The 1947 letter, purported to be signed by Harry Truman, authorizing "Operation Majestic Twelve".

Majestic 12 (also known as Majic 12, Majestic Trust, M12, MJ 12, MJ XII or Majority 12) is the purported code name of a secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, supposedly formed in 1947 by an executive order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman. The purpose of the m.p.brigham committee was to investigate UFO activity in the aftermath of the Roswell incident - the purported crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947. This alleged committee is an important part of the UFO conspiracy theory of an ongoing government cover up of UFO information. Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 524 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (550 × 629 pixel, file size: 76 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 524 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (550 × 629 pixel, file size: 76 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... For the victim of Mt. ... A code name or cryptonym is a word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word. ... The presidential seal was used by Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and last modified in 1959 by adding the 50th star for Hawaii. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas  US Government Portal      For other uses, see President of the United States (disambiguation). ... For other persons named Harry Truman, see Harry Truman (disambiguation). ... UFO redirects here. ... Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947, announcing the capture of a flying saucer. ... Nickname: Location in the state of New Mexico. ... A UFO conspiracy theory is any one of many often overlapping conspiracy theories which argue that evidence of the reality of unidentified flying objects is being suppressed. ...

Overview

The primary evidence for the existence of a group named Majestic twelve is a collection of documents that first emerged in 1984 and which have been the subject of much debate. The original MJ-12 documents state that:

The Majestic 12 group... was established by order of President Truman on 24 September, [sic - see discussion] 1947, upon recommendation by Dr. Vannevar Bush and Secretary of Defense James Forrestal.^[1] is the 267th day of the year (268th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Vannevar Bush (March 11, 1890 – June 30, 1974) was an American engineer and science administrator, known for his political role in the development of the atomic bomb, and the idea of the memex—seen as a pioneering concept for the World Wide Web. ... The United States Secretary of Defense is the head of the United States Department of Defense, concerned with the armed services and The Secretary is a member of the Presidents Cabinet. ... James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was a Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense. ...

The existence of MJ-12 has sometimes been denied by some agencies of the United States government, which insist that documents suggesting its existence are hoaxes. The FBI investigated the documents, and concluded they were forgeries, based primarily on an opinion rendered by AFOSI, the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Opinions among UFO researchers are divided: Some argue the documents may be genuine while others contend they are phony, primarily due to errors in formatting and chronology. The government of the United States, established by the United States Constitution, is a federal republic of 50 states, a few territories and some protectorates. ... The Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) is a Field Operating Agency (FOA) of the United States Air Force that provides professional investigative services to commanders throughout the Air Force. ...

In 1985, another document mentioning MJ-12 and dating to 1954 was found in a search at the National Archives.^[2] Its authenticity is also highly controversial. The documents in question are rather widely available on the Internet, for example on the FBI website, where they are dismissed as bogus (linked below). The National Archives building in Washington, DC The United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ...

Since the first MJ-12 documents, thousands of pages of other supposed leaked government documents mentioning MJ-12 and a government coverup of UFO reality have also appeared, sometimes collectively referred to as the "Majestic Documents."^[3] All of them are controversial, with many disputing their authenticity. A few have been proven to be unquestionably fraudulent, usually retyped rewrites of unrelated government documents. The primary new MJ-12 document is a lengthy, linotype-set manual allegedly dating from 1954, called the MJ-12 "Special Operations Manual (SOM)". It deals primarily with the handling of crash debris and alien bodies.^[4] Objections to its authenticity usually center on questions of style and some historical anachronisms. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Linotype machine. ... Look up Anachronism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The MJ-12 documents are alleged to date from 1942 to 1997 and have been hotly debated in the UFO community. The documents include such matters as the conduct to be used when meeting an alien, diagrams and records of tests on UFOs, memos on assorted coverups, and descriptions of the President's statements about UFO-related issues. The documents contain supposed signatures of important people such as Albert Einstein and Ronald Reagan, creating a major debate in the conspiracy and UFO communities. No more documents have been leaked or released since 1997. Their authenticity remains uncertain, and some claim them to be entirely fake. “Einstein” redirects here. ... Reagan redirects here. ... For other uses, see Conspiracy theory (disambiguation). ...

However, before the appearance of the various dubious MJ-12 documents, Canadian documents dating from 1950 and 1951 were uncovered in 1978.^[5] These documents mention the existence of a similar, highly classified UFO study group operating within the Pentagon's Research & Development Board (RDB) and headed by Dr. Vannevar Bush. Although the name of the group is not given, proponents argue that these documents remain the most compelling evidence that such a group did exist. There is also some testimony (see Arguments for below) from a few government scientists involved with this project confirming its existence. This article is about the United States military building. ... Vannevar Bush (March 11, 1890 – June 30, 1974) was an American engineer and science administrator, known for his political role in the development of the atomic bomb, and the idea of the memex—seen as a pioneering concept for the World Wide Web. ...

