Who Was William Cooper? Behold a Pale Horse Book Reviewed Part 2

This is part two of my review of the book Behold a Pale Horse by William Cooper. Previously I focused mainly on the book itself. Now I want to focus on the author himself. Who was William Cooper? 

Well he was a radio host based in Arizona who was a staunch rival of Alex Jones within the militia movement in the 1990s. He probably had one of the most insightful critiques of Alex Jones particularly during the Y2K scare that Jones participated in. Much of his background and life story is from his own account but there is a military record of him you can see for yourself online.

There were a few things I didn’t mention that were in the book such as him claiming the US government invented the AIDS virus to target blacks, Hispanics, and homosexuals. That claim has made it around the world including South Africa. The country's health minister even circulated a page of the book making that claim to the health ministers of the nine provinces of South Africa. All were in charge of making AIDS policy. One minister claimed he also received anonymous letters warning that the AIDS virus was being distributed within vaccines sent to South Africa.

I already went over that Cooper said toward the alien section of the book that everything he said he saw might not be true at all.  Well as it turned out he completely backtracked on the alien claims later in his life. In an amateur a documentary from 1999 titled the Land of the Lost Story, Cooper is featured and gives a stunning complete reversal of everything he passionately talked about regarding aliens.

Before he died, he maintained there was no evidence of extraterrestrials visiting our planet or existing anywhere in the universe. Or as he put it “not a shred  of evidence”. He even described and dismissed alleged alien abductions as people under "mind control" that were manipulated into thinking they were abducted. He did however maintain that the belief in aliens is being used to support a military police state to confront the the alleged manufactured alien threat. 

Now let me ask you all this. How often have you been persuaded that aliens exist based on what the government says? How often have you heard of politician saying we need to bump up our military budget because we don’t know what’s out there in the context of aliens? Not very many at all. So anybody who pays attention to how the world actually works will realize this is not a well-thought-out argument when claiming the government wants us to think aliens are real  in order to prepare us for a one world government whatever. Sure public officials might pop up now and then with an interest in UFOs or aliens. But nowhere near as possible future threats we must confront. He does maintain that UFOs also known as (unidentified flying objects) are real which is a reasonable position to take because there’s news all the time about captured spy planes that kind of look like spacecrafts. And there are probably other aircraft by other countries that most of the world doesn’t know about.

Before 9/11 it’s claimed that he made a prediction that Osama bin Laden would attack the United States. Which  isn’t really a prediction given that in CNN itself announced it multiple times. And Cooper was talking about this announcement from Bin Laden himself.  This pseudo-prediction still is cited by followers to be the reason he was shot dead by police. Because he knew too much or something.  Now if he didn’t predict 911 and didn’t stand by the alien claims he made in the book, then why was he killed? How did his death play out? Well the official story is that deputies were trying to arrest him for assault with a deadly weapon and endangerment relating to disputes with his neighbors. Cooper also had a 1998 warrant for tax evasion. Cooper expressed quite clearly on his website that he knew there was a warrant out for him and any “unlawful” arrest would be met with deadly force.  This ended in a shootout resulting in him shooting a deputy in the head and him getting shot dead.  

Local news report on the shootout is toward the end of the video below.

Now all this begs the question. Why would anybody of such a character and lack of credibility have such a following? It’s mainly because when people hear of him or read his book they get an incomplete picture of him.  First off he makes alien claims that smell of a liar and a fabricator. Then he tries to backtrack slightly in his book  giving himself the benefit of the doubt of being duped by the government multiple times. Then he goes complete  180°. Even his complete reversal doesn’t sound convincing or like its coming from a honest man who’s done his research. It’s something he’s pride himself on when writing his book. Also he obviously doesn’t know how to litigate something in the courts. Or at least his way of litigation is killing those involved in his case including cops making an arrest.

This concludes with a tip of how to deal with people who believe in conspiracy theories that rely heavily on an individual or book. Show them the background of their source of information. Give them facts they may not know. With Cooper it would be the shifting alien claims and that he was an attempted cop killer. While it might not persuade the person to stop believing in the conspiracy theory, it might shut down one of many outlets they get their basis for their beliefs from.

William Cooper is just the beginning. And he's not the only conspiracy king....