Brooklyn Bridge Abductions (2/4): The Third and Last Man

• The Lady of the Sands
• The Hypnotists

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Napolitano again underwent hypnosis, recalling the beach, scoop and pails, dying sea creatures, and ecological message--all factors she had not alluded to in earlier sessions. For the first time, she also recalled seeing "three [men] sitting on the sand" and showing them a bluefish to explain how people like them had done this (p. 95). On Hopkins' prompting, described in Witnessed: The True Story Of The Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions, Napolitano remembered they were Richard and Dan.

Hopkins said he was pleasantly surprised by "the extraordinary and highly detailed consonance between Dan's letter and Linda's recollections of her seaside experience" (p. 110), seeing this as evidence of its reality and not that Napolitano and Dan/Richard might have a closer relationship than they let on--possibly because they were all in some way Napolitano. Instead, he admired the alien's ability "to erase [from abductees' memories] any time period they choose and 'spontaneously' to reinstate memories on command" (p. 111), thus why all four of them suddenly recalled the "Lady of the Sands."

Hopkins believed "[Richard and Dan] would be very easy to locate because we not only had excellent descriptions of both but also knew their real first names" (p. 41). He doesn't believe they used aliases because they spoke the names "without a trace of the hesitation one might expect if he were remembering to use a made-up name" (p. 43), which doesn't resound as strong evidence. Likewise, the men use nicknames for one another, which implies informality and familiarity to Hopkins, not something reproducible with basic rehearsal and thinking a quarter step ahead. Finally, why have a pseudonym if your name is so commonplace as "Richard" or "Dan"? That is immediately answered with the possibility they chose commonplace pseudonyms to avoid detection.

Hopkins could not find the men, however. He asked around police stations, but officers do not work in fixed partnerships like they do on television--a mistake someone more versed in TV than fact might make. Perhaps it was only by chance that these men worked together on November 30, 1989.

Hopkins played one of Richard's tapes for an associate at the New York State Police Department, who immediately replied that he thought "Richard and Dan might not be New York City cops." Their manner of describing locations was all wrong, though the officer was willing to grant Richard "sounds like a guy with some kind of military background" (p. 46).

After Hopkins' snooping, the men clarified they were detectives. That isn't utterly different, so it is forgivable they had written they were merely beat cops. These things are sure to slip one's mind when writing a letter to someone from whom you are beseeching help to find out if the woman you saw abducted was a hallucination.

That several New York police precincts could not find any detectives that matched Napolitano's description of Richard or Dan--and why plainclothes detectives were in a patrol car, as the duo wrote--was explained in a letter on April 10, 1991. They weren't detectives either, despite having written they were. They were bodyguards escorting a "third party" to a heliport on Governor's Island (before 3:15 a.m., for some reason; maybe the traffic was better).

When Stefula, Butler, and Hansen investigated for their article "A Critique of Budd Hopkins' Case of the UFO Abduction of Linda Napolitano"

Our colleague was informed that the normal hours of operation of the heliport are from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. The Senior Airport Operations Agent researched the records and found that there were no helicopter movements on November 30, 1989 before normal hours. Our colleague was also told that about six months previously, the heliport authorities had been approached by a man in his fifties with white hair who had made a similar inquiry. That man had asked about a UFO that had crashed into the East River.

In Witnessed, Hopkins--a white-haired ufologist--occasionally trips over an inconsistency--from minor to disqualifying--and devises a way to explain these away, ignoring their accumulation. Here, again, Hopkins taxes himself to forgive the duo's lie.

But Richard and Dan's new claim [...] to be security agents, made sense on several levels. First, it explained why Richard sounded like a police or military officer even though he used an unpolicelike term. He would be, in a sense, a law-enforcement officer without being a cop carrying the geography of New York City in his head. Second, I could more easily understand the freedom the men felt, both to use their real first names and to run the risk of being identified by Linda. If they were not police officers traveling around the city, they would be much less traceable; in fact, they might not even be stationed in New York City. Third, if they were indeed guarding the third man that night, their hesitancy to come forward was much more understandable (p. 50).

Other cars in their motorcade included, according to one of the agents' statements, "two US Government officials [and] two foreign Statesmen" and a complement of their own bodyguards, none of whom came forward to describe their experiences that night. According to an article by music (and UFO) critic Greg Sandow in "International UFO Reporter." Hopkins didn't know who these other men were and may not have bothered asking.