Other theories of the MJ-12 group

MJ-12 is sometimes associated^{[citation needed]} in recent UFO conspiracy literature with the more historically verifiable but also deeply secretive NSC 5412/2 Special Group, created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1954. Although the Special Group was not specifically concerned with UFOs, and post-dates the alleged creation of MJ-12 in 1947, the commonality of the number '12' in the names of the two groups is cited as intriguing, as is the first chairman, Gordon Gray, being one of the alleged MJ-12 members. As the highest body of central intelligence experts in the early Cold War era (the Group was alleged to include the President but exclude the Vice President), the Special Group certainly would have had both clearance and interest in all matters of national security, including UFO sightings if they were considered a real threat. The NSC 5412/2 Special Group, often referred simply as the Special Group, was an initially secret, but later public, subcommittee of the United States National Security Council responsible for coordinating government covert operations. ... Dwight David Eisenhower, born David Dwight Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969), nicknamed Ike, was a five-star General in the United States Army and U.S. politician, who served as the thirty-fourth President of the United States (1953–1961). ... Gordon Gray (May 30, 1909 – November 26, 1982) was an official in the government of the United States during the administrations of Harry Truman (1945-53) and Dwight Eisenhower (1953-61) associated with defense and national security. ...

Others have speculated that MJ-12 may have been another name for the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit, an officially recognized UFO-related military group active from the 1940s through the late 1950s. The Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (or IPU) was a United States Military unit established by at least 1947 and dissolved by the late 1950s. ...

Another government group recently associated with MJ-12 was the CIA's Office of National Estimates or ONE, a forerunner of the current National Intelligence Council (NIC). ONE was created in 1950 by CIA Director Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, alleged to have replaced Secretary of Defense James Forrestal on MJ-12 after his death. A history of the NIC states that ONE was a type of super branch of the CIA "whose sole task was to produce coordinated 'National Intelligence Estimates.'" ^[6] Besides Smith, it apparently consisted of 11 other members. A recent article on the history of the CIA's involvement in UFO investigations states that ONE received a UFO intelligence briefing on January 30, 1953, immediately after the end of the CIA's UFO debunking study known as the Robertson Panel. Members of ONE at that time included FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, William Bundy, President Eisenhower's chief of staff Admiral B. Bieri, and William Langer, a Harvard historian, who was chairman. Referring to ONE as "super think tank" within the CIA, the article states, "ONE is as close as we get to a documented version of the rumoured Majestic-12 group." ^[7] The National Intelligence Council (NIC) is the center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking within the United States Intelligence Community (IC). ... Walter Bedell Smith as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union. ... James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was a Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense. ... The Robertson Panel was a committee commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1952 in response to widespread Unidentified Flying Object reports, especially in the Washington DC area. ... John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972), known popularly as J. Edgar Hoover, was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. ... This article or section should be merged with William P. Bundy William Putnam Bundy (September 24, 1917-October 6, 2000) was a member of the CIA and advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson. ...

Connection to the secret Pratt documents

^{[original research?]}

At the Mutual UFO Network or MUFON 2007 Symposium in Denver Colorado, UFO researcher Brad Sparks presented a paper that describes the MJ12 documents as an elaborate disinformation campaign pepetrated by William Moore, Richard Doty, and other Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) personnel. The sources for this information are files dating from 1981 (3 years before the first alleged MJ12 documents surfaced) that UFO researcher Bob Pratt gave MUFON before his death in 2005. The information lay hidden in MUFON's archives until they were digitized as part of MUFON's Pandora Project and made available to UFO researchers. The paper can be downloaded from the following reference.^[8] The Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON for short, is headquartered in Morisson, Colorado. ... MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, headquartered in Colorado, is the oldest and largest UFO investigative organization in the United States. ...

MUFON has made the Pratt documents available online at [1]. Of interest will be the paragraph that has a handwritten date of 1/02/82 and states: "3. UFO project is Aquarius, classified Top Secret with access restricted to MJ 12. (MJ may be "magic"). This project begun about 1966, but apparently inherited files of earlier project."

The significance of this paragraph is that it ties MJ12 to the Aquarius document, a known fabricated document, that alleges that Jesus Christ was an alien. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

On the other hand, as a personal note from this contributor, the Aquarius Era (12 being the twelve months of the year, for instance) began more or less at the same time the same documents were digitized, de-classified : maybe the reference to Aquarius is solely a temporal reference to the moment in which the material was supposed to lose it's status otherwise known as 'Classified Top Secret with restricted to MJ 12'.
This could be the "magic" refered in the comment, necessary for correct interpretation - the coeherence of this interpretation might come from the fact that Project Aquarius previous name was Project SIGN. This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

The Pratt documents also contain the 1982 conversation between Bill Moore and Bob Pratt discussing the characters and plotline of a fictional book that Moore wanted Pratt to write. Moore is fixated on the Truman-Eisenhower transition period in UFO history and two crashed saucers, both of which figure prominently in the Eisenhower Briefing Document allegedly leaked to Moore's friend Jaime Shandera in 1984 and which Moore claims to have no prior knowledge of.

