A "1, 2, 3" of Some of the World's Wildest Conspiracies: JFK, UFOs and Horrific Holograms

Conspiracies: they're everywhere. Some are more dubious than others. Some have huge followings. Many are just crazy. Others seem plausible. And with that said, let's begin and take a look at three of the most controversial ones - at least as I see it!  When my book The Rendlesham Forest UFO Conspiracy was published in 2020, it provoked a lot of questions from those who read it. One issue surfaced time and again in debates, on radio, and during online chats. It revolved around the theory that the Rendlesham incidents were the creations of advanced hologram-based technology. On more than a few occasions, this led to debates of the infamous Project Blue Beam. If you don't know what it is alleged to be, read on. Within the field of conspiracy theorizing, there are few greater controversies than Project Blue Beam. Allegedly, it is the brainchild of a secret group of powerful figures in, among many others, NASA, the United Nations, the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, and the Vatican. Project Blue Beam, so the story goes, will be at the forefront of a program to create a new society dominated by a ruthless one-world government.

And how might such a government come about? By faking the second coming of Jesus Christ, specifically by using sophisticated hologram-type technology to project huge images of the Son of God across the skies of the United States, Canada, Australia, and much of Europe. Other parts of the world will see massive images of Buddha, of Allah, of Krishna, of Muhammad (and the list goes on), depending on the regions, the people and their cultures, and the beliefs of the relevant nations. In mere days, however, each and every one of those images will merge into one far more sinister and terrifying image: that of the Anti-Christ, who will inform the people of Earth that not a single one of the world’s religions has the correct version of events. Only the claim of this nightmarish entity will be seen as the accurate version. As a result, the entire human race will be expected to bow down and worship the Anti-Christ.

Such a thing will result in worldwide chaos, disorder, and anarchy - which the people behind Project Blue Beam shrewdly know only all too well. With the world plunged into states of fear and mayhem, this terrible ruse will then allow the United Nations to coordinate a planet-wide program to enslave the Earth’s entire population. That's quite a story, to say the least. The source of the undeniably outrageous Project Blue Beam story was Serge Monast, a journalist from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Although Monast began in his career in regular journalism, by 1994 he was focused almost exclusively on conspiracy theories, including matters relative to Masonic-based conspiracy theories and matters relative to the one-world government scenario. It was at this time that Monast claimed to have uncovered massive amounts of secret information on Project Blue Beam, and how it would be utilized to enslave all but that aforementioned elite. That Monast died in December 1996, of a heart attack, and at the age of just fifty-one, has led to suspicions that he was murdered by agents of this dangerous program. The reason: to prevent Monast from blowing the whistle, big-time, on the project.

This issue of utilizing holograms to fool the military personnel in Rendlesham Forest (and at Royal Air Force Bentwaters), Suffolk, England in December 1980 sounds very much like certain aspects of Project Blue Beam. Albeit, on an extremely scaled-down size, of course. With that in mind, it would not surprise me at all if the story of Project Blue Beam was a deliberately planned fabrication of such outrageous and over-the-top proportions that no-one would believe that advanced holograms could ever be created and used. In other words, bury the truth of the Rendlesham Forest holograms by inserting into the UFO community wholly-over-the-top tales of incredible, religion-based holograms in the form of Project Blue Beam. I can totally accept a scenario in which a small hologram-based project was deployed to determine if military personnel in an English forest could be deceived into seeing what they believed was a UFO (or several). But, a worldwide deception that targets everyone on the planet? And succeeds to a 100 percent degree? Not a chance.

One final point on all of this: it was in the early 1990s when the theory - that the Rendlesham Forest affair had holograms at its heart - first began to surface. And, it was in 1994 - just a couple of years later - that the Project Blue Beam scenario was fed to Serge Monast, something that led him to write his book, Project Blue Beam (NASA). An attempt to diffuse the real controversies surrounding Rendlesham's genuine holograms and smother them with over-the-top tales that most people would laugh at? For me, at least, that's a plausible reason why the utterly bogus Project Blue Beam scenario was concocted.

