(Excerpted from a slightly different version of a chapter in Kooks: A Guide to the Outer Limits of Human Belief)
“If the evidence doesn’t seem to fit a particular conspiracy theory, just create a bigger conspiracy theory.”
— Robert D. Hicks, In Pursuit of Satan“I am still searching for the truth. I firmly believe that this book is closer to the truth than anything ever previously written.”
—William Cooper, Behold a Pale Horse
Conspiracy theories are like black holes; they explain everything, sucking in facts the way black holes suck in the matter. And, like black holes, each conspiracy theory is a portal to another universe that paradoxically resides within our own. Everything you’ve ever known or experienced, no matter how “meaningless,” once it comes in contact with that universe, is enveloped by it and is then cloaked in sinister significance.
People, as well as facts, are prone to stumble into one of the many conspiracy universes. Once inside, the vortex only gains in size and strength, sucking in everything that person touches. Bill Cooper, who calls himself an independent UFO researcher, has entered such a universe, and it’s likely that he will never return. He identifies with his theory so completely that he thinks anyone who challenges it–even his friends–do so only because they’re part of the conspiracy. It is no use to point out contradictions, or even trivial errors because Bill Cooper knows THE TRUTH.
Though William Cooper is a self-professed regular guy and ex-military man, his claims rival the Weekly World News for sensationalism. Cooper doesn’t merely believe that our government signed a formal treaty with extraterrestrials in 1954, or that we have already set up a base on the planet Mars, or any number of other bizarre claims; he knows these things to be true because while working for Naval Intelligence, he actually saw the secret documents that prove them.
Cooper burst upon the UFO scene with these claims in 1988 and has been a controversial and infamous figure ever since. He gives public lectures, is heard on the radio, sends out newsletters and, in 1991 came out with a book, Behold a Pale Horse. In UFO research circles, Cooper is best known for accusing his colleagues to be CIA agents and for physically threatening them. According to researcher Bob Lazar, “Everyone seems to have a Bill Cooper story…“
Since 1988, Cooper has been accused of being an alcoholic, a liar and a fascist or even worse, written off as a psychopath; with the exception of Jacques Vallee, his critics have focused more attention on his belligerent personality, than on the obvious contradictions and factual errors of his story. His opponents take him seriously enough that they go to great pains to discredit him, in order to defend themselves against his accusations. If the UFO researchers hadn’t their own crashed saucer/government cover-up stories to defend, they might see the connections between Bill Cooper’s stories and their own, as well as the–possibly inherent–relation between conspiratorial logic and some UFO phenomena.
Behold a Pale Horse is a fine example of conspiratorial logic. Therein, Cooper includes every gory detail of the sinister alien plot to control humanity, as well as the documents which supposedly back it all up. He also includes the story of his own UFO sightings while in the military, background on his involvement with Naval Intelligence, as well as a sentimental account of his ancestors’ survival of the American Frontier. Cooper paints himself as a patriotic Red-Blooded American Male who loves Mom and Apple Pie and would fight and die to defend the American Way, who just happened to stumble upon the greatest secret in the history of the world.
Cooper was born into a military family in 1943, and upon graduating high school in 1961 (in Japan) enlisted in the Air Force. During his more than ten years in both the Air Force and the Navy, he was an exemplary member, earning medals, and steadily taking on greater responsibility. Soon after enlisting, he was graced with a Secret security clearance, and, outfitted with a dosimeter, worked around “REAL atomic bombs” on a daily basis. He says that he was part of the elite of the Air Force and though still a young recruit, “met a couple of sergeants who kind of adopted him“. When the sergeants told him stories about being “attached to a special unit that recovered crashed flying saucers,” he didn’t believe them because they always came out when the group was “half-tanked.” Besides, “sergeants were known to tell some tall tales to younger guys like [Cooper.]” But a few years later, he began to believe these stories, after seeing a few saucers of his own.
In 1966, after switching from the Air Force to the Navy, Cooper volunteered for submarines.
While on watch aboard the USS Tiru Cooper saw his first flying saucer. At first, Cooper was the only one to see the saucer, which was the size of an aircraft carrier, “rise from beneath the ocean” and then “disappear into the clouds.” But within minutes, it was back, this time capturing the attention of several others.
Cooper recounts that everyone who had seen the craft was ordered to keep quiet about it; they weren’t even allowed to talk among themselves. Cooper says that he signed documents that spelled out what would happen if he ever told anyone what he had seen: he could be fined up to $10,000, imprisoned up to 10 years, or both. Cooper says that not long after this incident, he “de-volunteered” from submarines.
In 1968 Cooper was transferred to Naval Security and Intelligence School where he received special training in preparing and conducting Pacific-area intelligence briefings. His semi-heroic stint in Vietnam came immediately after this. To hear Cooper talk about it, you would think we had been in a war against space aliens rather than Communists: