A
document labeled with the Majestic tag has been found. It has a proper
provenance, which means the origin of the document can be traced by anyone who
wishes to do so and there is no doubt it is authentic.
The
first page, which was classified as Top Secret is entitled, “Report by the
Joint Logistic Plans Committee the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Joint Logistic Plan
for ‘Majestic.’”
There
are some interesting things on that page. It identifies the problem, saying, “1.
Pursuant to the decision by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on J.C.S. 1844/126, to
prepare the Joint Logistic Plan in support of MAJESTIC*.”
The
asterisk references the same document mentioned in the body of the text. It provides
no more information about it, but it is interesting because it is a reference
to another document which could be traced to provide additional authentication.
It also suggests something about how these highly classified documents are
created and how many of them are inter-related.
The
rest of the document is merely other paragraphs that tell us very little about
what Majestic is and everything that it does say could, in fact, be considered
as evidence of MJ-12. This is a document that deals with logistics, which can
be simply defined as the support needed for military operations. It could be
said that this is a document that relates to the movement of an alien craft,
the wreckage or debris, and the bodies of the alien flight crew from one
location to another. This would be the plan to explain the mode of
transportation, how many soldiers would be needed, how they would be fed and
housed, the fuel supplies, weapons and ammunition, route information and bases
where additional support could be found and anything else rated to all of this.
The
second page is a list of those who will receive the information which is quite
long. It is labeled, “Top Secret Security Information,” and is stamped, “Special
Handling Required, Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals,” and for those keeping
score at home is dated 25 September 1952. Please notice the dating format that
is not 25 September, 1952.
But
here is where we run into the first problem with all of this. At the bottom it
is noted, “Forward herewith is a copy of the Joint Outline Emergency War Plan
for a War Beginning 1 July 1952 MAJESTIC. This plan supersedes Joint Outline
Emergency War Plan MASTHEAD, which was forwarded by SM-1197-51, dated 14 May
1951, copies of it will be either returned or destroyed by burning.”
This
suggests that it has nothing to do with UFOs or the Majestic-12, but the
argument could be made that this is “typical boilerplate,” meaning that the
paragraph is sort of standard without a specific meaning other than
instructions of removing the obsolete plan and replacing it with the new one.
In today’s world it would be a “cut and paste” error. In 1952, such a thing is
more difficult to explain.
The
third page makes it clear what is being discussed and what Majestic really is
and ends all our speculation. Stamped with a date of 2 OCT 1952 (as opposed to
02 OCT, 1952) and with “Top Secret Security Information, the letter, in
paragraph one said, “Enclosure (1), with attached copies of Joint Outline
Emergency War Plan “MAJESTIC’, is forwarded.” This is a war plan and has
nothing to do with UFOs. The markings on it, made in 1952, show what they
should have been as opposed to what they are on the MJ-12 documents and the
EBD. Yes, there might be variations depending on military service branch and
the level of classification, but here is something that shows what was being
used at the time, how it was used and what the specific wording was and should
have been. This does not bode well for MJ-12, not to mention the duplication of
code words.
By
duplication of code words, I mean that all code words for classified projects
come from a master list so that there is no accidental duplication (Yes, the
military sometimes uses civilian code words for projects, such as Project
Saucer, but the real name was Project Sign). To use the same or similar code
words would lead to compromise. Someone cleared to deal with the War Plan –
Majestic - wouldn’t be cleared for the MJ-12 material, but the duplication of
code words wouldn’t make that clear.
This
is the same argument made for Majic. During WW II there was a highly classified
project known as Magic. This similarity could lead to compromise, if you had
two projects with such similar names.
The
last page of the documents that I have makes it clear that there is no reason
to assume this has anything to do with the investigation of alien craft, alien bodies
or the recovery of an alien spacecraft. Paragraph 4 says, “The estimate of the
Soviet Union’s capability to execute campaigns and her probable courses of
action contained in the Enclosure does not take into consideration the effect of
opposition by any forces now in position or operational, or of unfavorable
weather or climate conditions.”
This
is also classified as “Top Secret Security Information,” and is dated 12
September 1952 (again is relevant because it puts it into the time frame of the
EBD and it shows the dating format as it should have been written), is signed
by W. G. Lalor, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.), and is also noted as “Reproduced
at the National Archives.”
This
then, should be the absolute, final blow to the MJ-12 nonsense. There simply
wouldn’t be two highly classified projects with the same code name operating at
the same time and we have the documentation here to prove that Majestic existed
but it wasn’t what we have been told.
It
should be noted that I was alerted to this by my colleague Tony Bragalia. He
suggested that this might have inspired the name Majestic-12 because here was a
real project with that name. If the documents were still classified, meaning
they couldn’t be released into the public arena, and in the 1980s, the
classification might have held it would have been an interesting bit of
corroboration. Someone could have stumbled over the top secret project with the
name being found but nothing to identify exactly what it was. This would have
hinted at a provenance and a high classification. Without some of the follow up
documents, there could be speculation about what it meant, but no one would
know. It would have provided an interesting time… until all the documents were
found. Too bad that those proponents of MJ-12 couldn’t have found some of this
twenty years ago. Oh, we’d know now what it was all about, but it sure would
have given them a fine run.
And
I have to wonder if Bill Cooper, in his claim to have seen documents labeled as
Majestic might not have seen these documents. Given his claimed position in the
Navy, he might have seen the cover sheets for this but had no chance to read
the document to see what it was all about.
Tony
added a note about all this, and how he came to find the documents. He provided
the link so that those who wished to see the provenance would know where to
look. He wrote that, “The reference linked below is what got me going down this research
avenue. The Emergency War Plan -codenamed MAJESTIC - is highlighted in yellow
in the military history book seen here:
Added
to the failure of the El Indio - Guerrero UFO crash that is part of the EBD and
for which there is no evidence of it other than Robert Willingham’s obviously
bogus tale, this should end, for all time any doubt about the fraudulent nature
of the original MJ-12 documents. And for those who would now retreat to the
argument that “Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence,” I would say,
until you find something tangible, “Absence of evidence is, in fact, evidence
of absence.” I have looked, others have looked everywhere that something like
this would be noted, and nothing has been found.
This
seems to be “Game Over.”
Hello Kevin:
ReplyDeleteYou have a big book on war plans with only ONE strange reference to the name Majestic. This is too little.
On the other hand you have ONE document with the codeword Majestic in it. The document also refers to some War plan. A war plan against whom? Apparently, It does not say.
I will play the devil's advocate role here, and I know that this probably will turn (again) Kevin's "MJ-12 nonsense" into Kevin's "MJ-12 nightmare" but if they really recovered in 1947 an extraterrestrial craft with alien bodies inside, etc., it is not crazy to assume that they were thinking very seriously about a possible war against aliens. Thus, the emergency war plan might have been a job or report asked to a military branch, by the MJ-12 group, for it's own specific ET related study.
How could an obscure reference to such a strange war plan ended up inside a book from a war historian? I frankly don't know, I am speculating, but surely the Majestic war plan deserves to be researched a little bit more.
Don -
ReplyDeleteThe war plan is against the Soviets... the documents say that and I thought it was clear in the posting.
It was clear.
ReplyDeleteVery clear.
ReplyDeleteI await with baited breath Stanton Friedman's response to this.
ReplyDeleteI am positive that, being a nuclear physicist(!), he can refute your statements one-by-one, with little or no difficulty.
The presence of evidence is surely evidence of presence, i.e. the presence of alien craft & their occupants.
So come on Stanton, show yourself in your true colors.
Kevin said:
ReplyDeleteThe war plan is against the Soviets... the documents say that and I thought it was clear in the posting.
Not as clearly as I would like; the text you quoted certainly mentions soviets, but we don't know the context. It still does not show what was really the Majestic.
I agree it is an extremely interesting finding; Surprinsingly, its date is from the EBD timeframe. You should at some moment make public the document and not just selected parts of it.
Don -
ReplyDeleteA little more on this. I have FOUR documents that all mention Majestic. They have a complete provenance. How many MJ-12 documents have any provenance at all.
This isn't an obscure reference to a strange war plan. It was a classified reference to strategic planning. And yes, we can do more research. I've provided the tools, why don't you see what you can learn about it.
So, I have four authentic documents that reference Majestic as a war plan and you have no authentic documents that reference Majestic in its various guises as a UFO retrieval.
Well good luck Kevin, contratulations for the finding.
ReplyDeleteKevin:
ReplyDeleteGiven that these documents were once classified "Top ecret", does their provenance include their records of classificatiion/declassification?
Edit that last post for the typo. It should be "Top Secret".....
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to note that in this same month, according to Frank Feschino, there was indeed a war begun in 1952, maybe even earlier, an air war against UFOs that were violating american air space. In his book, 'Shoot Them Down', Feschino documents about 200 american fighter jets that met untimely ends over a several year period when sent against these incursions. These pilots were not novices, but seasoned pilots recently returned from WW2.
ReplyDeleteBy searching newspaper articles all over the country for 'accidents', mechanical failures, training flights gone bad, Feschino raises troubling questions relating to an order to shoot down UFOs if they refused to land. Remember, this was a couple months after the Washington Merry-go-round which took place in July of that year. The loss of 200 aircraft during wartime would have been bad enough, but to loose that many during peacetime over US territory, well, that's a hell of a good reason to keep it all sub rosa.
He also makes a good case for the Flatwoods event as several damaged craft (damaged apparently by newly installed air-to-air rockets) flew westward and that landed in Braxton county. Apparently, a grid-type search was conducted by members of the intruding fleet which had its origin above the Atlantic off the East coast of the US (a mother ship?), to rescue their downed pilots and craft. One craft landed on a flat-topped hill, another on a nearby hilltop, presumably activating some sort of rescue beacon.
A detachment of the West Virginia National Guard under the command of Colonel Leavitt scoured the area and kept all residents away from the search areas. Through diligent questioning of Mrs. May, the children and other witnesses, along with his illustration skills, he determined that the huge owl / monster was in fact a kind of hovercraft containing a creature, with pipes radially pointing downward giving off a strong smell. The hovercraft/suit rode on, and was controlled by, a presurized gas blown downward from the pipes. He compared the device to the machined-aluminium deep diving suits used by Navy and submarine personnel. (Feschino site has illustrations)
Ivan T. Sanderson arrived at Braxton county within a day or two of the incident and also gathered interviews and examined the area where the hovercraft and the damaged oval craft had been, interviewed Mrs May and the children separately, as well as several other witnesses and also came away thinking there had been several landings in the county.
If all the foregoing is close to accurate, this certainly would be suggestive of an air war against intrusive UFOs. Not only would shooting down such objects provide technological insights into their propulsive methods, but there's no doubt that military higher-ups would, after winning WW2, find it totally unacceptable, even an affront to their egos, that the air space above our nation's capital could thus be violated.
Was the Majestic war plan a cover for war against aliens? Who knows, who cares; the ghost rockets of Norway were thought to originate from the USSR, that may have had something to do with it. And the fact that Majestic referred to Russia doesn't surprise me since UFOs were widely thought to originate from there, especially in the early days.
Kevin's probably right on his take; still, drawing up war plans against aliens would have gone over like a lead balloon, and I don't mean a lead weather balloon called Mogul, either.
Mr. Randle crusade against MJ-12 documents continues and my feeling after reading through his note of November 7th is if you can't dazzle them with brilliance then baffle them with BS. One fact is clear from my own research is the Mr. Randle is consumed with accuracy of typed memo's, or specifically dates. Folks, in the 1940's and 1950's and later people typed on typewriters with carbon ribbons and there was no spell check. People made errors in spelling and in proper or accepted format. To say a document with an improper date format makes it bogus is pure idiocy. We have White House documents from that time period with different date formats as well as from the military. As far Majestic, Majic, MJ-12 who knows, there are a number of variations in play. To say that something similar to Majestic, Majic, magic, MJ-12 would not be used as some former designation in the war is within reason. It seems that Mr. Randle is not not fighting for UFO research, he is fighting his fellow UFO researchers. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
ReplyDeleteLarry Holcombe
Oh, for Christ's sake.
ReplyDeleteKevin's main point was that the use of the term "Majestic" as a code word for a "guidance for emergency war plan" as noted in the link he includes in his post, provided by Tony Bragalia, would seem to indicate, if not prove absolutely, that any such code name reuse in a parallel timeframe would simply not be done, as the authorized use of one or two word code names at that time in 1952 (as before and afterward) would violate basic protocols and conventions regarding how code names are used and selected, in order to avoid confusion by NOT using the same code word for two or more different projects, programs, plans, etc. It is just not done.
And, anyone who has ever read Barry Greenwood's series of "Just Cause" articles, among others, exposing the fraud behind MJ-12, Majestic 12, or Majic 12, or whatever you want to call it, beginning with Greenwood's exposes dating all the way back to the early '80's (and online, btw), or the seminal paper by Sparks and Greenwood presented by Brad Sparks at the 2007 MUFON Symposium (also online), among the plethora of other documentation that the MJ-12 documents are all basically hoaxes promulgated by Bill Moore, Rich Doty, and maybe Jaime Shandera (like the "secret Bob Pratt files" online) has known for many, many years that MJ-12, whether termed Majestic or otherwise, is a complete and utter fraud.
Anyone who believes differently, or thinks the EBD, the SOM-101, the Truman doc, etc. are legit or genuine either is simply ignorant, deluded, or willfully blind to the now very well-established facts. It's just stupid to think or believe otherwise.
Majestic / MJ-12 as a UFO control group name, and the related docs foisted on the UFO community for over 30 years now are simply this: hoaxed frauds that have no credibility, legitimacy, or genuineness as anything other than fairly lame and now totally obvious fabrications. Get over it.
If you scan the book on Google Books the link KR provided goes to, you'll also note similar, earlier war plan guidance documents went by the code names Halfmoon, Dropshot, Fleetwood, Doublestar, Reaper, Offtackle, Shakedown, Crosspiece, etc., etc. This is all well-documented, in the book linked to, and other publications and related, now declassified documentation.
They were all, including Majestic, simply varying code names for revised and updated guidance and logistics planning documents regarding the use of nuclear weapons by the Strategic Air Command (SAC) in the event of a Soviet invasion of Europe or elsewhere in the 1948 through 1954 period under Truman and then Eisenhower.
Obvious, basic contingency and planning documents about what resources would be required to battle the Soviets in case they initiated war. It is perfectly obvious to anyone who looks into this in an objective manner.
Jesus, some people never learn.
You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Or think, it appears.
Maybe some people just like to beat a dead horse into nano-particles. For the "fun" of it. Or to "stir the shit" even when there's nothing to "stir," which is essentially pathological.
