by Dr Michael E. Salla
September 25, 2003




  1. Abstract

  2. Introduction

  3. Paul Bennewitz and Evidence of a Joint Government-Extraterrestrial Base at Dulce

  4. Whistleblowers and National Security

  5. Thomas Castello & the Dulce Papers

  6. Was a Treaty Signed Between US Government Representatives and ET races?

  7. The Dulce War

  8. Critique of the Dulce Underground Base Hypothesis

  9. Funding Dulce and other Joint Government/ET Underground Bases without US Congressional Oversight






















Dr Paul Bennewitz is an electronics specialist who in the late 1979 began to film, photograph, and electronically intercept what appeared to be extensive UFO/ET activity and communications that he traced to the vicinity of the Archuletta Mesa on Jicarilla Apache Reservation land near the town of Dulce.


Based on the collected evidence Bennewitz concluded that an underground extraterrestrial (ET) base existed near Dulce that played a role in both cattle mutilations and abduction of civilians. In 1980, the Air Force Office of Special Intelligence (AFOSI) began investigating Bennewitz’s evidence, and this eventually led to its disinformation campaign to discredit Bennewitz.


Bennewitz’s subsequent electronic evidence and field research alleging extensive human rights abuses were occurring at the Dulce underground base became associated with the AFOSI disinformation campaign. Most UFO researchers concluded that Bennewitz had been too influenced by disinformation to be taken seriously

In this report, I investigate Bennewitz’s claims regarding massive human rights abuses by ETs at an underground base at Dulce, and his belief that this was a joint US government/ET base that was the site of a significant violent confrontation between military forces and resident ETs in 1979.


I begin my analysis of whistleblower testimonies by reviewing whistleblower protection laws, and how National Security statutes eliminate this protection for whistleblowers that disclose classified information such as secret underground military installations. I then review various whistleblower testimonies that involved the disclosure of information about the existence of an underground base at Dulce used by ETs.


I subsequently explore whether the evidence for the alleged human rights abuses and a military conflict having occurred at Dulce are persuasive. I then examine criticisms raised against the Dulce underground base hypothesis. Using further whistleblower testimony, I further examine how a secret base at Dulce and other government facilities are funded without US Congressional and Executive Office oversight.


Finally, I make recommendations on how to address the alleged human rights abuses identified in this report, and the political implications of the purported joint government-ET underground base at Dulce.


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Introduction [1]















A more scholarly effort of analyzing the primary source material available on Dulce is needed to help answer key questions about the alleged base at Dulce, and the human rights violations that were reported to be occurring there by ETs with US government complicity. This report is an effort to fulfill the need for a scholarly analysis of the primary source material on what has occurred, and may be still occurring, at Dulce and elsewhere in the US and around the planet.

In this report, I begin by investigating Bennewitz’s claims regarding massive human rights abuses by ETs at an underground base at Dulce, and his belief that this was a joint US government/ET base that was the site of a significant violent confrontation between military forces and resident ETs in 1979. I begin my analysis of whistleblower testimonies that support Bennewitz’s claims by reviewing federal and state whistleblower protection laws, and how National Security statutes eliminate this protection for whistleblowers that disclose classified information such as secret underground military installations. I then review various whistleblower testimonies that involved the disclosure of information about the existence of an underground base at Dulce used by ETs.





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In the mid 1970’s, a wave of cattle mutilations began occurring in New Mexico and Dr Paul Bennewitz, a local Albuquerque businessman and electronics specialist, became keenly interested in the phenomenon.
[4] In 1979, he did some field trips with Gabe Valdez, a well known New Mexico State Trooper to investigate some of these mutilations, and they concluded that the mutilations were not caused by anything ‘natural’.


Bennewitz soon began noticing an unusual amount of UFO activity in the Northern New Mexico area. Using his film and photographic equipment, he began accumulating evidence of what appeared to be UFO’s. [5] He then began intercepting radio and video transmissions that he believed were used by the UFOs and involved different ET races.


He traced these transmissions to a base located under the Archuletta Mesa, near Dulce. Bennewitz believed he had identified the radio and video frequencies used for communications between the ET piloted ships and ground controllers at the underground Dulce base. Bennewitz then created a communication system that he believed enabled him to electronically communicate with what he now was convinced were ET piloted ships flying to and from the base.


