Given the clear indications that something was going on at Wright Air Force Base during the late 1970s, possibly in parallel with either the FTD remote viewing work, the Project Blue Book activities, or both (or neither). One thing that the timeline and the appearance of that common MJ-12 "philosophy" tells us is that all of those stories were created much earlier than when the public first received them through Ufologists Moore, Pratt and others.
In his efforts to bolster the information found in Collin’s Exempt From Disclosure , Bruce Maccabee lets slip a tiny detail – he received details directly from Kellerstrass that only a year later was finally made public in the form of the "MJ-12" disclosures, and provided by allegedly "anonymous" sources.
In order to determine the truth of Ernie Kellerstrass’ claims, and to better understand potential connections with the FTD remote viewing research, we decided to make contact with the elusive "Dale Graff" – that "guy in the office" who was supposedly telling Ernie stories about EBE, a book that detailed aliens visiting during the time of Christ, and more.
Dale Graff’s Current Status
Prior to my discussions with him, Dale Graff had just recently moved, so it took a few email exchanges to hammer out a good day and time for a conversation. However, Dale responded positively to my initial inquiry for a phone interview to discuss his remote viewing work at FTD in the 1970’s and his recent work and books on consciousness . I hoped to learn more about this mysterious man who is often quoted as a source by Collins and the "Aviary" crew, but remains a silent background character who has virtually little (if any) involvement in the UFO arena.
The Dale Graff Interview
Dale Graff is currently retired, but actively working with a research group on consciousness studies and "dreams." I contacted Dale on Sept 9, 2007 via email, and a few days later I received a polite and cordial response from Dale that he would be more than happy to discuss topics for a possible interview with us.
Upon calling Dale, I was struck by his soft-spoken nature, his enormous insight and intelligence, and his open willingness to talk about the phenomenon of psychic ability and the ufo phenomenon.He is very knowledgable about the entire paranormal field, including both the psychic phenomenon and the UFO phenomenon. Dale had the pleasure of working under Tony (Anthony) Cacciopo, so Dale enjoyed access to many of the Blue Book investigations, and for a short period sat in the room where the "red phone" was while waiting for his clearances to pass for the remote viewing research.
During this phonecall, we spoke for about an hour regarding the history of the Remote Viewing program, and his part in it. We discussed his hypothesis regarding the source of the psychic phenomenon, the success rates that were realized during the remote viewing program, and the subsequent fall-out toward the end of the Remote Viewing program related to his reasons for retiring. Dale now conducts his own private research in the area of psychic phenomenon as related to dreams, and more recently short-term precognition studies, which we hope to report on here at RU in the near future, if Dale is willing.
Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Dale about his time at Wright Patterson working at FTD on the AF Remote Viewing research projects. I asked him specifically about the claims that were made by Ernie Kellerstrass in his interview with Bruce Maccabee (and his claims made to Bob Collins as well). The following transcript is from my scribbled short-hand notes that I kept during the phone interview.
Unfortunately, after I let it slip to Bob Collins, Kit Green, and Hal Puthoff that I was in contact with Dale Graff, Dale informed me that "someone" had warned him off from talking with us. After a few more emails, I stopped hearing from Dale Graff completely. This was unfortunate, because I personally liked Dale a great deal. He was one of the first authentic and truly "nice" people that I’ve ever met in the course of my own investigations. I will greatly miss the potentially fascinating and interesting discussions we could have continued having.
I’ve highlighted a few of the critical points that took place at the end of our phone conversation below.
Ryan: Dale – there was a book written in 2005 by Bob Collins called Exempt from Disclosure…
Dale: Yes – I know Bob and he did work at FTD when I was there. I left FTD in 1981 and I’m almost certain I met him there and met him off and on a few times. We’ve exchanged some letters at one time (during the time before emails). I’ve talked to him and know a little bit about him but don’t know this latest book.
Ryan: Well, some of the latest information that is in there has some claims that go back to one of his core sources – Ernie Kellerstrass…
Dale: Ahh yes – I know Ernie quite well. I used to work for him! He was at one time, for about a year, he was my division chief (branch chief) so I had a professional working relationship with Colonel Ernie Kellerstrass.
Ernie and I had some very long discussions over the years, usually after duty because we didn’t want anyone to know we were talking about any of this stuff.
Ryan: In Maccabee’s background paper on Collins sources, he did an interview with Ernie in 1985, and Ernie claimed you had told him certain information that you had seen a saucer and bodies, that you had seen a secret “yellow book”….
Dale (almost choking): I have no idea where all that came from?! That is absolutely not true!
Ryan: Right…that’s why I wanted to get in touch with you to see if any of those claims were at all true?