Calling Dr. Sardonicus! (Or should that be Dr. Demento?)
Postscript:
ReplyDeleteIt would probably be useful, Kevin, if the 4 documents you refer to, particularly the one with the "Majestic" code name, were made into searchable .pdf files and posted to Scribd or Fold3 with a link here so that others here who are either interested or still skeptical can read them for themselves and hopefully come to a rational conclusion, as you posit in your blog post.
One can only hope, i suppose.
Capt. Obvious
But I ask again, where is Stan, our esteemed nuclear physicist, to defend the great MJ-12 stuff? Where is he, and why has he gone so quiet?
ReplyDeleteAll -
ReplyDeleteFrank Warren has reprinted this posting and I provided him with the documents so that they could be examined by anyone who cared to do so. For some reason I couldn't get them loaded onto my blog, otherwise they would have been there.
You can find the documents, all four that I have, which were forwarded to my by Tony, at UFO Chronicles.
Larry -
ReplyDeleteReally? This is what you took away from the posting. That the dating format is wrong... which, of course, it is. You know that it matches, not the proper military or government format but does match, exactly the dating format used by Bill Moore.
You have missed all the other material, as outlined by Steve, not to mention all the great work done by Robert Hastings on this as well as those mentioned by Steve.
At what point do you give up on MJ-12? You have reduced the argument to a dating format, one that has not been found on any known documents that have a proper provenance... and you seem to fail to understand that none of the MJ-12 documents have any provenance, other than a line that ends with Moore, Shandera and Doty.
No one has been able to find a single document that references MJ-12 or any of the various names until now, and these documents do not support the idea that the other documents are legitimate.
But please, contine to believe in MJ-12... after all, the mere fact that none of it has been authenticated should mean nothing.
Larry -
ReplyDeleteMight I add that if you wish to review the evidence arrayed against the MJ-12 documents, I suggest you take a look at the on-going debate held at UFO Chronicles. You'll see my paper complete with footnotes and other discussions. It could help you understand that the argument against MJ-12 doesn't center on a dating format but is much more complex.
I believe "Anonymous" interviewed by Richard Dolan in March of 2013 stated that MJ-12 was real. If Kevin's research has proven otherwise, can we assume that Anonymous is a fraud who concocted a fantastical yarn months before his death?
ReplyDeleteJames -
ReplyDeleteSince we don't know the name of the source, we can't evaluate this value. However, if MJ-12 is a hoax, then those claiming it real because of their experiences with it are probably not credible.
Kevin
Is it possible that because of the extreme security around the whole crash recovery topic that the duplication of code words occurred? After all if the MJ-12 were to be real, it was initiated before this anti-Soviet war plan Majestic. Perhaps the MJ-12 access list was so restricted that the war planner’s security org didn’t know its existence. Are the MJ-12 people going to tell them to choose another code word and possibly compromise their existence? Kevin explains the effective denial of the Roswell crash in the Twinning Memo (TM) using a similar argument.
ReplyDeleteThe above was presented as a “devils advocate” point of view. I personally believe that MJ-12 is a fake because it seems to me more logical that the TM is telling the truth hence no Roswell crash. So since MJ-12 is all about Roswell and the likely suspects in the creation of it are associated with the AFOSI it would seem to be a disinformation effort similar to the Aquarius document that Doty let Linda Mouton Howe read. It would seem that in the case of Howe the OSI was taking active measures to stop her UFO documentary. Kevin’s theory of who created the MJ-12 document might be correct. I’m sure that Doty knew the correct date format and he says the he didn’t create the documents. From the OSI’s point of view having outside agent doing the dirty work would give them a greater degree of deniability.
All -
ReplyDeleteI have attempted to make it clear that the "real" code names are not just grabbed out of thin air. The code names are taken from a list to prevent duplication. See Gale Research’s Code Name Dictionary, 1963, for more information.
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteLet me first apologize for the coarseness of my post last night. I was tired and had fought another verbal battle earlier. I should have waited to today to write.
With that said I still feel strongly about the date issue. As time allows I'll dig out some examples in my files and forward. All military documents with some variation in date formats.
As far as Majestic or Majic or MJ my feeling is the same as the "devil's advocate" part of John's Space post. The subject was/is so highly classified and compartmentalized that I would be surprised if there were not duplications of code word operations in the 1940's and 50's. Today I'm sure MJ-12 has long ago been replaced, perhaps several times.
Yes, I continue to believe that MJ-12 was a legitimate code word for UFO research in that time period. And I respectfully submit that I don't think your blog "Majestic Found" closes the issue. Now I admit I could be wrong but until I see definitive proof that I am wrong I will hold to my belief. As I have written about the Air Force and their claim from 1994 and 1996 that Roswell was a Project Mogul crash, all they need to do is produce one, repeat, one official document that the clean up at the Foster ranch was to clean up Project Mogul debris and Roswell is case closed. They hold all the cards but still after 30 plus years can't produce that document. As you well know before the electronic age of communication nothing happen in the military without paperwork. I think it's a parallel to this discussion.
The bottom line: Why the in-fight over this as it's counterproductive to the goal we all wish to reach, or the answers we all seek?
For those interested in how and why various U.S. government agencies select and use the innumerable code names for differing classified projects, programs, plans, etc., I would highly recommend William M. Arkin's book, "Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World."
ReplyDeleteOver 3000 code names are included, along with their related agencies, the ops they covered, and in many cases what the code named project or plan was about, in general. It is the most recent (2003) and thorough book on American government code name usage and protocols extant.
Arkin is a former military intelligence officer, journalist (former national security analyst and columnist for the Washington Post, and now the Los Angeles Times), co-author of an incredibly well-researched multi-part series entitled "Top Secret America" (a collaborative W.P. effort between Arkin and Dana Priest -- Priest, btw, was the W.P. journalist who exposed the CIA's post-9/11 "black sites" secret prison and brutal interrogation program, which won her a Pulitzer Prize in 2006), and expert military consultant.
Here are some pertinent links to his work, writings, and background:
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/1/27/code_names_a_look_behind_secret
http://www.amazon.com/Code-Names-Deciphering-Military-Operations/dp/1586420836
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Arkin
http://williamaarkin.wordpress.com/
Larry -
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be fixated on the dating format. I mentioned it in this blog because here were documents from the era that had dates all over them and none were as messed up as the date on the MJ-12 documents. I would only be interested in seeing your collection if they were from that era, were American in creation and contained both the extra comma and the zero as a position digit in the date.
What is more important, and again, I ask that you take a look at the document posted at UFO Chronicles, which was a 54 page, 20,000 word essay on MJ-12. It contains the arguments, such as a lack of provenance, Project Aquarius, Moore's suggestion that he was going to create a Roswell document, and what is the fatal flaw. This is the El Indio - Guerrero crash that was originally in 1948, then moved to 06 Decemeber, 1950 (yeah, I'm jerking your chain here) and eventually to the mid-1950s. If this crash is a hoax, and there is no indication that it is anything other than a hoax, then the EBD falls and the rest of MJ-12 falls with it.
All these arguments are laid out in that article... but there are also the articles by Barry Greenwood, those by Greenwood and Brad Sparks (see the MUFON Journal) and the document by Robert Hastings available on the Internet.
The real question here is what does it take to convince you that MJ-12 does not exist. Proponents have offered no evidence for it, other than some rather lame suggestions but they can't overcome the fatal flaws.
Thanks for the post and info, KR. I also appreciate you passing the docs along to Frank Warren for posting.
ReplyDeleteJames,
ReplyDeleteThere are many problematic aspects of the testimony of "Anonymous". For one thing, his so-called deathbed revelations actually began some fifteen years prior to the Citizens Hearing on Disclosure where it was recycled. I'll explain, please.
Linda Moulton Howe had published a series of articles on her website in 1998 in which the statements of an anonymous whistleblower were strikingly similar to those of the man Dolan much more recently interviewed and called "Anonymous". I subsequently confirmed via email with LMH that the two witnesses were actually the same man.
My attempts to obtain comment from both Dolan and Bassett received no responses. I interpreted the manner Anonymous was presented at the CHD could have been considered misleading if not outright deceptive, as he and Dolan specifically discussed why the man was presenting the info at that point in time, and no mention was made that he presented his unsupported allegations years earlier.
In my opinion, we might not only cast doubt upon the credibility of those who make such statements, but those who enable them while failing to report the circumstances in their entirety as well.
Here's the article I did (with relevant supporting links):
http://www.examiner.com/article/linda-moulton-howe-i-first-talked-to-anonymous-1998
Hope that is helpful.
One key point on all of this is that even taken all of the evidence that the MJ-12 document is a fake and regardless of our position on Roswell, there still is a government cover up of the UFO phenomenon. This cover up has lasted for over six decades. So there must be a control group managing this across the several government agencies managing this issue. Assume Kevin’s view about MJ-12 is correct. Doty was OSI at the time and given his rank was acting under orders from superiors. He was in contact with Kevin’s prime suspects. It is beyond doubt that the OSI is the tip of spear in containing UFO issues among Air Force personnel. In that sense MJ-12 is significant in that it provides evidence of the methods being employed by the government concerning UFOs.
ReplyDeleteThe specific link to Frank Warren's "The UFO Chronicles" reprint of KR's "Majestic Found!" blog post here (with the associated 4-page "Majestic" document KR references in his post, embedded as click-expandable files in the "Chronicles" version of the article) can be found at:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theufochronicles.com/2014/11/majestic-found.html
I felt it appropriate to cite the above url / link, as Warren posts a large number of articles from various sources (already 5 others after KR's article) daily, and the general citation to Warren's website for those who wish to read the documents, entitled "Report by the Joint Logistic Plans Committee to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Joint Logistic Plan for 'Majestic' / References: J.C.S. a. 1844/126 & b. 1844/127," might soon be "buried" by additional, new articles on Warren's site, so for future reference and ease of locating the specific documents and related links listed after KR's article, I thought I should note the particular link on "The UFO Chronicles" involved so that those interested can go to it directly, without having to belatedly search for it within Warren's site at a later date.
There is also a very extensive list of prior "UFO Chronicles" articles regarding the MJ-12 controversy annotated below the version of Kevin's "Majestic Found!" post at the link above, for further information, both pro and con.
First of all thank you to all those involved in locating this important document.
ReplyDeleteMy reaction on reading this discussion is broadly similar to that expressed by Steve Sawyer above...
We really do need to be willing to accept falsification when we see it and focus efforts on areas with more solid data.
It's quite clear that there was a group under Vannevar Bush's chairmanship circa 1950 that was studying the modus operandi of these things. It seems fairly clear this was based in RDB and was drawing semi-raw intel from Air Technical Intelligence / ATIC etc. What it was called, and much more about it we don't know. All this MJ stuff is just an enormous distraction.
For goodness sake lets focus on areas where there is some prospect of progress or clear prospects of a result...and stay with what can be established or tested using the principles of critical rationalism rather than the wild speculations that infect ufology.
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteYou brought up the dating issue, I'm simply saying it's irrelevant and if you call that being fixated on the dating issue we have a different understanding of the english language.
You state the following..."and you seem to fail to understand that none of the MJ-12 documents have any provenance, other than a line that ends with Moore, Shandera and Doty." Yes, I fail to understand that since the statement is factually incorrect. I submit the Vernon Bowen manuscript, An Encyclopedia of Flying Saucers, as one example.The Air Force received the manuscript from Bowen for their review in 1961 and stamped it in part,Top Secret/MAJIC. None of the three men you mentioned above had any involvement. The Air Force had it for about 40 years before it was sent from the Ft. Meade, MD Freedom of Information Office to Tim Cooper who turned it over to Bob Wood. Bob sent me a copy of the mailing envelope from Ft. Meade and several copies of the original pages with interesting border notes made by personnel reviewing it. One note in reference to Donald Menzel stated he hopes Menzel will "keep his big mouth shut." All very interesting.
Bob Wood contacted Bowen's son who verified his late dad wrote the manuscript and sent it to the Air Force for their approval before attempting to have it published. Bowen never saw it again. Forty years later it is declassified and the FT. Meade FOIO office sends it to Cooper who had been flooding all government agencies with FOIA requests. I consider it the MAJIC/UFO smoking gun, the solid data that so many on this blog say doesn't exist.
One other thing, Bob Wood has had forensic testing done on the original and the ink dating checks out.
Anyone noticed how we seem to be moving interchangeably between differerent codenames...MJ-12, MAJIC. Majestic, Majestic-12 etc.
ReplyDeleteI may be wrong but my understanding is that at any one time a project would have one code name. Project names might change over time but you simply would not have multiple names for the same project at the same time.
Larry H:
ReplyDelete"The Air Force received the manuscript from Bowen for their review in 1961 and stamped it in part,Top Secret/MAJIC."
I am certain that if you investigated this thoroughly, or let someone who was not an MJ-12 promoter do it, you would find that this 1961 document originated much later (i.e. in the early 1990s) and that whoever produced it based his information and date on what was already known about the original three MJ-12 papers, and the ensuing debates. The other possibility is that the original 1961 document was genuine but that later persons have edited & annotated it to reflect MJ-12 details.
I am as certain as I can be that Menzel's name was added later by the original forger or an accomplice, post-1990, i.e. well after Menzel's death.
You can go on believing your documents are genuine if you wish, but by just mentioning the names of Tim Cooper and Bob Wood you are giving the game away.
I say, without the slightest hesitation, that the Vernon Bowen manuscript is a forgery. Please tell us: where can we view it, in both its annotated, and original, forms?
I have now had a brief look on Majesticdocuments.com at this Vernon Bowen encyclopedia.
ReplyDeleteIt is an abomination - an encyclopedia on flying saucers followed by a list of childrens' books by Mr Bowen. In large print is a so-called classification notice put there by the Air Force!
"TOP SECRET - MAJIC", blah, blah.
I gave up at this point.
Jack Brewer at the blog "The UFO Trail" has now also weighed in with his skeptical take on the MJ-12 fraud, for those interested in further info on the subject:
ReplyDeletehttp://ufotrail.blogspot.com/2014/11/standing-eight-count-for-mj-12.html#comment-form
Jack,
ReplyDeleteI thank you for your information.
I am quite aware that "Anonymous" had previously been in contact with LMH, he clearly states it in his video taped interview with Richard Dolan. He also states that he was threatened (by the 'Men in Black' no less), and that is the reason he discontinued his contact with LMH. He further clearly states that his March 2013 interview with Richard Dolan was motivated by the potential terminal prognosis given him by his Dr.'s.
