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may not be too surprising then that in November of 1980 the Director of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory sat in on a meeting with Paul Bennewitz. He appears to have been particularly interested in what he was hearing.
     
    With the end of Project Blue Book in 1969, the Air Force officially no longer investigated unidentified flying objects. Writing to the Air Force about this phenomenon almost invariably results in a form letter explaining that Blue Book is over and they no longer have any official interest. In the case of Paul Bennewitz however, there was some very serious interest. For several months after taking those late night films, Paul was in contact with individuals at Kirtland AFB as he tried to generate official interest in what he saw as a serious problem. Whether or not what Paul had filmed was actually a threat to the weapons storage area may be debatable, but one thing is clear—no one in the Air Force or anywhere else was denying that he did have something on film.
    Perhaps just as significant is the fact that they have never offered any explanation for it. Details of the Air Force interest in Paul’s evidence became public knowledge starting with several documents released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It was one of these documents that contained a report of a meeting that took place on the grounds of Kirtland AFB.
    In November of 1980, the Air Force invited Paul to come to Kirtland AFB and present evidence he had collected. He brought it all with him, presenting pictures from his films as well as information on the electronic recordings he had made. According to the list of those who attended, Major Ernest Edwards was not at the meeting even though he had been the first person Paul had contacted at Kirtland AFB. Neither was the now infamous Special Agent Richard Doty of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Nor was Jerry Miller, a curious figure who assisted Doty in his investigation and who, a few weeks prior to the meeting, had accompanied Doty to Paul’s home (more in Chapter 13). Several years later Ernest Edwards would comment that representatives of the Air Force Test and Evaluation Center (the branch where Miller purportedly worked) had been present at the meeting, though again, neither Edwards nor Miller are listed among the attendees.
    A Brigadier General, William Brooksher of the Air Force Office of Security Police, was in attendance. Brooksher may have felt a unique sense of déjà vu at this meeting. Exactly five years earlier, in November of 1975, he had been Commander of the 341st Strategic Missile Wing at Malmstrom AFB, Montana 1 when there was a very notable UFO intrusion over a Minuteman missile silo 2 . In 1980, at the Kirtland AFB meeting, Brooksher was accompanied by six other ranking Air Force officers from the base. Major Thomas A. Cseh, Commander of the Base Investigative Detachment, and whose signature is on the document detailing this meeting, was among those present. These Air Force officers are listed first in the document, including their rank and current assignment. Then, two other individuals are listed…a Dr. Lehmann, director of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, and Ed Breen, an AFWL Instrumentation Specialist.
    Before this meeting took place several people already had seen some of Paul’s evidence. Based on conversations I later had with Ernest Edwards it was clear to me that he, and likely others, believed that this meeting was warranted. It was also clear that Paul’s allegations were supported by more than mere signals out of the ether or ink trails on linear recorder strips. One look at what was in those nighttime films would have made that obvious to anyone. After decades of official denial, what could have motivated the Air Force to risk the potential public relations uproar of an official meeting on base simply to view one man’s evidence of “flying saucers”? That fact itself speaks volumes about what Paul had to show. Even more