Membership

All the alleged original members of MJ-12 were notable for their military, government, and/or scientific achievements, and all were deceased when the documents first surfaced (the last to die was Jerome Hunsaker, only a few months before the MJ-12 papers first appeared). Jerome Clarke Hunsaker (August 26, 1886-September 10, 1984) was an American airman born in Creston, Iowa, and educated at the Naval Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ...

The original composition was six civilians (mostly scientists), and six high-ranking military officers, two from each major military service. Three (Souers, Vandenberg, and Hillenkoetter) had been the first three heads of central intelligence. The Moore/Shandera documents did not make clear who was the director of MJ-12, or if there was any organizational hierarchy.

The named members of MJ-12 were:

• Rear Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter: first CIA director
• Dr. Vannevar Bush: chaired wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development and predecessor National Defense Research Committee; set up and chaired postwar Joint Research and Development Board (JRDB) and then the Research and Development Board (RDB); chaired NACA; President of Carnegie Institute, Washington D.C.
• James Forrestal: Secretary of the Navy; first Secretary of Defense (replaced after his death on MJ-12 by Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, 2nd CIA director)
• Gen. Nathan Twining: headed Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson AFB; Air Force Chief of Staff (1953-1957); Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff (1957-1961)
• Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg: Directed Central Intelligence Group (1946-1947); Air Force Chief of Staff (1948-1953)
• Gen. Robert M. Montague: Guided missile expert; 1947 commander of Fort Bliss; headed nuclear Armed Forces Special Weapons Center, Sandia Base
• Dr. Jerome Hunsaker: Aeronautical engineer, MIT; chaired NACA after Bush
• Rear Adm. Sidney Souers: first director of Central Intelligence Group, first executive secretary of National Security Council (NSC)
• Gordon Gray: Secretary of the Army; intelligence and national security expert; CIA psychological strategy board (1951-1953); Chairman of NSC 5412 committee (1954-1958); National Security Advisor (1958-1961)
• Dr. Donald Menzel: Astronomer, Harvard; cryptologist during war; security consultant to CIA and NSA
• Dr. Detlev Bronk: Medical physicist; aviation physiologist; chair, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council; president Johns Hopkins & Rockefeller University
• Dr. Lloyd Berkner: Physicist; radio expert; executive secretary of Bush's JRDB

According to other sources^{[citation needed]} and MJ-12 papers to emerge later^{[citation needed]}, famous scientists like Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, Karl Compton, Edward Teller, John von Neumann, and Wernher von Braun were also involved with MJ-12. Roscoe Henry Hillenkoetter (May 8, 1897 - June 18, 1982), born in St. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... Vannevar Bush (March 11, 1890 – June 30, 1974) was an American engineer and science administrator, known for his political role in the development of the atomic bomb, and the idea of the memex—seen as a pioneering concept for the World Wide Web. ... In June of 1941, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) superseded the committee structure [of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC)]. The OSRD projects gave the United States and Allied troops more powerful and more accurate bombs, more reliable detonators, lighter and more accurate weapons, safer and more... In June of 1940, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) to coordinate, supervise, and conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development, production, and use of mechanisms and devices of warfare. ... NACA official seal The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a U.S. federal agency founded on March 3, 1915 to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. ... James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was a Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense. ... Walter Bedell Smith as U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union. ... Nathan Farragut Twining (1897 - 1982) was a U.S. air force general. ... Shield of the Air Force Materiel Command. ... Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a U.S. Air Force base in Greene and Montgomery counties, adjacent to Fairborn and Dayton, Ohio. ... General Hoyt Sanford Vandenberg was the second chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C. The general was born at Milwaukee, Wis. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... Fort Bliss is a census-designated place and US Army post located in El Paso County, Texas. ... Sandia Base was established as a training depot for mechanics in 1943. ... Jerome Clarke Hunsaker (August 26, 1886-September 10, 1984) was an American airman born in Creston, Iowa, and educated at the Naval Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ... Sidney William Souers (March 30, 1892 - January 14, 1973) was an American admiral and intelligence expert. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Gordon Gray (May 30, 1909 – November 26, 1982) was an official in the government of the United States during the administrations of Harry Truman (1945-53) and Dwight Eisenhower (1953-61) associated with defense and national security. ... The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor, serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues. ... Donald Howard Menzel (April 11, 1901 – December 14, 1976) was an American astronomer. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... NSA can stand for: National Security Agency of the USA The British Librarys National Sound Archive This page concerning a three-letter acronym or abbreviation is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Detlev Wulf Bronk (1897-1975) was President of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland from 1949 to 1953 and President of the National Academy of Sciences from 1950 to 1962. ... President Harding and the National Academy of Sciences at the White House, Washington, DC, April 1921 The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine. ... -1... The Johns Hopkins University, founded in 1876, is a private institution of higher learning located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. ... Founders Hall Rockefeller University is a private university focusing primarily on graduate and postgraduate education research in the biomedical fields, located between 63rd and 68th Streets along York Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan island in New York City, New York. ... Lloyd V. Berkner (born February 1, 1905, in Milwaukee, died June 4, 1967, in Washington, D.C.) was the U.S. physicist and engineer who first measured the height and density of the ionosphere. ... J. Robert Oppenheimer[1] (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist, best known for his role as the director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons, at the secret Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. ... “Einstein” redirects here. ... Karl Taylor Compton (1887-1954) was the president of MIT from 1930 until 1948. ... Edward Teller (original Hungarian name Teller Ede) (January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-born American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as the father of the hydrogen bomb, even though he did not care for the title. ... For other persons named John Neumann, see John Neumann (disambiguation). ... For other uses of von Braun, see von Braun (disambiguation). ...