In fact, there is another researcher who claims to have been the first to have been contacted by "Anonymous", and while I cannot recall his name at the moment, I do know he runs Militaryufo.com and claims to have vetted "Anonymous" and confirmed his employment with the C.I.A. by personally reviewing official records, letters, awards, etc. at Anonymous' home.
With regard to his previous disclosure to LMH and his March 2013 interview with Richard Dolan, I fail to see any deception here (as it was clearly stated in the video) and in all honesty cannot understand how anyone could.
Jack,
ReplyDeleteWansen = James.
Sorry for possible confusion, updated my account.
Larry -
ReplyDeleteActually my statement about the lack of provenance is factual. The document to which you refer can be traced to Vernon Bowen, but the MJ-12 markings were added sometime later. It does not follow the classification format in use, and the documents didn't surface until the 1990s, as you point out... not to mention that Tim Cooper isn't the most reliable of sources. As Stan Friedman is quick to point out, he has shown that many of Cooper's documents are bogus.
With the EBD, Truman memo and the Cutler/Twining memo, all can be traced to Moore, Doty and Shandera and no farther. I can't FOIA anyone or any agency that holds them as authentic. We don't know where they came from other than Moore and his pals and that is it.
So, my statement is factually correct, and you have nothing with a provenance that leads us to MJ-12. Just documents showing up in the mail... and all of them after Moore, Bob Pratt and maybe Doty wrote a novel called "Majik."
CDA:
ReplyDelete1) You said: "I am certain that if you investigated this thoroughly, or let someone who was not an MJ-12 promoter do it, you would find that this 1961 document originated much later (i.e. in the early 1990s) and that whoever produced it based his information and date on what was already known about the original three MJ-12 papers, and the ensuing debates." That seems to be a statement of fact. Then you said: "The other possibility is that the original 1961 document was genuine but that later persons have edited & annotated it to reflect MJ-12 details." You make what is a statement of fact then you entertain another possibility. You seem to be trying to walk both sides of the street.
2) Is it not possible that a writer of children's books could also have a deep interest in flying saucers and write a book on his study? I have a copy of the complete manuscript and find it quite amazing for that time, as apparently did the Air Force. If you want a copy I suggest you contact Dr. Robert Wood.
3) My post about this was to point out to Kevin that I've studied other MJ-12 data that does not involve Moore, Shandrea, and especially Doty.
4) I knew my mention of Tim Cooper would be jumped on. Cooper without question has been given bogus documents but does that paint all he has received as bogus?
5) You've talked a lot on various topics in this blog about others including the principals as being conspiracy theorists. Doesn't your note to me put you in that same group?
6) Finally, I find it disheartening that different points of view can't be reasonably discussed on this blog without being ridiculed. I admit that my first post was out of line and I apologized to Kevin. The long and short of it cda I'll quote you, "I give up at this point."
James,
ReplyDeleteYou originally wrote, "I believe "Anonymous" interviewed by Richard Dolan in March of 2013 stated that MJ-12 was real. If Kevin's research has proven otherwise, can we assume that Anonymous is a fraud who concocted a fantastical yarn months before his death?"
I therefore did not interpret you to be aware that the unsupported claims of "Anonymous" date back to at least 1998. What's more, the overwhelming majority of people who viewed the interview and of which discussed the matter with me indicated they were unaware of the circumstances. It appeared to me the general public very much interpreted the event to have been packaged for maximum effect as a breaking and an urgent deathbed testimony, which was simply untrue.
Larry -
ReplyDeleteThere are a multitude of documents that don't lead back to Moore and his cohorts... most of these came from Tim Cooper or other anonymous sources, which means there is no provenance for them. As Stan would say, he has proved many of them to be frauds, as have I. Timing is wrong, offices didn't exist when the documents were allegedly written, obvious copies of real documents with MJ-12 material inserted into the retype versions and so on.
Stan stands by the three original documents, EBD, Truman memo and the Cutler/Twining memo. Those all go to Moore et. al. and stop. There is nothing that has surfaced that came from any official source that can be FOIAed and verified.
When Moon Dust leaked into the public arena, I could FOIA the State Department and receive copies of the Moon Dust material. I found, in the Project Blue Book files, declassified in 1976, multiple references to Moon Dust. See the difference here? Moon Dust was traceable into other arenas, and the only documents that can be traced into a real location, refer to Majestic as a war plan and not the recovery of an alien spacecraft.
While you can trace the manuscript to Vernon Bowen, you can't trace MJ-12 to it because it is clear that the markings were made at a later date and not with the manuscript was written.
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteIn general I agree with your take on many of Tim Cooper's documents. With that said I'm not going to paint his whole package as being bogus. Because there is no provenance for certain documents does not automatically make them bogus. The Bowen manuscript looks authentic to me. However, there is one troubling issue that I continue to research that leaves me a little less than comfortable...we'll see.
As far as Stan, I think he also supports SOM 1-01 that leads back to Don Berliner but that's my take and I'm not going to speak for Stan. Until proven wrong I continue to support SOM 1-01, the EBD, Truman/Forrestal and Cutler/Twining as authentic. If proven wrong I'll have no trouble admitting it. I have an open mind on this very complicated subject.
I can't agree with you on your take on the use of Majestic. You are applying your present day military knowledge to 70 year old history. If Truman told Forrestal the control group would be be called Majestic-12 end of story.
As far as Moon Dust and Blue Book, I hold Blue Book post Ruppelt about as high as my shoe laces although Bob Friend did try but his hands were tied by his superiors. Of course that was not your point, your comparison to Moon Dust leading you to Blue Book was one of provenance but where did it get you? A dead end. I've spent a lot of time in presidential library archives knowing that I wasn't going to find a smoking gun but perhaps just another dot or two to connect in the big picture. We are all after the same goal, why do we continue to quibble over these petty issues?
Larry
ReplyDeleteWe quibble over these petty issues because here we have a very clear example of falsification. We now know FOR CERTAIN that whatever the group under Bush was called it wasn't Majestic.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Very little put forward as evidence for the reality of this phenomena comes close to the standard required in peer reviewed academic journals even for accepted mainstream subjects.
I think a strong case can be made, but not like this. Evidence that is not watertight simply isn't good enough.
In terms of documents... We can all make mistakes, but if someone has been caught at supplying fakes intentionality they are totally discredited. Any document they then supply has a massive hurdle of credibility to overcome before it could be taken seriously.
I'm sorry but this sort of discussion is why most people with scientific training treat the whole field with utter derision. I was either lucky or unlucky in how I came across the subject initially ( my wife would say unlucky) in that I can see some signal within the mass of noise.
I am very influenced by the philosopher Karl Popper and the principles of critical rationalism, whilst recognising that Kuhn ( perhaps updated by Lakatos) more accurately describes the reality of science. If we don't apply those standards, however, the case is lost before it begins.
Kevin, I don't agree with you on the Roswell mess but Mein Gott, you have completely obliterated MJ-12 with a) your essays and b) your links. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThe 2007 MUFON stuff by Sparks and Greenwood, not to mention Robert Hastings' work (which your links pointed me to, thanks!), must, after a few hours of reading, completely destroy the MJ/Majestic-12 fiasco. Unlike some blog commenters, I actually read your links when they're interesting (i.e. often). I disagree with you on Roswell, but on everything else you are one of the best ufologists (?) we've got left. Very good work, keep it up. Cheers.
p/s To my mind, SOM-1 looks like it was printed off a late 20th century printer, and how convenient "Hevetica" was used... it's one of the most common fonts on the web! Why has no one noticed SOM-1's Microsoft Word look to it all, so to speak. Inspired minds want to know. Thanks again for your always thought-provoking blog. S.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLarry, you characterize Kevin's work as him against all other UFO researchers, but that is not true what so ever. The vast majority of researchers who were around when these documents were most heavily scrutinized believe them to all be fake. Just look at the posts on UFO Chronicles. Stanton is in the minority, not Kevin. Even Timothy Good, the one who broke MJ-12 to the press, wrote about what Kevin is writing here, and came to the same conclusion Kevin did.
ReplyDeleteRead more here: http://books.google.com/books?id=Tqu7764c2cQC&pg=PA129&lpg=PA129&dq=majestic+war+plans&source=bl&ots=fM9-5wIJji&sig=3Clkfky92YcrFvIeMeZjrK-OSN8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=AmhhVIHBOtbtoAS_k4GQDw&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=majestic%20war%20plans&f=false
Larry -
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to be condescending here, but I don't think you have a firm grasp on provenance. Yes, the SOM 1-01 can be traced to Don Berliner, but he was not the originator of the document. It was sent to him on undeveloped photographic film and what we need is the source of the film and then the government agency that runs the whole thing. We need the oversight of MJ-12 rather than photographic film of some bogus document (and yes, I used bogus on purpose because Don believes the manual to be fake... which starts with the symbol on the front from an organization that hadn't existed in seven years).
The point I attempted to make with Moon Dust is that we have the provenance. Let us say that someone handed me a photocopy of a document with the Moon Dust code word on it. Let us say that it just mentioned Moon Dust in passing... so I FOIA the Air Force and ask about Moon Dust. They tell me that there was no such project (which, of course, what happened). Let us say that another document appeared in a batch of FOIA material from the Department of State and in that document dump, there were references to Moon Dust (which, of course, what happened, though it was this that actually provided the clue). So, I now have a provenance for documents about Moon Dust... which is the State Department, but no such provenance exists for MJ-12.
Now, let us say that the Department of State documents didn't exist. As I was studying the Project Blue Book files (September 1960) I happened to see Moon Dust as a code one on one of the files... or in other words, had we never had all that other evidence, here was a provenance for Moon Dust... official documnets that referenced it and showed the connection to UFO sightings.
With MJ-12, we go back to Moore and his pals, but we can't find an agency with the documents. In 30 years of searching, no document with a provenance has ever surfaced. No one has found anything about it... until, of course, we find the Soviet war plan that is labeled Majestic... again we have a provenance, but it simply doesn't relate to UFOs.
Spin all you want, there is simply no independent proof that MJ-12 ever existed, but proof that Majestic did.
Anthony Mugan wrote:
ReplyDeleteIt's quite clear that there was a group under Vannevar Bush's chairmanship circa 1950 that was studying the modus operandi of these things. It seems fairly clear this was based in RDB and was drawing semi-raw intel from Air Technical Intelligence / ATIC etc. What it was called, and much more about it we don't know. All this MJ stuff is just an enormous distraction..... Anyone noticed how we seem to be moving interchangeably between differerent codenames...MJ-12, MAJIC. Majestic, Majestic-12 etc. I may be wrong but my understanding is that at any one time a project would have one code name. Project names might change over time but you simply would not have multiple names for the same project at the same time.
Yes, exactly. People get so focused in invalidating the "Majestic" papers or the possible code name “Majestic” that the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater, namely the good evidence that such a UFO oversight group existed.
Aside from the various Wilbert Smith/Canadian documents, later statements by Smith and his primary source Dr. Robert Sarbacher (with some corroboration provided by Dr. Eric Walker, Exec. Secretary of the RDB back in Smith/Sarbacher's time frame), we also have several clear hints in Ruppelt's book about the existence of such a high-level group doing parallel UFO investigations to Blue Book, involving scientists, engineers, and intelligence people.
Dr. Omand Solandt, head of the Canadian Defence Research Board, or roughly Bush's counterpart (and the one to whom Wilbert Smith directed his original 1950 memo naming Bush heading up the highly classified RDB group looking into the "modus operandi" of the saucers), confirmed meeting with Bush "informally" on a number of occasions to discuss the subject matter, but denied any knowledge of an "official" high-level UFO study group such as MJ-12. (Solandt’s use of words like “informal” and “official” might be considered weasel words. Any “off-the-books” group or operation, such as covert ops, might be considered “unofficial,” or lacking in public acknowledgment, documentation, or normal legislative.)
Here are some more "coincidences" suggestive of the RDB being involved. On the afternoon of July 8, 1947, most of us know that Roswell base issued its infamous press release of recovering a flying saucer. But not many people know that two striking things happened just before this at the Pentagon. First, that morning, simultaneous with Roswell base senior staff meeting to discuss how to handle this, acting AAF chief of staff Vandenberg cancelled a previously scheduled meeting and substituted a 2-1/2 meeting of the RDB. Immediately after this, and just before Roswell base's press release, the AAF public information office issued another press release denying the flying saucers were "space ships". This begs the question, why wouild they ever bother to issue such a remarkable denial?
In my mind, the documented evidence strongly points to an "MJ-12"-type group headed by Bush (initially) operating within the RDB and generally holding their meetings at Wright-Patterson, assisted by the "Foreign" Technology Division and air intelligence divisions there. The RDB was organized into subcommittees, such as missiles and electronics, which is where missile and electronics expert consultants like Sarbacher could figure in.
So what if the main organizing committee wasn't called specifically "Majestic"? Maybe the code name was MJ-12 or MAJIC or something else entirely. It existed. That’s the key point. And I think a good argument can be made, based on the dead seriousness with which the early documents treat the phenomenon as physically real (the Twining memo being only one such example), that such a group would have been established for possible back-engineering purposes, Roswell crash or no Roswell crash.
Alejandro:
ReplyDeleteIf I gave the impression that I thought it was Kevin against other UFOlogists that was certainly not my intention. I well know that the belief that any, repeat any, MJ-12 documents are legitimate puts you in the minority.
My first reply to Kevin was unfortunate and improper and I apologized to him. However, I am entitled to believe as I wish. Am I 100% certain that the documents I mentioned are authentic. NO! But I continue to believe the odds favor that they are. I respect you and I hope you respect my right to entertain my own belief.
I see you have challenged Stan to a debate on the issue. I hope that happens, I would look forward to it.
Larry, I most certainly respect our right to voice your own opinion. And I very much appreciate that you apologized and offer your comments in a respectful manner. I just wanted to point out that I think it is interesting that the old school researchers do have a problem with MJ-12 and that even includes Timothy Good. I also found it very interesting that Good came to similar conclusion as Kevin in regards to the Majestic War plans.
ReplyDeleteI really am not an expert on the files as much as Kevin and others. As I pointed out to Stan, my work is in regards to how the documents came into the public eye. That is all based on fact, and I want to debate that these facts are important, and interview him on what he knew, when, and get his perspective on the major players. We actually saw each other this past weekend. This conversation will happen eventually. Stan is great and we get along very well.
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteYes, you note was a bit condescending, but that's okay especially in light of my first note to you. As far as understanding provenance I understand it very well, and know it's a word you like to employ with frequency. I thought this one sentence made it clear that I understood what you were talking about "Of course that was not your point, your comparison to Moon Dust leading you to Blue Book was one of provenance but where did it get you? A dead end."
I must say I had to laugh when you lectured me on the fact that Berliner was not the originator of undeveloped film mailed to him. Film that he thought he had taken at an air show he had recently attended. Of course he was not the originator and for you to take the time to explain that to me was...well to be kind, unnecessary.
You state that SOM 1-01 was bogus because Berliner said it was bogus. That does not make it bogus it's simply his view. I wrote to him asking for his current view but did not receive a reply.
In discussing provenance I have two letters one from Allen Hynek to Donald Rumsfeld when Rumsfeld was Chief of Staff to President Ford giving him data that Rumsfeld requested from CFUFOS and a thank you letter from Rumsfeld back to Hynek. They are in my soon to be released book. I wrote Rumsfeld and asked if he would comment on whether this was a personal request or an official request for the president. He requested I send the chapter in question (through his secretary) and if time allowed he would respond. I sent the chapter and a cover letter. His secretary responded that she had put them on his desk. Not surprisingly I never received a reply. Did the same with Admiral Bobby Ray Inman with similar results. I think that is provenance.
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteLet me add a footnote to my last post to you. My reference to Admiral Inman was while I was doing research in the Johnson Library in Austin, TX for my book. I was in walking distance of Admiral Inman's office. I think the admiral has a deep background in UFO research and I wanted his views. I made it clear that I didn't want to get into classified areas but just his thoughts on the subject in general and see where that went.
I think the Admiral was burned by an, unnamed by me, unscrupulous so called UFOlogist that went public with a taped phone conversation with Inman, unknown to him, and he no longer will entertain UFO interviews. I don't blame him, and I think this is the reason he refused to talk with me.
I think these actions by what I call rogue UFOlogists are reprehensible and do great harm to legitimate UFO research. In my talks with Bob Eminegger he told me of an interview he and Col. George Weinbrenner did with a well known UFOlogist, that I will leave unnamed. When published it was totally taken out of context and Bob told me Weinbrenner was incensed. That is unacceptable and harmful to legitimate research.
In the development of my book I sent everyone that I interviewed, or who contributed in their own words, what I had written and asked for their approval or corrections. I think this is the proper approach to end up with a legitimate work.
Alejandro:
ReplyDeleteThanks for your nice follow up note, much appreciated. Hope we have a chance to discuss our views and differences at some future time.
@David Rudiak
ReplyDelete> the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater
Just because the government may have had an interest in UFOs once upon a time, and that they may have told whoppers about UFOs back in the day, you DON'T mean to say that people who make up crazed sh*t based on hoaxed documents they may have fabricated themselves should get a free pass, do you?
Yes or no?
@David Rudiak
ReplyDeleteAs often is the case I agree with your analysis.
The 8th July RDB meeting (or was it still JRDB at that point?)is interesting if remarkably quick for a considered response. Of course clear strategic thinking in a crisis is what people at that level and above get paid for, but even so that is a very quick reaction whilst they were still clearing up in New Mexico.
it would be ideal if we could locate the agenda or minutes of the meeting...obviously it won't mention Roswell etc but the possibility (probability?) that some other issue had cropped up that needed a heavy weight such as Vandenburg to attend must be considered.
I haven't been able to locate it with a quick web search - some mention on your site of a decision to build Cape Cannaveral...do we have any more details anywhere?
Anthony and DR:
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing in General Vandenber's daily log for July 8 to show that he cancelled a previously scheduled meeting and substituted a two-and-a-half hour meeting with the RDB. The log merely shows he and General LeMay attended the latter.
There is no mention of who attended this meeting (apart from these two) or what it was about. Vandenberg then went to see Secretary Symington on something entirely unconnected with UFOs.
DR has brought up this meeting several times in the past to try desperately to prove something of import happened in Washington regarding the Roswell event that day.
I am certain, had the crash (or even the suspected crash) of an ET craft occurred, that Vandenberg would have cancelled ALL his appointments for the rest of July 8 and probably the whole of July 9 to deal with this sudden emergency, and that his daily logs would be vastly different. Alas he did not.
The rest of his activities on those two days seems highly mundane.
So my deduction of the purpose of this JRDB meeting is that it had zilch to do with Roswell or UFOs.
But of course, I COULD, possibly, be wrong.
Hi CDA
ReplyDeleteA while ago I read the diaries of Field Marshall Lord Allanbroke who was British CIGS during World War Two. Nothing to do with UFOs of course but if you get chance to take a look you will see the extraordinary range of issues he was dealing with on a day to day basis, even at very key moments of the war.
On 7th / 8th July 1947 and the in the days, weeks and months to follow, what was needed was a level head and a cool strategic assessment of the tasks that needed to be done and by whom. The key decisions may well have been above Vandenburg's level but I am not at all surprised at him keeping many plates spinning at the same time. Running around like a headless chicken would not have been his style.
That said it does seem very quick to be getting to such a considered response as involving the RDB, which is why I was hoping we could check out agendas etc to see what else might have been the key issue. There is a difference between his initial draft diary ( if that is the correct way to put it) and the written up log after the event. Whatever made him attend RDB clearly cropped up at short notice and required a pre-briefing from Le May and Bowles. Clearly not routine, but such is life for a Chief of Staff
Terry the Censor wrote:
ReplyDeleteJust because the government may have had an interest in UFOs once upon a time, and that they may have told whoppers about UFOs back in the day, you DON'T mean to say that people who make up crazed sh*t based on hoaxed documents they may have fabricated themselves should get a free pass, do you?
Thanks for your straw-man misrepresentation of my argument, "Terry" whoever-you-are.
Instead I clearly said the undisputed evidence at hand (Smith, Sarbacher, Canadian documents, Solandt, Ruppelt, etc.) strongly suggests that such a UFO control group headed by Vannevar Bush DID exist within the U.S. Research and Development Board, regardless of its true code name or the authenticity of the so-called "Majestic" documents.
I also said that Roswell or no Roswell, such a group would likely have been set up to study the scientific, engineering, and security aspects, based on the dead seriousness we see in documentation from that period, giving the Twining memo of saucer reality as one example. Another example of the seriousness with which the topic was treated at the HIGHEST levels of government were comments by Truman's USAF advisor Gen. Robert Landry when interviewed by the Truman library:
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/landryr.htm
Landry became Truman's adviser in early 1948. Truman instructed Landry to provide him with quarterly oral-only briefings on the topic based on "Central Intelligence" (which most presume means the newly formed CIA). Only if it was deemed highly important or alarming requiring more detail was anything to be committed to writing.
Typically most intelligence briefings are written (such as the daily intelligence briefing Presidents receive). These eventually end up in archives like Presidential libraries, are eventually declassified, eventually become public.
So why would Truman request oral-only briefings unless absolutely necessary to have written ones? Probably because oral briefings leave no paper trails, which is consistent with Truman being known to be highly security conscious. I suspect Truman didn't want to leave any permanent record of his interest or belief that this information "warranted more intense study and attention at the highest government level," as Landry put it.
Landry did try to minimize the import of the briefings, saying none were ever written and during the 4-1/2 years he gave them, supposedly nothing credible or of national security interest occurred.
Well 4-1/2 years would have taken the briefings to the big UFO flap of 1952, including UFOs on radar over Washington D.C. being chased by jet interceptors. This included the White House issuing a "shoot-down" order of the saucers, which became public. If such events weren't considered credible or of national security interest, I don't know what is.
@David Rudiak
ReplyDeleteSo, the answer is "yes"...
...because you believe the government was interested in UFOs in the distant past, and perhaps formed an unnamed group to discuss UFOs, people who decades later made up stories and fabricated documents about MJ-12 get a free pass.
Loud and clear.
CDA wrote (part 1/2)
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing in General Vandenber's daily log for July 8 to show that he cancelled a previously scheduled meeting and substituted a two-and-a-half hour meeting with the RDB.
A half-truth. The typewritten daily log BY ITSELF doesn't show a cancellation, but COMPARISON of the log with the handwritten appointment book DOES:
http://www.roswellproof.com/Vandenberg_logs.html
Note, nothing about a JRDB meeting at 10:00 a.m. in the APPOINTMENT BOOK. Instead it says rather cryptically:
"10:00 Recruiting Pres. to S/W [Secretary of War?] & C/S [Chief of Staff] 3E869.. [interestingly a Pentagon room which later figured in the July 1952 large press conference about UFOs over Washington] ??? Green??reet Gen.(?) Watson rep: (?) hire (?) 10/20/47.”
However, you interpret the chicken scratch (and I welcome anybody who can figure out more, such as who “Green...” or “Watson” were), there is clearly no mention of a JRDB meeting scheduled at that time. That ONLY appears in the daily log and indicates that this meeting was NOT preplanned. Otherwise it should have been written into the appointment book.
Comparison of the appointment book and log ALSO shows that Vandenberg, at 2:00 p.m. on July 7, after personally dealing with various flying disc matters with Gen. LeMay, cancelled a dental appointment and instead went to the airport to personally pick up AAF Secretary Stuart Symington and bring him back to the Pentagon. What, an aide couldn't do this or Symington couldn't take a taxi? Instead it strikes me that something VERY urgent had come up that couldn't wait.
The log merely shows he and General LeMay attended the latter.
What, this was a ghost meeting about nothing with nobody else there? Not even Vannevar Bush, chairman, who lived in Washington and was President of the Carnegie Institution there? Not even the Executive Secretary, Dr. Laurence Hafstad, who also lived in Washinton and worked at nearby John Hopkins University in Baltimore? (More on Hafstad below—he was also quoted early that day debunking the flying saucers).
The log DOES show that Vandenberg was briefed beforehand by both LeMay AND Dr. Edward Bowles of MIT. Bowles was a consultant to the Sec. of War, had close connections to both Bush and LeMay (e.g., both he and LeMay helped establish Project RAND the year before) The log also shows LeMay the previous day consulting with Vandenberg on the "flying discs" on several occasions.
2/2:
ReplyDeleteThere is no mention of who attended this meeting (apart from these two) or what it was about.
Yes, like most entries in Vandenberg's log, there is no detailing of what occurred in his various meetings at this time, including meetings with Symington or the Joint Chiefs. But the FACT remains, this JRDB meeting was unscheduled and occurred at exactly the same time as the morning staff meeting in Roswell. Coincidence? Other sources indicate that at this meeting a decision was made to order the War Dept. to get on with it in establishing an orbital satellite launch facility, which eventually became Cape Caneveral (Kennedy). Did they need to call a sudden meeting just for that? After all, this had been in the works for the previous year. Seems like this could have waited for a routine scheduled meeting. Again, this strikes me as being caused by a great sense of urgency and represents an immediate policy response to the perceived possible threat from the flying saucers in general, if not the unfolding events at Roswell.
Immediately after the JRDB meeting, it is a documented fact from the newspapers that the AAF issued a press release that the flying saucers definitely were not "space ships", followed soon after by the Roswell press release that they had recovered one. More “coincidence”? In addition to the "space ship" denial, JRDB Exec. Sec. Hafstad was quoted with gratuitous ridiculing of the flying saucers as "poppycock," adding people should just forget about it. How did that end up in the same story? Obviously just another "coincidence".
Vandenberg then went to see Secretary Symington on something entirely unconnected with UFOs.
Yes, it says Vandenberg went to see Symington about the planned Presidential "Air Board" (to investigate a recent spate of fatal plane crashes). Unlike CDA, I don't have psychic powers and know for sure that would be the only thing discussed or whether it was discussed at all. There are absolutely no details about what was discussed.
Without psychic powers, I do know from the log about the curious cancellation of Vandenberg's dental appointment to rush out to the airport and see Symington and numerous meetings with Symington, some mentioning the subject matter was the Air Board, with no detailing, some saying nothing at all. As one indication that more than just the Air Board may have been involved, the log also indicates that on July 8 at about 5:15 p.m., Vandenberg was supposedly meeting with Symington for an hour on the Air Board, whereas the newspaper instead document Vandenberg INSTEAD for at least part of this time being in the AAF press room dealing with Roswell. Not a word about this appears in Vandenberg’s log. Why not?
AFOSI debunkers in 1994 tried to twist the absence of mention in Vandenberg’s log about Roswell indicating he had no involvement nor was interested in it. In the real world, absence of mention or detailing in the log does NOT prove anything, when clearly the newspapers show he WAS involved. The same could easily be true about any of Vandenberg’s many meetings with Symington, NONE of which were provided with any detail.
"Terry the Censor" disingenuously wrote:
ReplyDeleteSo, the answer is "yes"...
...because you believe the government was interested in UFOs in the distant past, and perhaps formed an unnamed group to discuss UFOs, people who decades later made up stories and fabricated documents about MJ-12 get a free pass.
Loud and clear.
No, the answer was "no" and you know it. I made it abundantly clear the so-called MJ-12 documents and a particular code name could all be phony, but the IMPORTANT point getting lost in all this "Majestic" bashing was that the preponderance of credible and documented evidence points to such a group existing.
Because you are another worthless troll hiding behind a pseudonym (excuse me, "title", your Royal Excellency), you obviously feel free to deliberately twist what I actually wrote.
Loud and clear.
David:
ReplyDeleteYour rely to Terry was excellent, just spot on. As I'm sure you know that at their first or early meeting Truman asked Landry his knowledge of the flying saucer issue and told Landry he hadn't given it much thought. I don't believe that for a minute. I'm sure Truman had been well briefed by the Bush control group and had a deep knowledge of the issue, but as you stated he was so security conscience that he was not about to tell Landry of that knowledge.
I think he wanted his own dog in the mix to ferret out whatever info Landry came across and also as a lookout if you will for possible leaks in the control group. This of course is speculation on my part but I think it's reasonable.
The entire Truman presidency relating to flying saucers is extremely fascinating. His notes and memo's on high security matters are extreamly cryptic.
@David Rudiak
ReplyDeleteKevin writes a post that likely kills the MJ-12 myth once and for all, but you want to preserve it -- just not the name.
That's pretty clear. No twisting necessary.
But I don't believe you have answered my question about giving MJ-12 fabulists a free pass, so I will rephrase it:
Do you recognise the MJ-12 documents are fraudulent and, consequently, the specific myths derived from those documents are also fraudulent?
Terry, I think your rhetoric is showing. Strawman, much?
ReplyDeleteRudiak has been quite clear that, while he knows and said the Majestic / MJ-12 mythos, docs, and hoaxsters can be easily and provably dismissed as fabrications, that that alone does not and cannot then dismiss, deny, or disprove that some other "UFO control group" might not have been or might still be in operation and still deeply classified.