The apparent bodyguards said, "This third party is a very important person...and often speaks to many corners of the globe." Hopkins speculates that the duo's "job of escorting him was probably a temporary arrangement involving an off-the-record political meeting the three had attended earlier" (p. 78). His evidence for this is a lack of evidence otherwise.

Despite what a credible witness this third man would be, Hopkins declared his identity should not be released, and no one was allowed to contact him, as he was working with the aliens to bring about world peace. Richard and Dan soon clarified this man was a member of the United Nations.

Belgian UFO author Philip Coppens noted:

[T]he name was of course missing for legal reasons [...] The inclusion of his name must have opened up his publisher to a major law suit, which was no doubt why his name did not go in the book.

"A Critique of Budd Hopkins' Case..." quotes Hopkins at a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, conference, saying, "I am trying to do what I can to shame this person to come forward," which implies Hopkins assumed an outsized influence on global matters.

It was supposedly Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Peruvian UN Secretary-General from 1982 to 1991--shortly after the abduction--whose presence "was the likely reason for this demonstration of alien capability" (p. XIII). Was Napolitano and Richard's longitudinal sexual relationship aboard the ships incidental, and Dan had the bad luck of being in the wrong place?

According to the duo's letters, Pérez de Cuéllar saw the abduction but did not want to be involved. This is further complicated in a letter dated September 19, 1991, in which Dan revealed that, far from being observers, he, Richard, and Pérez de Cuéllar were beamed up right after Napolitano.

A hypnotized Napolitano remembered seeing an older man on the beach who "resembled pictures she'd seen of a certain political figure. She told [Hopkins] his name. It was the same well-known individual who, months ago, [Hopkins] had come to believe was indeed the third man [...] the surprise was not her identification but his presence on the beach" (p. 110). Picture the Secretary-General of the United Nations right now. Say their name. Most people would come up blank, but not Napolitano, at least once primed.

(As of 2024, it is António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, a serious yet affable, gray-haired Portuguese politician.)

Hopkins writes:

If [Dan's] account can be trusted (and so far there was no evidence to suggest it couldn't), it points to a startling possibility. On the morning of November 30, 1989, Linda Cortile was apparently a temporary and involuntary participant in an attempt to convey to a major political leader a benign alien concern with earth's ecology.... Through their use of Linda as the ecologically concerned 'Lady of the Sands,' these witnesses were left with the impression that the UFO occupants' purpose on earth is selfless and caring, focused, it would seem, on the health and well-being of our planet (p. 99).

In that paragraph, the presuppositions come in such waves that one almost forgets by the end that it begins with the statement there is no reason one couldn't trust Dan, a murderous, psychologically unstable attempted rapist who stalked a woman he believed to be an alien, alongside his friend and colleague, the man who might have fathered Napolitano's child when they "rendezvoused" yet again among abductors. Putting all of that aside, a basic foundation of logic is that the burden of proof is on the claimant; it is up to Hopkins to prove this is true, not throw his hands up and say that no one showed him it wasn't true. One could claim Hopkins had been working for time-traveling ghosts, but his estate would prefer that be verified with something more compelling than "so far there was no evidence to suggest he wasn't."

The Benevolent Space Brothers trope is so well-established in fiction as to be threadbare, the obverse of Conquerors from the Stars. If the aliens so desperately wanted to prevent ecological disaster, would Napolitano and two almost anonymous men with dubious morals be the best use of their time and resources? Convincing Pérez de Cuéllar might have been a coup, but that does not seem to have happened--possibly because evidence places him outside New York at the time of the abduction.

Hopkins was dissatisfied with how little he knew about Richard and Dan. After supposedly seeing Dan on a videotape, Napolitano suggests, "he may be a Russian, a KGB agent or something" (p. 72), which doesn't sound like the sort of person one would like guarding the Secretary-General of the UN at that juncture in geopolitics.

With a screencap from the video, Hopkins and Napolitano decide to ask around, having no trouble "construct[ing] a series of semiplausible stories to use in order to gain access to various agencies" (p. 73) to explain why they knew Dan, a tack that might have been of more help earlier. When no one recognized the picture of the alleged Dan, they pretended to visit the United Nations under the guise of being a married couple who had met Dan in Nova Scotia--a detailed improv scenario for these purposes.

No one they interrogate at the United Nations recognized the man in the screencap, and Hopkins reluctantly decided Dan might not be UN security.