Reliably-documented UFO activities by purported MJ-12 members

Many of these men had reliably documented activities related to UFOs:

• Vandenberg, as Director of Central Intelligence in 1946, had overseen investigations into the so-called Ghost rockets in Europe and wrote intelligence memos about the phenomena. Later as Air Force Chief of Staff, both Vandenberg and Twining oversaw early U.S. Air Force UFO investigations, like Project Sign and Project Blue Book and made some public statements on UFOs.
• Twining had previously written a famous Secret memo on September 23, 1947 (the day before Truman allegedly set up MJ-12) stating that flying saucers were real and urged formal investigation by multiple government organizations such as the AEC, NACA, NEPA, Bush's JRDB, and the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. [2] This led directly to the creation of Project Sign in late 1947.
• Vandenberg met with Bush's JRDB in a suddenly-called meeting on the morning of the Roswell UFO incident (July 8, 1947) and was reported in the press as handling the later public relations crises.^[9]
• Bush was directly implicated in 1950-51 Canadian documents heading a highly secret UFO investigation within the Research and Development Board (RDB); this assertion was confirmed by Canadian scientist Wilbert B. Smith^[10] Immediately after the Roswell UFO incident, Bush made public statements denying any knowledge of UFOs or any relation they might have to secret government projects.^[11]
• Berkner was on the 1953 CIA-organized Robertson Panel debunking UFOs and helped establish Project Ozma, the first radio telescope search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
• Menzel filed a UFO report in 1949, later wrote several UFO debunking books, and was the most prominent public UFO debunker of his time. Many conspiracy theorists see this as a "cover-up" for alleged MJ12 - alien connections.
• Hillenkoetter was on the board of directors of the powerful civilian UFO organization NICAP and made public statements to Congress about UFO reality in 1960.
• The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which Hunsaker chaired from 1941-1958, is also known from documents to have occasionally delved into UFO cases. Other members of NACA were Bush (1938-1948), Compton (1948-1949), Vandenberg (1948-1953), Twining (1953-1957), and Bronk (1948-1958).
• Teller was a member of a scientific panel in 1949 at Los Alamos National Laboratory looking into the UFO phenomenon known as the green fireballs

Ghost Rockets (also called Scandinavian ghost rockets) is the name given to mysterious rocket or missile shaped objects which were sighted on many different occasions between May and December 1946, with peaks on the 9th and 11th August of 1946. ... Project Sign was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects undertaken by the United States Air Force in late 1947 and dissolved in late 1948. ... Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) conducted by the United States Air Force. ... is the 266th day of the year (267th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Almost a year after World War II ended, Congress established the United States Atomic Energy Commission to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. ... NACA official seal The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a U.S. federal agency founded on March 3, 1915 to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. ... Convair NB-36H, flying testbed for X-6 project The Convair X-6 was a proposed experimental aircraft project to develop and evaluate a nuclear-powered jet aircraft. ... Project Sign was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects undertaken by the United States Air Force in late 1947 and dissolved in late 1948. ... Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947, announcing the capture of a flying saucer. ... is the 189th day of the year (190th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Wilbert Brockhouse Smith (born 1910 in Lethbridge, Alberta, died December 27, 1962) was a Canadian electrical engineer, radio engineer, ufologist and contactee. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... The Robertson Panel was a committee commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1952 in response to widespread Unidentified Flying Object reports, especially in the Washington DC area. ... Project Ozma was a pioneering SETI experiment started in 1960 by Cornell University astronomer Frank Drake, at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, West Virginia. ... The 64 meter radio telescope at Parkes Observatory A radio telescope is a form of directional radio antenna used in radio astronomy and in tracking and collecting data from satellites and space probes. ... Extraterrestrial life refers to forms of life that may exist and originate outside of the planet Earth. ... A debunker is a skeptic who pursues dispelling false and unscientific claims. ... see National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena ... NACA official seal The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a U.S. federal agency founded on March 3, 1915 to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. ... Los Alamos National Laboratory, aerial view from 1995. ... A number of so-called Green Fireballs were reported in the skies of the southwestern United States, particularly New Mexico, beginning in late 1948. ...

