Alien Smokescreen Part Two: The Devil is in the Details (Literally)

By Paul and Phillip Collins

Years ago, these writers asserted that there was an “Alien Smokescreen,” a dense cloud of UFO and alien disinformation that helped conceal a realm of covert politics in which little green men played little or no role. In support of this assertion, we focused in on a famous C-123K cargo plane, serial number 54-0679. The plane made its mark in history in 1986 when it was shot down over Nicaragua. The sole survivor of the crash, Eugene Hasenfus, was a cargo handler for America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Hasenfus’ confessions to the Sandinistas lifted the off veil of the now infamous Iran-Contra scandal. Most people know that part of the story. What most people do not know is that in addition to weapons intended for the Contras, the Sandinistas also discovered logs in the C-123K that linked the cargo plane to Area 51, a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility in the Nevada desert that has spawned more wild tales of extraterrestrials and UFOs than a Ufologist can shake a stick at. The plane’s former owner was deceased pilot Barry Seal, regarded by many researchers into the realm of true crime as the most successful drug dealer in American history. The efforts of tenacious researchers such as Daniel Hopsicker helped to uncover an inconvenient fact: Seal had been working for the CIA. While some had asserted that Seal’s death was the result of a gangland hit, there was compelling evidence that the violent killing could be traced back to the covert operator Colonel Oliver North, elite deviant George H.W. Bush, the CIA, and several other deep state denizens that wanted to prevent a dirty secret from leaking out. That secret was that elements of America’s own Intelligence Community were deeply involved in drug trafficking. The people canonized by Tom Clancy’s entertaining works of fiction could not be shown to be responsible for the crack explosion in urban America or the wave of addiction the nation has been grappling with ever since. UFO disinformation helped covert political circles hide that fact. The presence of Seal’s C-123K at Area 51 had very little to do with grey Zeta Reticulans and a whole hell of a lot to do with spooks getting their feet wet in a giant pond called the global drug trade.

            However, the nexus between criminalized intelligence circles and drug trafficking may be only the tip of a larger iceberg that is being obscured by the “Alien Smokescreen.” These writers recently conducted more research and learned that Seal’s plane also provided a connection between UFO disinformation and deep state-sponsored cults. An Associated Press article that appeared in the July 31, 1989 edition of the Galveston Daily News revealed that other documents were found in the wreckage of the C-123K. Those documents mentioned a San Antonio pilot named Rick Block (“SA pilot suspect in federal probe of cult ring, mob”). Like so many other people linked in some way to Iran-Contra, Block was no stranger to the world of covert operations. According to the Associated Press, Block “and a Mexican co-pilot crashed Jan. 18 on the runway at Laredo International Airport with a cache of elaborate satellite descramblers adaptable for military purposes”. A Customs Service representative provided the Associated Press with more information regarding Block’s cargo. The article states: “Charles Conroy, spokesman for the Customs Service in Houston, said the descramblers can be modified for use in military communications and missile guidance systems. Their exportation is banned ‘to make sure munitions of war will not be sold to our enemies,’ he said”. Block certainly seems to have been a man that was cut from the same cloth as many participants in covert operations. His story is not unlike that of the scores of adrenaline junkies and cowboy types who helped fuel conflicts that the United States government was reluctant to talk about. Some aspects of Block’s background, however, did make him stick out in a unique way. One of those aspects was a federal racketeering probe into a murderous cult located in the Mexican city of Matamoros. The Associated Press elaborates:

Federal court records indicate Block is now under U.S. Customs scrutiny in the probe of a suspected drug pipeline from Matamoros cult suspects and some of their associates to Chicago’s organized crime syndicate, The Brownsville Herald reported.

The cult is believed to have been part of a drug organization accused of smuggling a ton of marijuana a week into the United States. The drug ring has been linked to 13 bodies discovered buried at a ranch near Matamoros, Mexico, and two others found nearby.

Some victims were mutilated in ritual slayings that suspects said were designed to bring magical protection to the smuggling organization. (ibid)

Authorities conducting the probe asserted that Block shared business associates with the intermediary between the Matamoros cult and the Chicago mob, a man named Manuel “Poncho” Jaramillo (ibid). If true, this means that there is a crossroads where covert operations meet with a brutal and gruesome ritual murder that refused to conform to the “satanic panic” template established by naysayers and pathological skeptics. The gory affair that came to be known by many as the Matamoros cult killings was discovered in 1989, when an excavation was conducted at a ranch in Matamoros, Mexico, a city directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas (McGowan 88). The dig revealed the remains of 15 victims of ritual sacrifice (McGowan 88). Among the victims was Mark Kilroy, a 21-year-old Texas pre-med student who crossed the border in search of spring break fun (Valdez 89). Mexican police, according to writer Diana Washington Valdez, “found body parts and occult paraphernalia and made several arrests” (89). The grisly sacrifices were the work of a group of drug-running cultists lead by Adolfo Constanzo, a criminal who has been described as a “charismatic cult leader who belonged to the Mexican social celebrity network” (Raschke 5).