Furthermore, Bennewitz began to track the electronic frequencies ETs used to control individuals who had been abducted and implanted with miniature electronic devices. Bennewitz tracked down some of these individuals and conducted interviews on what they could remember of their ET encounters.


Bennewitz eventually issued a report, Project Beta, in which he summarized the evidence of his filming, photographing, electronic interception, communications and fieldwork:






  6. Through the alien communication loop, the true underground base location. [6]

All of the evidence he gathered pointed to the existence of an underground base at Dulce used by different ET races. The communications, video images, and the abductee testimonies he found, provided further information that Bennewitz used in understanding what was occurring at the base and its national security implications.

One of the abductees Bennewitz found was Myrna Hansen whom he had arranged to be placed under hypnotic regression by Dr Leo Sprinkle from the University of Wyoming.


Under hypnosis she claimed to have been abducted in 1980 along with her son and taken inside the Dulce base. She proceeded to describe humans placed in cold storage, and large vats filled with the remains of cattle and human body parts. [8] These were the most controversial aspects of Bennewitz’s activities but combined with his electronic interceptions, video recordings and communications he became convinced that they fit an overall pattern of ET deception, responsibility for cattle mutilations and massive human rights violations of abducted civilians. [9]

Bennewitz’s electronic interceptions and interviews led to him quickly learning much about the activities at the Dulce underground base, the extensive ET presence there and the sizable number of civilians abducted and forcibly taken to the base. His electronic intercepts and communications provided him some basic information that a military conflict had occurred at the Dulce base between ET races and US military personnel.
[10] Bennewitz subsequently reported his findings to the Air Force Office of Special Intelligence (AFOSI) at the nearby Kirtland Air force in October 1980 believing the ETs presented a threat to the nearby Manzano Nuclear Weapons Storage Area.


In an official report signed by Major Thomas Cseh on October 28, 1980 and later released under the Freedom of Information Act, Major Cseh wrote:

On 26 Oct 80, SA [Special Agent] Doty, with the assistance of JERRY MILLER, GS-15, Chief, Scientific Advisor for Air Force Test and Evaluation Center, KAFB, interviewed Dr. Bennewitz at his home in the Four Hills section of Albuquerque, which is adjacent to the northern boundary of Manzano Base.…






After analyzing the data collected by Dr. Bennewitz, Mr MILLER related the evidence clearly shows that some type of unidentified aerial objects were caught on film; however, no conclusions could be made whether these objects pose a threat to Manzano/Coyote Canyon areas. [11]

When AFOSI took no action, Bennewitz approached the then New Mexico Senator, Harrison Schmitt, who demanded to know why Bennewitz’s claims were not being investigated. Frustrated by the lack of official support for his discoveries, Bennewitz issued a detailed report titled Project Beta and continued to accumulate data on ET operations in the area. [12]

Based on his intercepted electronic communications, Bennewitz revealed in his Project Beta report the following about the size of the base and the ET population:

The total alien basing area apparently contains several cultures, (all under the designation 'unity') and is approx 3km wide by 8km long and is located in the middle of nowhere on the Jicarilla Indian Reservation west of Dulce, NM. Based on the number of ships presently in this area, the total alien population is estimated to be at least 2,000 and most likely more. [13]

Bennewitz’s work had attracted much attention and soon led to a covert effort by AFOSI to discredit him.


In a 1989 Mutual UFO Network conference, a prominent UFO specialist, William Moore, caused an uproar when he openly declared that in 1982 he had been co-opted into this effort, and began passing on information about Bennewitz’s activities to AFOSI and played a role in feeding disinformation to Bennewitz.


Moore described the events as follows:




The public declaration by Moore confirmed that Bennewitz had, at least partially, succeeded in electronic monitoring of ET craft in the area, communicating with ETs at the Dulce base, and monitoring ET control of abductees in the area.


This might help explain why AFOSI began what emerged as an intense covert effort to discredit Bennewitz.