Now, let's have a look at the so-called "Secret Space Program."  When, on July 20, 1969, NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the surface of the Moon, it began a new era in the United States’ space program. Further manned missions continued until 1972. Plans were formulated to establish a permanent, manned base on the surface of the Moon. Then, in 1973, NASA launched its first space station, Skylab. Eight years later, the Space Shuttle was unveiled. Today, however, things are very different. NASA no longer has a manned space program. The only way for U.S. astronauts to head into Earth orbit, and spend time at the International Space Station, is to hitch a ride with the Russians. What went wrong? Some say that nothing went wrong. Rather, the theory is that although NASA’s manned space program is largely no more, there exists – deep within the heart of the U.S. military – a secret group that is running a clandestine space program. We might even be talking about highly classified return missions to the Moon, and possibly even secret flights to Mars.

UFO/Secret Space Program authority Richard Dolan says: “Over the years I have encountered no shortage of quiet, serious-minded people who tell me of their knowledge that there is such a covert program. Are there bases on the far side of the Moon? I do not know for sure, but I cannot rule it out.” One person who is convinced that there is a secret space group is Gary McKinnon, a British man who had a ufological Sword of Damocles hanging over his head for the best part of a decade, after very unwisely deciding to hack the US Government for secrets of the UFO kind in 2001. According to McKinnon, while illegally surfing around classified systems of both NASA and the U.S. military, he came across a list titled “Non-Terrestrial Officers.” McKinnon said of this discovery: “It doesn’t mean little green men. What I think it means is not Earth-based. I found a list of fleet-to-fleet transfers, and a list of ship names. I looked them up. They weren’t U.S. Navy ships. What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off-planet.”

Now, let's take a look at the strange and controversial issue of how the JFK assassination of November 22, 1963, ties in with UFOs. A man who had the dubious “honor” of appearing in numerous books on the assassination of JFK, Guy Banister entered the FBI in 1934 and made a name for himself in the Bureau in New York. He stayed in the Bureau until 1954. One year later, Banister moved to Louisiana and took on the position of Assistant Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department. Things were sure to go very wrong for Banister, however, all thanks to his hair-trigger temper. One night in New Orleans in 1957, Banister – who was known for getting into fiery rages when hard liquor took hold of him - threatened to pistol-whip a guy in a local bar. Also, he took out his rage on a waiter in the same bar. It was all but inevitable that Banister would lose his position in the NOPD. He did. Banister wasn’t done, though: he put together his very own organization, Guy Banister Associates, Inc., a private detective agency.

That Banister was someone who had his hands in multiple pies is a matter of history. In the summer of 1960, he decided to move his office in New Orleans from the Balter Building to 531 Lafayette Street. Notably, just around the corner of Lafayette was another entrance to the same building, but with the entry point being on 544 Camp Street. The very same address was discovered on papers – of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee – circulated by one of the most infamous characters in 20th century history: Lee Harvey Oswald. This was confirmed by the Warren Commission that investigated the death of JFK. Jim Garrison – the District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana from 1962 to 1973 – was also onto the Banister-Oswald links, and with a passion and an obsession. After Banister passed away, in June 1964, his widow discovered yet more Fair Play for Cuba Committee papers in his voluminous filing-cabinets. And Banister’s secretary admitted to the Warren Commission that Banister and Oswald had a connection. Cue yet another controversial player: David Ferrie, someone who also had ties to Banister and Oswald. 

It’s a rarely discussed fact that Guy Banister was one of the very first of the FBI’s Special- Agents to investigate UFOs in 1947 – the year in which the term “Flying Saucer” was created. Altogether, Banister investigated eleven UFO cases in that period. Certainly, the most controversial case that Banister looked into was highlighted in the pages of the Tacoma News Tribune of July 12, 1947. It reads: “FBI agent W. G. Banister said an object which appeared to be a ‘flying disk’ was found early today at Twin Falls, [Idaho] and turned over to federal authorities there. Banister, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Montana and Idaho, said the bureau had reported the discovery to the army at Fort Douglas, Utah. An FBI agent in Twin Falls, inspected the ‘saucer’ and described it as similar to the ‘cymbals used by a drummer in a band, placed face to face.’ The object measured 30 ½ inches in diameter, with a metal dome about 14 inches high on the opposite side, anchored in place by what appeared to be stove bolts. The gadget is gold plated on one side and silver (either stainless steel, aluminum or tin) on the other. It appeared to have been turned out by machine, reports from Twin Falls said. The FBI declined to elaborate further.” 

