Milton William Cooper
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Milton William Cooper (May 6, 1943 - November 5, 2001) was an American writer, shortwave broadcaster, militia supporter and conspiracy theorist. Cooper came to public awareness in the late 1980s.
Cooper's father was an officer in the U.S. Air force. Cooper graduated in 1961 from Yamato High School in Japan, and enlisted in the U.S. Air force. He was honorably discharged in 1965, and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in December of that year. He served in Vietnam, rising to the rank of petty officer. He was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal with combat V and the Navy Achievement medal with combat V. He was honorably discharged in 1974.[1]
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[edit] The Secret Government
Cooper's earliest notoriety developed among UFO enthusiasts, as he promoted UFO conspiracy theories, Kennedy assassination theories, and theories about a New World Order conspiracy.
Jerome Clark writes that "Cooper told his lurid and outlandish claim as if it were so self-evidently true that sources or supporting data were irrelevant." (Clark, 1998, 162) In many ways, his accounts were similar to earlier UFO conspiracy theories: UFOs had crashed, the ships and their alien pilots had been recovered, and the government made agreements with aliens. There were further details as well, in Cooper's self-published 1989 screed "The Secret Government: The Origin, Identity and Purpose of MJ-12".[2]
Cooper's 25-page pamphlet was crammed full of lurid claims: UFOs had been crashing on Earth by the dozens since the mid-1940s, and Secretary of Defense James Forrestal threatened to publicize the fact and was killed to prevent him from doing so; In 1954 "His Omnipotent Highness Krlll"—leader of a species living on a planet orbiting Betelgeuse—appeared on earth and suggested a treaty: The aliens would abduct humans and wipe their memories of the event in exchange for sharing their technology. U.S. officials feared the aliens' superior technology, and felt they had no choice but to accept the conditions offered by the aliens.
Aliens quickly broke the treaty, kidnapping and killing humans and livestock. The Cold War, Cooper says, was largely a facade in that the United States and the Soviet Union were actually in close collaboration, both to combat the aliens and to pave the way for a totalitarian one world government. The Majestic 12 committee began selling drugs to raise funds to combat the aliens, reports Cooper, and President John F. Kennedy was assassinated when he objected. Cooper borrowed liberally from Alternative 3, a tongue-in-cheek Anglia Television prank program, as if it were a legitimate documentary.
[edit] Behold a Pale Horse
Many ufologists who were striving for legitimacy ignored Cooper, yet he became a popular speaker on the UFO lecture circuit, and expanded his account into the book Behold A Pale Horse, ISBN 0-929385-22-5.
Cooper is perhaps best known for this 1991 book which details many of his claims about various conspiracy theories. The title is from the Bible, Revelation 6:8: "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." The book includes the text of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a famous anti-Semitic hoax document. Cooper placed a notice at the beginning of the chapter that the Protocols were not Jewish in origin but were disguised as such.
Written after Cooper had been a member of the US Naval Intelligence Briefing Team of the Commander in Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet, Behold a Pale Horse details Cooper's claims about the influence of UFOs on the US government, the New World Order, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the Apollo Moon landing.
[edit] Radio host, author and political activist
William Cooper was a radio host, author and political activist most known for his best-selling underground book titled Behold A Pale Horse and his worldwide shortwave radio show Hour of the Time. William Cooper was also well known for his court battle with the IRS and the recorded attempts to dissuade him from pursuing his case. He and Wayne Bentson co-researched the related CAJI News Service brief titled BATF/IRS -- Criminal Fraud[3] where he alleges a history of crimes committed by the Internal Revenue Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Department of the Treasury. The article was first published in Veritas magazine, issue #6, from September 1995. In the article, he asserts that the IRS is actually the same organization as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
He claimed that a Form 1040 is the income tax return for a nonresident alien citizen of the U.S. Virgin Islands residing within one of the 50 States of the Union known as the United States of America. He also claimed that in Internal Revenue Service publication 6209 - Computer Codes for IRS, TC 150 is the code for Virgin Island returns and codes 300 through 398 are "U.S. and UK Tax Treaty claims involving taxes on narcotics which were financed in the Cayman Islands and imported into the Virgin Islands." Cooper supposedly filed Freedom of Information Act requests for the Individual Master File of people experiencing tax problems and every return was found to contain those codes, except those coded as Guam returns. It is his assertion that "the Citizen is being taxed on income derived from importing narcotics, alcohol, tobacco, or firearms into the United States, or one of its territories or possessions, from a foreign country, or from Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, or into the Virgin Islands from the Cayman Islands."[3]
He had also produced several documentaries covering subjects such as the John F. Kennedy assassination and government 'black projects'. His detractors labeled him a conspiracy theorist because of his publications, a charge Cooper vehemently denied.