They continue the married couple ruse elsewhere with no more success. An anonymous benefactor then blesses them to hire a private detective, who didn't need to pretend he was married to either of them to try to get the duo's identities. The detective produces a furious man who bears only a passing resemblance to the picture. At that point, Hopkins decides the duo must work at a secretive three-letter agency and excuses that their identities would be well-hidden by their employers. If so, the duo should have kept a lower profile than recreationally black-bagging citizens on whom they have crushes.

Hopkins wrote:

No hoaxer would ever run the risk of identifying someone in this way, arbitrarily picking someone who might easily be traceable and who might also have a perfect alibi for his whereabouts on the night of November 30, 1989. What if the man Linda had so positively identified as he came down the corridor in the UN building turned out to be an elevator operator? (p. 87)

Unlike Napolitano, who required hypnotism for revelations (that had already just been detailed in letters and tapes from the duo), Richard, Dan, and Pérez de Cuéllar remember every abduction in their life--something that indeed would have come as a surprise to Pérez de Cuéllar. Richard warns Hopkins to back off from bothering the Secretary-General of the United Nations so it does not "cause an international incident" (p. 134). Whenever Richard or Dan communicate some new detail, Napolitano discovers it the next time she is hypnotized. Hopkins wrote, "There is an unsettling--and unearthly--precision in all this" (p. 111), though one that does not seem to have given him pause about the order of cause and effect.

According to one of the duo's letters, the third man was taken with Napolitano:

The third party is left with a confused amazement. Apparently Linda brings a smile to his lips, especially after we questioned her last April [where they kidnapped Napolitano, and Dan attempted to rape and murder her]. He couldn't get over the fact that she keeps her mischievous temperament so well hidden beneath her graceful self. She gives him a keen satisfaction. He said-- "Yes, she is very much alive and thrashing about. She is absolutely and pleasantly real. We'll soon find out who she is" (p. 98).

Does it bear mentioning that none of his interviews or writings in English or Spanish translations demonstrate this style of prose? One writes for the sensibilities of one's audience. The Secretary-General may be more colorful when speaking about a strange woman swallowed into a flying saucer, whom his bodyguard sexually assaulted.

Napolitano soon reported to Hopkins that she had seen a Rolls-Royce sitting outside her home before Richard and Dan had kidnapped her and described United States diplomatic plates, all but shouting Pérez de Cuéllar's name. Hopkins wrote, "While in the past I had always found Linda an accurate observer, we were both amazed that she had been able to see and remember anything clearly under the circumstances" (p. 69). Is Hopkins genuinely astounded by this feat of recovered memory, or is this a sly acknowledgment of the unlikelihood?

Richard later confirmed this was the third man, who had followed behind the duo's car and remained in radio contact so he could hear the interrogation.

Hopkins noted:

Why would he risk being present during an operation that could easily result--as, in fact, it did--in a struggle and the forced seizure of an American citizen? And why would he show up in such a conspicuous car? Why hadn't he simply stayed away and asked Richard and Dan for a transcript or even a tape recording of the interview (p. 70)?

These are excellent questions that might cast doubt on the story, which Hopkins answers with, "It seemed obvious to me that he must have been extremely eager to meet Linda face-to-face, or at least to see her again close up."

This is a somewhat dicey thing for the UN Secretary-General to do. One wonders whether he cosigned Napolitano's attempted rape and murder, though likely not. Those felonies must have been Dan going rogue. It is a shame Napolitano and Hopkins declined to pursue these with authorities, but, fortunately, it didn't result in her violent death.

Hopkins feels he has a break in the case when he discovers Pérez de Cuéllar "had had an ongoing relationship with the diplomatic corps of the country that owned the Rolls-Royce!" This seems to be an obvious connection as he was the UN Secretary-General. How else was the diplomat going to be ferried around? The investigator proposes, "Had he been hesitant either to use his own official vehicle or to involve his regular security detail in the questioning of Linda, a car owned by the UN mission of an unrelated country would seem a reliable cover." A better cover would not be an official, conspicuous, traceable Rolls-Royce with diplomatic plates. Renting an inconspicuous mid-sized sedan was surely within the power of the Secretary-General.

After Hopkins told Napolitano his conjecture about Pérez de Cuéllar, she recalled under hypnosis that the badge Dan had initially shown her when claiming to be a police officer was that of "the country whose mission security director had seemed so interested in my inquiries about Richard and Dan" (p. 78).