Professional and social connections between purported MJ-12 members

Research has also shown^[12] that there were many social and professional connections between many of the alleged members of MJ-12. For example, Bush, Hunsaker, Bronk, and Berkner all sat on the oversight committee of the Research and Development Board (RDB), which Bush had established and initially chaired. Other notables on the RDB oversight committee were Karl Compton, Robert Oppenheimer, and Dr. H. P. Robertson, who headed up the debunking Robertson Panel, of which Berkner was a member. As mentioned, 1950 Canadian documents indicated that Bush headed up a small, highly secret UFO study group within the RDB. (See also Arguments for below) Howard Percy Robertson (January 27, 1903 - August 26, 1961) was a scientist known for contributions related to cosmology and the uncertainty principle. ... The Robertson Panel was a committee commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1952 in response to widespread Unidentified Flying Object reports, especially in the Washington DC area. ...

Various alleged MJ-12 members or participants would also naturally be part of the Presidential office's National Security Council, created in 1947. This would include (depending on NSC composition, which evolved) various NSC permanent members: Executive Secretary (Souers, Cutler), the Secretary of Defense (Forrestal), the Secretary of the Army (Gray), National Security Advisor (Gray), and the Air Force Chief of Staff (Vandenberg, Twining). Other nonpermanent members who would attend NSC meetings as advisors and implement policy would be the CIA director (Hillenkoetter, Smith), the head of the Research and Development Board (Bush, Compton), the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Cutler, Gray), and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Twining). To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Therefore the supposed members and participating personnel of MJ-12 would have served on many other high government agencies and could conceivably have influenced government policy at many levels. (See also list of supposed current MJ-12 members below, again indicating various individuals who have served in high government positions.)

The purported members were trusted, high-ranking officials who were often involved in important government projects--they possessed diverse skills and high security clearances. However, they were not so recognizable that they would be missed if they were to be called upon in a secret emergency. If such a group existed, these individuals would make plausible members.

History

The history of the MJ-12 papers is highly complex, with a series of often-confusing assertions, counterassertions and debates.

Arthur Bray's discovery (1978)

In 1978 Canadian researcher Arthur Bray uncovered previously-classified Canadian UFO documents naming Dr. Vannevar Bush as heading a highly secret UFO investigation group within the U.S. Research and Development Board. No name for the group was given. Bray published excerpts of the documents in his 1979 book, The UFO Connection..

Aquarius document and Paul Bennewitz connection (1980)

The earliest citation of the term "MJ Twelve" originally surfaced in a purported U.S. Air Force teletype dated November 17, 1980. This so-called "Project Aquarius" teletype had been given to Albuquerque physicist and businessman Paul Bennewitz in November, 1980, by U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations counterintelligence officer Richard C. Doty as part of a disinformation campaign to discredit Bennewitz. Bennewitz had photographed and recorded electronic data of what he believed to be UFO activity over and nearby Kirtland AFB, a sensitive nuclear facility, which he had reported to officials at Kirtland, including Doty. Later it was discovered the Aquarius document was phony and had been prepared by Doty. ^[13] 17 November is also the name of a Marxist group in Greece, coinciding with the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising. ... Year 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar). ... Paul Bennewitz (? - 2005) was an American businessman who played a major role in shaping the development of UFO Conspiracies since the 1980s. ... The United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) is a U.S. military command that provides professional investigative service to commanders of all United States Air Force activities. ... For other uses, see Disinformation (disambiguation). ... Kirtland Air Force Base is located in the southeast quadrant of Albuquerque, New Mexico, adjacent to the Albuquerque International Sunport. ...

One sentence in the lengthy teletype read:

The official US Government policy and results of Project Aquarius is [sic] still classified TOP SECRET with no dissemination outside channels and with access restricted to "MJ TWELVE."^[14]

As Greg Bishop writes, "Here, near the bottom of this wordy message in late 1980, was the very first time anyone had seen a reference to the idea of a suspected government group called 'MJ Twelve' that controlled UFO information. Of course, no one suspected at the time the colossal role that this idea would play in 1980s and '90s UFOlogy, and it eventually spread beyond its confines to become a cultural mainstay."^[15]

As Bennewitz was the subject of a disinformation campaign, many investigators are automatically suspicious of any documents or claims made in association with the Bennewitz affair. Because the entire MJ-12 affair made its appearance only a year after Bray had made public the incriminating Canadian documents about the secret UFO committee, one theory^{[citation needed]} is that the Project Aquarius teletype was part of a counterintelligence hoax to discredit the information in the just-revealed Canadian documents. Thus the various MJ-12 documents could be fake, but the secret committee described in the verified Canadian documents could still have been real. (See Arguments for below)

The Moore/Shandera documents (1984)

What came to be known as the "MJ-12 papers" -- detailing a secret UFO committee allegedly involving Vannevar Bush -- first appeared on a roll of film in late 1984 in the mailbox of television documentary producer (and amateur ufologist) Jamie Shandera. Shandera had been collaborating with Roswell researcher William Moore since 1982. Artistic representation of UFOs Ufology is the study of unidentified flying object (UFO) reports, sightings, alleged physical evidence, and other related phenomena. ... Roswell Daily Record, July 8, 1947, announcing the capture of a flying saucer. ...

