Thomas Edwin Castello
| Thomas Edwin Castello |
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Thomas Edwin Castello is the name attached to a body of letters, affidavits, and a cache of smuggled materials — collectively the Dulce Papers — that form the foundational insider account of operations at Dulce Base beneath Dulce, New Mexico. Castello allegedly served from approximately 1977 until 1979 as a Senior Security Technician at the seven-level underground facility, purportedly operated jointly by United States military and corporate personnel and several Grey and Reptilian species. His letters and affidavits — smuggled out alongside a cache of photographs, documents, and video footage known as the Dulce Papers — formed the foundational insider account of the facility's alleged lower-level genetic laboratories, human captivity operations, and the 1979 Dulce Base battle. Castello has not been confirmed as a real person by mainstream sources; his identity has never been publicly verified, and he has not appeared in any public forum. Remote viewer John Vivanco identified him, alongside Phil Schneider and a witness named Christie Tyndall, as one of three independent corroborating sources on alleged abuses at Dulce.
Earlier career
According to a biographical sketch compiled by Michael Salla, Castello began his career in 1961 as a young sergeant in the United States Air Force, stationed at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas, Nevada, working as a military photographer with a top secret clearance. After training in advanced intelligence photography at an undisclosed underground installation in West Virginia, his clearance was reportedly upgraded to TS-IV. He remained with the Air Force as a photographer until 1971, when he reportedly accepted a position with the Rand Corporation in California as a Security Technician; his clearance was allegedly upgraded to ULTRA-3 at that time. In 1977 he was reportedly transferred to Santa Fe, New Mexico and then to the Dulce installation with clearance ULTRA-7; his job description was "to maintain, align and calibrate video monitoring cameras throughout the underground complex and to escort visitors to their destinations." Salla notes that this extensive video monitoring assignment provided Castello with the bird's-eye information he needed to learn what was occurring at the base.
In a parallel — and partially contradictory — account derived directly from his own letters, Castello describes himself as having begun his security-sector career at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California, where he allegedly rose to hold a Top Secret Q clearance described as "above Black level." By the same account, he was transferred from Rand to Dulce Base in 1977 to serve as a Senior Security Technician, and returned briefly to Rand following his 1979 departure from Dulce before severing contact with his employers. No independent documentation of his pre-Rand or USAF background has surfaced publicly.
Security-officer duties at Dulce
In his role, Castello reportedly had access to most areas of the facility and was responsible for monitoring personnel movements between levels, verifying badges and clearances at checkpoints, and overseeing the small security force that operated on the lower — predominantly non-human-controlled — levels. He has described the internal security regime as tightly compartmentalized, with human workers in the lower levels prohibited from interfering with the operations of non-human personnel; the security force itself and "a few computer workers" were allegedly the only human staff permitted to carry flash guns.
Witnessed operations
Main article:
Dulce Base
Castello's letters describe personal observation of operations across the seven levels of the facility, particularly the lower four where non-human personnel predominated. He identified Level 4 as dedicated to mind-control, soul research, dream manipulation, hypnosis, and telepathy experiments; Level 5 as housing and meeting areas for the non-human contingent; Level 6 — informally called "Nightmare Hall" — as the site of genetic laboratories producing human-animal hybrid beings; and Level 7 as cold storage containing "row after row of 1000's of humans and human-mixture remains" alongside living captives held in cages.
He reported that his initial briefings told him the caged humans were insane patients undergoing high-risk medical and drug testing to cure insanity, with posted signs warning staff not to speak to the "inmates" lest years of treatment work be undone.
The "George S." incident
One captive on Level 7 caught Castello's attention — a man who repeatedly identified himself as "George S----" and insisted he had been kidnapped. Castello reportedly had a police-officer acquaintance run a database check and allegedly confirmed George's name on a missing persons list — which he later described as "a sickening feeling when the computer confirmed that George S. was missing." This incident, by his own account, was the turning point that motivated him to organize the internal resistance meeting that preceded the 1979 battle.
Resistance meeting and 1979 battle
Main article:
1979 Dulce Base battle
According to his letters, Castello was approached by another security officer and invited to a clandestine off-duty meeting attended by approximately nine personnel — security guards and lab workers — who had independently smuggled newspaper clippings, records, and photographs proving that many of the "inmates" were missing persons. Castello places the origin of the 1979 Dulce Base battle in the subsequent resistance movement, which allegedly came to include sympathetic Reptilians from the worker caste.
Castello stated that during the confrontation he was among the base security personnel who fought during the assault ordered against the resistance — which he characterized as "a massacre" — and he escaped the facility separately from Phil Schneider, taking with him photos and a video recording that were later distributed as the Dulce Papers.
Departure and cache
Main article:
Dulce Papers
Castello states he left Dulce Base in 1979 following the battle, transferring back to the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica before severing his ties to his employer entirely. In preparation for his departure he had reportedly concealed copies of documents, photographs, and video footage over the preceding period — materials he later called his "cache" and intended to bring to public attention. The assembled package — documents describing the seven-level layout and operational protocols, photographs of non-human entities and of humans held in the storage areas, video footage of the lower levels, and technical documentation — entered circulation in the UFO research community in the mid-1980s.
Publication of letters by others
Castello's letters and the Dulce Papers entered public circulation through intermediaries rather than through Castello himself, and he did not appear in public before, during, or after this period; his published account consists entirely of letters, affidavits, and the smuggled cache. Aviator and UFO researcher John Lear was among the first public figures to circulate Castello's testimony in the late 1980s, acknowledging that he had never met Castello directly. Researcher Bill Cooper also disseminated the material during the same period. Researchers William Hamilton and Branton stated they had personally met Castello and vouched for his existence and credibility, though no public-facing interview or video appearance was ever produced. The materials reached a broader audience through internet distribution in the 1990s, by which time Castello himself had ceased public communication.
Alleged disappearance
Castello stated in his correspondence that upon going public he expected to be pursued by his former employer and associated agencies. He has not been reliably located or identified since the Dulce Papers entered circulation, and no obituary, death certificate, or family statement has surfaced in the public record. The disappearance is cited by researchers who consider his account credible as consistent with the treatment of other Dulce whistleblowers, notably Phil Schneider, who was found dead in January 1996 in circumstances his associates and researcher Richard Dolan attributed to murder. Michael Salla has described Dulce as a site where Draco reptilians and Orion Grey Collective beings operated in exchange for human experimental subjects — consistent with Castello's own descriptions.
Family and identity
No verified biographical details — birth date, family members, hometown, education, or photographs identifiable as Castello — have entered the public record. Researchers who corresponded with or met him have not published identifying particulars, and no surviving family member has publicly affirmed or denied the account. The Lacerta Files community discussions include references to Castello's testimony as one of the foundational insider testimonies about Dulce, without additional identifying details.
Michael Salla reports that officially confirming Castello's employment, military, and educational background has not been possible — purportedly because of a practice described by Michael Wolf as "standard practice" for all civilians employed on classified ET-related projects: the systematic removal of all public records as a security precaution. Salla notes that the same pattern was reportedly observed with Bob Lazar, whose birth certificate, school, college, and employment records all allegedly disappeared after he left the S-4 facility.