Larry Hancock's Blog, page 8
May 18, 2022
UFO Dialog
This week is seeing the first Congressional hearings on UFO’s/UAP’s in decades. If you have missed what is going on the following story gives a good overview:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/17/pentagon-dod-ufos-00032929
My personal concern is that there was not sufficient focus on the UAP’s as a national security issue, rather than as simply unidentified objects. As an example, the hearings did produce an acknowledgement that large drone swarms (unidentified) operated around and essentially engaged U.S. Navy units – I would have expected that to produce a lot of interest but it appears to have passed by without much notice or concern (actually I would expect that to bring people on a national security/intelligence committee off their seats).
While much attention was given to more or less contemporary Navy pilot reports, other incidents very much related to national security didn’t even get a mention – as an example, the Air Force and NORAD’s performance in the following incident should really have been something of a concern for this committee:
What also seems clear is that the broader historical context of UFO’s/UAP’s is missing from the conversation – even the portions that deal with national security, such as the well known “northern tier” Strategic Air Command base incidents including incidents at Loring AFB. You can read about below but which the officers interviewed by the committee stated that reports at atomic weapons bases were totally new to them?!
In any event, for those readers who would like an introduction to the subject, the following link will take you to a recent interview of mine which is a general exploration of the subject; it would serve as a good backgrounder if you’ve never paid that much attention to either UFOs (unidentified objects) or UAP’s (unidentified phenomena).
May 5, 2022
Update
I’ve been totally inactive in terms of blogging lately so I thought it would be good to give an update to what I’m actually doing –
First off, I’ve waded back into JFK research for at least a time, focusing on the mysteries related to the months immediately before the attack in Dallas. To a large extent that’s driven by what we have learned from the Red Bird leads as well as the more detailed view into how Lee Oswald (or more specifically his identity and the public image of him that emerged in New Orleans that summer) was being used by three/four different factions (including two individually compartmentalized within the CIA – CI/SIG and SAS). We can now track both down to specific individuals and fairly specific time lines and an overview of that is in Tipping Point.
Yet while we are now able to draw a much clearer picture of how others were using Oswald as a “useful idiot”, we are left with what Oswald himself perceived that he was doing during that period, in New Orleans, especially in regard to his Cuban goals and his self generated cover of a return to Russia for Marina (or he and Marina, just to add more complexity). Which of course takes me back into the most challenging territory of all – Oswald himself. Something that at this point in time is like taking a bungee jump off the rim of the Grand Canyon.
I will say that as I (and to the extent that David Boylan and others provide some sanity checks on me) take that direction, I am much more sensitive to the fact that decades of JFK research may have added more to the mystery of Oswald than is justified.
To some extent that is based on my own aging and appreciation of two facts: a) having researched several political assassinations as well as decades of cover operations and shadow warfare I’ve become aware that history and contemporary record keeping is just plain messy and that its far too easy to find disconnects and impute large scale conspiracy in almost any situationa and b) errors of witness perception and memory are so prevalent that corroboration is absolutely mandatory before factoring in individual observations, much less claims and leads (yes, this is a reductionist view, not one which makes me comfortable with grand conspiracies or even most JFK researchers).
As if that was not enough, work in the venue of UFOs/UAPs is proceeding at a rapid pace and I’m happy to say that the pattern analysis/indention study approach is proving highly productive – mostly because I’m engaged with a team that is extremely competent in the areas of database/tools development as well as pattern and statistical analysis.
Our work in the domain of anomalous UAP activity in the atomic warfare complex and aerospace technology domains is revealing some fascinating patterns. Interpreting them with the tools of scenario development and indications mapping is just about to begin and that should be even more interesting. Anyone who wishes to follow our project work might want to consider joining the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies or at least attending its upcoming conference, where we will present an overview of our activities to date:
April 2, 2022
Ukraine Update
I really wish I was not doing this, but after having written about Putin’s strategies and tactics in Creating Chaos over five years ago – and making some projections, of which the worse case ones have proven correct – I feel compelled to comment on the tragedy (for both Ukraine and Russia) that continues unabated.