The basic strategy in the campaign by AFOSI was to suggest that the most egregious aspects of Bennewitz’s claims - the Dulce base as a site where humans were abducted for genetic experiments, placed in cold storage and even used as a food source for ETs - was disinformation rather than accurate reports of the nature of the ET presence in the Northern New Mexico area. Indeed Moore argued that by the time he met him in 1982, the bulk of Bennewitz’s information was already disinformation fed by AFOSI. [15]

Many UFO researchers despaired of finding the truth of what was happening at Dulce due to the fog of disinformation rumored to be circulating around Bennewitz, and the various activities orchestrated by AFOSI and/or other intelligence services that targeted Bennewitz and his supporters.
[16] The dominant view was that Bennewitz was definitely on to something but had succumbed to beliefs that discredited his early and most persuasive work.


One UFO researcher claimed that the disinformation was passed on through the intercepted communications:

“Where the truth began and ended in the information collected by Bennewitz is debatable but one thing is without doubt true - the content of the intercepted messages certainly caused Bennewitz to become a paranoid and deluded man who eventually suffered a colossal nervous breakdown in 1985.” [17]

The intensity of his investigations and the official response had a heavy personal toll on Bennewitz caused his nervous breakdown. He later withdrew entirely from any public discussion of the Dulce base and ended his involvement with UFO issues.

Despite his controversial withdrawal from the UFO scene, Bennewitz’s credibility as an undisputed electronics genius was not at question, and the extensive database of films, photos and raw electronic communications data of UFO/ET phenomenon, was powerful evidence that something was occurring around the Archuletta Mesa. Aside from the raw physical evidence accumulated by Bennewitz, a number of whistleblowers have come forward to give further testimony and even physical evidence of an underground base at Dulce, and of ETs committing human rights violations on abducted civilians.


Before analyzing whistleblower testimony concerning the Dulce underground base, I will point out the legal position of whistleblowers when disclosing classified information since this would help explain why comparatively few individuals have stepped forward to confirm the allegations of massive human rights abuses at Dulce and other joint government-ET underground bases.

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Whistleblowers and National Security

‘Whistleblowers’ have been described as courageous employees who often with the zeal of a martyr disclose unethical or criminal government/corporate practices that involve great damage to the public interest.


Often the short-term result for whistleblowers is the loss of jobs, reputation, economic security, and even life. A whistleblower can be defined as any employee of any branch of government or corporation that publicly discloses unethical or corrupt practices by a government agency/corporation that violate the law and/or damage the public interest.


There are an extensive series of state and federal whistleblower laws for those who come forward to disclose such practices and risk their own careers, reputations and physical safety. [19]


When it comes to employment in government agencies/corporations that involve working in projects with national security implications, whistleblower protection laws have some important qualifications as evidenced by the Basic Federal Whistleblower Statute concerning National Security Whistleblowers (5 USC 2302). [20]


The relevant section of this Statute [5 USC Sec. 2302. (8) (A)] concerns the prohibition of action taken against an employee (whistleblower) because of any disclosure of information that the employee believes is evidence of “a violation of any law, rule or regulation,” or “an abuse of authority, or “substantial and specific danger to public health or safety.”


The relevant section then states the critical qualifying condition:


As evident in the qualifying statement, whistleblowers are not permitted to disclose information if such disclosure compromises national security. This means that if one is employed in a government agency and/or corporation working on a classified project with national security implications, such individuals do not receive protection under Federal Whistleblower Statutes for publicly disclosing classified information.


Furthermore, if government/corporate employees sign contracts that permit severe penalties for disclosing classified information, such individuals essentially sign away their constitutional rights since they have no legal recourse to prevent the imposition of even the most draconian penalties. Consequently, if employees witness, for instance, egregious human rights abuses committed in the operation of classified projects, they have no legal protection if they choose to disclose this to the general public.


One individual who apparently risked disclosing egregious human rights violations while working on a highly classified project is Thomas Castello.

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Thomas Castello & the Dulce Papers

In 1987 an apparent whistleblower organized the release of 30 photos, video and a set of papers to UFO researchers that were apparently physical evidence of a joint US government/extraterrestrial base two miles beneath the Archuletta Mesa, near the town of Dulce, New Mexico.


The collection came to be called the ‘Dulce Papers’ and provided graphic evidence of the operations of this secret underground facility and appeared to provide powerful support to Bennewitz’s conclusions regarding activities at the underground base. [21]


The Dulce Papers described genetic experimentation, development of human-extraterrestrial hybrids, use of mind control through advanced computers, cold storage of humans in liquid filled vats, and even the use of human body parts as a nutritional source for extraterrestrial (ET) races.


