The Leah Haley Case: Springfield, St. Louis and on to Gulf Breeze

This is one in a series of posts on the Leah Haley Case.

Reports of strange events became the norm during the 1980's and 1990's in the vicinity of Gulf Breeze, Florida. It is not difficult to envision such events may have at least included, if not completely been both direct and indirect results of, organized psychological operations conducted by the intelligence community. This may particularly be the case when we take into account the presence of military intel personnel and their curious activities as described in previous posts.

To further consider the likelihood Leah Haley was an involuntary participant in such possible operations, we should take a look at how she became drawn to the Gulf Breeze area from her home in Mississippi. We should give some thought to who was involved and what took place, and I will explore such circumstances in this and upcoming posts.

I will emphasize I do not claim to be able to produce direct evidence psychological operations and covert research projects were carried out during the Gulf Breeze events. Personally, I think the possibility is very likely, particularly after we formulate such factors as the Gulf Breeze Six into the equation. I am only trying to present facts and their resulting unanswered questions for consideration, however, not conclusions.

That stated, there is yet another large, looming piece of the Leah Haley puzzle that should under no circumstances be overlooked amid searches for spooks and alleged aliens. A glaring and undeniable reality of the Leah Haley story should remain apparent to all, regardless of preferred beliefs or areas of interest: No self-described experiencer who seeks help should ever be subjected to the emotionally traumatic abuses perpetrated on this woman, by the very people and organizations, no less, that claimed to offer applicable services and support.

As the reader shall continue to see, the Leah Haley Case should be of interest for many reasons. Such reasons include the involvement of the intelligence community in matters of ufology. Such reasons also very much include the abusive exploitation of witnesses by a UFO community that commits fraud while advertising available assistance.

Are the above two reasons sometimes one and the same? I do not know for sure, but it is clear in the case of Leah Haley that such circumstances bleed into one another, and I am convinced the question deserves its fair share of attention.

Intruder: Alien or Hypnotist?

After visiting the home of her parents during July, 1990, and discussing a childhood UFO sighting, Haley contacted Budd Hopkins in hopes of resolving questions related to the sighting. Hopkins was chosen for consultation due to his claims he possessed extensive knowledge of such affairs.


The late Budd Hopkins pictured with Carol Rainey

Hopkins created the Intruders Foundation, a private nonprofit organization supposedly dedicated to quality investigation and providing access to a network of trained professionals. Trained, presumably, in relevant and applicable skills, but not necessarily, as their often preferred activity, hypnosis, has long been established by the professional medical community as unreliable as an investigative and memory retrieval tool.

Actually, the American Medical Association does not recognize or endorse the use of hypnosis for any purpose whatsoever. What's more, Carol Rainey conclusively demonstrated the tendencies of Hopkins to both commit fraud and support hoaxes in her relatively recent films and article, The Priests of High Strangeness: Co-Creation of the “Alien Abduction Phenomenon”. I understand more material is forthcoming from Rainey. 

Hopkins was, however, the 'go to guy' of the day on such matters, so Haley contacted him to hopefully learn more about her sighting that included short term amnesia, or what Hopkins and the UFO community dubbed missing time. Hopkins then promptly referred Haley to hypnotist John Carpenter of Missouri, for whatever reasons.

John Carpenter

John Carpenter seems to currently sit on the editorial board of the Journal of Abduction-Encounter Research, or JAR. According to his bio on the JAR website, Carpenter holds a Master's in Social Work and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.

The bio further states, at least at the time of this post, Carpenter is the MUFON director of abduction research. I am quite certain that is incorrect. Carpenter held that position from 1991 until 2000, I am under the impression, when news surfaced of what came to be known as the Carpenter Affair. I have no reason to believe he continues to hold the position with MUFON as stated on the JAR site yet contradicted by many sources, including Karyn Dolan's Through the Keyhole (see entry for Friday, June 13, 2008).

The Carpenter Affair, a series of Carpenter's actions during the 1990's which were later called into question, created a great deal of controversy and public relations problems when they came to light around the turn of the century. Actions deemed questionable included Carpenter providing case files of 140 possible alien abductees, including Leah Haley, to Robert Bigelow and while receiving financial compensation from Bigelow.

We will explore the circumstances in more depth as we continue, but before the Carpenter Affair was public knowledge, there were indeed the events of the early 1990's; events and times in which MUFON quite prominently promoted and endorsed the activities of John Carpenter. He was, at that time, anyway, MUFON director of abduction research. His assertions of aliens kidnapping humans were frequently featured in his appearances at MUFON events and his articles published regularly in the MUFON Journal.

