, and the thing that really puzzles me. Like who instigated that? I know who instigated that with me. It was Paul Shartle. But who instigated it with Linda Howe. Do you know?

GC: The government keeps coming and dropping this stuff in our laps. Yours was the most important because in 1969 they shut down Blue Book which meant that this big PR problem which they had for 20 years and were trying to get out of desperately. They’re trying to dump this UFO thing. They suddenly get rid of it. They don’t ever have to deal with it again, and so why suddenly would they come to you two or three years later and start telling you these bizarre stories about landings. They didn’t have to do it.

RE: I though not too. It was out of the blue to be approached by that, and you know there was a Colonel Lane at Norton – when I probed with Shartle. I said, “Shartle, did you make up this whole business or where you doing it on your own or what. “ He said, “Well, Colonel Lane, who is OSI, sort of suggested it. When I called Lane, who I had met, he said, “Oh, Shartle is full of stories! 

Oh, man,. It gets so cloudy when you try and get any information that you are trying to trace down. You do now – I don’t know if it was in the book maybe not – that during the Reagan administration I met with Bob Scott and Miller 

GC: The two generals?  (one was a general and the other a PH.D)

RE: At Norton, and they wanted another program like we had done, and we spent a lot of time discussing it. Bob Scott was a Reagan appointee. He was the head of USIA when I first met him – Bruce Herschensohn was a Deputy Special Assistant to the President from 1972 to 1974 – I don’t know if you know who Bruce was in Washington. That’s how I knew him. Then he popped up as the head of DAVA – that film repository. He had a Glen E. Millar retired general as his aide, or second in command We spent a lot of discussion. There was a lot of stuff in the vault that he wanted to get out. I even had General Miller come to our house to meet Hynek and his group to take them out to Norton so they could look around. Even Miller said some bizarre things. He walked around in the room and said “Well they’re voice activated.” This just made Hynek go “What the hell?” Hynek goes, “What is?’

Apparently he had said he had seen a craft, in which they are activated or operated by voice or hand. I don’t remember which one it was. This was so bizarre. Miller was, interestingly enough, was head of one of the studios in Hollywood – one of the old ones. He got Reagan his first contract. So there were these strange connections. I met with Miller and Scott like at Denny’s restaurant. It was like “Meet at Denny’s and we will discuss this.”

I thought this was kind of fascinating but it never – well anyway, after Hynek came here, and he wanted to see UFO footage, and I think they started pulling it out, and Shartle came in stepped in – now I hope you have the characters correct. Miller said to him, “I want you to show Hynek all the UFO footage.”

Shartle told me that he said, “I’m sorry, Sir, you know – you will have to give me a written request for that.

The answer came back, “Listen, I’ll have your ass. You will do it.”

I was not there to know all the craziness that went on, but I do know that three months later Casper Weinberger sent a telegram relieving both Scott and Miller of their posts. Why I don’t know. I don’t even know if it was related.

GC: Interesting, because next month I am going to the Reagan library and I can look for that.

RE: Would they list anything about Scott and Miller?

GC: If there was correspondence from Casper Weinberger took place it should be there.

RE; I saw whatever the memo. . .this would have been in the eighties, -mid eighties. I thought it was very interesting. They said that the reasons were that they wanted to, I don’t know – condense things. That was was said, but I kept thinking “Do you think it had anything to do with the probing around with UFOs. I don’t know.

GC: Why did that one fall apart, because these guys were dismissed?

RE: Well, I waited around for them to get the ball rolling, and I was all set. We were ready to go. In the meantime. Interestingly enough, I knew that they were interested in terrorism to I went to MGM with them and we discussed getting a film called the “The Last Option” or something – a British made film with the SAS. Be sure that it was shown to all the troops. I was just along to see if, and I was thinking of one time doing a special on terrorism, and they were cooperating. I put together a bunch of – now I am not a producer so you know – when you are a creative person you get trampled by people on the business side. I was never really able to put it together. Then waiting for whatever there was to wait for, I kept thing is it Reagan. Is he the one that is interested in all this? They would never say.

I can’t imagine two men –responsible men – who were in responsible positions going along with some strange gag, like lets get more information out about the UFOs. It doesn’t make sense. Every time I talk to Hal Puthoff, he’s saying, “What’s behind this?”

Is it some kind of run it up the flag pole, or make the Soviets think we have got something. Maybe it has nothing to do with UFOs.

GC: That’s why I thought your case was so important. Take Bill Moore after he released the Roswell book he got numerous contacts with a bunch of stuff that ended up not going anywhere. Then you can say its disinformation to sort of cloud the material that he is releasing In your case, it was very bizarre, because there was nothing you could say was disinformation. Why throw people off when the whole project was shut down? There was nothing in 1972. It was deadsville.