The papers provided possible evidence that humans were used as little more than laboratory animals by ET races working directly with different US government agencies and US corporations fulfilling ‘black budget’ military contracts in a joint base. If the papers were genuine, experiments and projects were being conducted that involved human rights violations on a scale that exceeded even the darkest chapters of recent human history.

The individual responsible for assembling and releasing the Dulce Papers, Thomas Castello, claimed to have worked as a senior security officer at the base before ‘quitting’ the Dulce facility after a military confrontation that occurred in 1979 between elite US military personnel, base security guards, and resident extraterrestrials. The military confrontation he described has been dubbed the ‘Dulce Wars’ and a number of other ‘whistleblowers’ and UFO researchers have subsequently described similar incidents at Dulce or nearby that substantiate many of Castello’s claims.


In the time since he claims he left his Dulce employers in 1979, and subsequent release of the Dulce Papers in 1986, Castello gave a number of interviews and corresponded with UFO researchers before eventually vanishing from the scene. The transcripts of these interviews and correspondence provide further ‘whistleblower’ testimony of events at the purported Dulce facility, and the secret ‘war’ that occurred there.

Thomas Castello claims to have served in the US Air force and specialized in military photography and video monitoring. He further claims to have served on a highly classified underground base near the Northern New Mexico town of Dulce.


His background has been summarized as follows:








It is the extensive video monitoring that occurred at Dulce that apparently provided Castello the bird’s eye information he needed to learn what was occurring at the base, and the human rights abuses that eventually led to his departure from the base and distribution of classified material.


Castello’s claims are outlined in two sources, first are the Dulce papers themselves that presumably involved classified material taken from the base; and second, the interviews/correspondence Castello had with a number of UFO researchers. Much of Castello’s material has since been circulated on the Internet and has been incorporated in a book titled The Dulce Wars that was authored by a UFO researcher who uses the name ‘Branton’. [24]

Officially confirming Castello’s employment, military and educational background and therefore his status as a whistleblower has not been possible.


This is possibly due to a practice that has been claimed to be standard for civilians who work under contract to corporations and/or military/intelligence agencies on classified projects involving ETs: the official removal of all public records of contracted employees as a security precaution in the event they intentionally or unintentionally publicly disclose what is occurring in such projects.


For example, Dr Michael Wolf claims to have been a former scientist and policy maker on ET affairs that began to serve from 1979 on the coordinating policy group for ET affairs, the Special Studies Group (PI-40) in the National Security Council. [25]


In a series of interviews with the prominent UFO researcher, Dr Richard Boylan, Wolf claimed that he was being directed by his superiors to participate in a controlled leak of information to the UFO community while providing a fall back of ‘plausible deniability’ for the government. [26]


All public records of Wolf’s advanced university degrees and contractual services to different military/intelligence/national security branches of government were eliminated making it very difficult if not impossible to confirm his background and substantiate the startling information he was releasing. He claimed that this removal of public records was ‘standard practice’ for all civilians employed by either corporations and/or the US military in clandestine projects involving ETs. [27]


A further source confirming Wolf’s description of the existence of such a ‘standard practice’ was Bob Lazar, a physicist who found that after leaving in 1988 the secret S-4 facility (Dreamland) in Nevada where his job was to reverse engineer the propulsion and power system of recovered ET craft, his birth certificate was no longer available at the hospital he was born at, along with the disappearance of his school, college and all employment records – he simply ceased to officially exist! [28]

It can now be suggested that a standard practice exists for civilians contracted to corporations and/or military/intelligence agencies whereby their employment and public records are removed as a security precaution against either public disclosure of ET related information as in the case of Bob Lazar, or to maintain a highly controlled leak of information as in the case of Dr Wolf.


This means that confirming Castello’s employment background and therefore his credibility, as a whistleblower is very difficult if possible at all.


There are three possibilities for Castello’s true identity and credibility as a whistleblower.

  • The first is that he is who he claims to be, a whistleblower who worked at the base.