Most relevantly to Leah Haley, she met John Carpenter as the direct result of seeking help from individuals and organizations claiming to provide quality, scientific investigation and much needed emotional services.

Most relevantly to Leah Haley, she met John Carpenter as the direct result of seeking help from individuals and organizations claiming to provide quality, scientific investigation and much needed emotional services. That is exactly how Haley wound up in the Springfield, Missouri, office of a clinical social worker, reasonably assumed to be about to provide such services on behalf of the organization, MUFON, he represented.

What actually unfolded were repeated hypnosis sessions, numbering well into the teens and conducted throughout 1991. Haley's case file was later released by Carpenter with neither her knowledge nor consent. Carpenter was the lead hypnotist, Haley was the subject and the following events occurred.

Springfield

Haley initially drove from her home in Mississippi to meet Carpenter and his assistant in Springfield, Missouri. She later decided to make another trip via airline in May, 1991, for what would be her third hypnosis session.

There are of course a limited number of people who would have known (or been concerned, for that matter) Haley was flying to Springfield. I find that potentially interesting in light of what Haley reported took place at the airport.

According to Haley's book, Lost Was the Key, she encountered an ominous man at the airport in Springfield who, without reasonable cause, directly asked her about extraterrestrials. The interaction could be reasonably interpreted to have been intended to disorient Haley, as well as to likely frighten and intimidate her, for whatever reasons. In Lost Was the Key, page 65, she wrote:

Upon arriving at the airport, I called the hotel and asked the clerk to send their van to pick me up. The clerk replied someone had already called and the van was on its way. I walked to the door where the clerk told me to wait and noticed a man standing there alone.

“Are you waiting for the hotel van?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

To pass the time, I initiated a conversation with this stranger. I asked him where he was from and what brought him to Springfield. He told me he was a salesman from Nashville and was in Springfield to interview for a position at a sporting goods store.

“What brings you here?” he asked.

“I'm here to do research concerning some personal experiences.”

“About extraterrestrials?” he asked.

I was stunned. Why would a stranger ask if my research involved extraterrestrials?

Why indeed, and in Springfield?

Haley went on to explain on page 66 that while the two were riding in the van to the hotel, the man directly suggested she tell him about her UFO experiences, which she did not. Haley further explained that, following the van ride, the two each checked into the hotel and she never saw the man again. The next evening, Carpenter, an assistant and Haley met at the Springfield hotel for what was her third hypnosis session.

I recently asked Leah if she continued to interpret the above referenced events happened as she originally described in Lost Was the Key. She confirmed that is the case.

During another trip to Springfield in July of 1991, Haley was repeatedly hypnotized by Carpenter. One of the hypnosis sessions conducted during the trip resulted in what became known as the “beach incident.”

The beach incident is all that is alien abduction 'investigation.' It is, at its very least, a byproduct of what happens when inadequate investigative tools are implemented by self-described experts who lack critical thinking skills and have long since drawn premature and inaccurate conclusions. At its most, and worst, it might be part of the story of an abused involuntary research subject. As we adjust our heads slightly and take yet another look at the shape-shifting beach incident, we might glimpse its potential value to sociologists, psychologists and future researchers of many disciplines, including military intelligence.

At best, such people had no interest whatsoever in identifying truth as compared to campaigning for the extraterrestrial hypothesis... It is certainly noteworthy the very people who once encouraged Haley to publicize her story and promoted her perspectives of alien abduction now prefer she keep her revised and
alien-less views to herself.

It is a fascinating example of how a story, originally propagated, conceived and cultivated entirely under hypnosis, can morph and evolve, pulling people into its wake and effecting them to astounding extents – and I am not referring to Haley. I am referring to the manners UFO enthusiasts and self-described investigators alike snatched up the beach incident and promoted it. At best, such people had no interest whatsoever in identifying truth as compared to campaigning for the extraterrestrial hypothesis and, in effect, their personal belief systems – with no care or concern for those hurt along the way. Apparently the only concern for some was to lead others to believe in aliens, trying desperately to further convince themselves in the process. At worst and as we will continue to explore, some investigators and promoters of the beach incident may have simply had ulterior motives.

I do not claim to conclusively know what we would find if we were somehow able to effectively isolate and examine each of the personalities and agendas making up the complex collage of events resulting from the hypnotically created beach incident. I do conclusively know some things we do not find, however, and among them are professional investigation, objectivity and sound lines of reasoning – all of which were originally advertised by the growing parade of facilitators, I urge the reader to recall and keep in mind as we proceed.

