[Supplement to the Groom Lake Desert Rat, 4/23/95] BACKGROUND: This article was published before the recent bombing in Oklahoma City. Aside from being a militia leader, William Cooper is also a claimed Area 51 UFO expert, using the flying saucer claims to bolster his views about the New World Order. The saucers, he says are not alien in origin, but were invented first by the Nazis in WWII. He says the government is stockpiling these craft in preparation for the staging of a mock alien invasion, which will draw humanity together and provide the excuse for abrogating our remaining human rights. Many of Cooper's UFO and New World Order claims are based on secret documents he says he read while in the Navy, which Cooper has reproduced and published in numerous, often revised variations. The philosophy described below is also that disseminated by Pat and Joe Travis of the Little A'Le'Inn to anyone who visits their Rachel (NV) bar. -- psychospy@aol.com TITLE: ARIZONANS FORMING MILITIAS TO OPPOSE PERCEIVED "INVASION" DATE: February 18, 1995 PUBLICATION: Las Vegas Review-Journal and Las Vegas Sun (Reprinted from The Arizona Republic) ST. JOHNS, Ariz.--From this remote, untidy city on eastern Arizona's high desert plains, William Cooper beams his anger to the world. Five nights a week, at 10 p.m., Cooper, one of the most widely known prophets of the growing "patriot movement," rails at the federal government and talks of doomsday omens on his short wave radio broadcast. A "New World Order" is building like a thunderhead. Foreign troops under the control of the United Nations are training secretly on American soil. Black helicopters are shadowing patriots to spy on them. The military, the FBI, the president, the National Guard--almost anyone in uniform, it seems--are plotting to rob Americans of their civil rights and their guns. The key to fending off the impending assault, Cooper and others like him say, is to form private militias. And across Arizona and the rest of the nation, thousands of mostly working-class and rural folks are responding. Many are gathering in home or at conventions, reading patriot newsletters, generating "intelligence" for Cooper's organization and others, communing through shortwave radio and computer. Some are training with weapons. Others are stockpiling supplies to ensure survival when the battle ignites. Civil-rights groups and law enforcement agents are nervous. They fear that the patriot movement will goad some extremists into violence against Jews, blacks or lawmen. Militia leaders scoff at this. But they acknowledge that they think the armed conflict against one-world government for which they're preparing is unavoidable. "You're cattle, stupid cattle," Cooper told any skeptics among a crowd of 260 at a December patriot convention in Mesa. While stressing he doesn't endorse violence, Cooper warned "Blood will be spilled in the streets of America. It's inevitable." Exactly where the militia phenomenon is heading is unclear Like its 1980s precursors--the Arizona Patriots and Posse Comitatus--the movement may taper off and die in the boredom that overtakes conspiracy causes, especially when the coming apocalypse doesn't come. But the patriot brushfire to date shows no-sign of burning out, finding kindling for its out rage in every news flash. The events that raked in militia recruits--the siege of Randy Weaver in Idaho, the raid on the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, the signing of gun-control laws--stick in their craws. Then there's President Clinton, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the Internal Revenue Service. "People right now are freaked," said David Espy, who lives near Chino Valley, north of Prescott, and who has taken out newspaper ads advising people to form militias to battle government intrusion. "They're thinking, 'That (the Waco group) could have been our church, could have been our children.'" He and neighbors have set up communications networks, including laying underground phone lines and buying flare guns. At one point, they considered acquiring homing pigeons as a bug-proof way to communicate. They've scouted for unmarked helicopters thought to be spying for authorities or the United Nations. They've discussed what they would do if federal forces invaded their land. "The standing joke where I live is, When they see smoke coming from my place, that's going to be the beginning of the battle),'" said Espy, owner of an excavating company. "If all else fails, if you got your firearm, you can defend yourself, and you'll have a new government." Loosely organized militias have sprung up in at least 13 states, according to an October report by the New York City based Anti- Defamation League. The militias are strongest in Michigan, Montana, Colorado and Florida, and their goal is to lay "the groundwork for massive resistance to the federal government and its law enforcement agencies," the report states. In Arizona, small militia bands are being organized in every county, Espy says. Some strongholds appear to be areas near Prescott, Snowflake, Kingman and the Four Corners authorities say. Among the heroes of the militia crowd is former Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham, who has spoken at some national patriot conventions. ###