  • The second is that he is using the name and identity of ‘Thomas Castello’ as a cover in order to reveal information on Dulce. In this case, he may be an ‘insider’ leaking information on abuses at the base who wishes to remain an anonymous whistleblower.

  • The third, possibility is that Castello is a bogus identity created by an intelligence officer to disseminate disinformation that steers UFO researchers and the general public away from genuine military related projects in the area.

A number of UFO researchers were apparently able to get in contact with Castello before his eventual ‘disappearance’ in the late 1980s and were able to get answers to a series of questions. [29]


According to both Branton and William Hamilton, fellow UFO researchers had personally met with Castello and could vouch for his existence and credibility. [30]


While the list of contacts and personal interviews with Castello are not extensive, it does appear that he exists while casting doubt on, without eliminating, the third possibility that his identity was concocted by intelligence officers. It is this uncertainty that led to most UFO researchers not taking seriously Castello’s claims that supported much of what Bennewitz had been earlier arguing and was now associated with a disinformation campaign led by Air Force Intelligence (AFOSI).


In a later section, other whistleblowers will be cited who confirm many aspects of both Bennewitz’s and Castello’s claims indicating that the third possibility can be dismissed as the least likely possibility concerning Castello’s identity. Consequently, it is worth exploring in some depth what Castello claimed to have experienced in the Ducle underground base since he provides the most extensive testimony of what may have occurred there.

In the Dulce papers and his personal testimonies Castello claims the existence of a
seven level underground facility that jointly houses humans and different extraterrestrial races in Dulce, New Mexico. Castello claims that the humans employed at the base comprised scientists, security personnel, and employees from various corporations who were servicing military contracts. [31]


There were four extraterrestrial races he claimed worked at Dulce:


  • tall Grays from Rigel, Orion (7 ft);




He said that the short grays (depicted in movies such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind) are subservient to the Draco Reptilians. Castello says he was employed as a ‘Senior Security Technician’ at the Dulce facility and that his primary job function was to sort out any security issues between the resident ET races and the human employees at the base.


He described some of his job functions and the ET hierarchy in response to a question by Branton about how often he communicated with the different ET species:

Since I was the Senior Security Technician at that base, I had to communicate with them on a daily basis. If there were any problems that involved security or video cameras, I was the one they called. It was the reptilian "working caste" that usually did the physical labor in the lower levels at Dulce.







Castello claimed that the different projects at Dulce involved:

  • reverse engineering of ET technology,

  • development of mind control methods,

  • and genetic experiments involving cloning and creating human-ET hybrids.

Similar projects have been conducted at Montauk, Long Island and Brookhaven laboratories [34] and been the subject of a number of other whistleblower testimonies. [35]

These projects were scattered among the seven levels of the Dulce underground base with the ETs occupying the deepest levels, five to seven. These lower levels were described by Castello as an extremely old series of natural caverns that had been used in the past by different ET races. In response to a question concerning the Caverns origin, he stated:


In describing the way command was shared at the joint base between the US government and the ET races, Castello said:



Basically speaking, the reptilian races are active at all levels of the Dulce Base. There are several different 'races' of aliens that work on the east section of level six…. That section is commonly called "the alien section." The Draco are the undisputed masters of the 5-6-7 levels. The humans are second in command of those levels. [37]

Castello says that he directly witnessed the products of the trans-species genetic experiments in the sixth level of the facility.


Most disturbing was his discovery that humans were used as a kind of laboratory animal in the lowest level where they were placed in cold storage, used as test subjects in mind-control programs, and even used in genetic experiments.


Castello wrote:

“Level #7 is worse, row after row of thousands of humans and human mixtures in cold storage. Here too are embryo storage vats of Humanoids in various stages of development. ‘I frequently encountered humans in cages, usually dazed or drugged, but sometimes they cried and begged for help.’” [38]














Eventually, Castello described how the an elite Delta force contingent attempted to destroy the ‘resistance movement’:





Due to the importance of Castello’s claims and the evidence he provided that appears to support much of what Bennewitz had concluded from his extensive electronic monitoring and field research, it is necessary to analyze any further whistleblower testimonies that independently substantiate the Dulce underground base hypothesis.


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Was a Treaty Signed Between US Government Representatives and ET races?

