No,
the first mention of MJ-12 was in 1981 in a one page document that seemed to be
a legitimate AFOSI teletype message that has become known as the Aquarius Telex
or the Aquarius Document. It is, in fact, a retyped version of an AFOSI report
on UFOs photographed and filmed by Paul Bennewitz over Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Although the majority of this document seems to be from a real report, there is
one line that is not in the original. It says, “Results of Project Aquarius is
still classified Top Secret with no dissemination outside official Intelligence
channels and with restricted access to MJ - Twelve. [Emphasis added.]”
Here
was a mention of MJ-12 that seemed to have gone unnoticed. A few UFO
researchers attempted to learn about Project Aquarius with little luck but none
seemed interested, at that time, in MJ-12. Eventually some, such as Lee Graham
and Barry Greenwood, using FOIA, attempted to find additional information.
Graham learned more when Bill Moore showed him a copy of the Eisenhower
Briefing Document. Graham was able to provide a list of the names of those
associated with MJ-12 to Greenwood.
The
point is, however, that MJ-12 was mentioned long before the undeveloped film
arrived in 1984. Moore, in fact, contacted Bob Pratt and told him about MJ-12
in 1982 with the idea of writing a book. Pratt felt that Moore didn’t have
enough evidence to warrant a nonfiction book, but thought they could discuss it
in a novel. Pratt’s working title? MAJIK –
12.
I
have, over the last several months attempted to get the major proponents of
MJ-12 to discuss this. Robert Wood has responded that he was going to do
something about it, let me know what he thought about it, but that response has
not arrived. Stan Friedman wrote, in response to my first inquiry that he was
about to catch a plane but would have something later. He has yet to provide
that, let alone respond to my last email.
MJ-12
didn’t just appear when the film arrived at Shandera’s house. It had been
mentioned before, and a novel had been written about it. Pratt thought, when
the MJ-12 stories hit the press in 1987, they should attempt to sell the novel
once again. He wrote to Moore suggesting that, but never got a response.
You
have to wonder about the reality of something that appeared for the first time
in a document that was later to be declared a hoax (or rather the version that
MJ-12 was a retyped version that added the line about Project Aquarius and
MJ-12). Here’s the thing that hasn’t been discussed. Let us say that there is a
highly classified project known as MJ-12… So secret that virtually nothing
about it has been found. Now suppose that you want to introduce disinformation
into the UFO community to confound it, and you have a mission of discrediting
Paul Bennewitz because his research could expose a real, non UFO related but
classified project. You create a fake document and ensure that it falls into
his hands, hoping he would run to the media with it. Once he had done that,
then you whip out the real document to prove he has an altered one… and you
imply that he is responsible for the alteration and you demonstrate that he is
unreliable.
So
far, so good. But the very last thing you are going to do is put in that
disinformation the name of a real, highly classified project that is so secret that
no one outside a small exclusive circle knows about. To do so would be expose
that project to scrutiny by UFO researchers who are responsible for thousands
upon thousands of FOIA requests. You’ve now given them information that they
shouldn’t have. There is no reason to expose MJ-12, if it exists, in a document
meant to discredit Bennewitz.
In other words, this first
mention of MJ-12 in this document that is an admitted retyping of an actual
AFOSI message means that MJ-12 is fraudulent. The MJ-12 committee doesn’t
exist… and those who retyped the AFOSI message (Bill Moore admitted it was a
retype at a meeting of FUFOR) would not have access to that information. They
couldn’t put MJ-12 into it because they would never have heard of it. This
Aquarius Telex then, argues against the existence of MJ-12. This was a misstep
by those who were inventing MJ-12. It should not have surfaced so early. It
should have remained hidden until the film arrived. This, you might say, is the
clue that undoes MJ-12