That is an unknown, based on insufficient evidence, empirically speaking.
But, it still could or might be true. Or do you disagree?
And, I suspect that speculation is more than a mere possibility, although objectively unproven and unknown. But, if unknown or not proven, it cannot be absolutely denied as a distinct possibility, given the history and circumstantial evidence of the UFO phenomenon and U.S. government involvement in it.
Example: the conclusions and policy recommendations of the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel, and the implicit national security concerns raised by the UFO phenomenon in some UFO incidents, such as the Washington Nationals in July of 1952, among many (although a small minority of) reported UFO cases involving multiple, credible witnesses, radar tracking, other sensor technologies, including theodolite sightings, gun-camera films, and some select photographic evidence, i.e., supplemental data other than just witness testimony.
Or, are you "trying to prove a negative," in the somewhat subtle and ambiguous, yet still transparent, implications of asking David if he "recognizes" that "consequently, the specific myths derived from those documents are also fraudulent?" Logic does not allow that.
While David can quite adeptly speak for himself, your comments above, particularly the last one I quoted the excerpt from, suggest you think differently. Am I wrong, or have I misinterpreted what it seems to me, at least, you imply?
I would turn this implication of yours around (if that's what it is, without being directly said by you, or if my understanding is accurate), and suggest you _prove_ there never was nor is there any kind of "UFO control group."
The fact is, you can't.
Stalemate?
Probably not stalemate in the sense that we have clear line of investigation to follow here. In another sense it will always be stalemate and we just have to get on with it.
ReplyDeleteWhilst some will no doubt disagree I would strongly argue the following is either established fact or highly probable. From this we can see possible areas for further research built on more solid ground than MJ-12 documents.
1. The Ramey memo and the falsification of the NYU flight 4 / Mogul hypothesis together establishes the reality of the Roswell crash. I am now completely certain of that.
2. The first debris brought into Roswell by Brazel was apparently flown out late on the 6th July (from DuBose's and other witness testimony) - highly probable.
3. It is possible that by the 8th July Vandenburg was directly receiving communications from 8th AF (with no doubt SAC in the loop to maintain the chain of command) on the situation (Ramey memo - but not a clear bit so only possible).
4. We know that by the 8th Twinning was in New Mexico and that during July he took charge of a project to oversee an analysis of UFO reports by Air Technical Intelligence
5. We know that a group under Bush's chairmanship was studying the data from a technical point of view. This was underway by 1950 at the latest ('modus operandi' - Wilbert Smith, Sarbacher, Walker etc).
6. We know that 'research and development' was receiving intelligence in semi-raw state from Blue Book on UFO reports, with a two star general as the 'cut out', in 1952 (Ruppelt)
7. We know that Vandenburg modified his planned activities on the 8th July 1947 significantly - most of the morning was on something involving the JRDB. He then cleared part of the afternoon to talk to his political boss, Symington, driving out to the airport to do so. In other words Vandenburg's activities on the 8th July were not pre-planned but rather reactive to an urgent matter or matters that involved JRDB and required discussion with Symington. Given my conclusion on the Ramey memo I find it probable that this was part of the response to Roswell.
8. Other elements of air intelligence that had independently begun to look at the early flying disk reports found themselves 'out of the loop' in mid July as the strategic response to Roswell kicked in.
If the above scenario is approximately correct there could be snippets of data in diaries or other records of the activities and meetings of members of the JRDB (soon to be RDB). Given Twinning's trip to the SW that is probably were anyone involved in actual analysis of the debris would have had to be / go to...at least initially.
What a shame the whole MJ stuff distracted attention from the above data- most of which was available by the early 80's. Some of the figures involved (including Bowles, Sarbacher etc) were still alive at the time. Now we must hope there are clues still there in the paperwork.
I agree with what David said. Even if you don’t consider MJ-12 documents or Roswell there clearly is an distinctive interest and attitude to the UFO phenomena that prevails the U.S. government. It isn’t just the military but also the FAA that supports a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on UFOs. Don’t ask the government or tell the government about UFOs. While inside the Air Force there many cases where UFO reports are met with information containment actions by the AFOSI. No doubt the NCIS and Army CID have similar roles in the respective services. The CIA and NSA are clearly involved given their appearance on UFO related distribution lists and their basic intelligence functions. NORAD must have more data on this phenomena that about any other agency given their sensor capabilities.
ReplyDeleteSo what organization controls UFO policy across all of these organizations and keep just about everyone in line? The basic policy has been the same from the end of the Truman Administration through Obama. Political differences a great as between Reagan and Obama. What do they know about it that we don’t? When Clinton was recently asked on Jimmy Kimmel’s show if you know the truth about UFOs would you tell the people instantly shakes his head NO while saying yes. I tend to believe his head was telling the truth not his mouth.
I think the mistake that many UFO-researchers make is that they prematurely rush to assumptions about what is indicated by the gov being tight lipped. There is often somewhat of a tunnel vision approach.
ReplyDeleteThere are any number of possible explanations for keeping certain circumstances classified, etc., and virtually any of them are infinitely more likely than a cover-up of an alien presence. Of course it is possible in select circumstances, or that some type of contact event may have occurred at some point in the history of humankind, but the burden of proof remains upon those who suppose such things.
From my vantage point, it appears that all too often people subscribe to one theory or another in an attempt to validate their interpretations of personal experiences, i.e., if Roswell was demonstrated to involve aliens, then they think that would somehow validate their personal UFO sightings or reported abductions as being of alien origin. That is of course not correct. That would not be the case anymore than official disclosure of behavior modification projects (MKULTRA etc.) validate every claim of mind control and Targeted Individuals.
It is all interesting subject matter, at least to some of us, but, again, burdens are on those who desire to validate theories. It becomes unreasonable to demand others to accept what in many cases actually amount to belief systems.
Anthony:
ReplyDeleteYou say: "If the above scenario is approximately correct there could be snippets of data in diaries or other records of the activities and meetings of members of the JRDB (soon to be RDB)".
I agree. There not only "could be snippets of data", there WOULD be volumes of data. The fact that there are NO minutes of these JRDB meetings discussing the 'crash', NO diaries, NO official memos of any kind, NO scientific analyses, NO reports by scientists, officials, or committees set up to deal with a possible alien invasion, NO announcements and NO interest shown by the scientific world in the past 67 years is a very powerful indicator that no such ET visit occurred and that your points 1 to 8 are of no relevance in this respect.
The conclusion must be that nothing of importance to science happened in the desert near Roswell.
You surely do not believe that such a discovery (i.e. of an ET visit to earth) would STILL be top secret, and to just one country, after all this time. Or do you?
As a kind of footnote, for those who may still believe that the Majestic / MJ-12 documents represent legitimate evidence for a "UFO control group" or are even parially true, I would strongly recommend the late-1980's and afterwards exposes of how and why the MJ-12 documents were fabricated (and by whom), by Barry Greenwood, Robert Todd, Brad Sparks, Kevin Randle, Robert Hastings, etc., which can be seen, in part, at the following quite relevant links:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.michaelsheiser.com/UFOReligions/2007MUFONSymposiumNewMJ12Revelations.pdf
http://greenwoodufoarchive.com/Just_Cause_Greenwood/1987_09_n13.pdf
http://greenwoodufoarchive.com/Just_Cause_Greenwood/1989_09_n21.pdf
http://greenwoodufoarchive.com/Just_Cause_Greenwood/1990_03_n23.pdf
http://greenwoodufoarchive.com/uhr/uhr03.pdf
http://www.ufohastings.com/articles/the-mj-12-affair-facts-questions-comments
http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2007/09/mj-12-is-dead.html
http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2010/07/del-rio-ufo-crash-and-mj-12.html
http://www.blueblurrylines.com/2014/05/mj-12-pratt-sensitive-documents-cash.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20080227222334/http://www.mufon.com/documents/MJ-121982.pdf
http://www.theufochronicles.com/2014/06/appendix-the-myth-of-mj-12-annotated.html
See Also: (links appended to linked article, just above, at THe UFO Chronicles)
The Myth of MJ-12: Appendix A –Pt 1
The Myth of MJ-12: Appendix A –Pt 2
The Myth of MJ-12: Appendix A –Pt 3
I could go on. And on. And... well, you get the picture.
But, the above selection of links to articles regarding MJ-12 and the related "Majestic" mythos is a representative and useful sampling of the best researched articles online that clearly and thoroughly prove just how long the deception and fraud by Moore, Doty, et al, have been available. As Kevin has noted, "MJ-12 is DEAD."
If anyone still wishes to believe otherwise, after reviewing all of the data at the above links (which I have, and there's so much more online it would be pointless to go beyond the list above, at least here), then I can only suggest you are in error, at the very least, or have a form of confirmation bias that just may be incurable.
As has been said long before, you're entitled to your opinions, but not the facts.
And the absolute fact is that Majestic / MJ-12, as either a genuine "UFO control group" code name or that any of the "MJ-12" documents are legitimate or have any provenance other than their hoaxed sources, Moore and Doty, et al, is simply wrong.
Or, to paraphrase the great physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who allegedly once said about a student's paper, "It is not even wrong."
It's absolutely ridiculous.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
Hello CDA
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty I stopped worrying about persuading anyone about anything on this subject some time ago. The sceptical perspective is very useful in testing the logic and rigour of any conclusions I may have.
If open scientific enquiry was the ultimate arbiter of policy in matters affecting national security ( or anything outside purely academic matters)...well, as the song says 'what a wonderful world it would be'.
Anthony Mugan wrote:
ReplyDelete7. We know that Vandenburg modified his planned activities on the 8th July 1947 significantly - most of the morning was on something involving the JRDB. He then cleared part of the afternoon to talk to his political boss, Symington, driving out to the airport to do so. In other words Vandenburg's activities on the 8th July were not pre-planned but rather reactive to an urgent matter or matters that involved JRDB and required discussion with Symington. Given my conclusion on the Ramey memo I find it probable that this was part of the response to Roswell.
Anthony, the only correction I would make to your post was Vandenberg changing schedule and going to the airport to personally retrieve Symington happened the afternoon of July 7, not July 8, or the day BEFORE the Vandenburg JRDB meeting, the Pentagon PR that flying saucers were not "space ships", and then the Roswell base press release, Ramey's debunking, etc., etc.
What we see going through Vandenberg’s July 7 log is V. spending the entire afternoon personally dealing with various flying disc stories which typically would have been handled by underlings, conferring with R&D and his top PR people as well as Symington, most of this activity recorded in great detail. This was totally the opposite of the complete lack of mention in V's log the next afternoon that he got personally involved in the middle of the Roswell ruckus, yet Roswell was much more important, involving an OFFICIAL announcement from one of their top bases that they had captured a real flying disc.
Just before this rush to the airport July 7 to get Symington, Vandenberg was personally dealing with a call from a Toronto reporter about the flying discs, a job that normally a low level PIO flunkee would be handling. This was quickly followed by Vandenberg conferring with both LeMay and V.'s director of public relations, Stephen Leo about the flying discs, including one supposedly recovered in Houston, reported by a Houston newspaper, followed immediately by V. again personally dealing with the Houston story (again instead of letting an underling handle this).
Then V. cancelled his dental appointment (2:30) to get Symington and bring him back to his office for more conferencing. V. finally got back to his office at 4:10, conferred again with LeMay (no listed subject matter), and Maj. General Emmett O'Donnell, AAF Chief Public Information Officer, previously deputy chief of engineering for the Air Technical Service Command (soon afterwards, the Air Materiel Command) at Wright Field. LeMay was then Vice-Chief of Staff of the AAF for Research and Development.
We see here that V. is probably concerned with public relations aspects (Leo and O'Donnell) and R&D implications (O'Donnell & LeMay). His personal involvement in dealing with press stories suggests great concern over public perception, including efforts to “explode” the Houston storiy, even though it was obviously a hoax.
At 5:00, V. again met with Symington, no details, no subject matter listed. What was going on here? Why go to the airport to get Symington instead of Symington taking a taxi or an aide picking him up? There is something of great urgency going on here, yet no international crises existed. It was the afternoon of July 7 that Roswell PIO Walter Haut stated in his affidavit that he became aware of a craft/body site north of Roswell that had been discovered that morning by civilians. I think word of this filtered up to the top early afternoon, hence V.’s personal chauffeuring of Symington. It is also interesting that at the same time V. brought S. back to the Pentagon, N.M. Senator Carl Hatch’s office (actually his son) called the White House and requested a private meeting with Truman, granted July 9. Another coincidence?
David R
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction. I must study that side of it a bit more.
That all 'hangs together' very well. Extremely cool thinking to get research and development involved that early...Impressive from Vandenburg or whoever was overseeing this
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOne of the real paradoxes of the Roswell story is why is the issue being handled with such sensitivity at the higher levels (allegedly) while the Roswell base commander is rushing to go public with the claim he has "captured" a flying disc? This seem to be a major contradiction and it didn't hurt the based commanders career any as he became vice-chief of staff before his untimely death in 1965.
ReplyDeleteWith all the hubbub supposedly going on in Washington during July 7 to 8 (as per Vandenberg's logbook) I am wondering if and why General Spaatz, the chief of staff, was left out of the great turmoil over Roswell.
ReplyDeleteSpaatz was reported in the press as being on a fishing holiday. So presumably he raced back to Washington to take immediate charge and would have been heavily occupied in this respect for at least a few days.
Has anyone ever consulted Spaatz's logs/diaries for this period? Or both Vandenberg's and Spaatz's for the whole of July, in case something highly unusual turns up in them?
Mind you, anything can be considered 'highly unusual' if you want it to. Even trips to meet Symington at the airport.
Finally, what does Truman's daily log show during all this crashed saucer hubbub? Has anyone ever looked?
@ John Space
ReplyDeleteThere seem to be a few possibilities around that press release.
Haut's affadavit suggests it was to distract attention from the more sensitive crash location to the more remote and already largely cleared debris field out on the Foster ranch. The psychology of that is very much in line with the way a military brain would work. It would allow them time to contain the situation at the main site and then debunk the whole thing as a weather balloon.
The other thought is that I think military units during WWII tended to out out press releases to make sure the got the credit for significant achievements. Personally think the 509th was too far down the chain if command to play those semi-political games, but others more expert on the US military culture in that period may wish to comment.
The sceptical view would be foul up rather than anything more complex but the Ramey memo eliminates that possibility.
@CDA...good questions. Ones I shall have to explore a bit more now the basic questions are settled to my satisfaction
@ John's Space:
ReplyDelete"One of the real paradoxes of the Roswell story is why is the issue being handled with such sensitivity at the higher levels (allegedly) while the Roswell base commander is rushing to go public with the claim he has "captured" a flying disc? This seem to be a major contradiction..."
A very pertinent comment and one of the penultimate questions regarding the Roswell affair.
As Anthony Mugan notes, there are a variety of theories promulgated in the past which attempt to explain this seeming contradiction, and I have a couple of my own, nothing really particularly new, but from an alternative perspective of what might have occurred if the Roswell incident might not have actually involved a "crashed flying saucer" with allegedly humanoid bodies nearby.
Generally, the question posed might be in part explained if Roswell was not a crashed disc, but rather, perhaps, a kind of early, opportunistic and staged Cold War, anti-Soviet counter-intelligence psyop of some kind, keying off the Arnold sighting two weeks earlier, and due to the attention that received, but that too is speculation in lieu of sufficient evidence.
That's why Roswell is so very intriguing -- no matter how you look at what is known, by testimony and other circumstantial evidence, it continues to be a significant mystery, and still unsolved, as far as I'm concerned. Sociologically, it has aspects of what has been called the "Roshomon syndrome" IMHO.
But, perhaps David Rudiak will weigh in on this question, and the aspects of it that suggest a form of institutional "cognitive dissonance" of sorts. And, to consider if Roswell was not the crash of an ET craft, what may be the best alternative scenario.
Note: Don Ecsedy [Sourcerer online] used to make occasional comments previously here and elsewhere online, but seems to have been "gone" for some time now, but he has a site that contains some interesting data (even if not nearly as thorough or specific as David's, primarily about Roswell), which is also a genuine resource in exploring these questions, which is at foreshadower.net.
See also Ecsedy's three different versions of the reported Blanchard / Haut "press release," or at least how the data provided by Haut, apparently at Blanchard's behest, was reported at the time by the local paper and then AP and UPI, at:
http://www.foreshadower.net/roswell-press-release-version-comparisons/
The issue Ecsedy's side-by-side comparison raises is interesting, as to what was included and what was left out in each of the three versions noted. Also, if anyone knows, since those versions cited by Ecsedy note the "flying saucer" OR "disc" "came into possession of the intelligence office" of the 509th Bombardment Group at RAAF, where did the "captured disc" terminology derive from initially? David?
Postscript
ReplyDeleteSee also: http://www.foreshadower.net/roswell-flying-disc-press-release/
To answer my own question regarding the origins of the "captured a flying saucer" (or "disc," in some variants) phrase, I found this:
ReplyDelete"At noon, MST, on July 8, 1947, George Walsh, a newsman with Roswell radio station KSWS, broadcast a news bulletin that the intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced that the field has captured a flying saucer. At the same time, or a short while later, Frank Joyce, a newsman at the other radio station in Roswell, KGFL, also broadcast the story. This moment occurs about two and a half hours before the RAAF press release was published by the wire services. It would have been heard by anyone listening to their radios in Roswell and the Field."
[See the link noted just above this comment for further details]
Steve:
ReplyDelete"Recovers", "captures", or "comes into possession" of a flying disc are more or less synonymous.
"Captures" was in the headline of the Roswell Daily Record (and "comes into possession" was in the first paragraph). The RDR was one of the Roswell media receivers of the press release. The RDR hit the streets at about 3:30 that afternoon.
Don Ecsedy's conjecture that the PR was read over the radio at noon, or 2-1/2 hours before the wire services printed it, is just that--conjecture. He is trying to reconcile all the witnesses' memories of the noon release of the PR and the ~2-1/2 gap until the wire services finally published it. But I am unaware of any witnesses remembering a noon reading over the air.
Also neither George Walsh nor Frank Joyce ever made that claim of reading the PR at noon over the radio. Instead both men claimed they received the press release around noon, Joyce remembering a written release; Walsh one read to him over the phone. Walsh, an AP stringer, instead said he called Albuquerque and read the release over the phone to be put on the wire there. Joyce, a UP stringer, said he took it to the Western Union in town.
As for the possible "why" of the press release, Haut said it was a diversion from the closer and more sensitive craft/body site north of town. It also took the action out of Roswell to "higher headquarters", which soon turned out to be Gen. Ramey with his weather balloon in Fort Worth.
Part 1 of 2:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarifications, David. Most appreciated.
I still have a number of other questions, in regard to what you noted, or as Haut belatedly claimed, of a major find of some possible "crash debris" at a "second site," whereby what Mac Brazel found on the Foster ranch may have been used as Haut suggests, as a kind of post-discovery, plausibly deniable "red herring," since what Brazel described finding in the initial Kellahin and RDR interviews seem to have been strips of rubber scattered about over an approximately 200-yard area, "sticks," nad "foil-backed paper," all of which suggest to me, at least, that even if what Brazel found was NOT Mogul #4 debris, that perhaps he found some OTHER weather ballon or similar prosaic materials, and that maybe that was used, "serendipitously," to then refute the "crashed saucer" story by Ramey, et al, regardless of exactly why Blanchard directed Haut to put out the press release in the first place.
See: http://www.foreshadower.net/comparison-of-the-two-versions-of-the-brazel-interview/
I.E., it might suggest a CIC or military intelligence "ploy" of some kind, using Brazel, was done to cover the "second site" of a major find by the AAF (which then also brings up the "oil geologist" and associated field investigation by a group looking for surface signs of oil-related geological formations, and who may have "stumbled" into or near the "second site," either just before or after the AAF "clean-up" crew began operations to retrieve materials and to guard and block access to the "second site," which then also raises the current controversy over Bernerd and Hilda Ray being part of that "find" party near Roswell, and the alleged "alien" depicted on the slides found by a woman who was on a cleaning crew removing materials from the deceased Hilda Ray's home, and that have now been publicly mentioned at a very recent UFO panel discussion at American University in Washington, D.C. by Tom Carey, a "dream team" member**).
All very weird and somewhat confusing, trying to "follow" all the "players" in the Roswell matrix. I think a deck of playing cards needs to be issued just to know who all the players are, and what their roles were and have evolved into, just to begin to try and keep everything straight. 8^}
If that's still even possible at this point, considering all the variations and layers accreted around the Roswell incident by now.
**See also: http://www.wtop.com/?nid=41&sid=3741410&pid=0&page=1 for new details on the "Roswell slides" controversy
Part 2 of 2:
ReplyDeleteExcerpt from WTOP link, above:
"UFO experts say 'we are not alone"
"WASHINGTON -- UFOs were the topic of a panel discussion Wednesday night at American University, and one of the speakers used the occasion to reveal evidence he called a "smoking gun."
"'We have come into possession of a couple of Kodachrome color slides of an alien being lying in a glass case,' author and researcher Thomas Carey told the near-capacity crowd in Abramson Recital Hall.
"He's been researching the 1947 Roswell incident since 1991.
"'What's interesting is, the film is dated 1947. We took it to the official historian of Kodak up in Rochester, New York, and he did his due diligence on it, and he said yes, this filmstrip, the slides are from 1947. It's 1947 stock. And from the emulsions on the image, it's not something that's been Photoshopped like today. It's original 1947 images, and it shows an alien who's been partially dissected lying in a case."
"Carey says the being looked like what he thought an alien from the famous Roswell incident would look like.
"'3 and a half to 4 feet tall, the head is almost insect-like. The head has been severed, and there's been a partial autopsy; the innards have been removed, and we believe the cadaver has been embalmed, at least at the time this picture was taken. The owners of the slide -- it's an amazing story. The woman was a high-powered Midland, Texas, lawyer with a pilot's license. We think she was involved in intelligence in World War II, and her husband was a field geologist for an oil company.'"
"Carey says he plans to reveal the images early next year."
-----------------
See also:
http://www.theufochronicles.com/2014/07/new-details-of-alleged-roswell-alien.html
[For details of appearance of "alien" in the two Kodachrome slides found, and that will the subject of an upcoming cable TV documentary by this coming Spring, 2015, as follows]
Excerpt:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What do the slides show?
1. There are 2 photos, taken in an indoor setting.
2. The photos are of poor quality (focus, exposure) compared to virtually all the other photos in the same collection. For this reason, edge detection, contrast enhancement and other photoanalysis techniques are warranted and are being used.
3. The photos appear to have been taken about 4 or 5 feet from the humanoid, from a position slightly above it.
4. To my eye, the humanoid is lying on a clear glass shelf and is surrounded by either clear glass walls and/or a full glass enclosure. The enclosure appears to be more like a rectangular box than like a bottle.
5. In one of the photos, a woman is standing behind the glass case (visible from approximately the waist down). In the other photo a man is visible in the same location, leading to speculation that the man and the woman traded places and took turns taking pictures.
[See full article for all 16 points noted by "Larry" and related account by the author of this piece, and related links to slides controversy at end of the article]
So Tom Carey said at this meeting:
ReplyDelete"It's original 1947 images, and it shows an alien who's been partially dissected lying in a case."
He then said the being looked like what he thought an alien from the famous Roswell incident would look like.
Amazing how Tom Carey, or anyone else, would know the 'being' was an alien or could have any idea what such an alien would look like.
Truly an amazing guy.
But we seem to have strayed from the original title MAJESTIC FOUND to other, remotely connected, themes.
These are the last to comments that I will allow about the Roswell alien photographs until all the evidence is released... not to mention that this posting was about the Majestic war plan and not Roswell.
ReplyDeleteKevin:
ReplyDeleteI agree that the blog has gotten off topic and if you wish to end it that's your call. However, I still respectfully submit you are trying to invoke current military protocol in the use of code names to 70 year old protocol. My take is that if Truman wanted to call the control group Majestic-12 that's what it would be called, period...no further discussion. That was Truman and 1947 was a far different time than today.
I have cited the Bowen manuscript with the MAJIC stamp as example of another MAJIC document and it has been ridiculed here. I have the complete document sent to me by Ryan Wood with the approval of his dad. I also have a number of photo copies of the original manuscript sent to me by Bob and they seem totally legitimate. To say as some, not you, that a writer of children's books who also had a deep interest in flying saucers couldn't write a book on the phenomenon is the same as saying that you, who have written a number of science fiction novels, is discredited from writing legitimate UFO research works.
I talked with Bob this week about the Bowen manuscript and he did have forensic testing done on the ink of the MAJIC stamp on the cover page. It dated the stamp ink pre-1980 or about 20 years before it showed up in Coopers mailbox. Seems a long time for a hoaxer to let it sit around.
Yes, I have a problem with the lack of stamps or postmark, it's something I can't explain but there is so much that can't be explained about this phenomenon on both sides.Bob checked out Bowen's son who acknowledged that his dad did write the manuscript and sent it to the Air Force for their approval prior to seeking publication.
Could or would someone have produced a phony 200 page manuscript bringing in names like Donald Menzel, Dorothy Kilgallen, or Lord Mountbatten...it seems unlikely.
If all of these documents, the Majestic-12 documents and the Bowen memo are fake their level of sophistication is extremely high and goes far beyond a simple hoaxer or hoaxers but points directly to people deep within our government.
That's my take and let the naysayers have a go at it.
As far as Roswell, I do have a background story on the event that goes back to the early 1960's that I'll be glad to discuss with you if interested. It is covered in my book to be released early next year. You can contact me at larryholcombe1@gmail.com.
Best
Larry: you wrote:
ReplyDelete"That's my take and let the naysayers have a go at it."
You can label me as a naysayer. Please use a bit of common sense here. How does a manuscript for a book written by a civilian, and submitted to the USAF, which contains only information already in the public domain, suddenly get stamped TOP SECRET - MAJIC etc.? Do you know the path of this manuscript after it left Vernon Bowen's hands?
Who put the stamp on it, what does MAJIC mean and further, what does ORADA mean? Does the latter exist at all?
Where is the OFFICIAL declassification stamp which is mandatory for anything marked 'TOP SECRET'?
My answer is that neither MAJIC or ORADA is an official marking of any kind and that the stampings were added decades afterwards by a forger. The 'forensic testing' you talk about - how reliable is it? Who did it?
I once saw a perfectly genuine letter from Adm. Hillenkoetter to Dr Menzel, written in 1963, reprinted by Robert & Ryan Wood some forty years later on their website with a large stamping on it containing the words TOP SECRET - MAJIC, or something like it.
It may still be there. It is certainly a forgery. The original, I assure you, did NOT contain this stamping and in fact was never in official hands. Some unknown forger was playing games with Menzel and Hillenkoetter, obtained a copy of the letter from NICAP or CUFOS, and stamped it to make it appear part of the MJ-12 series. The Woods then accepted it as genuine.
You need to be more critical of these phony papers circulating as part of MJ-12 (or MAJESTIC or MAJIC).
Larry -
ReplyDeleteLet me expand on the comments by CDA. There is no reason for this document to have been classified because there was nothing classified in it. There were no special sources used, no classified documents reviewed. In fact, according to Bowen, "I can vouch for the fact that I found everything included here in the public record, that I read every newspaper article, magazine article and book with I quote."
Or, in other words, everything was available to the general public, so what was the purpose of the classification? All that would do is draw attention to it in a vain attempt to validate MJ-12.
The markings weren't put on it before it was released into the public arena... sometime after, and you don't know when other than some test suggests the ink was pre-1980, whatever that might mean.
But the real point is that Bowen had no access to classified material and the rules in effect require that all pages be marked as Top Secret if any of the pages contain top secreet material, but we know they don't because the information came from the public arena.
Oh, you don't seem to understand that I was in Air Force intelligence in the 1970s and that I have reviewed the various rules and regulations in effect in the 1950s... You better find a new argument for that.
RE: '..And I have to wonder if Bill Cooper, in his claim to have seen documents labeled as Majestic might not have seen these documents. Given his claimed position in the Navy, he might have seen the cover sheets for this but had no chance to read the document to see what it was all about...'
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know, William Cooper never said or wrote that 'Majestic' was an authentic name for any UFO-study-related group. Here's a short excerpt from the foreword to his book (p.28):
'In the spring of 1988 I saw a magazine that made reference to a document discovered by the research team of Moore, Shandera, and Friedman that outlined the government's knowledge of a downed saucer, dead alien bodies, and an operation called Operation MAJESTIC TWELVE. I knew that Moore and Friedman were government agents and the document was a fraud. I had never heard of Shandera. I knew this because I had seen a list of agents who were to initiate a contingency plan called MAJESTIC that would lead investigators off the track when such a need arose.
I decided that it was time for me to enter the arena and expose the cover-up and the disinformation...'
