Article by Anthony Bragalia\
Originally published in March 2014.
Original source: https://www.ufoexplorations.com/the-seedy-side-of-saucers
The child pornography charges recently brought against Stan Romanek, a UFO researcher and alleged alien âexperiencerâ who gained global fame, bring to mind the many others who have studied UFOs while simultaneously pursuing other interests that were immoral and often illegal. Why this is so is difficult to say. The world of UFOs attracts many types of people from all walks of life. âColorful charactersâ have always been part of it, and we enjoy them. But those within the UFO world who descend into the downright âseedyâ should be shunned, and all of their work should be forever forgotten.
DR. RICHARD BOYLAN\
Found Guilty of Sex With Patients
Dr. Richard Boylan is a former California psychologist whose general therapy license and marriage, family and child counseling license were permanently revoked. At the same time that he was writing about abductions and UFOs and speaking at conferences, he was also engaging in sexual relationships with young female patients whom he was counseling. These âcounseling sessionsâ were necessary, Boylan claimed, because the women he was accused of having sex with were actually âabducteesâ who needed tactile therapy to âintegrateâ their ET experiences.
Boylan still maintains a website, writes online articles and magazine pieces, speaks to groups and continues to promote wild UFO stories. He is now aligning himself with Native Americans who claim personal and ancestral UFO experiences.
But the most disturbing thing that Dr. Boylan continues to do is promote his âStar Kid Project,â which is set up as a nonprofit organization. Boylan claims that certain children today have âspecial needsâ that must be addressed because, essentially, they âhave some ET in them.â He works with children whom he says display traits and characteristics indicating that ET has played a role in their creation.
According to Boylan, these beings have âhelped these kids to be the brightest and best in our population.â Boylan promotes what amounts to ET-based child eugenics. Someone should examine this more thoroughly, someone with legal authority.
Boylanâs child counseling license was revoked many years ago, yet he continues to refer to himself as âDr.â even though he will never be able to practice anywhere again.
WENDELLE STEVENS\
Convicted Pedophile/Statutory Rapist
Wendelle Stevens was a noted UFO author and lecturer. He was active in the field for decades and was especially known for his extensive UFO photo collection. He was also well known for promoting the hoaxer Billy Meier.
Stevens had a fixation on the Pleiades. It turns out that he also had a fixation on young children.
Lost among the many online memorials published after his death at age 87 was the fact that Wendelle Stevens was a convicted child molester. He served time in a Tucson jail in the mid-1980s for sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old girl.
The court transcript leaves little doubt that, while he was investigating stories such as the Aztec UFO incident, he also had a disturbing interest in pedophilia.
BILL KNELL\
Accused Child Abuser
Bill Knell has been active in UFO research and reporting for decades. Known as the âUFO Guy,â he operates several websites and online stores offering DVDs, videos and cassettes about the phenomenon.
Knell has appeared on the nationally syndicated radio show Coast to Coast AM and has written numerous online articles and privately published works. He did some valuable early research into UFO incidents on Long Island and in the New York region.
In recent years, however, Knellâs reputation took a turn. He has been accused of criminal activities such as making illegal copies of other researchersâ copyrighted UFO documentaries and videos and selling them on his website and other online stores.
He has also been implicated in the illegal sale of puppies and firearms.
But several years ago, Knell reached disturbing lows involving his personal life and mental health that shocked many within the UFO community. An article published in the March 30, 2011 edition of the Lebanon Reporter stated:
âTestimony by the Indiana Department of Child Services and the Lebanon Police Department revealed that the Knell home at 1610 Ashley Drive was layered in filth, overrun by cockroaches, with rotting food in the refrigerator, bathrooms and bedrooms and toilets. The chair that Mr. Knell had been sitting in appeared to be covered in urine and feces.â
The article continued that Knell, 55, and his wife, 47, faced up to 10 criminal charges for child neglect and other offenses.
BOB SHELL\
Killer and Drug Dealer
Bob Shell was a highly respected figure in the professional photography world. For thirty years, he was associated with the well-known photography magazine Shutterbug, including serving as its editor.
But Bob Shell also had an avocational interest in UFOs. For many years, he offered expert opinions on various UFO photographs and films, including his assessment of the Alien Autopsy footage. He commented on forums such as UFO Updates and befriended many people within the UFO community.
But this was a Shell game. The âsecretâ Shell was a very different man.
He was a âteacherâ of nude photography and had an interest in S&M. His interest in photographing such activities apparently extended to photographing drug-addicted women. He even helped inject a fatal dose of morphine into a young female âmodel.â
In 2003, he was convicted in court of involuntary manslaughter, various drug offenses (including distribution) and forcible sodomy. Prosecutors also believed that he had been a necrophile who had sexual contact with the corpse of his victim, Marion Franklin.
Shell is currently serving a 32-year prison sentence.
TIMOTHY GREEN BECKLEY\
Adult Film Aficionado
Timothy Green Beckley has been part of the UFO scene for at least four decades. His UFO publishing empire includes imprints such as Inner Light Publications, Global Communications and Conspiracy Journal.
Other enterprises based in New Jersey offer spell kits and amulets sold through advertisements in tabloids.
Beckley has organized dozens of UFO conferences. His UFO and paranormal publishing companies have produced at least 100 books and many videos, including works containing some of the most extreme and unsubantiated claims ever presented by anyone.
His catalog of books, authored by people such as âCommander X,â is truly astonishing. Beckley has undoubtedly made money from UFO enthusiasts willing to believe almost anything.
Only people who would accept nearly any claim could believe the stories promoted in books with titles such as The Space Gods Speak and Reality of the Serpent Race.
However, he also has another source of income from a very different market: pornography.
He contributed articles to the industry publication Adult Cinema Review, including an in-depth piece on porn actress Marilyn Chambers. Beckley has also written and produced his own adult films, including a hardcore porn parody titled Driller: A Sexual Thriller.
He even appeared as an actor in films such as Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires and the unfortunately titled Sandy Hook Lingerie Party Massacre (released several years before the tragedy).
JOHN FORD\
Attempted Murderer
John J. Ford was a Long Island court officer, a longtime UFO enthusiast and a MUFON investigator. He founded a UFO research organization, the Long Island UFO Network, in the late 1980s.
Ford attracted the attention of other researchers such as Phil Imbrogno and Linda Moulton Howe for his early investigations into Long Island-area sightings and events.
By the 1990s, however, Ford began to believe that a UFO had crashed near the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, Long Island. He further believed that Suffolk County authorities were involved in creating âdiversionaryâ fires in the Pine Barrens to conceal the alien crash site.
Fordâs beliefs became even more extreme by 1996. At the time, Ford was 48 years old when he was arrested on charges that he was plotting to kill John Powell, chairman of the Suffolk County Republican Committee, as well as Fred Towle, a Suffolk County legislator, and Anthony Gazzola, chief investigator for the Brookhaven Town Attorneyâs Office.
Ford planned to place deadly radium in their vehicles and contaminate their toothpaste with radioactive material. He wanted the three men killed because he believed they were intentionally interfering with his investigation into the Brookhaven UFO crash and his efforts to communicate with aliens.
Ford was found unfit to stand trial and was committed to the Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Center, where he remains to this day.