Throughout the late 1980s, Cooper was a controversial figure in the UFO research community. For the most part, he followed many of the claims of John Lear, specifically, that the government of the United States has had contact and has entered into a bargain with an extraterrestrial society and that those ETs were responsible for abductions. He circulated materials on Usenet as well as the old Paranet BBS. Notable among them was a Petition to Indict those involved with the UFO cover-up. His UFO beliefs of the time are well described in Behold a Pale Horse.
In later years, Cooper recanted his UFO-oriented beliefs, asserting that they were in fact part of the Illuminati plot to subjugate the United States.
William Cooper founded Harvest Trust, the CAJI News Service, Veritas newspaper, The Intelligence Service, and Harvest Publications. Under his leadership Harvest Trust ventured into publishing. The first book under the Harvest Trust imprint was Oklahoma City: Day One (ISBN 0-9653307-1-0), by Michele Marie Moore about the Oklahoma City bombing. In 1998 Veritas and Harvest Publications was sold to Hallmark Creative Corporation along with the copyright and all rights to all written material produced or ever to be produced by William Cooper including Behold A Pale Horse and Oklahoma City: Day One. Hallmark Creative Corporation has contracted to ensure this material is always available to the public.[4]
An advocate for free radio, Cooper operated the unlicensed Independence Foundation Trust at 101.1 FM in Eagar, Arizona. Cooper claimed to have helped over 700 low power FM affiliate stations get equipped and on the air.
[edit] Later life
According to Commander X[5], shortly after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building Rush Limbaugh read a White House memo on the air during his broadcast which named William Cooper, "...the most dangerous radio host in America". Mr. Cooper considered President Bill Clinton's pronouncement the greatest compliment that he had ever received.[4]
An outspoken critic of what he considered US government abuses, Cooper was charged with various crimes, including tax evasion from 1992 to 1994, and bank fraud for giving false information on a loan application.
In the 1990s Cooper's interest moved from UFOs, to covert government programs, and finally to the militia movement. He concluded that all UFO reports were New World Order propaganda.
By 1998 Cooper was living in Arizona. There were warrants for his arrest on charges of tax evasion and bank fraud. Cooper said he would meet with armed resistance any attempt to execute what he saw as "unlawful warrants." Later a warrant was issued for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, following a dispute with a local man.[6]
According to Commander X, in March of 1999 Cooper sent his family out of the United States for their security. He lived and worked alone with his two dogs, one rooster, and one chicken until his death in 2001.[5] In July and September 2001, Cooper threatened with a handgun passersby near his home in Eagar, Arizona. On November 5, 2001, Apache County, Arizona Sheriff's officers posed as civilians, luring him from his house. After the deputies identified themselves and tried to serve an arrest warrant, Cooper fled toward his house and began shooting, wounding one deputy. Another returned fire, killing Cooper.[7] Milton William Cooper was 58 years old.
[edit] Videography
Milton William Cooper also produced videos, including
- Assassin Unmasked
- Behold A Pale Horse
- CNN Interview With William Cooper
- Dimensions in Parapsychology
- Kennedy - The Sacrificed King
- Lansing Michigan
- Luxor
- Project Redlight I
- Project Redlight II
- The Secret Government
- The Branch Davidian's Last Will and Testament
[edit] References
- ^ Cooper, Milton William (1991). Behold a Pale Horse. Light Technology Publications. ISBN 0-929385-22-5.
- ^ Cooper, Milton William (1989). The Secret Government: The Origin, Identity, and Purpose of MJ-12. totse.com. Retrieved on 2006-07-28.
- ^ a b Cooper, William (1995). BATF/IRS -- Criminal Fraud. Veritas. supremelaw.org. Retrieved on 2006-08-12.
- ^ a b William Cooper: A Short Biography. hourofthetime.com (2002). Retrieved on 2006-08-12.
- ^ a b Commander X (2001). William Cooper: Death Of A Conspiracy Salesman. Inner Light. ISBN 1-892062-30-5.
- ^ News Services. "Suspect is killed in shootout with deputies", Nation/World Briefs Column, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc., 2001-11-07, p. A10. Retrieved on 2006-07-29.
- ^ Sieveking, Paul. "How a conspiracy theorist lost the plot", Sunday Telegraph(London), The Telegraph Group Limited, 2001-12-02, p. 41. Retrieved on 2006-07-29.
- Barkun, Michael (2003). A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23805-2.
- Jerome Clark, The Ufo Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial, Visible Ink, 1998, ISBN 1-57859-029-9
[edit] Further reading
- Montes, Eduardo. "Militia figure killed after shooting deputy", The Associated Press State & Local Wire, Associated Press, 2001-11-06. Retrieved on 2006-08-13.
- Shaffer, Mark. "Officers kill militia voice", The Arizona Republic, 2001-11-07. Retrieved on 2006-08-13.
[edit] External links
- Biography of Cooper at hourofthetime.com
- The document MAJESTYTWELVE outlines Cooper's beliefs and theories at the time of his death.
- Radio Free Vermont station of Cooper's 'World Wide Freedom Radio Network'