Just prior to Bennewitz and the Aquarius document, Moore had been contacted in September 1980 by Doty, who described himself as representing a shadowy group of 10 military intelligence insiders who claimed to be opposed to UFO secrecy. Moore called them "The Aviary".

In January 1981, Doty provided Moore with a copy of the phony Aquarius document with mention of MJ Twelve. Moore would later claim^[16] in 1989 that he began collaborating with AFOSI in spying on fellow researchers such as Bennewitz, and dispensing disinformation, ostensibly to gain the trust of the military officers, but reality to learn whatever UFO truth they might have, and also to learn how the military manipulated UFO researcher. In return, Doty and others were to leak information to him. For other uses, see Disinformation (disambiguation). ...

Later it would turn out that some of the UFO documents given Moore were genuine^{[citation needed]}, but others were forged by Doty and compatriots, or were retyped and altered from the originals. Furthermore, the film mailed Shandera with the MJ-12 documents was postmarked "Albuquerque," raising the obvious suspicion that the MJ-12 documents were more bogus documents arising from Doty and AFOSI in Albuquerque.

In 1983, Doty also targeted UFO researcher and journalist Linda Moulton Howe, revealing alleged high-level UFO documents, including those describing crashed alien flying saucers and recovery of aliens. Doty again mentioned MJ-12, explaining that “MJ” stood for “Majority” (not “Majestic”) Linda Moulton Howe born January 20, 1942, in Boise, Idaho, is an American investigative journalist and documentary producer-writer-director-editor who is currently based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. ...

Moore soon showed a copy of the Aquarius/MJ 12 teletype given him by Doty to researchers Brad Sparks and Kal Korff. In 1983, Moore also sought Sparks' reaction to a plan to create counterfeit government UFO documents, hoping to induce former military officers to speak out. Sparks strongly urged Moore not do this. The previous year Moore had similarly approached nuclear physicist and UFO researcher Stanton T. Friedman about creating bogus Roswell documents, again with the idea of encouraging witnesses to come forward. Also, in early 1982, Moore had approached former National Enquirer reporter Bob Pratt (who had first published a story on Roswell in the Enquirer in 1980). Moore asked Pratt to collaborate on novel called MAJIK-12. As a result, Pratt always believed that the Majestic-12 papers were a hoax, either perpetrated personally by Moore or perhaps by AFOSI, with Doty using Moore as a willing target. Moore, however, flatly denied creating the documents, but eventually thought that maybe he had been set up. Noted UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass would also argue^[17] that Moore was the most likely hoaxer of the initial batch of MJ-12 documents. Stanton T. Friedman (born July 29, 1934, Elizabeth, New Jersey) is a physicist and ufologist, currently residing in New Brunswick, Canada. ... The National Enquirer is a national American supermarket tabloid. ... Philip Julian Klass (November 8, 1919–August 9, 2005) was born in Des Moines, Iowa and died in Merritt Island, Florida. ...

Unlike Pratt, who was convinced they were a hoax, Friedman would investigate the historical and technical details in the MJ-12 documents and become their staunchest defender.

The 1984/1985 MJ-12 Papers

The Eisenhower briefing document

The film received by Shandera in 1984 consisted of two MJ-12 documents. The main document, dated November 18, 1952, was supposedly prepared by Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the first CIA director, to brief incoming president Dwight Eisenhower on the committee's progress. The document lists all the MJ-12 members and discusses United States Air Force investigations and concealment of a crashed alien spacecraft near Roswell, New Mexico, plus another crash in northern Mexico in December 1950. is the 322nd day of the year (323rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Dwight David Ike Eisenhower (October 14, 1890–March 28, 1969), American soldier and politician, was the 34th President of the United States (1953–1961) and supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, with the rank of General of the Army. ... USAF redirects here. ... Nickname: Location in the state of New Mexico. ...

Eisenhower did indeed receive extensive briefings November 18, 1952,^[17] including a briefing at the Pentagon by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which would have included alleged MJ-12 members Twining and Vandenberg. However, Eisenhower’s Pentagon briefing is still classified and thus the subject matter discussed remains speculative.

The Truman memo

An attached document of one page, dated September 24, 1947, was supposedly written by President Harry Truman, addressed to Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, authorizing the formation of the group "Operation Majestic Twelve". In it, Truman stated he wanted ultimate decision-making power to reside with the Office of the President, after consultation with Forrestal, Hillenkoetter, and Dr. Vannevar Bush. is the 267th day of the year (268th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For the victim of Mt. ... James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was a Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense. ...

One historical detail that perhaps supports the Truman memo's favor was that this was the only date on which both Forrestal and Bush met with Truman.^[18] (It is also the day after Gen. Twining wrote a Secret memo saying flying saucers were real and urged an extensive investigation by multiple government agencies^{[citation needed]}).

While this doesn’t prove authenticity, it would suggest that if the documents were hoaxed, the hoaxer(s) had conducted considerable research. Also, according to contemporary newspapers the Forrestal/Bush/Truman meeting concerned Bush being appointed by Truman as chairman of the new Defense Department Research and Development Board under Forrestal's direction.^[19] The appointment was made official the following day^[20] and Forrestal swore Bush into the post a week later.