As I’ve mentioned previously, Putin’s apparent abandonment of tactics that were working extremely well as recently as the fall of 2021 (in Syria, Libya, Central Africa and most recently Belarus) is shockingly hard to understand – and appears to be largely driven by his fundamental misunderstanding of Ukraine and its post Soviet legacy, as well as his lack of experience in strategic, conventional warfare. Both are eerily reminiscent of Hitler’s WWII invasion of Russia and illustrate that neither former infantry corporals or KGB covert action field officers are exempt from making huge geopolitical mistakes. The following article illustrates that point far better than I could here:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/02/world/putin-invasion-mistakes-hitler-blake-cec/index.html
As far as what comes next, it certainly appears that the fall back Russian strategy is to proceed to secure additional separatist territory for the break away enclaves in the southeast and fragment Ukraine, establishing a base for future political warfare and ongoing fragmentation and destabilization against an independent Ukraine. Given Russia’s seemingly immense military advantage that would seem likely.
However, its important to recall that in the first major Russian conventional warfare in the east, back in 2014, Ukraine were defeated due to Russian equipment and tactics (including advanced artillery bombardment from inside Russia) which the Ukrainian Army was not prepared to combat. This time, with the advanced anti-tank and anti-air weapons which Ukraine has, its going to be much tougher and bloodier for the Russians in the East. Which does not mean they won’t take territory, but its going to cost them a lot more (including costs to the Russian separatist enclaves). Ukraine is going to fight it like a real war, and Russian bases on the border will not be exempt.
I’ve added the following link as this military blog story gives a very accurate picture of the brutality of the Russian invasion – their looting on the retreat to Belarus is particularly odious – and in particular the impact of an in depth defense with anti-armor weapons which is something new to the battlefield that Russia did not face in its first invasions of eastern Ukraine in prior years.
In fact if the shift to provide heavier weapons from the West (note – the UK and EU members are moving much more quickly in that regards than the US, which appears to have become overcautious and mired in indecision) happens quickly enough its very possible Russia will literally lose – if not territory in the east, certainly a large part of its standing Army and its missile and ground warfare assets. That is going to be really hard to replace given the sanctions (recall that Ukraine itself was the major technology vendor and advanced equipment supplier back in the Soviet era).
Another key element in this would be whether or not the UK (and the US) provide missiles of the harpoon class capable of taking out Russian warships – which have become key to their ongoing, brutal bombardment tactics.
Of course its simply speculation but one possible outcome of a war in eastern Ukraine is that “enabled” Ukrainian combat could end with Russia as something of a second tier geopolitical player (Putin has already been forced to recalled garrison forces from Georgia and Syria) , perhaps simply an ally to China as Italy was to Germany in the late 1930s. If that occurs,, Putin’s gambit will have resulted in a major resurgence for the EU and perhaps equally uncomfortably for Russia, for Turkey as well.
Anyone interested in more dialog on the Ukrainian situation might also tune in on the second half of the following session with Chuck Ochelli, which we recorded last Thursday.
March 15, 2022
UFOs (UAPs) and Science
As most of my readers know, I have spent a number of decades following the subject of UFOs – actually starting in 1964 (which is more decades than I really like to ponder). That interest culminated more recently in some seven of intense research and the publication of my work on UFOs as a national security subject.
In the book I explore the history of the American intelligence community with UFOs, focusing on how seriously both Air Force Intelligence and indeed the CIA took the subject for the first several years – even recommending it as a special task for the national intelligence community due to the implications of what appeared to be a focused series of incidents over the American atomic warfare complex. I also introduce the concept, with examples, of adapting a technique from classic threat analysis to the study of UFO activities.
Since the publication of Unidentified I’ve gone on to join the Scientific Coalition for UAP studies, and am currently participating a project devoted to the study of both the characteristics of physical UAPs observed at close range, as well as a UAP intentions study based in historical pattern analysis .
Our teams will be reporting on both those projects at SCU’s annual conference in June. Its a hybrid conference with options for in person and remote attendance. I’d certainly encourage anyone interested in the subject to participate, even if only remotely (the fee is quite reasonable). You can find out more about the conference here:
https://scu.regfox.com/2022-hybrid-scu-anomalous-aerospace-phenomena-conference-aapc
February 28, 2022
Red Bird Airport in Dallas November 1963
My fellow researcher and I are back with Doug Campbell for a very deep discussion of the anti-Castro activities of 1963, and how they connect to a very significant witness report coming out of Red Bird Airport just outside Dallas Texas in the days immediately before the assassination of President Kennedy.
