Have People Been Murdered For What They Knew About UFO Secrets?

Have people been murdered for what they knew about UFOs? It’s a controversial question, to say the very least. Nevertheless, such inflammatory claims have swirled around for decades. And, that’s the theme of today’s article. We’ll begin with the matter of UFOs and JFK: President John F. Kennedy, who was shot and killed at Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. A man named John Lear was at the forefront of it all. And what a controversy it was. Coast to Coast AM said of Lear that he was “…a retired airline captain and former CIA pilot, as well as the son of the famous inventor of the Lear Jet. He is a former Lockheed L-1011 Captain and is highly regarded in aviation circles. He has flown over 150 aircraft and has earned every certificate granted by the Federal Aviation Administration. John also held 18 world speed records and has worked for 28 different Aircraft Corporations. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, John began coming forward with some startling revelations concerning the subject of aerial phenomena and Unidentified Flying Objects.” In promoting what amounted to the wilder side of Ufology, Lear provoked a big debate and quickly rocked the UFO world. Mind you, the stodgy, over-the-hill, and stuck-in-the-mud old Flying Saucer folks needed someone to bring them into a new era of aliens, Area 51 and the Internet.

In 1987, Lear came out with some extraordinary information – much of which would have had Fox Mulder salivating uncontrollably. Even skeptic Dana Scully would have had a few sleepless nights after hearing all of that. Of the Kennedy-UFO links, Lear wrote: “The powers that be had to eliminate President Kennedy because he wanted to release the information on the disks [a little-used term for “UFO”] and the aliens in 1963. Since then, we have talked to people who have heard the recording made in the Oval Office when Kennedy pounded his fist and told the representatives of MJ-12 [supposedly, a top secret group in the U.S. government that oversees UFO secrecy, and that will surface again later]: ‘You guys better get your stuff together because I’m going to tell the public.’” Truth or disinformation? We still don’t know. Connected to a degree, to the death of JFK, is the controversy surrounding the late legend, Marilyn Monroe. For years, rumors have circulated that Marilyn was killed because of what the Kennedy brothers knew about UFOs. And, supposedly, she was told more than a few top secret stories of the alien type. The result: she had to go. She did, at just thirty-six in August 1962.

Now, it’s time to turn our attention to the most famous UFO case of all: Roswell. Miriam Bush was someone who knew exactly what happened on the Foster Ranch in early 1947. Not only that, she paid for that knowledge with her life. Miriam Bush has, at times, been incorrectly described as a nurse who worked at the military hospital at the Roswell Army Air Field. She was not: Bush was actually an executive secretary at the base. The distinction may sound small, but the fact is that Bush’s position meant that she would have been in a prime position to see the mangled bodies when they were secretly brought to the base. Bush’s immediate superior was Lieutenant Colonel Harold Warne; he played a significant role in the autopsies of the dead people used in the experiment. She knew the truth and kept it hidden for decades. In her older age, Miriam became to suspect that “the government” was after her. Maybe, it was: Without warning, and on a particular day in December 1989, Miriam took off for San Jose, California and checked into a local motel under her sister’s name – a strange action, and which further suggests that she was concerned she was being watched. After all, why would she try and obfuscate her real identity, if she had nothing to hide? The very next day, Bush was found dead in that very same motel room. A plastic-bag was around her neck.

In 1955, one of the most controversial of all the many and varied UFO books published in that era was released – and, for the UFO field, to a distinct fanfare. Its title was The Case for the UFO. The author was Morris K. Jessup. His book was a detailed study of the theoretical power-sources for UFOs: what was it that made them fly? How could they perform such incredible, aerial feats, such as coming to a complete stop in the skies, hovering at incredible heights? Jessup believed that the vitally important answers lay in the domain of gravity. Or, as he saw it: anti-gravity. Jessup may well have been onto something, as it wasn’t long at all before the world of officialdom was on Jessup’s back – specifically senior figures in the U.S., Navy. And it was one particularly intriguing office of the Navy that was watching Jessup – a “special weapons” division. Clearly, someone in the U.S. Navy was interested in, and perhaps even concerned by, Jessup’s findings and theories.

Just like Miriam Bush in relation to Roswell, 1950s-era ufologist Morris Jessup became deeply worried – paranoid, even – that he was being spied on by certain elements of the U.S. government. Much of this revolved around what Jessup knew about the legendary “Philadelphia Experiment” – an alleged secret test to make a battleship radar-invisible, but that resulted in many of the crew literally going invisible. Some went mad. Others died young. Jessup was sure there was a connection between UFOs and the Philadelphia Experiment. In the early evening of April 20, 1959, the lifeless body of Morris Jessup was found in his car, which was parked in the Matheson Hammock Park in Miami, Florida. The car’s engine was still running and a hosepipe, affixed to the exhaust, had been fed through the driver’s side window. Jessup was dead from the effects of carbon-monoxide. Jessup’s body was found by a man named John Goode, who worked at the park. Shocked at the sight before him, Goode quickly called the police, who arrived in no time at all. Suicide? That’s what some in Ufology said. Others, though, were sure that Jessup’s death had been staged.

Back in 1997 longtime ufologist and author, Jenny Randles, told me of something along these lines. Her source, “Robert” – a U.K. miilitary man – shared more than a few UFO scerets. Jenny, In late 1986, was told of a classified document titled “Elimination of Non-Military Personnel.” She stated to me: “[Robert] said that this was a document discussing the ways in which witnesses who had come into possession of too much information on UFOs were silenced. And although this sounds very much like something out of a spy film, from his detailed discussion of a number of case-histories in the file, the one tactic that was used most often – particularly with people in influential positions – was to offer them high-paid jobs in government departments. They had pretty much determined that, where money was concerned, people usually comply.” Randles added: “But, there was a discussion of the so-called Men in Black – people going around warning people about national security and intimidating them into silence. However, Robert told us that this tactic was only used on those whose instability was considered to be significant enough that, if they ever told their story publicly, it would not be considered credible.”

Then there was one final tactic: if financial incentives didn’t work, and “instability” wasn’t relevant, there was always termination. Robert stressed to Randles that this last-resort tactic was rarely ever used, primarily because of the dicey and fraught nature of trying to make a murder look like a suicide or an accident. Sinister, to be sure.