X-Zone Broadcast Network - Ryan Wood and MJ-12

This week I spoke with Ryan Wood. He had sent out an email complaining about the anti-UFO bias on Wikipedia. I thought that would be an interesting topic, and since he is a proponent of MJ-12, I thought we could spend some time on that as well. But, as usual, the conversation took on a life of its own. You can listen to it here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/20493888

We veered off into the Cape Girardeau UFO crash of 1941, which, as everyone will tell you, is six years older than the Roswell case. The problem here is that there are no first-hand witnesses and while the granddaughter of minister who was called to scene heard about it from family, the problem is that she heard about it from family. There really is no documentation in the form of newspaper articles and diary entries, or anything of that nature. And while I didn’t make the comment

Ryan Wood. Photo copyright
by Kevin Randle.

during the show because, well, we went off in other discussions, I always worry about these pre-Roswell cases. If this had happened, it would seem to me that the military might have been better prepared for the events in Roswell.

Ryan said that his book, Majic Eyes Only, listed 74 crash retrievals. I thought that there just weren’t that many because it would be impossible to keep all that secret for so long. At some point one of those crashes would have produced evidence no matter how hard the various government agencies attempted to suppress it all. I did point out that in my book, Crash: When UFOs Fall from the Sky, I listed something like 110. One of those was an alternative look at the Cape Girardeau crash. An analysis of that case follows this posting.

Given there were so many alleged crashes, I asked what Ryan thought were the best. He suggested Roswell, Kecksburg and Shag Harbour. I mentioned that I thought of Shag Harbour as more of an emergency landing than an actual crash. But the real point was that each of these had documentation and newspaper articles while most of the other crashes were single witness with no documentation at all. Some were clearly mundane objects seen under unusual circumstances. Some were clearly meteors, others debris from missile tests, and a few outright hoaxes.

We finally did make it to MJ-12 and the so-called Operations Manual. I mentioned that there were some anachronisms in it. Ryan pointed out that skeptics said the War Department seal on the front was one, but that he had found that symbol on other manuals printed after the War Department ceased to exist in 1947, meaning that, in this one case, it might not be an anachronism.

I wondered about the lack of a provenance for the manual and asked if there were any MJ-12 documents from a legitimate government source that lead to support MJ-12. Ryan said that there was a letter from Lieutenant Colonel Robert Blount to Dr. Robley Evans that did lead to MJ-12. You can see that letter here:

http://www.majesticdocuments.com/pdf/blount_evans.pdf

I believe the top-secret report to which Blount referred is the Air Intelligence Report (AIR) 100-203-79 with a date of April 29, 1949. There is nothing in it about UFO crashes or anything like that. Blount seemed to think it was more of a psychological analysis, which the AIR report is not.

But there is a real problem with the Blount letter that I’m sure if obvious to everyone. To sort of prove that point, I think the Hottel Memo makes the case. Here is an FBI document that mentions a UFO crash. You can read it here:

https://vault.fbi.gov/hottel_guy/Guy%20Hottel%20Part%201%20of%201/view

The point is, the Hottel Memo refers to the Aztec crash hoax and is based on information from Frank Scully’s book, Behind the Flying Saucers. Time magazine, in January, 1950, printed an article about little men from Venus. That predates the Blount letter and might well be the source of the rumor.

Next week, John Burroughs is the guest. He’ll be offering some new information about the Rendlesham Forest events of December 1980. If you have questions for him, put them in a comment here, and I’ll try to get them answered during the program.