Anthony Mugan,
ReplyDeleteI’ve been thinking about a comment you made while back. Really the code word in the MJ-12 documents isn’t Majestic. The code word is Majic is in Top Secret – Majic. The name of the control group is Majestic - 12. This refers to a group of people in charge of the operation. So one could argue that there isn’t a double use of the code word Majestic as that was for the Soviet focused war plan.
Don’t worry I’m not an MJ-12 advocate but the above is an argument the other side could use.
Kevin wrote:
ReplyDeleteLet me expand on the comments by CDA. There is no reason for this document to have been classified because there was nothing classified in it. There were no special sources used, no classified documents reviewed. In fact, according to Bowen, "I can vouch for the fact that I found everything included here in the public record, that I read every newspaper article, magazine article and book with I quote."
Or, in other words, everything was available to the general public, so what was the purpose of the classification?
While I take your point, there is certainly a good counter-example to it from the Wilbert Smith/Canadian documents.
After writing the top secret memo to Omand Solandt, head of the Canadian Defence Research Board, about the "classified higher than the H-Bomb" group headed by Vannevar Bush within the U.S. DOD Research & Development Board looking into the "modus operandi" of the saucers, Smith contacted Donald Keyhoe and explained some of his ideas about the possible "modus operandi" of saucer propulsion and energy based on magnetic principles.
Keyhoe wanted to do an article on this in True Magazine (which published his first article, "Flying Saucers Are Real" in Jan. 1950, that caused such a sensation).
But before Keyhoe could do this, Smith felt it necessary to have Keyhoe's purely civilian article reviewed by Bush & the RDB plus Solandt & the Canadian DRB to be given their "clearance" before it could be published.
This begs the question, "Why?" As far as I know, at that point Smith's ideas were not part of any classified program. So why did it need a classification review of any kind?
You can read the documents here:
http://www.roswellproof.com/smith_papers.html
Note that it wasn't just Smith's initial infamous Nov. 21, 1950 memo to Solandt that implicated Bush and the RDB as housing the supersecret saucer group. These follow-up documents finger them as well, what I consider to be the real "Majestic 12" group, whatever it might have been called.
David -
ReplyDeleteNot really the same set of circumstances. Bowen made it clear that his sources were all out in the public domain for anyone to see. Smith's seem to have its genesis in a classified program. That Smith called for a review of Keyhoe's article is not all that strange considering the circumstances and the review, especially in that time frame, was more or less standard for articles that could compromise classified information.
Kevin and cda:
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reasoned replies. Unfortunately time does not allow me now to write a detailed response but I'll try to hit the high spots.
First of all if we are not in agreement that Bowen sent his manuscript to the Air Force then you have to believe the son is lying in saying that his dad did so. In that case this conversation is useless. If he did send it to the AF, as I believe, and there was nothing that worried the AF then why not just return it to Bowen?
It's my take that that although all in the manuscript was public knowledge, some issues were not well known and when Bowen put them together the picture didn't look well. Dorothy Kilgallen's UFO columns and her association with Mountbatten, who is reported to have given her inside UFO info from the UK. Her column, just before before her unusual death, that she was going to break open the story on the Kennedy assassination, and her bringing Donald Menzel into the picture, may have been very uncomfortable to the AF. The 1960's were very troubled times for the AF from inside and outside. It may have been felt that Bowen was connecting too many dots in some very sensitive areas.
As far as being more critical of what you called "phony papers" I'm very skeptical of dozens upon dozens of leaked documents. However, I don't have to put on blinders when looking at all of the documents. Because I happen to feel that several leaked documents could be authentic does not make me a UFO fanatic.
I'm far more skeptical than you may believe of not only documents but people involved in the UFO issue.
Further to this topic, Wilbert Smith had plans to build an actual 'flying saucer' in his lab in Ottawa, based on the principles outlined in the Smith-Keyhoe paper that was intended for TRUE magazine.
ReplyDeleteThis paper never saw the light of day. Whether Smith ever managed to construct any hardware I do not know, but he had big ideas at the time and wanted to keep them under wraps. It was more his personal wishes than any official secrecy imposed by the Canadian government.
But again we are off topic.
CDA wrote:
ReplyDeleteThis paper never saw the light of day. Whether Smith ever managed to construct any hardware I do not know, but he had big ideas at the time and wanted to keep them under wraps. It was more his personal wishes than any official secrecy imposed by the Canadian government.
The article by Keyhoe was never published, but the question remains why wasn't it published? Smith's correspondence also makes it quite clear the article required "clearance" from both Vannevar Bush and the U.S. RDB for it to be published. Again why?
We don't know if "clearance" was granted or not (we have no further correspondence on the matter), but the point being dodged here by MJ-12 bashers is there would be absolutely no such need for official governmental review and "clearance" for a civilian article if the reviewing group did not exist and the subject matter was not considered HIGHLY sensitive.
You can't have it both ways: No such group existed but the nonexistent group never headed by Vannevar Bush still needed to approve a flying saucer article before publication by a civilian under no security oath in a civilian magazine.
I don't buy that this was all Wilbert Smith's idea. If Smith had any concerns about any potentially sensitive material, he could have edited Keyhoe's article to remove such material without going through any government agency, U.S. or Canadian. Further, since Smith was Canadian, there would be absolutely no reason for him to even consider sending this off to a U.S. agency for review, UNLESS he was already doing official, classified business with them on the matter, mediated by the Canadian DRB and officals at the Canadian embassy in Washington.
On a side note, I also find it interesting that this correspondence also indicates Keyhoe DID know about Bush and his supersecret saucer group in the RDB clear back in 1950, but I don't recall Keyhoe ever publicly saying a word about this, making me wonder if maybe he did sign a security oath or just stayed mum out of a sense of patriotic duty, that maybe this information was much too sensitive for public release.
David -
ReplyDeleteI object to your term, "MJ-12 bashers." If you have any evidence that MJ-12 existed, that any of the claimed documents are real, then it is time to present it. To this point there have been dozens of analyses about the documents and the best that can be said is that there is a lot of them. Nothing can be tracked back to the original source, dozens of them are proven hoaxes, and everyone is filled with problems.
This does not negate some sort of high-level committee that addressed the issue of UFOs but that committee or organization was not MJ-12.
Kevin, I'm specifically referring to the actual existence of an "MJ-12" type control group. I frankly don't care in all this whether any of the "MJ-12" papers are authentic or not or whether the group was actually called that.
ReplyDeleteBy all indications, the various Smith/Canadian papers indicate that it did indeed exist within the U.S. Research and Development Board and it was indeed headed by Vannevar Bush, at least in 1950.
Also remember that these papers PRECEDED in their public release by several years the first "MJ-12" papers, they are very real, some like the Smith/Solandt top secret memo HAVE been authenticated by the Canadian government, thus they have provenance.
I think a good argument can be made they were either the inspiration for the LATER MJ-12 papers or the very reason that hoaxed documents might have been prepared by some government counterintelligence group, to discredit the revelations of the REAL ones.
Ruppelt's book in 1956 hinted at such a group, and Smith also talked about it publicly, without saying too much. E.g., interviewed in 1961 by C. W. Fitch and George Popovitch about a piece of metal handed to him by American authorities for analysis, supposedly shot off a flying saucer near Washington during the 1952 flap, there was the following exchange:
Q: You say that you had to return it -- did you return it to the Air Force?
A: Not the Air Force. Much higher than that.
Q: The Central Intelligence Agency?
A: [Chuckles] I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I don't care to go beyond that point. I can say to you that it went to the hands of a highly classified group. You will have to solve that problem -- their identity -- for yourselves.
Interviews in the 1980s with Smith's primary 1950 source, Dr. Robert Sarbacher, confirmed the Smith memo material dated 1950. Sarbacher also fingered Dr. Eric Walker, Exec. Sec. of the RDB in 1950 as being involved and knowledgeable. Interviews with Walker likewise confirmed the existence of the group going clear back to 1947.
Again, I don't care exactly what it was called or whether the much LATER "documents" are authentic, only that the group existed.
I know you have a somewhat different take on this based on your interviews with Gen. Exon, namely that Exon's "Unholy 13" was the control group, a group of high-level generals and admirals in the Pentagon in the 1950s when Exon was there. I don't have any quarrel with the likely existence of such a military group, but could point out that Exon had zero documents of any kind or corroboration from some other witness to support the existence of his Pentagon group. Also when shown the MJ-12 docs by Stan Friedman, Exon didn't have any problem in believing that there could ALSO be such a group quite apart from the "Unholy 13".
I think it quite conceivable that there could have been multiple high level investigations out of the public eye, perhaps sharing information and coordinated, perhaps engaging in agency turf wars and sharing little or nothing.
E.g., according to Truman's A.F. adviser Gen. Robert Landry, Truman wanted Landry to provide him briefings based on "central intelligence" assessments. Was this in coordination with the main control group or independent of it? Was Truman feeling that he wasn't being fully briefed and seeking independent information?
I don't know. I do know that Truman and Bush didn't see eye-to-eye on who should be in charge of basic governmental R&D, Truman not fully trusting Bush. Possibly Truman wasn't getting the full story.
I think David is correct in his assessment of the Truman/Landry relationship. As I stated earlier Truman wanted his own dog in the hunt and was not comfortable with briefings he was getting from his control group, or whatever you want to call them.
ReplyDeleteTruman and Bush did have a somewhat adversarial relationship which was probably uncomfortable to Truman. If, as believed Truman did establish a control group to study the flying saucer phenomenon he knew at least some of the members would talk behind his back. He needed an insider and Landry was the man.
With Truman's deep feeling for security he didn't reveal to Landry what he knew or had been briefed on. His charge to Landry was to beat the bushes as his eyes and ears and report his finding that may well have been on the outside of the control group.
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteOne other issue you mentioned:
"You don't seem to understand that I was in Air Force intelligence in the 1970s and that I have reviewed the various rules and regulations in effect in the 1950s... You better find a new argument for that."
I am well acquainted with your military service and I commend you and respect you for it. I also served 8 years in the Army holding a security clearance in a Nike Ajax battery. In addition my research into intelligence has lead me to study many involved in the intelligence community such as Arthur Lundahl and James Jesus Angleton to name just two.
I also understand that in intelligence one cannot be locked into rules because rules become patterns and patterns can be the death of proper intelligence.
We seem to be talking about groups of scientists, or the military, who discussed UFOs in the late 40s and early 50s.
ReplyDeleteThe two 'groups' Ruppelt mentioned in his book were identified (I think by Brad Sparks) as being the AFOSI and the CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence, consisting of H. Marshall Chadwell, Fred C.Durant, H.P.Robertson and a few others, some of whom were pro-ETH.
This means only that certain ad-hoc 'groups' existed from time to time looking at the UFO problem. None of them seem to have produced any minutes of their meetings. In addition there were other scientific/military people investigating such things as the green fireballs, there was also Project Bear (see Ruppelt) and very likely other advisors. And of course there was the Robertson Committee whose 1953 report was not released until 1966, and the Battelle study (Project Stork?), also in the early 50s.
I don't know which, if any, of these 'groups' Vannevar Bush headed, but I would not trust Wilbert Smith on anything connected to UFOs; he claimed his 'research group' (i.e. yet another one!) had obtained several fragments of UFOs and analysed them. Make of this what you will. Where are these fragments now, I wonder? Or did they exist solely in Smith's imagination?
See Timothy Good's ABOVE TOP SECRET for this story (which is the same as that related by David Rudiak above).
See also Smith's twaddle about that 3000 lb. of 'unidentified metal' found by the St Lawrence river. (Same source).
MJ-12 existing alongside the Unholy 13? Well, if you add Walter Bedell Smith (mentioned in the EBD as succeeding Forrestal on MJ-12) you get 12 + 1 = 13.
Hey presto: the Unholy 13. Simple isn't it?
(part 1 of 2)
ReplyDeleteCDA wrote:
The two 'groups' Ruppelt mentioned in his book were identified (I think by Brad Sparks) as being the AFOSI and the CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence, consisting of H. Marshall Chadwell, Fred C.Durant, H.P.Robertson and a few others, some of whom were pro-ETH.
Regarding the CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI), I had a rather lengthy discussion with Brad on UFOUpdates back in 2001 on this, part of which is reproduced below. It turned out Brad also uncovered that OSI did Bush's RDB intelligence work going clear back to the creation of OSI in 1949. And as I point out, this is exactly the way Bush always ran things as a scientific R&D administrator, very clearly illustrated when he was head of OSRD during WWII, in charge of most U.S. military R&D during the war. In other words, rather than disproving that Bush and his group in RDB were not some "MJ-12"-type control group, what Brad uncovered about the relationship between the RDB and the OSI was entirely consistent with it:
http://www.ufoupdateslist.com/2001/jun/m04-007.shtml
...I would like to thank you for again pointing out the very close association between Bush's RDB and the CIA's OSI (Office of Scientific Investigation), which you describe as starting in Jan. 1949... If I understand this right, the CIA became the primary intelligence arm of Bush and the RDB at that time.
In a very recent post, you seem to feel that the RDB divesting itself of its intelligence responsibilities by passing them off to the CIA was evidence that there was no "MJ-12"-type organization within RDB under Bush's direction. Furthermore, you used this to dismiss the 1950/51 Sarbacher/Smith briefing/memos which state exactly that.
I see it completely differently. An MJ-12-type panel's primary responsibility would be executive oversight of the UFO problem. They would probably not be the one's to conduct the actual scientific research or collect the in-field UFO intelligence or maintain a high-level security or seal off any leaks. All of the nitty-gritty would be much better handled by under the auspices of other government agencies.
Casting off such responsibilities so that he could instead concentrate on decision-making and coordination was very much the management style employed by Bush when he was Director of the OSRD (Office of Scientific Research and Development) during WWII. This following excerpt from a "Current Biography" article on Bush, dated 1947, gives the flavor of how he ran the OSRD:
"From the outset Bush determined on two cardinal policies: to delegate supervision of divisions to his colleagues according to their qualifications so that he would be free to direct over-all policy; and to interpret as narrowly as possible the terms "instrumentallities, methods and materials of war" so that his office would neither be overworked nor duplicate the efforts of other agencies. ...Other problems were to see that funds were adequate and to determine the apportionment of research among Government, academic and industrial facilities. The main technique employed was radial research, in which, instead of advancing step by step, OSRD defined the problem for solution and then set teams investigating from all angles at once."