It is certainly noteworthy the very people who once encouraged Haley to publicize her story and promoted her perspectives of alien abduction now prefer she keep her revised and alien-less views to herself. At its most corrupt, the Haley case might involve organized covert and intrusive research. At its most innocent, the case is nonetheless and undeniably an example of how witnesses and their statements are exploited via an 'ends justify the means' mentality held by overeager UFO enthusiasts.

The beach incident, in basic terms, was an alleged experience retrieved via regressive hypnosis in which Haley was aboard an alien craft hostilely grounded mid flight by US military personnel. The hypnotically retrieved mental imagery suggested alien occupants of the craft executed an emergency landing upon an unidentified beach, where Haley and aliens then became the subjects of interest of the soldiers who downed them.

It is relevant, at least to Haley and some others who have been the subjects of UFO-related hypnosis proceedings, to understand the beach incident involved hypnotic imagery perceived as traumatic and accompanied by intense emotions. It should be clearly understood that while a hypnosis subject may over time develop any number of possible intellectual interpretations of imagery derived from a session, including discarding the supposed memories as false, the emotional challenges remain.

A somewhat accurate analogy might be to consider a movie you watched that emotionally upset you for whatever reasons. Perhaps the film was very scary, or maybe it dealt with subject matter you have personal reason to find very emotionally intense.

Now, intellectually you know it was just a movie, consisting of actors and scripts and cameras – but it still impacts you emotionally. Imagine, further, if that movie were specifically about you, and you watched yourself play the lead role in the disturbing film, all while having no recollection of ever being involved in the production.

That might provide somewhat of an accurate context of the very real and present confusion and emotional challenges that can remain long after imagery retrieved via hypnosis has been otherwise identified as all but certainly false. It might also provide context for more accurately understanding the likelihood the hypnosis subject experiences initial emotional vulnerability, complications of which increase the potential for exploitation by hypnotists with self-serving motives.

One might consider the difficulty of evaluating such mental imagery when the hypnotist and a growing number of supposed support-people are celebrating the revelations of alien abduction. One might further consider the courage it takes to announce the party is over.

It should be emphasized Haley revised her opinions concerning alleged aliens, now holding the perspective her experiences were the complicated results of covert mind control research. The human hypothesis for some reports of alien abduction involves complex dynamics that require a working knowledge of topics such as emotional trauma, the evolution of state-sponsored covert research projects and the evolution of research and development of non-lethal weapons.

Such a hypothesis and change in perspectives as Haley experienced do not, however, necessarily indicate Haley retracted all of her previous statements. Some have incorrectly concluded that to be the case, perhaps due to inadequate understandings of the subject matter.

“What I wish people would understand,” Haley recently stated about her revised perspectives, “is that the 'alien abductions' and other experiences I wrote about in Lost Was the Key, Unlocking Alien Closets, and various articles, did happen. They are true. None of that has changed. The only thing that has changed is that after devoting years of my life and substantial amounts of money to research the phenomenon and get to the bottom of it, I now understand what - or rather who - was the cause of all those experiences.”

More Mufonians

In October, 1991, Haley flew to St. Louis to attend a MUFON conference. According to Lost Was the Key, page 131, Haley and Carpenter met privately during the conference with “a group of ufologists” to discuss her “experiences with military/government agents.”

Haley informed me she was not planning on attending the conference but did so at the suggestion of Linda Moulton Howe. It seems LMH identified two individuals independently claiming to report experiences similar to those retrieved via hypnosis by Haley and Carpenter, and LMH wanted to get these people together along with additional researchers. The similarities in the reported experiences among the trio of witnesses specifically included perceptions of big-eyed, chalky-colored aliens and military personnel.

As Haley recalled, the private meeting conducted at the St. Louis MUFON conference in late 1991 was attended by George and Shirley Coyne, only one of the two witnesses LMH seemed to know, and a few others in addition to Carpenter, Moulton Howe and Haley. Moulton Howe requested permission to invite C.B. Scott Jones to the meeting but Haley does not recall if Jones attended.

Donald Ware

On November 23, 1991, just one month removed from the St. Louis MUFON conference and amid the many hypnosis sessions conducted by Carpenter, Haley made her first trip from her home in Mississippi to the Gulf Breeze, Florida, area. The trip included meeting then-MUFON Eastern Regional Director, Lieutenant Colonel Donald Ware, USAF, Retired. Ware was a member of the MUFON board of directors and resided in the vicinity of Gulf Breeze.