Dale : NO WAY [laugh]…I’ve always been open minded and have always had a strong interest in ET life and any evidence whatsoever of ufo’s and crafts and the real story behind Roswell, Hanger 18 and all that (notes are ineligible here)….but if somebody said that I told anybody that I ever said I have seen an alien craft at Wright Patterson AFB, or anywhere at all , that’s an incorrect statement. I’ve NEVER made that statement to anyone. I’ve never even seen a UFO!
Ryan: Why do you think they would make up these kinds of stories…?
Dale: One of the reasons Bob Collins and I departed ways a little bit – he was saying things, even back in the 80’s, that sounded like he was pushing our conversations in a direction which we weren’t even at, or making statements and I don’t know where he got any of that from…
There was a lot of speculation going on, and I think this thing about yellow book…there were always different colored documents going around that signified different levels of clearance, some blue, pink, yellow – content was usually some operational project that was very sensitive, but nothing to do with some secret files of a crashed UFO or whatever he’s talking about. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but it’s certainly nothing that I’ve ever said!
Ryan: So most of these talks with Ernie were just hypothesizing what the phenomenon could possibly be?
Dale: Yeah – just “gee wiz” kind of talk.
Ryan: Do you think there’s any reason Ernie would make up any of this about you?
[Removed some private comments about Ernie at Dale’s request]
Dale: …I was always guarded with our discussions. He (Ernie) was a very helpful individual and very supportive, but it wasn’t really well known in the organization that I was involved in the Remote Viewing research. I happened to be assigned to his group for a certain time…it was classified so some of the stuff I couldn’t even share with him.
Because it was such a political hot potato – only a few people in the organization were allowed to be read into the project, and I think at one point I had a lot of meetings, about once a month, with the chief scientist (Dr. Cacciopo). He came in mostly from the psychological side – he was very interested in the topic and just wanted personal updates, and there were times I’d be in his office late at night and we were just shooting the breeze discussing the phenomenon of remote viewing – the source of it – the kind of things we’re discussing here. I don’t even remember having any discussions with Cacciopo about UFO’s!
Ryan: If anyone had ever said you and Cacciopo had gone to a number of high level classified meetings, would those meetings most likely have been related to the Remote Viewing research that you were involved with at the time?
Dale: Yes, absolutely.
Analysis and Summary
Based on some of the descriptions about Ernie, the odds aren’t looking too good for Kellerstrass.
From Bob Collins:
"Ernie was a short pudgy type of person who always seemed to have a menacing, intimidating attitude typical of AF Colonels of the time, yet full of fear and paranoia when talking about UFOs, MJ-12 and aliens, always saying that someone else had told him those stories."
Hal Puthoff (in an email to me in 2007 after already learning about our interview):
"Met him only once, in the ’80’s, so memory is vague. Friendly host for our mtg. Certainly convinced of the ET presence because of firsthand exposure to at least one event. Bruce Maccabee’s "Hawk Tales" captures his claims in detail. Difficulty in assessing his viewpoints is that Dale Graff, whose opinion I value after having known him as my contract monitor for ~ a decade, first at FTD, then DIA, claimed Ernie exaggerates. Don’t know if this is the truth, or if Dale is dissembling."
Dr. Kit Green:
"HIGHLY VOLUBLE, PRESSURED SPEECH, POOR LISTENER"
Bob Collins tells a number of amazing tales in his book, Exempt From Disclosure, regarding Ernie’s valliant efforts throughout the MJ-12 affair and throughout the 1980’s to impress upon certain producers the "legitimacy" of sources and to create intrigue surrounding the story.
Who is the mysteriouis Ernie Kellerstrass? Why has he gotten away with hiding in the shadows behind Bob Collins and Rick Doty for so many years – never taking the fall when the story falls apart? Does the story really start with Ernie? Or is Ernie just another believer – whose mind became captured by the stories that he was "fed" back in the late 1970’s? If so – where did the stories actually come from, and who really created them?
Believers would probably answer with the age old stereotypical cliche – the Air Force. However, those who’ve been following along with this plot and with the characters, behaviors, and ultimately the profits enjoyed by many of those who’ve hid in the background all of these years – the answer seems far less complicated and much less esoteric than certain people would like you to think. The answer lies right in front of our faces, yet so many folks still cling to long-standing new-age UFO beliefs strengthened and cemented by these fabricated stories, and they refuse to see the men behind the curtain…even as the curtain slides cleanly to the side.
Please check back often - in future updates we’ll be reviewing some of the fascinating stories Dale Graff provided earlier in the interview, about Project Blue Book and the nature of psychic phenomenon.
Lyn Buchanan – Remote Viewer with INSCOM/DIA at Fort Meade from 1984-1992.