This case was shown to have been a good-natured prank and nothing more. Notably, though, and as a result of the exposure, Banister was given a classified briefing on the UFO phenomenon by Army personnel at Fort Douglas, Utah. The extent to which Banister may have been exposed to UFO secrets as time went along is not at all clear. What we do know, however, is that Banister was one of the first people to be tied to both UFOs and the murder of JFK. As was noted above, the story of Banister, the FBI, the Army, and the Flying Saucer phenomenon, was splashed over the pages of the Tacoma News Tribune in July 1947. There’s another Tacoma connection to all of this – a connection that provides even more JFK/UFO-related links. June 21, 1947 was the date of one of the most mysterious and widely-debated incidents in UFO lore. A man named Harold Dahl, his young son, and several men were shocked and amazed by the sight of a veritable squadron of circular UFOs, with holes around the sides, flying over the waters of Maury Island, Puget Sound, Washington State. Five of the craft seemed to be moving in a smooth fashion at roughly 2,000-feet. That certainly couldn’t be said of one of them: it was clearly, and dangerously, out of control. It exploded and showered material into the water. Today, the story remains as controversial now as it was then. But, there's something else.

While Harold Dahl largely fell into obscurity afterwards, the same cannot be said for Fred Crisman. He became a prominent figure within the Kennedy assassination. Indeed, in 1968, when District Attorney Jim Garrison was at the height of his investigation of JFK’s death, Crisman was subpoenaed by Garrison, himself. Garrison had it in his mind that Crisman wasn’t just a minor figure in the death of the president. For Garrison, Crisman was quite possibly one of the assassins at Dealey Plaza, Dallas on November 22, 1963. Garrison was sure Crisman was poised and ready to go on the fateful day, but in the guise of one of three “hoboes” – as they were described - seen lurking around the Grassy Knoll when JFK was shot. Dr. Bob Wood said that, according to some of those controversial documents that UFO researcher Timothy Cooper was provided, “…some of the debris from Maury Island was turned over by Crisman to a CIA agent named ‘Shaw.’” 

Investigative author Kenn Thomas said this was very likely Clay Shaw – one of several people that Jim Garrison attempted to indict during his quest for the truth surrounding the JFK assassination. And while Shaw was found not guilty on all charges, his connections to the CIA asset have since then been confirmed. By none other than the CIA itself. Ufologist Ryan Wood said: “For his part, Garrison claimed that his prosecution of Shaw was a ‘toe-hold’ to a larger conspiracy in which Fred Crisman may have been an assassin working on behalf of the aerospace industry, which had its own reasons for wanting JFK dead.” One final thing of note comes from Garrison. In his 1988 book, On the Trail of the Assassins, he said: “Upon my return to civilian life after World War II, I followed my family tradition and went to law school at Tulane, obtaining both Bachelor of Laws and Master of Civil degrees. Shortly thereafter I joined the FBI. As a special agent in Seattle and Tacoma, I was very impressed with the competence and efficiency of the Bureau.” 

On his pre-assassination days with Guy Banister, Garrison wrote: “I knew Banister fairly well. When he was in the police department, we had lunch together now and then, swapping colorful stories about our earlier careers in the FBI. A ruddy-faced man with blue eyes which stared right at you, he dressed immaculately and always wore a small rosebud in his lapel.” That Garrison knew Guy Banister, and worked out of Tacoma, suggests that Garrison may have known much more about all of those interlinking matters. And, the JFK-UFO issues continue to grow. No doubt, some of you have your very own conspiracy theories. Let me know!