Days before the attack someone slipped and revealed their knowledge of an imminent threat to the president. Who they were, why they were in Dallas and where that knowledge may well have originated are contained in the deep dive we always have during an interview with Doug. You can find it at the following link:
February 18, 2022
Putin and Ukraine
Readers of my book Creating Chaos should have a good bit of the background needed to fully appreciate the current crisis in Ukraine. In researching the book I utilized a number of excellent sources from contemporary Russian journalists and investigative reporters who had followed Putin’s path to power and the transition of from the era of “charm diplomacy” with Europe – especially with Germany and Italy – which leveraged Russian energy exports to present the new capitalist Russia as a strategic global geopolitical power. Ultimately almost all of those journalists ended in either in flight as Putin’s oligarchic friends purchased control of the Russian media, or ended up in jail or worse.
Regardless, the work of the Russian journalists allowed me to present the full context of Putin’s opposition to the “color revolutions” in the Ukraine, Georgia and other former Soviet republics. An involvement in which Russian money and political operatives faced off with money from western NGOs as well as from the Bush era global democracy initiative and spending. Amazingly the true details of those contests, and the victory of democratic election practices is no longer much covered (which is especially interesting now that the United States is generally moving to the sorts of voting controls and restrictions that directly contrast with that democracy initiative).
Its also amazing that Putin’s personal involvement in the Ukrainian elections – in which he directly campaigned for a Russian backed candidate in 2004 – is not currently not much discussed in regard to his apparent obsession with Ukraine. Putin is not a good looser, he does hold a grudge, he does get even – all of which has to be factored into what seems to be a virtual obsession with Ukraine regardless of the potential economic and personal loss it may bring to Russia as a nation.
Creating Chaos also explores the broad scope of Putin’s political warfare – which came to include combined arms and military action – both overt and covert, as demonstrated from Georgia, though Crimea and in Ukraine. With that context of what can only be considered brilliant tactics, it is somewhat shocking to me now to see Putin apparently abandon much of the finesse which he employed in his former activities – including weaponizing energy via Gazprom though the covert use of the Russian military to establish Russian enclaves to project political power (something which succeeded in Georgia well before he applied it in east Ukraine).
In fact his new blunt force tactics to create what he describes as a “Union State” (read Soviet Union but this time defined by race and culture rather than political beliefs) with Belarus the most recent example take Putin’s plain speaking to a new level – perhaps explaining now why virtually the entire world is forced to recognize the danger of his actions rather than taking a pass as they did most recently in 2014 with Crimea.
The following reporting on the response to Putin’s current moves against Ukraine illustrates the fact that both his timing and management simply don’t seem to show the sophistication associated with his earlier, very successful regime changes moves against several of the former Soviet republics and Ukraine itself, where he did successfully topple two earlier governments with a mix of economic and military action:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/19/europe/surprising-unity-in-europe-ukraine-crisis-intl-cmd/index.html
If all that sounds as if I have an opinion on Putin and the Ukraine – that would be correct. It and its based not in opinion but in the context of the extensive work I did over some years in researching and documenting the material in Creating Chaos. Recently I’ve had the opportunity to express myself on the subject in more depth and if you are interested you can find that in the following discussions:
Money Maze Putin Olympics
Ghost World Putin Game
February 3, 2022
Red Bird Leads
I’m pleased to announce that the research monograph by David Boylan and myself is now available for download and reading. The paper is a deep dive into two leads originally identified and developed by British researcher Matthew Smith.
I worked with Matthew for some years in trying to expand on the research he had done, at that time with some great help from an FAA volunteer who chose to remain anonymous and from Alan Kent. Pursuing these leads has been a process occurring literally over decades, reinvigorated by some major document research by David Boylan only in the last couple of years.
It is David’s detailed investigation of CIA documents from the JMWAVE station in Miami as well as from CIA Special Affairs Staff which enabled much of what you will see in the paper. In addition, Gary Murr’s work on the AMWORLD project (which he allowed me to extract from for a chapters in my book Shadow Warfare) as well as his related work supporting this paper were both breakthroughs in documenting the historical context for the Red Bird leads paper.
Finally, members of the Dealey Plaza UK JFK group were kind enough to agree to serialize the paper in their Journal, the Dealey Plaza Echo and to make it available on their WEB site. Given that the original work was done by DPUK member Matthew Smith, and that I worked with the group for years I’m particularly pleased to see the paper made available though them. This sort of historical research can only come from a group effort of dedicated people, and in this case is made available in a group effort as well.