During the trip, Ware introduced Haley to Ed and Frances Walters, among other local UFO enthusiasts, sky-watchers and researchers. The visit and its details were established in letters and an appointment book Haley possesses, as well as Lost Was the Key. She wrote on page 132 she was told, in context of the beach incident, “the Joint Chiefs of Staff met at Pensacola Naval Air Station in August, 1988, and were escorted into a hangar that was under extremely high security and temporarily air conditioned.”

Remember that suggested date, August, 1988, of the alleged beach incident. It is going to come back up.

Haley developed the impression Ware might assist her in learning more about the now infamous beach incident because the event was suspected to have occurred on the Gulf Coast. This is the case at least in part because Haley previously vacationed along the coast, giving rise to suspicions the incident may have occurred during a trip to the area. It might then stand to reason to consult Ware, the then-MUFON Eastern Regional Director, as to possible events of interest occurring along the coast. It should be noted Haley suspected other dates of the alleged incident in addition to August, 1988, the date suggested during her first meeting with Ware. At any rate, I was interested in clarifying more details about how Haley initially met Ware and subsequently became involved with the Gulf Breeze UFO community.

Leah was very helpful and forthright in sharing information with me in an effort to reveal details of the chain of events, as has consistently been the case during my interactions with her. She informed me she located old letters indicating she requested Ware's contact info from both Carpenter and Moulton Howe. I contacted the involved parties in attempts to learn more.

Ware said Carpenter, among others, told Haley to contact him. Carpenter said he did no such thing.

Emails were sent to Linda Moulton Howe at her Earthfiles website address in attempts to obtain comment on her recollections of the Leah Haley Case. No replies were received.

In email exchanges with Carpenter I informed him Ware and others led me to believe he was instrumental in acquainting Haley with Ware. I asked what led him to believe Haley should meet Ware.

Carpenter replied he made no deliberate effort to acquaint Haley with Ware. “They met in Gulf Breeze,” Carpenter continued, “a favorite place for her to visit and meet with the local group.”

While I do not necessarily doubt Carpenter's sincerity on this specific matter (after all, it was a long time ago), his reply is simply inaccurate. Haley could not have become initially acquainted with Ware while hanging out in Gulf Breeze because, as established, Ware was the reason Haley traveled to the area in the first place. In other words, she already made contact with the man prior to ever arriving.

Haley recently stated she located letters suggesting she and Carpenter discussed Ware, resulting in Haley requesting Ware's contact info from Carpenter and Moulton Howe, which she received. Haley has a copy of a letter she then sent Ware, establishing contact and dated November 12, 1991. It was such discussions and letters that directly resulted in the November 23, 1991, meeting between Haley and Ware, regardless of how anyone may now recall or tell the story.

One reasonable interpretation would be that the MUFON board of directors, regardless of what additional people or circumstances may have contributed to the situation, did their ample part, essentially and for all practical purposes, in the manufacture of an alien abductee.

However one might interpret the details, the fact will remain that Haley's increasing involvement with MUFON, and specifically its board of directors, was a key and constant element during this critical portion of her story. There is no uncertainty in the positive identification of the facilitators of Haley's participation in hypnosis, the subsequent forming of fantastic assumptions and the resulting endorsements thereof. Members of the MUFON board of directors clearly encouraged and directly participated in each phase of the evolving situation and, as the reader will see as we progress, continued to do so in increasingly significant and questionable manners. One reasonable interpretation would be that the MUFON board of directors, regardless of what additional people or circumstances may have contributed to the situation, did their ample part, essentially and for all practical purposes, in the manufacture of an alien abductee. 

Hold those thoughts. We will hear more from Ware and Carpenter later. The ways Leah came to think the beach incident occurred in the Florida Panhandle will come back up, as will one of its supposed dates, August, 1988, as Haley and Ware discussed during their initial meeting in November, 1991.

A Review

Let's inventory what we have on the table at this point:

Leah Haley wanted to learn more about a childhood experience involving memories of flying saucers and short term amnesia. At the suggestion of Budd Hopkins she ended up in the Springfield, Missouri, office of a MUFON director and clinical social worker, John Carpenter, participating throughout 1991 in multiple hypnosis sessions. The resulting mental imagery suggested Haley lived an entire hidden life – previously not known to her conscious psyche - of dramatic abductions and perilous adventures involving aliens and military personnel. One particular hypnosis session conducted by Carpenter gave birth to the beach incident, an alleged experience in which Haley seemed to have been aboard an alien craft downed by military forces upon an unidentified beach.