These cultists possessed a unique “religion,” which philosopher and theologian Carl Raschke asserts was “improvised from a variety of sources compassing Mexican peasant folk magic, the Hollywood horror movie The Believers, and the warped fantasies of Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo” (5). Raschke comments on this toxic mixture: “Such an ad hoc blend of the ancient and the contemporary, of cultural kitsch and common superstition, of private folly and collective mania, make up what is most appropriately called satanism, which is certainly not a religious tradition in the usual sense” (5). Constanzo’s unique form of satanism was apparently reflected in his cult’s crime (Applebome). An April 13, 1989 New York Times article reported that investigating the Matamoros cultists “described the murders as a twisted blend of sacrificial and black magic practices from Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica”. The occult and satanic-themed crimes included the mutilation and dismemberment of victims, Kilroy, the aforementioned Texas pre-med student, was killed by a machete blow to the back of the neck when he attempted to escape approximately twelve hours after his abduction. The blow was delivered by Constanzo (ibid). Kilroy’s body was further desecrated when his legs were hacked off to make disposal of the body easier (Raschke 11-12). The pre-med student’s remains were then used in an occult-inspired activity described by Raschke:

Kilroy’s body parts were boiled in an iron kettle with animal blood. The cult members then passed around and drank the “witch’s” brew as a kind of sickening “communion” among themselves. They believed that the blood and the energies of violence it contained would make them unconquerable soldiers in the war of evil. (12)

            In addition to the cauldron containing Kilroy’s remains, there were also smaller pots found at the crime scene (Applebome). These smaller pots contained animal body parts, “including a goat’s head and a rooster”. Another scene of occult gore connected to the Matamoros cultists was discovered by authorities in a vacant house located 20 miles away from the ranch excavation site. A “bloodstained altar with clothing and pictures of small children” were found at the empty dwelling. Law enforcement officials determined that the vacant house had been “frequented by a woman identified as Mr. Constanzo’s companion, Sara Villareal Aldrette, 24” (ibid).

Constanzo’s inverted form of spirituality seemed to have a profound effect on the minds of his disciples, transforming them into murderers completely devoid of a conscience. This became apparent to law enforcement officials when they interviewed Elio Hernandez Rivera, a 22-year-old follower of Constanzo, and other members of the Matamoros cult. New York Times reporter Peter Applebome elaborates:

Mr. Rivera and his fellow suspects spoke in nonchalant tones, and Oran Neck, a United States customs agent, said, “They didn’t demonstrate any remorse at all.”

“They were laughing, giggling,” he added. “They didn’t seem to have any reason to be ashamed. It was unbelievable.” (ibid)

            For years, many true crime researchers have focused on the grisly nature of the crimes committed by Constanzo’s cult. It is not hard to see why. Such crimes, after all, easily surpass the evil displayed by the common street thug. That being said, a fixation on the heinous character of the acts performed by the Matamoros cult may cause one to overlook some suspicious connections that place the group in the company of deep state actors and institutions. Both the Mexican and American deep states may have possessed a connection to Constanzo and his Matamoros cultists through a veteran Mexican police officer named Florentino Ventura Gutierrez. A member of the Constanzo’s cult testified that Gutierrez was one of the cult’s followers (Valdez 89). Gutierrez might have provided invaluable information regarding the criminal activities of Constanzo’s group, but any chance of a testimony died with the Mexican police officer when he committed suicide (89). While Gutierrez might have taken important revelations with him to the grave, what is known about his background in law enforcement and intelligence is very revealing. Gutierrez possessed a resume that clearly shows that he inhabited the highest levels of Mexican law enforcement and had significant ties to American intelligence circles (Humes 115). Author Edward Humes elaborates:

Ventura had been primer comandante of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police – the equivalent of FBI director in the United States. In 1985, he had become director of the Mexican branch of Interpol, the European-based international criminal investigation organization, making him one of the most powerful lawmen in Mexico. Respected by many U.S. drug enforcement agents for his tough stance against smugglers, he also had extensive contacts with the CIA. He was a natural cold-war asset for the U.S. intelligence community in Mexico City, where there were more KGB agents than a city outside the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet agents found the Mexican capital a perfect base of operations, a city close to the United States where the government imposed no restriction on communist agents. Consequently, the CIA vies constantly with the KGB for the loyalties of certain Mexicans. (115; italics in original)

Humes describes Gutierrez as “Constanzo’s biggest coup” (115). This may have been the case, but Gutierrez’s membership in Constanzo’s cult may have also constituted a big win for both the Mexican and American deep states. Gutierrez may have provided a bridge between covert political forces and the cult that proved beneficial to all parties involved. A symbiotic relationship may have been established through Gutierrez, permitting all sides to tap into one another’s resources. Constanzo may, in part, owe his success as a drug dealer to this symbiosis.

Gutierriez’s links to the Matamoros cult provides strong support for the contention that Constanzo and his disciples, whether they knew it or not, enjoyed deep state sponsorship.

            When the same C-123K cargo plane connected to Area 51 is found to also have a significant tie to a homicidal cult that is somehow linked to intelligence circles, one has to ask a disturbing question: is the same alien smokescreen that covers intelligence-connected drug smuggling also being employed to conceal deep state sponsorship of some cults? Researchers need to explore that possibility, even though such an expedition into the darker sides of politics and religion may produce its share of sleepless nights.

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