Christopher Bledsoe and the UFO Cult of Intelligence, Pt. 2

The JSOC Next Door / The Religious Scholar Who Came to Dinner

Read Pt. 1 here.

While it often goes unspoken, Chris Bledsoe has lived most of his life very near Fort Bragg—now Fort Liberty—the infamous home of the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command. In fact, even as a child, Bledsoe was close enough to Fort Bragg to supposedly be treated by the infamous Army Special Forces doctor Jeffrey R. MacDonald in the late 1960s. Bledsoe’s childhood was full of physical trauma, and he had to receive stitches after getting third degree burns from walking into a campfire. He notes that MacDonald, who “yelled and cursed (…) while he stitched,” would be “charged with the murder of his wife at daughters at Fort Bragg” three years later. “One force harms, another rescues,” Bledsoe writes.¹ Even before his paranormal encounters, his financial well-being was reliant on the local military presence. From The Fayetteville Observer: “As a home builder, things had slowed locally in the home construction and real estate markets when Fort Liberty soldiers deployed to the Middle East after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.”² The failure of his business led to a prolonged period of depression and illness that would continue until his spiritual reawakening.

Indeed, the relative nearness of Fort Bragg is compelling for another reason: The fact that the Army base, the largest in the United States, has blossomed into a “covert military within the military” in recent years.³ Followed extensively by journalist Seth Harp, the newly re-christened Ft. Liberty may have had a name change, but the seedy elements within have remained constant. A spate of murders, overdoses, and violent incidents have overtaken the base and the nearby town of Fayetteville, fueled by uncontrollable elements of America’s defense system that see little consequences from outside authorities. “Morality and ethics are in the eye of the beholder, and everything goes so long as the mission is accomplished and your tactics aren’t known to the public or explicitly to the higher-ups,” a former Green Beret told Harp. “Elite soldiers have access to whatever they want to get into: whores, guns, drugs, you name it.”⁴ And the personnel who call Ft. Bragg home are the elite of the elite—multiple Spec Ops teams, the 82^nd Airborne Division, and Joint Special Operations Command are all based out of the North Carolina facility.⁵ The Air Force—always an integral factor to take into consideration when dealing with UFO encounters—also has a presence at the base’s Pope Airfield, specifically Air Force Special Operations branches.

While it is doubtful that Bledsoe’s experiences consisted of military abductions or some other type of covert operation, the lights seen by the four witnesses and himself could have easily been advanced aircraft of some stripe. Helicopters, planes, drones—the various branches of the Special Forces run the gamut when it comes to aerial technology. Frustratingly, even the earliest MUFON investigation explored this possibility, noting:

Pope Air Force base and Fort Bragg military installations are both in the Fayetteville area, but not close to where these events took place. A logical way to explain this would be to say these men encountered some type of military exercise in progress but the description of the UFOs observed and the entities observed do not match any conventional explanation.⁶

Contrary to the MUFON investigator’s claim here, Bledsoe and his group would have been less than 50 miles away from Fort Liberty and regardless, aircraft can (famously) travel long distances. Whether a sanctioned military exercise or one of the many unsanctioned operations that the Special Ops soldiers of the region partake in, I am confident that a military explanation is more justifiable than “craft and beings from another dimension or from another star system”—the postulation of MUFON’s Steve McGee.⁷ Regardless, given his propensity to always have his eyes on the skies recording the supernatural orbs that he can sense or command to appear, a group of intelligence personnel inserting themselves into the lives of the Bledsoes begins to make more sense: It is not secret military technology or training exercises he is seeing, after all. They are UFOs of a spiritual nature.

And attention was quick to come his way, even after denouncing MUFON’s investigation and television episode about his case. At an Asheville, North Carolina MUFON gathering, Bledsoe was approached after his talk by a man named Dan who shook his hand and told Bledsoe “that he and his wife had come all the way from Wilmington to hear” his talk.⁸ In the weeks that followed, Bledsoe received another call:

A few weeks later MUFON called me again, asking if I would go down to Wilmington to meet a scholar named Diana. Apparently she was Dan’s wife from the sky watch in Asheville who hadn’t spoken to me. They didn’t want me to give a talk or do anything other than meet Diana. She was a religious studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and wanted to get to know me and my story. They dropped hints about us collaborating on some project, and I am always eager to learn more, so I was excited to go. After the talk, there would be a dinner and a sky watch on the beach where we could get acquainted.⁹

Diana was D.W. Pasulka, a religious scholar whose work I have covered previously in “State of the U(fo)nion” and more extensively in “Review: D.W. Pasulka’s Encounters”. While Pasulka had not yet fully plugged herself into the wilderness of mirrors that comprises the intelligence community in UFO research, she would go on to interact with many representatives of this faction—some acquaintances stemming from her interactions with Bledsoe. Of note in their initial encounter is the presence of Pasulka’s husband, Dan, who was the first to interact with Bledsoe, “talking off and on the whole night” of the conference.¹⁰ The families would eventually become friendly with one another, including the children of each.¹¹ Interestingly, given that Bledsoe had not yet spoken about “The Lady” until the very conference Pasulka attended, it seems that religious scholar was attracted to his story even the most overtly spiritual elements came into play. Rather, Pasulka knew of the case from the MUFON investigation. Bledsoe writes:

They had sent (Pasulka) a stack of around two thousand reports of UFO sightings that included descriptions of angels and other religious aspects. When I confirmed with MUFON that I would speak at the Asheville conference, they sent word to her that I lived nearby and our experiences would make an ideal subject for her research.¹²