This led Haley to attend and network at a MUFON conference in 1991 in St. Louis. Shortly afterward she met in the Gulf Breeze area with Lieutenant Colonel Donald Ware, who sat on the MUFON board of directors and was the MUFON Eastern Regional Director. The purpose of the meeting, at least from the point of view of the aggressive and inquisitive Haley, was for her to try to learn more about the beach incident.

When Things Got Sirius

Those interested in claims of telepathic communication, a reportedly common occurrence during and surrounding alleged alien abductions and some UFO sightings, should find the evolution of non-lethal weapons technology of interest. Dr. Robert Becker wrote in 1985 about experiments conducted by Dr. Joseph Sharp at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Sharp used an analog pulse to beam an otherwise silent and inaudible word directly into the human brain, perceived accurately by the recipient. In effect, Sharp successfully created what could be interpreted as 'telepathic communication.'

Becker further explained a research group at Naval Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory had a continuing contract to study such technology. The Naval Lab was located in Pensacola.

Such work eventually led to developments in what became known as “voice to skull” technology, the ethics and uses of which continue to be highly debated. United States Patent 4,877,027, a “hearing system,” for example, declared sound was induced in the head of a person by using microwave pulses. The patent was filed in 1988.

On March 12, 1992, Leah Haley reportedly received a telepathic message stating her alien abductors were from Sirius. According to Unlocking Alien Closets, page 19, amid a dizzying onslaught of other concerning events, Haley “was startled by a (telepathic) message that 'they' were from Sirius.”

Subsequent research conducted by Haley revealed Sirius to be a star in the constellation Canis Major. I find this development curious.

In his work, The Controllers: A New Hypothesis of Alien Abduction, writer/researcher Martin Cannon cited the experiences of Project MKULTRA mind control victim Martti Koski. In the section titled, The Scandanavian Connection, Cannon wrote, “Koski, for example, was at one point told that the doctors afflicting him were actually 'aliens from Sirius.'" Koski also reported inexplicably hearing voices.

I recently asked Haley if she was aware, at least consciously, of Martti Koski. “Never heard of him,” she replied.

It gets more curious. In a September, 1991, Flying Saucer Review article titled, The Extraordinary Case of “Elizabeth Richmond” , authors Donald Ware and Robert Reid described events surrounding the alleged UFO-related experiences of a woman who apparently resided in Pensacola. The pseudonym Elizabeth Richmond was used for the woman.

This is the same Donald Ware previously mentioned. Co-author Colonel Robert “Bob” Reid, USAF, Retired, like Ware, was a MUFON field investigator, was a member of the MUFON board of directors and resided in the Gulf Breeze area.

A section of the Ware and Reid article about Elizabeth Richmond was titled, Telepathic Contact. The section began, “During later meditation sessions there was apparently some telepathic contact. Elizabeth was told that their home-planet belonged to the star Sirius...”

Are we to believe someone was leaving calling cards with a Sirius address?
And in the circles of Donald Ware and his fellow MUFON directors, no less?

Are we to believe someone was leaving calling cards with a Sirius address? And in the circles of Donald Ware and his fellow MUFON directors, no less?

On March 13, 1992, the very next day after Haley's reported telepathic message referencing Sirius, she documented another telepathic message. Unlocking Alien Closets, pages 19-20:

“My communicators told me to check out the beach incident; they indicated that it had occurred on Thursday morning, August 4, 1988, on Navarre Beach.”

You will recall Haley and Ware discussed August, 1988, as a possible time frame of the beach incident during their initial meeting. Haley wrote she had no idea at the time where Navarre Beach was located but, after conducting a bit of research, discovered it was in the vicinity of... Gulf Breeze.

Make of it what you will.

Whatever we make of it, the fact will remain the ambitious Haley indeed went on to pursue the beach incident. As a direct result of mental imagery derived from regressive hypnosis, combined with perceived telepathic messages containing quite curious details and suggestions, she was catapulted full on into the Gulf Breeze UFO community, all its short lived glory and all its long suffered sorrow.

That year, 1992, was very eventful for Leah Haley. On page 233 of Unlocking Alien Closets she described a meeting initiated by a man who said he represented a Washington intelligence official. Haley explained the man told her she was being monitored by multiple agencies. He further indicated, among other things, such agencies had conflicting agendas, resulting in a variety of possible good guy/bad guy scenarios.

In September of 1992 Haley made another trip to Gulf Breeze, at which time the beach incident effectively came out of the hypnotist's office and fully to life. Haley, Ware and Reid undertook what continues to be a most intriguing hike across Eglin Air Force Base, seemingly in search of an actual site an alien craft allegedly went down with Haley on board.