RE: Although that’s when I was told. There was a mystery person by the name of Alfonso Lorenzo who supposedly apprised Shartle of the material coming through. We finally got his telephone number, and I gave it to my partner  Allan Sandler. About a year or two later, we were saying, why don’t we call the guy. We couldn’t find the telephone number. It was one of those. I don’t know – chaing clouds or something. It really is.

As to Bill Moore. I did meet Bill Moore before, and I did read his papers on Roswell. At that time when I first read the, when they first came out. They were clipped together papers. It just didn’t seem to make any sense to me at that point, and then the story grew and grew. In fact Corso came to our house, who knew nothing as far as I could see about UFOs, back back. Do you know which one he is 

GC: Yes. This is before he wrote the book?

RE: Yes. He came with a film writer who I knew, and he was asking questions like someone who was interested in UFOs, but doesn’t know anything about them. He said “Well I found something in my drawer.” It was a picture of an alien or something. I thought, “Now that’s interesting.”

Then all of a sudden he becomes the man in the “Day After Roswell.” He was there. I think he was driven by wanting to make some money for his grandchildren or something, because what he said was so baseless in my opinion.

GC: His book material 

RE: Yes, I didn’t even read it. I just know that he didn’t see any little bodies, and there weren’t things in his drawers. He would have said something about that. He elaborated, and I don’t know. It may have been the publisher Birnes or something. It made me very mad, and yet Hall Puthoff sort of believed him. I thought how? Its like when you know somebody and you have talked to them, and then all or a sudden they become this great expert. Where did that come from?

GC: But people like Coleman. You had the impression that Coleman knew what was going on.

RE: Oh, I think so. Not only did he know the fact as I tried to express that he first tried to give us a song and dance that we could be fined and imprisoned if we got into something that we shouldn’t. Then we would go into hi inner office at the Pentagon and then we would say, “How let me tell you. I pursued a UFO in a B-25 with my crew.” He went into great detail. I don’t think someone like that would make it up. (laughs)

He said I reported it back to Blue book, and it never showed up in Blue Book. Maybe because of his position. You’re is supposed to be interfacing with the press, and they’re going to say “well naturally you’re a UFO believer.”

But Bill Moore I really thought was full of it. He was self aggrandizing. You said something about them doing disinformation. And all of that stuff about meeting people. We’ll meet somebody and you’ll get to see this film for five minutes. The thing that I have told people is – that never happened with what we did. Everything we were doing was like when you deal with business men you know. You sit down and discuss it. There’s no calls in the middle of the night, or anything. I keep thinking. Where do these people these stories. You would know if you were a writer.

I have tried to help Puthoff who is just hungry to find the answer. All I can do is tell him all I know, and head him towards people who might answer it better than I can.

GC; Well you did have a number of experiences. Did you ever deal with the Disney people?

RE: I can’t believe that! Puthoff sent me a thing saying. It said well you and Disney are mentioned in the same thing. I didn’t know what he meant, but I read the article. Isn’t it strange that Allan Sandler, my partner and I met with that guy at Disney. We had a conversation with him, but again what he told us about his experience it seemed like he didn’t really know very much. So, I don’t know. I don’t know what to say. Now Disney may have done some projects, I don’t know if it’s true. You may know more than I do.

GC: Or he may have been in the same position as you in that he really didn’t know what was going on. My impression of what is going on is that they can’t really release anything concrete, but if they release stuff that they can pull back, indirectly through you and through the different stories that they tell people. The live alien story for example. They have told this story to different researchers over the past 40 years at least 12 times.

RE: Well you know something. Timothy Good interviewed me once, and then I saw his book and he talked about me seeing the live alien or something. It really teed me off. I never said anything like that. Also he quoted Coleman as saying. Do you know that Air Force document, which was published in his book, of which the first paragraph was correct, and then he just sort of made up a second paragraph about the way the USAF should handle the UFO situation? He had to apologize for doing that. He never apologized for saying that I saw a live alien. If everybody would be straight forward, and only print what is the absolute truth – that they know is the truth, I think the whole field may dry up.

GC: In terms of what you saw. Did they ever show you film?

RE: Some. A clip. And I had a – the way that I knew whoever this being was supposed to have landed at Holloman Air Force Base had a sketch artist who sat with him along with my partner. They went over and over about what Shartle had described. They said the film was kicking around at Norton for some time. He drew- I had no idea – he drew what Shartle had told him. Then later one this alien who had been drawn with sort of a Samarian nose which got everyone very excited, except then Arren – who is the – he is one of the senators from the eastern states watched a program in which we talked about this. He demanded an investigation, so they tried to get a hold of Norton Air Force base to get a copy of the print.

