It's Always Sunny in Gulf Breeze, Florida, Pt. 2
Ed Walters (Possible Antichrist) Photographs a UFO & Battles Its Crew
The arrival of six AWOL soldiers was not the first hint of high strangeness to hit Gulf Breeze. Indeed, the small Florida panhandle community has been in the midst of a UFO flap throughout much of the late 80s. This flap was initiated when a local businessman named Ed Walters snapped photos of a self-illuminating object in the sky that bore a resemblance to a ceiling fan with the blades chopped off. Walters’ photos spread far and wide through ufology organizations and local and national media. Walters was not the only witness, sightings were so common that groups of skywatchers scanned the skies of Gulf Breeze nightly hoping to catch a glimpse of the mysterious lights for themselves. While the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) confirmed the authenticity of Walters’ photos, other UFO groups such as the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and a wide range of skeptics thought Walters was hoaxing them all. CUFOS members specifically thought the whole Gulf Breeze UFO ordeal would set back the reputation of serious UFO research by decades, noting “the tacky, B-grade science fiction quality of Ed’s photos and story.”1 Facets of said story are the premier reason to be suspicious of Walters.
The photos were not the whole of Walters’ UFO experience. On numerous occasions he claimed to take the photos as a supposed defense mechanism to prevent the UFO occupants from sucking him into the craft via a blue beam. The entities would telepathically talk to him—often in Spanish for some reason—and shoot images into his head, trying to convince him that they meant no harm in kidnapping him. “Ed’s subconscious mind was bombard with images of naked women—big, little, fat, skinny, black, white of all ages and shapes,” recounted journalist Craig R. Myers. “Even pregnant ones.”2 MUFON director at the time, Walt Andrus, believed Walters’ claims wholeheartedly, despite what seems to be some cribbing from Whitley Strieber’s Communion (the smell of cinnamon after an encounter is one such instance).3 Abduction researcher Budd Hopkins, who had also worked with Strieber, was also convinced: “The credibility of the pictures and the photographer should not be questioned.”4 For other researchers, his descriptions were a bit too convenient, outlandish, and unproven.
But beyond the bizarre attempts at telepathic enticement and abduction, Walters reported being harassed by human beings as well: “Two armed men from the ‘Special Security Services’ of the Air Force (he didn’t get their names) came around with a ‘material seizure warrant’ and demanded his photographs” which he no longer had—Polaroid photos only have one copy and these were sent to the Gulf Breeze Sentinel Newspaper.5 As in other articles from this newsletter, one wonders if these were “mirage men” aiming to convince Walters he was on the right path with his UFO discoveries in an attempt to further perpetuate the myth. But there’s a chance the AF employees were a figment of his imagination. The sightings and photographs may have been fake as well—a model resembling the object in the classic Gulf Breeze UFO photos was found in Walters’ attic by a new occupant. Walters, of course, claimed that the model had been planted.
Given Walters’ status throughout the ufological field as the driving force behind the Gulf Breeze UFO flap, Jacques Vallee asks a pressing question of the Gulf Breeze Six situation: “One of the objectives of their trip to Gulf Breeze was to find the Antichrist and kill him. Were they looking for Ed Walters?”6 Indeed, a rumor spreading amongst the UFO crowd that the six were intending to kill Walters, convinced that he was the Antichrist spoken of through Ouija board sessions. A letter from Georgia state MUFON director Larry Hebebrand to MUFON director Walt Andrus reported the information from a doctor at Ft. Benning where the six were being held at the time: “They (…) supposedly claim that Ed Walters is the anti-Christ and that is why UFO activity has been so heavy in the Florida panhandle.”7 Kenneth Beason’s sister, Carolyn Reed, was also told by Beason that the six soldiers were going to meet with an unidentified author—an author the Pensacola News Journal assumed to be Ed Walters.8 However, in a meeting with the co-director of Pensacola MUFON, Rex Salisberry, four of the Gulf Breeze Six denied any interest in Walters. Instead, they were hoping to meet a different ufological figure:
Reports in the local media have indicated that they may have come to Gulf Breeze to meet with Ed Walters, which they firmly deny. They claim to have had slight knowledge of Walters until they heard his comments concerning them on local TV. They claim to have read one of Bill Cooper's reports and found in it some bearing on what they had been studying in the Bible. Because of this, they had hoped to meet with Cooper at some point to discuss this with him.9
