William Cooper and Behold a Pail of Horse...

In the last few days I have had a number of people ask about or talk about the UFO research of Bill Cooper. He claimed that he had been part of a secret Navy briefing team and that he had inside information about how some of these clandestine organizations work. Eventually he wrote a book called Behold a Pale Horse, which some have embraced. Cooper was killed a number of years ago in a shoot out with Arizona sheriff’s deputies when he pulled a pistol on them.

Normally I would just ignore this because I found nothing in Cooper’s work worth repeating and found some of his conclusions to be flawed. He made leaps of logic, embraced the almost discredited MJ-12 documents, and rode off on many conspiracy tangents. He was as crazy as they come. (I was going to say as crazy as a bedbug, but with the all the talk in the media about them, I thought I’d just stay away from that).


As just a single example of this craziness, Cooper believed that the real assassin of President Kennedy was the limousine driver. In Dealy Plaza, where there were, literally, hundreds of witnesses, Cooper said the driver turned in his seat and shot the president (Me at the precise location that Zapruter stood, the school depository and the famous grassy knoll). He said that if you watched the Zapruter film of the assassination carefully, you could see it happen.

I have and I didn’t.

It was also means that everyone else in the car was in on it or the driver would have had to shoot them all. If he didn’t, what motive would they have for remaining quiet once they were out of the car. This is a ridiculous notion, but one that Cooper held.

Almost everything he claimed about his military career was distorted. Oh, he served in the Navy but he was a low-ranking enlisted man. He did seem to have participated on a couple of briefing teams for high-ranking officials, but his role might have been little more than making sure the projectors worked, the ashtrays were empty and the room cleaned when the conference was over. He wasn’t brought in to talk about UFOs or other highly sensitive topics. He had neither the education nor the military experience.

Yes, I know the excuse will be that his records have been altered so that he couldn’t prove what he said. This is just a weak excuse to provide an answer for all those who didn’t believe him. The truth is that military records aren’t just a single file with everything in it. They cover a lot of ground from a lot of sources and it would be impossible to alter everything. There is just too much of it.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Cooper claimed he had attended a specific military school... maybe at the DIA, as part of his training. All that would be recorded in his 201 File, which, upon his leaving the military whether as a retiree or having been discharged at the end of this tour, would have been sent to the National Archives in St. Louis. Now that document, in a single place, would be easy to find and alter.

But, there would be records of his attendance at the DIA school. There would have been a certificate given to him at the completion of the course (I have lots of these from various military schools). Depending on the specific school, there might be rosters available. There would be records in his home unit. There might be base newspaper stories written by the Public Affairs Office about his participation or completion of the training. There are literally dozens of sources of documentation. But with Cooper none of that was available. His records simply did not reflect his various claims.

I have been through this before when a witness’s records do not match the story he or she is telling. The big fire in St. Louis destroyed them is a favorite excuse. They have been altered is another. Stolen is yet another... But the point is that multiple sources exist and records can be reconstituted. They can be reconstructed. And there are so many sources out there that they all can’t be altered, hidden or destroyed. The validation would be available... or rather enough would be to question the idea he was lying about his service.

There is nothing to support Cooper’s claims, other than he served in the Navy and was honorably discharged. There were many in the UFO community who wanted to believe him and many who tried to find evidence to support his claims. In the end, there was no where to go. The trail ended with Cooper and that just isn’t good enough.

As for his book, I suppose I should point out that inside the UFO community it is called "Behold a Pail of Horses..t." There just isn’t anything in it that can be confirmed and without validation we believe what he wrote at our own risk.

Our best move is to point out that Cooper was a wild man who could not prove what he claimed and let it go at that. He is but another footnote in the great UFO search.