Hopkins reported that Johnny--Napolitano's son of speculated upon parentage--mysteriously acquired an antique diving helmet. Napolitano questioned if "she was crazy" and had forgotten she had, for some reason, purchased an antique brass diving helmet and hidden it in the closet, which is not something more people ever have a cause to wonder about.

Hopkins received a whispered voicemail from the boy, asking the researcher to stop his mother from selling it. The boy did not want to explain its provenance, fearing he would be punished. When pressed, Johnny told a story about a stranger offering him the helmet while he ferried burgers and coffee to his father and coworkers in exchange for tips.

Hopkins decided to videotape the boy telling the tale. Before this, the researcher snipped pictures of old men from various papers, including one of "the third man." Hopkins tried to lead Johnny to answer questions the way he wanted, "but again he wouldn't be led" (p. 293). That he tried to lead the boy to the point of badgering is curious but perhaps habitual--it is hardly the first accusation against him and is among the reasons these things are better conducted by professionals. His goading does erode the credibility of the event--supposing it occurred--but Hopkins found Johnny's "responses [...] demonstrably straightforward and truthful."

Johnny stated that a man ("white hair [...] very old [...] about in his eighties" with a "[foreign] accent") called him by name from the passenger's seat of a car that looked "like a mix of a regular car and a limousine." Though he assumed this stranger must be speaking to someone else, the man persisted, saying, "Yes, someone wants to see you." The door opened, and an "old man" with tinted glasses stepped out and said, "You're gonna get to know me." Johnny found this "weird" rather than horrifying enough to result in running screaming into the nearest building.

The man asked, "Do you like this?" and produced the helmet. "Do you want to take it home?"

When Johnny demurred that he wasn't supposed to take presents from strangers, the old man said, "Oh, I'm not a stranger, I'm your poppy." Hopkins noted this is not a detail Johnny mentioned in his call, though it does seem germane. As it is a hunk of metal, "Poppy" offered to have the helmet delivered to Johnny's home. Showing the self-preservation instinct of a Disney lemming listening to "Gloomy Sunday," Johnny gave him a time when his father would be at work and his mother would be showering.

Johnny wasn't wholly immune to how terrible this all sounded. When the old man asked for a hug, Johnny decided that would be unwise, as "Poppy" might pull him into the car and kidnap him. The man looked dejected, and Johnny finally opted to go into the diner for his chore. When he returned, the man was gone.

Napolitano was present for her son's interrogation and was particularly interested when Hopkins produced the photos he had Xeroxed. Hopkins stated, "[i]t was clearly fun for Johnny to go through the twenty pictures" of various old men whom the eager ufologist brought him, likening it to "the excitement of a little boy at a police station asked to help detectives" (p. 301).

A better version of this interview--though still not ideal given how the researcher conducted it--would involve only Hopkins and the boy. Instead, Johnny had his parents there, feeding him unconscious (or conscious) feedback about what to say. The transcript features Hopkins' attempts to lead the boy (italics are mine).

B[udd Hopkins]: Uh-huh. You think you've ever seen that man before?
J[ohnny]: Yes.
B: You think you've seen him other times?
J: No, when the incident happened.
B: So would you give it a 50 percent chance, 80 percent chance, 100 percent chance?
J: [Studying the photo carefully] Well, I'd give it a 70-75 percent chance.
B: 70 percent chance. [To Steve] If we could get a close-up? We'll put that one over to one side. [I move on to the next photo.] How about him? [Continuing through the pictures, all of which Johnny rejected.]
B: Now, okay, let's go through these again. You've got twenty pictures. Let's look at them together. [Picking up the photo of the third man] This is the one you thought looked most like him, right? Now, let's look at these two. Which do you think is more like him? [I systematically lift photos from the pile Johnny felt bore some similarity in order to compare them one by one.]
[...]
B: Now, he was in the backseat of a fancy car... Make a little guess for me about the kind of person he was.
J: Well, he looked like he was rich, 'cause he had a very fine suit. He had an expensive car... Maybe he could have borrowed it from a friend or something...
B: What about the way he spoke? Sometimes people speak in a little more elegant way, sometimes it's a little more coarse or direct or something. How about his speech?
J: Well, he sounded like he's been in America for about... like... I really don't know but... he knew English very well.