So, enough introduction, take a look at this link and I hope you find it as interesting to read as it was challenging for us to research and document.
Red Bird Airfield Leads
February 1, 2022
Richard Case Nagell Revisited
The Nagell story, first written up in detail by Dick Russell in The Man Who Knew Too Much, continues to come up in Kennedy assassination discussions. I followed along behind Dick, obtaining a extensive document collection on Nagell and writing about him in my own book Someone Would Have Talked. Along the way I had done a extended study and analysis of what I term his “situational behavior” in an attempt to determine what was driving his communication and remarks about Lee Oswald and a conspiracy over the course of Nagell’s life.
There is little doubt Nagell’s story is complex, driven by his personal problems including his facial injury, his separation and later divorce from his Japanese wife, as well as his arrest for attempted back robbery (he fired a pistol inside a bank but neither requested nor took money). His court trial (in which his lawyer filed an a psychological defense – much objected to by Nagell) was tightly focused and failed to address Nagell’s actual motivation. His lawyer later said if he had only had proof of some of Nagell’s claims, especially in regard to his recent activities in Mexico City, he would have pursued a much different defense — it was decades later that definitive proof of Nagell’s time there (and his apparent attempt to defect at the US. Embassy there) would emerge.
After his release from prison his legal battles to recover his children (eventually successful) as well as to obtain a disability pension have to figure into his situational behavior – as well as what certainly has all the appearance of a CIA supported venture by Nagell across Europe including East Germany.
At the end of it all does Nagell’s story tell us something about Lee Oswald, and specifically about Oswald in 1963, more specifically about Oswald that summer in New Orleans. My judgement is that it does. Does it tells us something specific about the Dallas conspiracy and the attack in Dallas – I think not. Which is why Nagell is discussed at length in Someone Would Have Talked but not in my most recent work, Tipping Point, which focuses specifically on the Dallas plot and attack.
As to my reason for that distinction, I would refer readers to a very recent interview with Bob Wilson where he and I explore all this in detail, its probably the best dialog I have done on the Nagell conundrum and you can listen to it here:
January 23, 2022
Putin’s Political Warfare
In my book Creating Chaos I explore American political warfare during the first Cold War and go on to examine in great detail the shift in Russian geopolitics following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the year by year development of a new era of political warfare which emerged within the Russian Federation under Putin’s regimes (which introduced what can only be viewed as a second Cold War), regimes which launched a geopolitical initiative to recreate a Soviet sphere of influence.
Unfortunately I find that much of the media discussion of the current situation in Ukraine does not give nearly enough backstory as context for the conduct of Russian cyberwarfare, political warfare, and actual combat operations which developed during the second decade of this century. Certainly there is only limited discussion of Putin’s attempts/success in overturning the various “color revolutions” in Georgia and other former Soviet republics – revolutions which were largely driven by free and unrestricted voting and monitored vote counting (something which never occurred under the Soviet Regime.
Creating Chaos also explores the actual nature of the competition for influence between Western Europe and the Russian Federation, in particular the battles for influence inside Ukraine between the parties representing each – down to the level of the actual political tactics in Ukrainian elections.
I wish more people had read the book, it would certainly lead to a more informed dialog. However, for me it not only provided the real backstory to the conflict in Ukraine, but also gave me a much better feel for Putin’s strategic goals and his tactics. He is a man who routinely states exactly what he is going to do and resolutely follows his own statements – even when he chooses to lie at certain points in time, he returns later to admit both the truth of matters (such as the use of Russian special forces in Ukraine) and acknowledge his earlier lie.
Obviously I recommend my book, but if you would like at least a bit of the backstory (without the factual proofs and details provided in the book) I would recommend the recent hour long conversation I recently had with Chuck Ochelli:
Putin Game Target Ukraine
January 17, 2022
Killing King
‘Killing King’ authors Larry Hancock and Stuart Wexler take a deeper look into the plan to murder Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.The following are some of the points that I brought up during the interview. If they stimulate some questions, I’d be happy to respond here, and of course you can find Stu and my research and conclusions on the assassination itself in our book Killing King: Racial Terrorists, James Earl Ray, and the Plot to Assassinate Martin Luther King Jr
On April 4, 1968, Dr, King was standing on the balcony outside his motel room on the second floor of the Lorraine motel – he was waiting for a ride to dinner at the home of the pastor who had invited him back to Memphis to lead a second sanitation workers strike march, scheduled for the next day. He had spent the afternoon in negotiations with a local group of young men (the Invaders) which had triggered the violence associated with a previous march weeks earlier. He was killed by a rifle shot from across the street by the motel.