Well the new regime had taken over. The ones I dealt with weren’t even there. Scott and Miller weren’t even there anymore. So they couldn’t answer the question. Shartle told me that they reviewed a print of it and that when he saw it much closer, it really didn’t have a hooked nose. They had something over their noses, like a tiny mask. So I don’t know. Believe me. As I said its Kafka time. My wife just thought that we were being used for some purpose.

That was at the end of the Nixon period when we did that project. I had been, what do you call it, recruited by the Nixon reelection committee to work on Nixon’s reelection campaign from a film point of view. I knew Bob Haldeman, and I keep things that I don’t think that had anything to do – that they would ask Allen and I to do this project. But what they may have done is just open a door so that when we went anywhere we never signed in. You know, we would walk into the Pentagon, and they didn’t necessarily want I signing in anywhere, which is maybe a technique that what is it they can say we know nothing about it.

GC: Deniability.

RE: Deniable Ya. If there is anything else I would be happy to share.

GC: Had you brought it up with Haldeman?

RE: Yes I did. In Los Angeles, and he was sort of in passing, and he said well I heard something about it. That’s all he said. Now what does it mean? Maybe everyone says that.

GC: Ya, unless he was in the loop.

RE: Ya. I don’t think he was in the know. Nixon, I don’t know if he knew. Now Reagan I feel had a personal interest. Maybe that is what got his two friends Bob Scott and Miller to probe around with it, or they were personally interested. I really don’t know.

You think people in fairly respectable positions wouldn’t be playing around with things like this. Have you found that to be true of other people? For example I know Linda Howe was conned by…

GC: Doty. You never had contact with Doty 

RE: I never was but I had them run a trace on him. I said, “Who is this guy?” So Norton Air Force Base, because they have a government computer that’s not for the public, but they traced him down because I kept saying, “Who is he?” They said, “He seems to be a sergeant.” He was on vacation or on leave in Germany at the time before I could find out much more about him. I was just curious. What is he doing jerking this girl around. I told Linda that she ought to be cautious because she is attractive. Guys are likely to say anything.

GC: He went after everyone like Whitley Strieber.

RE: Oh did he?

GC: He told the live alien story, and he told the story about Holloman, except he changed the date to 1964.

RE: Now that’s another thing that puzzles me. Someone from one of these magazines called me, and I told them the whole story and gave them the date of 1971, which as far as I know everything documents that. But Jerome something

GC: Jerome Clark?

RE: Ya.  But he was talking with Bill um…

GC: Moore?

RE: Bill Moore, and Bill Moore said no it couldn’t be 71. It has to be 64. So they wrote that in the article. I called Jerome and said, “Where did you get 64. I told you is was 71, and he said, ‘Well Bill Moore did think it was.” Well what does Bill Moore know?

 C: And Bill Moore is getting it from Richard Doty. Doty had switched the date.

RE: That’s just insane.

GC: The other one they switched the date on was with the live alien story. I don’t know ho much they told you the story about the live alien.

RE: May I tell you. The people within. The people I dealt with never even mentioned it. I am talking about Friend Coleman.

GC: In the early day? But when in the 80s when you were offered the

RE: Oh that. Your right. Someone said you can meet an alien down in New Mexico 

GC: At Los Alamos. The first one I guess you weren’t involved. The first one was the story that the live alien had been recovered in 1949, and died in 1952. This is the story that Linda Howe had been told by Richard Doty, and Moore was also putting this story out. Now some of the people have changed the date to 1947, so the dates keep changing. You’re trying to track the story, and it always goes back to a legitimate government person, and then you wonder who is actually behind it. That’s what I am trying to figure out. Why are you and Linda and all these people being contacted? It must mean something. It has been going on for 50 years.

RE: I agree. I have not pursued anything in it except when people call, I am very happy to, although I must say that I talk to Coleman quite often, and I’ve talked to friend. Often I have made arrangement for people to go and do interviews with Bob Friend. Hynek I knew. As I said he stayed at our house. The other people I really didn’t associate with Moore or even Linda on a social thing.

May I tell you on aside that may amuse you in your last moments talking to me. I love playful things. I said to Linda once, “By the way Linda. Jacques Vallee and I saw some aliens out in California.” She said, “You did? But what did they look like?”

I said, “Well, you know they were not too tall, they had curly hair.” She apparently believed and the found out maybe a year or two later when she brought it up. She was so pissed off, and it was like, Linda! Have a sense of humor. God she dug into it. She may have called Jacques. People are so wanting to believe. I wish I could have seen something. I saw enough evidence that if you were trying it in a case in court or law you could prove this phenomena absolutely exists. I remember that everybody did not deny it. It just that “it so far has not proven to be a threat to our national security.”

Anytime that I can be of any tiny service to you, give me a call.

Much more of the Emenegger US Government story is in my book Managing Magic.