In that excerpt, Hopkins had all but told the boy who he was supposed to pick. Johnny reads as deferential and inclined to conform to what adults want him to say, as seen in many nine-year-olds. The researcher also stacked the deck, placing "the third man's" photo near the end so Johnny would already know what he wasn't supposed to look for. He wanted Johnny to say he was wealthy and refined to match the conclusion Hopkins had already made.

Noted Sandow:

Someone who didn't know the right answer should have asked the questions. Or, failing that, Hopkins should have asked Johnny to take the photos to another room, and sort through them alone.

Hopkins noted, "Linda, of course, had known for many months" the supposed identity of "the third man." To doubt Johnny's testimony as "lying from beginning to end, acting, reciting a memorized script" would be tantamount to suggesting he had been "bribed or threatened or possibly both [...] by this mother," who would now have to be seen as a "virtual sociopath" committing "child abuse" (p. 300).

Hopkins had no degree in psychology. Carol Rainey wrote, "Most of the people who came through our door had undergone genuinely inexplicable human experiences. Yet they came primed to cope with the possibility that their experiences or life traumas were caused by being abducted by extraterrestrials."

One must wonder at Hopkins' diagnostic criteria of son or mother--or, for that matter, his confidence in his hypnotic skill. He was no body language expert but a man who wanted his preconceptions confirmed. He noted that Johnny could not have received prompting from his parents on video--though he very much could have--but Hopkins overtly did exactly that and admitted as much.

This session with Johnny further convinced Hopkins he was dealing with an intransigent Pérez de Cuéllar. Who else would have the resources to give a little boy a diving helmet ("the odd but valuable gift [...] would have been especially appreciated by a little boy"), which every child of the late eighties would be thrilled to receive instead of video games? If the former Secretary-General handed gifts to the Napolitano family to assuage his guilt and affirm his fondness, why go through such subterfuge to give an obscure present? Hopkins posits it was "less risky" to approach a strange boy on the street and offer him presents while asking for hugs than "meeting Linda or Steve face-to-face."

Even Hopkins seemed baffled why the third man would give this:

Why an antique diving helmet? Was it meant to have a symbolic meaning? Was it supposed to relate to the Lady of the Sands in some way? To the head of an alien? To the idea of the ocean and its teeming undersea life? (p. 302)

The best he could conjure was that Pérez de Cuella meant them to sell it as a covert way of giving them money--around $3000 to $5000 by Hopkins' estimation. As of this writing, helmets that resemble the Napolitano's sell for under $1000, with most under $200. In 1991, it would have cost about $90. The newly released Nintendo 64 cost $199, which is a little more than two antique brass diving helmets. If the gift was a matter of transferring wealth, a quarter ounce of gold (which reached a high of $100.93 in 1991) would be much simpler and more anonymous to sell and a great deal lighter than an antique diving helmet--so small, you could mislay it among pocket change. A man as erudite as Pérez de Cuella must have thought of that. The paper trail alone on the helmet would have made this "disguised cash contribution" anything but.

One could apply Occam's Razor. What would make more sense than the former Secretary-General of the United Nations approaching a nine-year-old boy--possibly conceived by his lifelong abductee bodyguard--as an apology for not stopping his mother's attempted rape and murder and his negligence in not coming clean about the alien agenda? Perhaps Linda acquired this helmet--the Napolitanos did live in Manhattan, and nothing is too hard to find there--and then made up a story, which she fed to Johnny to keep Hopkins interested.

Sandow saw the helmet, so we at least have more skeptical corroboration of some part of this, though it doesn't prove its origins.

It sits in ornate bronze splendor on a wall unit in the Cortile's tiny living room, unabashedly out of place among the photos and other items you'd expect a lower middle-class family to display.

Hopkins received a letter from the alleged Poppy on December 23, 1991, admitting to everything. More precisely, he received a typewritten letter on paper emblazoned with a picture of the United Nations (the same stationery available for purchase in the lobby, and anyone can use the post office there) from "The Third and Last Man." There was no signature, and the writer never identified as Pérez de Cuéllar but did write:

What I have seen, heard and felt on the seashore that November morning in 1989, hastened a dream that has been in a talking stage for the past four decades or so. This dream has been "World Peace." I can only say, it was time to make it happen. [...] My position stands firm. I cannot and shall not give a hint concerning my involvement (p. 167).