The first claim that needs analysis is Bennewitz’s and Castello’s contention that a joint government-ET bases exist in the first place. This would imply some sort of formal treaty or agreement between US government representatives and ET races.


There is significant whistleblower testimony that a treaty was signed between the Eisenhower administration and Grays from Zeta Reticulum as early as 1954.


According to Dr Wolf the Eisenhower administration entered into the treaty with the so-called Grey extraterrestrials from the fourth planet of the star system Zeta Reticulum, but this treaty was never ratified as Constitutionally required. [43]


Alluding to the same treaty signed by the Eisenhower administration, Col Phillip Corso, a highly decorated officer that served in Eisenhower’s National Security Council wrote:


The secret Treaty signed in 1954 between the Eisenhower administration and an ET race has been disclosed by a number of other ‘whistleblowers’ claiming former access to secret documents disclosing the existence of such a treaty. [45]


Phil Schneider, a former geological engineer that was employed by corporations contracted to build underground bases wrote:




The treaty has been argued to essentially lead to technology transfers between ET races and the US government in exchange for certain basing rights, and monitoring of ET abductions of US civilians.


Col Phillip Corso believed that this treaty was essentially something that was imposed on the Eisenhower administration suggesting that the technology transfer would be exchange for the ET harvesting the diverse genetic material available in the US.


This genetic diversity was something that made the US a much more attractive treaty signatory than the more racially homogenous major powers of Russia and China.


It is likely that the administration reasoned that since the Grays had been abducting US civilians anyway, that the Treaty would provide them with a means of monitoring the abductions, and observing at close range what happened with the civilians who were part of the genetic experiments pursued by the Grays. The Grays were obliged to provide lists of abducted civilians, something that apparently did not occur and later became a source of friction between the Grays and US authorities.

The treaty with the Grays from Zeta Reticulum presumably led to the creation of secret joint bases whose functions most likely included:

  • technology exchange;

  • mind control experiments;

  • monitoring genetic experiments of Grays;

  • and collusion in the abduction of civilians for the various projects at these shared bases.

The existence of both the Treaty and the joint base(s) with the Grays would have received the highest possible classification levels and would only have been known by a limited number of elected and appointed public officials.


Consequently, whistleblower testimony supporting the existence of a secret treaty negotiated by the Eisenhower administration for technology transfers with an ET race suggest the possible construction of underground facilities where this could be done without public, congressional or foreign national scrutiny. Having laid the possible ‘legal’ foundation for a joint US government-ET underground facility, I now move to analyzing evidence supporting the existence of such a base.

Based on evidence presented so far it may be concluded that three possibilities stand out as the most likely explanations for what was occurring at Dulce.

  • First, a top secret joint ET-human facility exists at Dulce that is (or was) conducting projects that involve(d) the abduction of human subjects whose rights are (were) severely violated.

  • Second, the Dulce base exists (or existed) but reports of horrific ET abuses of humans were part of a disinformation campaign designed to discredit Paul Bennewitz and any legitimate research into the ET activities and secret government projects being conducted at Dulce.

  • A third possibility is that all the stories about Dulce are disinformation designed to deliberately steer serious investigation away from UFO’s and to divide the UFO community. [47]

Keeping these three possibilities in mind, I now examine whistleblower testimonies concerning an apparent military conflict that occurred at the Dulce base in order to determine which of these three possibilities is more accurate.


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The Dulce War





























Circumstances surrounding the death of Schneider and his autopsy report led many to declare that Schneider had been murdered for going public with his knowledge of ETs and the secret underground base. [51] Schneider’s testimony, his clear knowledge of geological engineering, and mysterious death all support his central thesis that an underground base exists at Dulce, and a military confrontation between ETs and elite US military forces occurred at the lowest level of this underground facility.






















In an interview he described his background as follows:


Lazar revealed that in his briefing prior to working on the ET craft he was required to read 200 pages of briefing documents in preparation for his job. [55] He recalled that the briefing document mentioned a battle between ETs and humans at a secret base in 1979.





  • testimony of Phil Schneider who was directly involved in the Dulce firefight






  • The first possibility was that the evidence substantiates Bennewitz’s claims.



In order to determine which possibility is most plausible, I will now consider some of the criticisms made of Bennewitz’s and others claims surrounding the Dulce base.


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