While the more overt elements of Christian theology would trickle into Bledsoe’s publicly professed experiences later on—perhaps unsurprising, as he was raised a Baptist and his wife’s family ran an energetic Pentecostal church¹³—Pasulka already had some interest in his experiences. Bledsoe mentions that from their first meeting, there was already talk of collaborating on some kind of “project.” Pasulka was fresh off her role as religious consultant on the 2013 horror film The Conjuring and was possibly eager to continue a Hollywood side career. With an LLC going by the name No Coincidences Management and Research, Pasulka attempted to buy the life story rights from Bledsoe for the film project The Cape Fear Prophecies with Chad and Carey W. Hayes of The Conjuring serving as screenwriters. Bledsoe turned down this offer, wanting to maintain control over his depiction specifically after his “unprofessional” treatment by MUFON and The Discovery Channel.¹⁴ While current printings of UFO of God and the book’s website say a movie is forthcoming, the project with Pasulka and the Hayes brothers attached to it never proceeded. Nevertheless, Bledsoe states that his “correspondence with Diana Pasulka stayed strong” and that he “related everything to her on a regular basis.”¹⁵

While Bledsoe and his family are thanked in the acknowledgements of Pasulka’s 2019 book American Cosmic, his story as an experiencer only receives a passing mention.¹⁶ Pasulka writes:

He had a profound UFO sighting that he interpreted as an extension of his own religious tradition. His congregation rejected his interpretation and called the experience demonic. For Bledsoe, this was an agonizing process that alienated him from his community and changed his life. Bledsoe struggled for several years, although he now seems at peace with his conversion.¹⁷

Although the exploration into Bledsoe’s personal religious tradition is relatively scant, it is evident that Pasulka’s research into the melding of traditional religious experiences and UFO encounters was influenced by Bledsoe’s strange life—or vice versa. Pasulka includes a chapter on the Fatima apparitions of 1917 where she notes that “the children’s testimonies indicate that they identified the lady just as ‘a lady,’ not as the Virgin Mary.”¹⁸ Bledsoe also uses the term “The Lady” to describe the figure in his most overtly religious initiatory experience, and like the Fatima apparitions, she bears a striking resemblance to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pasulka would often talk to Bledsoe about the impressiveness of his experiences, likely giving him some of the validation he had been seeking for so long. “She was extremely well-versed in world religions, often comparing one element of my story to that of some medieval saint or mystic,” Bledsoe writes. “I had read all the bible passages before, but it never occurred to me to read them in this light.”¹⁹

Obviously, there are questions to be raised about Pasulka’s academic methodology here: In most circles, it would be considered leading the witness to tell them that their experiences match those of saints and mystics. Regardless, Pasulka’s depiction in UFO of God is not necessarily the most flattering portrait. Despite Bledsoe himself presenting the religious scholar in a mostly positive light, her preoccupation with a book or film based on Bledsoe’s life brings up questions of financial incentives at play in her work and scholarship. Those Hollywood aspirations never left either: Just recently, she reported her two books were optioned by an HBO producer for a prospective TV series. Pasulka herself seemed displeased with the disclosures within Bledsoe’s book, taking issue on Twitter with unauthorized photographs printed within it and other parts of the text. (These photographs will come up later in this series.) The current status of Bledsoe and Pasulka’s professional relationship is unknown but not looking good. The only liked tweet on Bledsoe’s account is currently one of the Pasulka tweets calling out his book, so make of that what you will. Before any of this scuffle, however, Bledsoe reportedly introduced Pasulka to a special friend that greatly influenced the narratives of Pasulka’s two books and changed the course of Bledsoe’s life: Former NASA employee and purported military and intelligence operative Timothy (Tyler D.) Taylor.

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1. Bledsoe, Chris. UFO of God: The Extraordinary True Story of Chris Bledsoe. Self-published, 2023. Page 16.

2. Riley, Rachael. “’It's trying to wake us up:’ Hope Mills man featured in TV show about UFOs.” The Fayetteville Observer. 8 November 2023. https://www.fayobserver.com/story/lifestyle/2023/11/08/hope-mills-nc-man-on-history-channels-beyond-skinwalker-ranch-after-ufo-sighting/71158607007/.

3. Harp, Seth. “The Fort Bragg Murders: At least 44 Fort Bragg soldiers died stateside in 2020 — several of them were homicides. Families want answers. But the Army isn’t giving any.” Rolling Stone. 18 April 2021. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/fort-bragg-murders-1153405/.

4. Ibid.

5. Harp, Seth. “Senators Press Pentagon for Answers on Rash of Overdose Deaths: Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and three other senators are demanding answers from Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin, citing Rolling Stone's reporting on overdoses at Fort Bragg.” Rolling Stone. 29 September 2022. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fort-bragg-deaths-senators-press-pentagon-military-overdoses-1234602208/.

6. McGee, Steve. “Reports from the Field…: North Carolina Fishing Trip becomes UFO/Alien Encounter.” MUFON UFO Journal, no. 478. January 2008. Page 9-11. Available via The Black Vault here.

7. Ibid.

8. Bledsoe, Chris. UFO of God: The Extraordinary True Story of Chris Bledsoe. Self-published, 2023. Page 173.

9. Ibid., page 173-174.

10. Ibid., page 173.

11. Ibid., page 179.

12. Ibid., page 175.

13. Ibid., page 36-37.

14. Ibid., page 212.

15. Ibid., page 271.

16. Pasulka, D.W. American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Page xiv.

17. Ibid., page 219-220.

18. Ibid., page 166.

19. Bledsoe, Chris. UFO of God: The Extraordinary True Story of Chris Bledsoe. Self-published, 2023. Page 178.