But as in the case of Walters, the group’s opinion of Cooper also seems inconsistent. In The Gulf Breeze Prophecies, a self-published transcript of a conversation between GB6 member Vance Davis and paranormal huckster Sean David Morton, Davis says they were warned to be suspicious of Bill Cooper through multiple mysterious sources. A mysterious unnamed woman who the Ouija board led them to—supposedly connected with European MUFON founders—had met with the soldiers in Germany and given them a collection of Top Secret documents and a vague warning:
She said “some of this is supposedly what Cooper had, but a lot more.” “Is Cooper for real?” we asked. “No!” That’s what she said. “Cooper was not for real.” “Beware Cooper.” (…) The board also said, “Beware Cooper—government plant.”10
Davis also says that Cooper attempted to contact him to get the soldiers’ story and the documents they had access to: “I said no way! I didn’t trust the guy, and I needed someone that we could trust.”11 The notion of Bill Cooper being some sort of “mirage man” is not new—I explored this in a previous article, Countdown to the Apocalypse—but the contradicting opinions the Gulf Breeze Six held towards him are confusing to say the least. Many commentators assumed that Cooper was a major influence on the soldiers, with Jacques Vallee noting that Anna Foster—the psychic who housed the GB6 during their AWOL stint—“may have been the source of the solders’ interest in the conspiracy-oriented material disseminated by Bill Cooper.”12 While Cooper did not attend the 1990 MUFON Symposium in Pensacola, the six’s stated intention to drive out west to New Mexico would have put them in closer proximity to Cooper. Davis moved to New Mexico at some point after the soldiers were discharged, in the late 1990-92 period.
While Ed Walters heralded the start of the Gulf Breeze saucer craze, the Gulf Breeze Six may not have had any interest in the man or even the location. With a stated end-goal of going somewhere out west to wait out the apocalypse, Gulf Breeze may have been chosen because some of the soldiers knew that Anna Foster and her roommate, Iris, could provide the soldiers with a place to lay low. Jim Moseley of the Saucer Smear newsletter reported that editor of the Gulf Breeze Sentinel, Duane Berry, gave him a different reason for the soldiers arriving in the town, that “the government ha(d) been involved in a cover-up of the Gulf Breeze sightings and sent the six soldiers to muddy the waters.” It’s hard to say if the water was anything but murky to begin with. While the UFO enthusiasts tended to see the event as a government cover-up of some stripe, opinion was torn on whether the six were part of the cover-up or potential whistleblowers. Their future release seemed to eliminate the possibility that they were blowing the whistle, but the real truth remained elusive and endlessly more complicated. In an attempt to get closer, the next installments will try to find out who the Gulf Breeze Six were as individuals and solidify their beliefs, the predictions from the Ouija board, and the reasons why they made such drastic choice—if at all possible.
Thank you as always for reading Getting Spooked. The thumbnail artwork was done by the talented Robert Voyvodic, whose other work can be found at his Instagram. If you have enjoyed what you’ve read, consider donating to the publication through a paid subscription or a one-time donation through Ko-fi. My appreciation goes out to anyone who has donated so far. As always, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter at @TannerFBoyle1 for questions, comments, and recommendations. Lastly, the “soundtrack” to this series of articles has been updated:
Until next time, stay spooked!
Myers, Craig R. War of the Words: The True but Strange Story of the Gulf Breeze UFO. Self-published, Xlibris, 2006. Page 60. Available here.
Ibid., page 36.
Ibid., page 60.
Ibid., page 64.
Ibid., page 55.
Vallee, Jacques. Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception. New York: Ballantine, 1991. Page 174.
Hebebrand, Larry. Letter to Walt Andrus, Jr. 4 August 1990. From document compiled by James Carrion which can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByaETuY4MjY8ODhTVDU4Rk5FMEk/view?resourcekey=0-QXHK7Em9_f4TIQsXZIIsvg. Page 77.
Clausen, Christopher. “Soldiers were to expose UFO scam, sister says.” Pensacola News Journal, 20 July 1990. Accessed 26 January 2023. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117291200/pensacola-news-journal/. (Also in Carrion document.)
Salisberry, Rex C. Letter to the editor of the MUFON UFO Journal. 16 August 1990. Carrion document. Page 66.
Morton, Sean David and Vance Davis. The Gulf Breeze Prophecies. Self-published, 1993. Page 34.
Ibid.
Vallee, Jacques. Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception. New York: Ballantine Books, 1991. Page 173.