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William J. "Bill" Birnes (born November 7, 1944) is an American author, editor, publisher, literary rights agent, sociologist, and extraterrestrial scholar. A graduate of New York University, he holds a Ph.D in medieval literature (with a dissertation on Piers Plowman) from the same institution (1974) and later earned a J.D. degree from Concord Law School.

Career
In his career as a literary scholar, Birnes served as a Lily Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and taught literature and linguistics at Trenton State College.

As a writer of popular nonfiction, he co-authored The Riverman with detective/academic Robert D. Keppel (1995), an account of serial killer Ted Bundy's involvement in the apprehension of Green River Killer Gary Ridgway. The book was adapted into a made-for-TV film (2004) on A&E. Following the publication of The Day After Roswell(1998), a collaboration with Philip J. Corso, Birnes has emerged as a prominent UFOlogist.

He has appeared on the History Channel's television documentary series: UFO Files (2004-2007), Ancient Aliens (2009-2013), NASA's Unexplained Files and I Know What I Saw. He starred in UFO Hunters (2008-2009) as leader of an investigative team of fellow ufologists, and later wrote a book by the same name documenting his experiences on the show. Birnes has repeatedly appeared as a guest on the late night radio talk-show Coast to Coast AM to discuss UFOs and other similar anomalies.

Beliefs regarding UFOlogy
Birnes has been quoted in various interviews in which he acknowledges his beliefs regarding UFO phenomena and the existence of extraterrestrials. He confirms that the 1952 Washington, DC UFO incident did occur. He also believes that earth has been visited by many different types of extraterrestrials, and that pictures taken by NASA have been airbrushed to remove any evidence of alien activity. Birnes speculates that NASA may have taken missions to the moon after Apollo 17, but these missions were kept secret from the public due to alien interference and new-found extraterrestrial artifacts. While speculating that NASA has made three additional trips to the moon (namely, Apollo 18, Apollo 19, and Apollo 20), he also confirms that news of an Apollo 20 mission in which an alien was reportedly found on the moon, was a hoax. Additionally, he claims that the Apollo 13 incident was actually an extraterrestrial attack meant to scare humans away from landing on the moon. Birnes was able to speak with former US Navy Commander George W. Hoover who viewed the remnants of the Roswell crash. Hoover confided in Birnes his belief that the beings found at the site of the crash were extra-temporal humans, and not extraterrestrials. Although Birnes is a prominent figure in UFOlogy, Birnes’s credibility was called into question when a then-confirmed UFO sighting featured on the show UFO Hunters was later recognized as a hoax and subsequently a social experiment.