The Cutler/Twining memo (1985)

In 1985, Shandera and Moore began receiving post cards postmarked “New Zealand” with a return address of "Box 189, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia."^[17] The cards contained a series of cryptic messages referring to "Reeses [sic] Pieces" and "Suitland" (among other terms) that Shandera and Moore assumed were a code; however, they were unable to "decode" the seeming message. For the long-distance runner, see Addis Abebe. ...

A few months later, a happenstance request from Friedman unlocked the mystery: busy due to previous obligations, Friedman asked Moore and Shandera to examine newly declassified Air Force documents at the National Archives (NARA) repository in Suitland, Maryland; the head archivist there was named Ed Reese. More than one country maintains a national archive: The Canadian Library and Archives Canada The New Zealand Archives New Zealand (formerly National Archives) The United States National Archives and Records Administration The United Kingdom National Archives This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might... Suitland-Silver Hill is a census-designated place located in Prince Georges County, Maryland. ...

After a few days in Suitland, Shandera and Moore discovered yet another MJ-12 document, the so-called Cutler/Twining memo, dated July 14, 1954. Interestingly enough, the memo turned up in "Box 189" of the record group.^[21] In this memo, NSC Executive Secretary and Eisenhower’s National Security Advisor Robert Cutler informed Air Force Chief of Staff (and alleged MJ-12 member) Nathan Twining of a change of plans in a scheduled MJ-12 briefing.^[22] is the 195th day of the year (196th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar). ... NSC may refer to: National Safety Council National Salvation Committee National Security Council — a government agency in many countries: United States National Security Council National Security Council (Turkey) Israeli National Security Council National Security Council of Pakistan National Security Cutter [1] National Semiconductor Corporation [2] National Software Competition [3] National... Robert Cutler (1895 – 1974) was a U.S. administrator. ... Nathan Farragut Twining (1897 - 1982) was a U.S. air force general. ...

The Cutler-Twining memo lacked a distinctive catalog number, leading many to suspect^[17] that whether hoaxed or genuine, the memo was almost certainly planted in the archives.

Moore and Shandera have been accused^{[citation needed]} of hoaxing the memo and then planting it in the archives. However, Friedman notes that the memo, unlike the other early MJ-12 papers which were available only as photos, is on original onionskin paper widely used by the government at that time. It also has some subtle historical and other details that a civilian hoaxer would be unlikely to know, such as a red pencil declassification marking also found with the other declassified files. Furthermore, NARA security procedures would make it difficult for a visitor to the Archives to plant such a document; even the skeptical Klass argued^[17] that NARA security procedures made it highly unlikely that Shandera and Moore could have planted the Cutler-Twining memo in the archives. Instead, Friedman has argued that one of the many Air Force personnel involved in declassifying NARA documents could easily have planted the Cutler/Twining memo in with other unrelated documents.

However, most researchers have argued^{[citation needed]} that various subtle details point to a forgery (see #Arguments against for some). However, this doesn’t negate Friedman’s point that the memo could have been planted by someone in the Air Force). For example, the date of the alleged MJ-12 meeting does not correspond to any known meeting of import.

The FBI investigation

The MJ-12 documents were first made public in 1987 by Shandera, Moore, and Friedman. Another copy of the same documents Shandera received in 1984 was mailed to British researcher Timothy Good in 1987, again from an anonymous source. Good first reproduced them in his best-selling book Above Top Secret (1988), but later disowned the documents as likely fraudulent. Timothy Good is a leading British researcher and writer on UFOs, and a former professional violinist. ...

After the documents became widely known with the publication of Good’s book, the Federal Bureau of Investigations then began its own investigation, urged on by debunker Philip J. Klass. The MJ-12 documents were supposedly classified as "Top Secret", and the FBI's initial concern was that someone within the U.S. government had illegally leaked highly classified information. For other uses of the initials FBI, see FBI (disambiguation). ... Philip Julian Klass (November 8, 1919–August 9, 2005) was born in Des Moines, Iowa and died in Merritt Island, Florida. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

The FBI quickly formed doubts as to the documents' authenticity. FBI personnel contacted the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations (counterintelligence), asking if MJ-12 had ever existed. AFOSI claimed that no such committee had ever been authorized or formed, and that the documents were “bogus.” The FBI adopted the AFOSI opinion and the FBI’s official position became that the MJ-12 documents were "completely bogus.” The Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) is a Field Operating Agency (FOA) of the United States Air Force that provides professional investigative services to commanders throughout the Air Force. ...

However, when Stanton Friedman contacted the AFOSI officer, Col. Richard Weaver, who had rendered this opinion, Friedman said Weaver refused to document his assertion. Friedman also noted that Weaver had taught disinformation and propaganda courses for AFOSI and was principal author of the Air Force’s debunking Roswell report in 1994. (Friedman, 110-115) For other uses, see Disinformation (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Propaganda (disambiguation). ...