Harold “Hal” Puthoff – During the 60’s, served as an officer in the Navy at the NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland. Worked for 8 years in the Microwave Lab at Stanford University. Joined SRI in 1971 as a specialist in laser physics. Headed the SRI remote viewing program from 1972-1985. Since 1985 has been the Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, initially working for Bill Church full time working on alternative fuel sources and zero-point energy. According to Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, in The Secret Life of Plants, while at SRI, Puthoff did experiments with chicken eggs. Using a Scientology e-meter, he attempted to see if an egg would react if another was broken nearby. Also is President of Earthtech International at the same address as the IAS. Puthoff worked with Robert Bigelow and NIDS.
General Albert Stubblebine: Former head of U.S. Army Intelligence & Security Command (INSCOM) 1981 – 1984. Signed classified contracts with the Monroe Institute. Former box with Col. John Alexander, and the two have held numerous “spoon-bending” parties. Married to ufologist Rima Laibow. Soon after becoming head of INSCOM, Stubblebine began a program called the “High Performance Task Force”, a series of methods to improve his officer’s performance. These ranged from the neruo-linquistic programming of Tony Robbins to the hemisynch tapes of the Monroe Institute, where Stubblebine often sent his officers. Following an incident involving an officer having a psychotic episode at the Monroe Institute, Stubblebine resigned in 1984.
To explain the lack of any unambiguous (especially physical) evidence in the public domain to support the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH), conventional wisdom in UFOlogy tells us this is because (
According to the publication, "An Estimate of the Situation: The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis," presented at the 2007 MUFON International UFO Symposium, allegedly an AF Colonel (possibly former) and Rick Doty contacted Moore initially in September of 1980. Taking this date into consideration, it’s important to dig further back into the ongoing activities of these individuals prior to 1980, before they started interfacing more often with UFO researchers. The important clues in tracing back the activities of Rick Doty and any other individuals involved in the MJ12 scam include following where same philosophy might have showed up prior to making its appearance in the materials passed to Pratt, Moore, Howe, and so many other researchers after 1979/1980.
In the first part of the interview, Kellerstrass describes his only two eye-witness accounts of UFO’s. One was witnessing some models of experimental aircraft at Wright AFB that matched stereotypical descriptions of UFO’s (cigar and saucer), as well as witnessing an event where a jet that had been scrambled to intercept a UFO over Japan got shot down. Other than those two “eye-witness” events – he admits that everything else he "knows" about Aliens and UFO’s were told to him through 1st and/or 2nd hand accounts.
H: And then he told me about this book (a reference to the “Yellow Book”?). He said there were about 40 copies but they were all controlled. I asked if it was possible to see the book and he said “No, it was just sent back six months ago.”
How does the United States define the direction of government science? How do secret government scientist’s physics and metaphysics leanings and biases factor into government funding for various avenues of funding and research? Why are scientists sucked into strange scientific theories and avenues of research? These are important questions for citizens of the United States. Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, classified government funding for programs controlled by the Pentagon has increased by an amazing 48%, to over $27 billion. These funds are shielded from public oversight because of its status as secret government clandestine research. This means that the government could be researching some of the most controversial and disturbing scientific concepts of our time, and you have absolutely no say in the matter. It’s for the good of “National Security,” or so they say.
Are scientists within the Air Force more gullible? Since the release of many thousands of formerly classified documents outlining the government’s foray into paranormal research of the mind, few government science researchers have been quite as persistent and determined to reveal the details of those documents to the public as Gary Bekkum at 
“While I have focused mostly on what is here in the Star Gate documents, I found what isn’t here also to be interesting. What seems not to be here is any documentation from the Air Force program run by Dale Graff in the Foreign Technology Division at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, beginning in 1975. That program went on for several years and achieved a number of important things. In fact, Graff and his program were directly responsible for keeping the SRI-International remote viewing research effort going after the CIA abandoned it the first time. But there is nothing to show for it, at least as far as I’ve been able to discover. There is also little in evidence from Graff’s and Dr. Jack Vorona’s offices at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s main facility in Washington, D.C.”
In the interview quoted in 
In an interview published in the article “The UFO/FBI Connection,” Maccabee makes reference to this meeting with Kit Green, in 1979, when he states, “…what it amounted to was that I gave them a lot of information and they gave me nothing.”
Before leaving the subject of Bruce Maccabee, there is one minor additional issue to note. According to the AIG report on Maccabee’s CIA interactions, Maccabee admitted that, in the mid 1980’s, he attended one “standing room only” meeting in a CIA conference room in which he was asked to brief CIA personnel on the “MJ-12” group that was detailed in the documents revealed by researcher and author William “Bill” Moore.