(2/2)
ReplyDeleteLet us also reconsider the RDB/CIA-OSI connection in light of another point I made in a recent post, which at first I thought you had effectively rebutted, but in retrospect I think instead supported what I was saying. This was one of Ed Ruppelt's statements about "other" government agencies studying the UFO problem, which he would never identify, and concerned, in one case, the 1951 Lubbock Lights. I thought his description sounded very much like the work of an MJ-12-type organization:
"The only other people outside Project Blue Book who have studied the complete case of the Lubbock Lights were a group who, due to their associations with the government, had complete access to our files. And these people were not pulp writers or wide-eyed fanatics, they were scientists - rocket experts, nuclear physicists, and intelligence experts."
To this you responded, yes, but these were CIA-OSI people who studied the Lubbock Lights in Dec. 1952, and rattled off their names. This was an advance team for the CIA's Robertson Panel, which convened the following month, and as most of us know, was designed to debunk the flying saucers and screw the lid down tight. In fact, one of those scientist names you rattled off was Robertson himself.
(Another person on the Robertson Panel was Dr. Lloyd Berkner, Bush's right-hand man at the RDB during its creation in 1947, and, of course, another alleged MJ-12 member named in the MJ-12 papers. Thus another clear connection between the Robertson Panel and Bush.)
The point you seemed to be trying to make, is that even though Ruppelt's description sounded very MJ-12-ish, it was really CIA/OSI, not Vannevar Bush and his RDB. Therefore, there was no "MJ-12" headed up by Bush, or at least Ruppelt wasn't referring to it in the above quotation.
Now it turns out that RDB and CIA/OSI were joined at the hip, as you so vividly describe above: "The AF and other military services might have been pissed off at the RDB (a DoD agency) for choosing the CIA OSI to provide it with all intelligence, beginning in Jan 1949 right after OSI's founding. The CIA was intensely disliked by the military intelligence agencies, especially the AF, as an upstart that threatened encroachment on their domain."
So, in fact, there really isn't much of a stretch between Ruppelt's description of the secret Lubbock Lights
scientific/intelligence study group and "MJ-12" after all, is there? The group described by Ruppelt were CIA/OSI, who reported to Bush and RDB on UFO intelligence matters, and who the other military intelligence agencies deeply resented....
cda,
ReplyDeleteI don't know which, if any, of these 'groups' Vannevar Bush headed, but I would not trust Wilbert Smith on anything connected to UFOs; he claimed his 'research group' (i.e. yet another one!) had obtained several fragments of UFOs and analysed them. Make of this what you will. Where are these fragments now, I wonder? Or did they exist solely in Smith's imagination?
He said that he returned them to the U.S. organization that provided them to him for analysis. So I guess they are where ever the rest of the U.S. crash recovery items (if any) are located.
Remember that part of Smith's claims were confirmed in writing by Sarbacher in 1982.
One of the strange things about Vannevar Bush being a key player in the early UFO investigations is his strong opposition to rocketry for long-range weapon delivery or going to the moon.
John Space wrote,
ReplyDeleteOne of the strange things about Vannevar Bush being a key player in the early UFO investigations is his strong opposition to rocketry for long-range weapon delivery or going to the moon.
Quite. I know part of his opposition to manned space flight (by rocket) is he thought it expensive, dangerous, and unnecessary, that the same scientific data could be obtained much cheaper with unmanned flight and without endangering lives.
His skepticism about ICBMS, as stated in a 1949 book, had to do with technical difficulties.
To engage in wild ass guessing, perhaps his opposition was based on knowledge of a much superior technology to rockets, as represented by UFOs, which maybe Bush thought could be successfully back-engineered in the not-too-distant future. Remember Wilbert Smith's memo was of Bush heading a group looking into the "modus operandi" of the saucers, i.e., an attempt at understanding the basic physics and perhaps back-engineering.
Along these longs, Truman made a rather curious comment in April 1948. In an interview with Truman on defense matters, NY Times reporter Arthur Krock was told, "We are on the verge of an aviation discovery that will make obsolete everything now being manufactured."
Krock's personal notes of the interview also said, "while he had very conflicting counsel on many subjects, on this one he thought he had an informed opinion." [Krock, "Memoirs"; Frank Kofsky, "Harry S. Truman And The War Scare Of 1948"]
So what exactly did Truman mean? What aviation discovery could possibly render anything else at the time obsolete? Krock said he interpreted Truman's cryptic remarks to mean a "new big bomber" but it sounds to me like Truman was speaking of something else.
According to Kofsky, Truman was being pressured by people like James Forrestal (Sec. of Defense) and Sidney Souers (first director of Central Intelligence, 1946, and Exec. Secretary of the NSC, 1947-50, to authorize new conventional aircraft production to prop up the sagging postwar aerospace industry, but Truman was resisting an expensive arms buildup. [Forrestal and Souers, of course, both being alleged members of MJ-12]
My problem with Truman talking about imminent flying saucer technology would be my strong feeling that such technology would have been far beyond us at the time. The same would apply to Bush's opposition to most rocketry projects. Instead, they would have to go with the human technology of the time and maybe hope for breakthroughs in the future based on study of the saucers, if that was what was going on.
I think David is correct to highlight that RDB would draw intelligence from relevant specialist agencies. We know data was flowing to RDB from Blue Book as if 1952. This dealt with U.S. sighting reports. The CIA had data from other countries but OSI does not seem to have had much of an active role in evaluating this data outside the 1952-3 period in the run up to Robertson.
ReplyDeleteOne point though...this RDB group is often referred to as a control group. RDB had a specific remit for managing research and technological development in matters related to national security / defence. Understanding the 'midis operandi' of UFOs would have fallen under their remit. Overall policy direction would be beyond their remit however. Maters such as policy on information for the public, managing Congress, discussion with foreign governments, policies and procedures for the military or other agencies and wider contingency planning etc. would not have been relevant for RDB.
There is a need for their to have been a mechanism for overall policy direction. The complete absence of documentation showing co-ordination between the major players such as the Air Force and the CIA even in this early period is quite significant as co-ordination will have been attempted on an issue I hunk all took as significant in the Truman period.
Beyond Landry's verbal briefings to Truman I'm not sure if we have any clues as to this actual control group??? From a practical research point of view the RDB angle seems to offer at least a possibility of further progress as that is where a few security slips have left us the beginnings of a picture.
Does anyone know any good references for how Truman managed highly sensitive issues...Berlin Blockade etc?
David Rudiak wrote
ReplyDelete"I frankly don't care in all this whether any of the "MJ-12" papers are authentic or not..."
Can't help but smile when I read that one...
But David, you surely have an opinion on the matter - do you believe the "MJ-12" papers are authentic or not?
Just a yes or no will do for me.
Regards
Nitram
Nitram:
ReplyDelete"All or nothing at all" to take from an old song. Not really a fare question..."do you believe some" would be a better question for a yes or no answer.
"Nitram",
ReplyDelete"Yes" or "no" is too simplistic for me. My take is more nuanced, or PROBABLY all faked, but POSSIBLY some aren't, more like a lot of fake Mona Lisas, making it easy to forget there is a genuine one.
So AGAIN, my position is that the preponderance of OLD evidence (Smith/Sarbacher/Ruppelt, etc.) is that an MJ-12-LIKE group probably existed, regardless of its true name or the authenticity of any of the MJ-12 papers. This evidence PRECEDED the MJ-12 papers, not the other way around. In fact, the emergence of the Smith/Sarbacher/Canadian documents around 1979 strongly suggesting such a group would be a good reason for a counterintelligence sting to try to discredit the GENUINE stuff.
It is also an interesting question as to who would/could be churning out such a huge volume of fake documents and why, some of it with very obscure genuine historical information. Sounds much more like a government agency with a lot of resources at its disposal. Big intelligence/counterintelligence agencies like the CIA have whole divisions devoted to fabricating counterfeit documents, money, etc.
Also remember that the best counterintelligence stings throw in some genuine material with the fake to make it more believable, sometimes add deliberate mistakes to also make it more believable (since 100% flawless documents are also a bit suspect). Look up, e.g., the classic British WWII counterintelligence Operation Mincemeat and the lengths they went to to convince the Germans they were invading Greece rather than the obvious strategic target of Sicily. It had all these elements.
Larry -
ReplyDeleteWhile your comment about rules becoming patterns is applicable to anti-terrorism... you don't leave for work at the same time, take the same route, lunch at the same place and leave for the day at the same time... this does not apply to the rules and regulations governing classified documents. You want to follow the rules because if you don't, the documents can be compromised...
But really, an argument about the reality of documents that simply do not hold up to any sort of scrutiny...
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteAnti-terrorism? Once again you seem to be bringing contemporary thought into a 70 year old discussion. If you had said counter-intelligence we may at least been on the same general page.
Let me state once again that I know that there is a sea of bogus MAJIC documents out there but I believe, until proven wrong, that several are authentic. Those documents have stood up to scrutiny for 30 years or more.
Just because some have said they believe they are bogus does not make it fact. Just look at the Klass/Friedman typeface issue as an example of overreach by a debunker.
Larry -
ReplyDeleteYou have it backwards. I am not required to prove the documents bogus, it is up to you to prove them authentic. They have not wiithstood the scrutiny but have failed at every turn except in the eyes of the true believers. Without a provenance, you haven't even leaped the first hurtle.
Kevin:
ReplyDeleteI have studied my notes on this blog and I can find no reference that asks you to prove the documents are bogus. Likewise it is not my charge to prove they are legitimate, although I hope at some point I can.
After my own research and studying the research of others I feel the scale tips in favor of several documents I've noted as being legitimate. It's my prerogative to believe what I wish and it's your prerogative to disagree with my views, and I simply don't find your arguments in this blog "MAJESTIC FOUND" to be compelling. We have an honest disagreement.
I will say that many who post here seem to have blinders on to even consider the possibility that some Majestic or MAJIC documents could be UFO related. It reminds me of the head of the Navy's top secret balloon project, Dr. Charles Moore, who viewed a UFO while watching a balloon launch through a theodolite in 1949. He sent a report to the Air Force where it was discredited. When he found out the Air Force's debunking of his report he wrote, "It is believed that should some object, extra-terrestrial in origin, actually be observed, this group would spend more time trying to disprove it than investigating it."
Moore articulated a close mindedness that I also find in some who post on this blog. It's so much easier to ridicule than investigate, and as you know, investigation is damn hard work.
Larry,
ReplyDeleteDo the Majestic documents that you think are authentic include the Truman memo and the Eisenhower briefing?
John's Space:
ReplyDeleteI believe there is a reasonable probability that the EBD, Truman-Forestal, Cutler-Twining, and I'll stick my neck out and include SOM 1.01, are legitimate.
I just read the SOM 1.01. There is the normal complaint that it doesn’t have the paragraph markings like you would expect on a classified document, etc. Of course I’ve never seen a real “top secret code word eyes” only document so maybe things are different at that level or back in 1954. Is every paragraph top secret? Do they omit paragraph markings, etc. if everything in it is top secret? I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that I find difficult is that none of the documents you mentioned tell me anything that I didn’t already know. Of example just some technological fact that they might have learned that wasn’t known in the 1947-1954 period or that wasn’t in the UFO mythology at the time they surfaced. There is nothing on the propulsion system which probably the most interesting issue. It conveniently was totally destroyed in the crash per the EBD.
All is not dark, however. There is a matrix in the SOM 1.01 (page 11) that gives the distribution of where to send various UFO crash items. All of the organic components bodies, etc were to be sent to a site at Wright-Patterson AFB. About 20 years ago I had the occasion to have some conversations with a retired Air Force NCO. I can’t recall his name or exactly how this came up but he mentioned that the building at Wright-Patterson where our projects SPO was located used to house the “tissue lab” and this was supposed have a UFO connection. It can’t exactly remember how the UFO part came up but I guess that I asked what sort tissues they were analyzing.
I doubt this proves anything but I was surprised at the correlation.
John's Space:
ReplyDeleteI think on the UFOB issue in the early 1950's the Air Force was still somewhat rudderless and the control group was making up their own rules as they went along. As such I don't think you can read anything into deviation of proper format.
With that said what does bother me is the mention of using downed satellite's as possible disinformation to the media since our first satellite was not launched until 1958. However, it was known that they would soon be in orbit. Eisenhower was being pressured to allow a satellite launch several earlier but for diplomatic reasons he would allow it. He knew the Soviets would claim it was a spy satellite which of course that is exactly what it would have been. When sputnik was launched he was delighted as it opened the door for our own spy satellite program.
The EBD was a PRELIMINARY briefing document for the President-Elect. No doubt a formal in-depth briefing would occur after his taking office.
As far as the memo's they were very cryptic and serve only in this discussion, if authentic, to prove that Majestic-12 or MAJIC was the legitimate name of the control group.
Correction:
ReplyDeleteEisenhower was being pressured to allow a satellite launch SEVERAL YEARS earlier but for diplomatic reasons he would NOT allow it.
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ReplyDeleteTom Whitmore asked me to post this for him:
ReplyDeleteIt has been substantially shown that the so-called "Eisenhower Briefing Document" is almost certainly not a US government created item. 2. Kevin Randle's excellent appendix on MJ-12 in Roswell in the 21st Century covers many of the pertinent details. 3. However, there is no proof that Bill Moore forged the "EBD", only suspicion. Moore has stated that the EBD contained information that he could not have known. 4. The referenced cover memo of the MAJESTIC war plan indicates that it is unlikely that if a UFO control group existed, that it was called Majestic Twelve. 5. However, the referenced MAJESTIC war plan does not refer to twelve individuals and nowhere mentions Majestic Twelve or MJ-12. 6. If an anomalous craft and bodies crashed in New Mexico during the July '47 time period, then some kind of committee must have been formed to study it. 7. The alleged control group has also been referred to as "Majority 12" and "Operation Majority". (Note to Kevin Randle: I am undertaking a research effort on the history of the MJ-12 affair. I very much admire you as a researcher and would love to be in touch with you in person. I would like to learn at the feet of the master; you have magnificent investigation skills. Sincerely, Tom Whitmore)
Within the past few months I received a copy of files that Dr. Robert Wood purchased from Bill Moore around the 2000. Within those files is a page from the above referenced Joint Logistic Plan for “MAJESTIC” along with handwritten notes. This indicates that Bill Moore had knowledge of the plan not later than the 2000 year time frame. Tom Whitmore
ReplyDeleteThe “Majestic” plan referred to in this article was known long before 2014. In the Just Cause newsletter of September 1987 in the article The MJ-12 Fiasco, it states on page 7: “Actually, a ‘Majestic’ project was found in the Archives (TW note: National Archives and Records Administration) but was nothing more than an emergency war plan drafted in 1952. No connection to MJ-12 is at all evident’.
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