While Richard and Dan write and speak more simply--including grammatical mistakes such as "did'nt" and "swimm"--the letters from the third man are comparatively refined. This does not mean he is immune to misstatement, but these are closer to those a person who spoke English as a second language might make, those of someone who has heard but not written idiomatic expressions. "If these letters are faked," wrote Sandow, "the hoaxer's biggest triumph was this Pérez de Cuéllar persona--a man with a wholly personal way of using a language he doesn't fully know." His conclusion is not necessarily that these letters were from different people but that "[t]hey look like exactly what they're supposed to be: communications from five different people, each of whom writes differently, in the style you'd expect each one to use."

Hopkins did not let it rest there. On November 12, 1993, Hopkins interviewed Pérez de Cuéllar at O'Hare Airport during a short layover from Europe to South America. Pérez de Cuéllar seemed not to recognize Hopkins. They chatted about foreign affairs, and then the reporter who set up this meeting tried to turn the conversation to UFOs. Pérez de Cuéllar continued to speak about foreign affairs. When the reporter showed the former Secretary General an article about the abduction incident, he "muttered something to the effect that he didn't 'remember anything like that'" (p. 372). When pressed by the reporter later, Pérez de Cuéllar could grant that maybe one of his bodyguards "might have seen something [...] a light [...] years ago..."

During the meeting, Hopkins presented Pérez de Cuéllar with a stack of material about the case. To Hopkins' evident delight, Pérez de Cuéllar didn't later write to deny his involvement. He also never wrote to confirm because he never wrote at all--at least under his own name. Handed a packet accusing one of being in the pocket of Big Alien, one could be forgiven for dropping it in a recycling bin and forgetting the whole matter to better focus on the Falkland Islands. Hopkins concluded, "Until he decides to go public with what he remembers from the night [...] he cannot have much inner peace" (p. 375). That he remembers nothing because he was not there does not seem to be an option for Hopkins. Instead, the Secretary-General ought to be punished for not "adding his prestige and credibility to that of ordinary folk [...] who are subjected to ridicule and insults" from "debunkers" (p. 301). Hopkins' book did little to lessen the ridicule, lacking as he does a diplomat's prestige and credibility. Still, in the introduction to Witnessed, Hopkins wrote, "I also extend my gratitude to 'the third man' for his decision to enlist me in bringing to light the events of November 30, 1989. It is my profound hope that he will now come forward and use his voice to help make the truth of that night known to the world" (p. VIII)

This is a softer tack than threats, especially as the book makes clear Pérez de Cuéllar enlisted him not at all, and surely not for this purpose.

Was Pérez de Cuéllar always the aliens' target, or was he the happy accident while they were picking up the bodyguard who was part of their lifelong matchmaking with Napolitano? Had Napolitano and Richard always been the targets, and the aliens pulled some strings to get Pérez de Cuéllar there as well? Hopkins does not tender his resolute opinion--at least not consistently.

According to one of their letters, the third man suggested Napolitano's case could begin Disclosure, where the government releases the truth about aliens, writing, "This incident may be the perfect opportunity to develop a cushion, so as to soften the hard blow society will feel in the future when certain information comes out" (p. 49).

During his tenure as Secretary-General, Pérez de Cuéllar helped mediate with Argentina, the United Kingdoms, Namibia, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, New Zealand, France, and others. He was a little busy, and an issue of interstellar importance might have been outside his aegis.

He published his memoir Pilgrimage for Peace in 1997, which does not mention UFOs. He lived to over 100, the first UN Secretary-General to do so, and still said nothing to anyone (other than Hopkins, supposedly) about the near invasion.

This case and his time as the Secretary-General did not end Pérez de Cuéllar's fame. From 2000 to 2001, he served as the prime minister of Peru.

Reporter Ralph Blumenthal stated in Vanity Fair:

I had a local reporter in Lima ask the 92-year-old retired Peruvian diplomat directly about the matter in April 2012. He responded enigmatically, saying, "I'm not interested in those types of curiosities." Asked if he recalled being questioned by Hopkins, Pérez de Cuéllar, who was in the process of updating his 1997 memoirs, said, "I don't remember, but it is possible. I can't assure it nor deny it. My memory at this age fails me."

Pérez de Cuéllar died on March 4, 2020, having never publicly mentioned the intentions of the aliens visiting this planet.

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Comments? Questions? Concerns? Do you want to set the record straight? Are you Linda Napolitano? Contact me.