There was no police presence at the Lorraine itself; King’s party had requested the police keep their distance due to the tense situation which existed in regard to the sanitation workers strike and upcoming march which King was to lead in support of it. However, the Memphis Police Department had established a security presence within a block or so of the motel and a police observer was maintaining surveillance on the hotel from an adjacent fire station.
As we detail in the book, MLK had been at risk for years, in particular from radical racists in various Klan groups. We document some 9 efforts to kill him, including bounties on his life. Certain of the most militant Klan groups, particularly the White Knights of Mississippi, were especially dangerous as there leaders were followers of the Christian Identity Sect and believers that a full-scale race war was necessary to ring about Armageddon and Christ’s return.
The White Knights of Mississippi had previously offered a bounty on Dr. King, and lured him into a location in Mississippi only to have the contract killer back out because they had not raised sufficient cash. Things were different in 1968 and by then, though fund raising in Atlanta, they were in the position to offer $100,000 for the killing and a lesser amount for someone to monitor King and support the effort to kill him. As we discuss in the book, the man who responded to take the deal to support the attack on King was James Earl Ray
Rays’ speech and social background sometimes led people to underestimate his “professional” experience as a career criminal. There is no sign that he was militantly racist, according to his brothers he was always about money, and about not having to work it in any routine job.
Ray had spent years in jail and prison – serving time for a series of crimes, he had routinely used a variety of aliases and earlier had carried out a creative prison escape before he tried to leave the country via both Canada and Mexico. In short Ray was cunning, if not overly intelligent, and experienced in criminal practices including the use of aliases, false identities, and alibis.
The new investigative research in our book documents Ray’s role as an accessory to the crime. As to whether or not he himself fired the fatal shot, we consider it possible but certainly not proven by the evidence or in court. His movements and activities going from Los Angeles to Selma, Alabama, on to Atlanta, and finally to Memphis demonstrate that Ray had taken an offer to support an attack on King. He certainly went from Atlanta to Birmingham to purchase a rifle for the attack.
But the fact that Ray took all his personnel possessions into the boarding house across from the Lorraine motel and had to abandon much of it, taking only what he could hurriedly wrap in a blanket – and then had to dump that on the street as police approached – argues that that he had no plan to actually shoot Dr. King from the rooming house and no reasonable plan for an escape.
He also left a room full of evidence in Atlanta and had barely escaped capture in Memphis, driving off minutes before police closed the street. Given that and the fact that he returned to Atlanta, only to leave more evidence pointing towards himself at the rooming house where he had been staying before the shooting, suggests to Stu and I that if Ray did shoot Dr. King, it was a totally spontaneous act to earn a $100,000 bounty rather than the $10,000 fee for a support role.
Our research traced bounty money from Atlanta to Jackson, Mississippi, specifically to the White Knights who had issued the bounty – yet instead of going to Mississippi, Ray went back to Atlanta and appears to have contacted the group and been rebuffed. That suggests he had not followed the plan. That left him Atlanta where he had abandoned his car – with no transportation, limited funds and fleeing by bus to Canada where he had previously tried to escape overseas after his prison break.
Ray’s bus escape and his floundering around in Canada, where he had earlier failed in an effort to go overseas after his prison break, often is written up as more mysterious than reality demonstrates. On his first attempt he thought he needed a Canadian sponsor to obtain a transit passport and failed in that, leading him back though the U.S. to Mexico and a second failed effort to get overseas. In 1968 he still failed to understand how he could get a quick passport and spent more weeks simply hiding in Canada. By that time, he was largely out of money; he had to buy the cheapest ticket he could get and go to England rather than directly on to Rhodesia, which had been his ultimate goal.
Once overseas he was so short of cash that he had to rob a bank in England to get money to go to Portugal to get a visa for the final leg of his escape. The delays in both Canada and England had given the FBI to research all the evidence he had left in Memphis and Atlanta and cut though is aliases to issue the international notice that got him hm stopped in England at the airport. Ray himself said that it was his lack of money for a direct flight to Africa that slowed him down to the point of his being taken into custody. He never stated any remorse of any sort over King’s murder; he did say that he regretted that he had not carried out one or more robberies in Canada so that he could have escaped the FBI dragnet which had developed while he was in Canada.