Timothy Good in Beyond Top Secret also noted that Weaver in 1994 was the Director of Security and Special Programs Oversight of AFOSI’s Pentagon office, a very high level organization within the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. Good commented that AFOSI is “an agency whose work involves counterintelligence and deception, and which has a long record of deep involvement in the UFO problem.” Within Weaver’s office were “special planners.” According to Good, “In Air Force parlance, the term ‘special plans’ is a euphemism for deception as well as for ‘perception management’ plans and operations.”^[23] Conducting an interview with one Roswell witness, Weaver himself admitted, “We’re the people who keep the secrets.” It is difficult to tell from interviews such as these, as the cold war tactics of deceptions within deceptions are intentionally vague as to where the disinformation and coverup of espionage ends and the government's actual investigation into UFOs begins. For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ... Spy and Secret agent redirect here. ...

William Moore would later reveal that the whole New Mexico UFO disinformation scheme was run out of the Pentagon by a Colonel Barry Hennessey of AFOSI. When the Defense Department phone directory was checked, Hennessey was listed under the "Dept. of Special Techniques." Working under him at the time was the same Col. Weaver.

Friedman therefore raised the question as to whether Weaver rendered an objective intelligence opinion about the authenticity of the MJ-12 papers or was deliberately misleading the FBI as a counterintelligence and disinformation agent, much like Doty had done with Moore and Howe earlier.

Journalist Howard Blum in his book Out There (1990) further described the FBI’s difficulty in getting at the truth of the matter. One frustrated FBI agent told Blum, “All we’re finding out is that the government doesn’t know what it knows. There are too many secret levels. You can’t get a straight story. It wouldn’t surprise me if we never know if the papers are genuine or not.”^[24]

Arguments for

• The National Archives contain one document relating to MJ-12, found in 1985, which has been interpreted as corroborative evidence for the MJ-12 documents being genuine:

"Memorandum for General Twining, from Robert Cutler, Special Assistant to the President, Subject: "NSC/MJ-12 Special Studies Project" dated July 14, 1954. The memo's advised Twining of a change of scheduling for a planned briefing following an already scheduled, unspecified "White House meeting" on July 16. Cutler was Eisenhower's National Security Adviser. The memorandum does not identify MJ-12 or the purpose of the briefing (see links). However, arguments have been made against this document's authenticity; see below.

• Regarding the Cutler memo, Jim Speiser writes, "The alleged maker of the memo, Robert Cutler, was out of the country when it was typed. Researchers counter that Cutler's assistants, James Lay and Patrick Coyne, routinely sent out memos under Cutler's name, and they point to the fact that the memo (extant now in carbon copy only) is unsigned."^[25] Stanton Friedman has argued that if the memo had the absent Cutler's signature on it, it would have proven that it was a hoax. Thus the absence of signature instead supports its authenticity.

• Nuclear physicist and UFO researcher Stanton Friedman has offered other rebuttal of many arguments against the documents' authenticity. For example, Philip J. Klass suggested that the Cutler/Twining memo was fraudulent, because it was typed in Pica font, while Klass insisted that genuine White House documents of that era were only typed in Elite. Klass offered $100 for every example of genuine Pica font that could be presented. Friedman responded, as Speiser wrote in the same article cited above, "Friedman provides no fewer than 20 such exemplars, more than enough to win the maximum prize." (Klass paid him $1000, though Speiser suggests the challenge might more accurately be called a draw: "Klass' letter specifically called for 'letters' and 'memoranda'; Friedman provides only headings and dates in his initial response.) Some other Friedman objections to Klass' arguments are provided further below.

• Perhaps weakly corroborating the authenticity of the Cutler memo was a column written by journalist Dorothy Kilgallen on February 15, 1954, in which she stated, "Flying saucers are regarded as of such vital importance they will be the subject of a special hush-hush meeting of world military heads next summer."^[26]

• Citing work by Timothy Good, C.D.B. Bryan notes the existence of a secret memorandum written by Canadian radio engineer Wilbert B. Smith, who had long worked for the Canadian Department of Transportation. Dated November 21, 1950, the memo recommended that the Canadian government establish a formal investigation of UFOs (Project Magnet was this study). In part, Smith wrote that his own "discreet inquiries" through the Canadian embassy in Washington D.C. had uncovered the fact that "flying saucers exist", "the matter is the most highly classified subject in the United States Government, rating higher even than the H-bomb", and that "concentrated effort is being made by a small group headed by Doctor Vannevar Bush" into their "modus operandi" (Bryan, 186; [3]) Smith's memo was authenticated by the Canadian government. Good concluded that this document is a major argument in favor of MJ-12's reality. Additional documents from Smith and the Canadian embassy named Bush and the Research and Development Board (RDB) as being needed to clear a magazine article being written by Donald Keyhoe on Smith's flying saucer theories. [4] Smith also made some public statements about being loaned UFO crash material for metallurgical analysis by some "highly classified group" which he would not name, but indicated it was not the Air Force or CIA. [5]

• In a letter from 1983, Dr. Omond Solandt, director of the Canadian Defence Research Board (DRB), who had approved Smith's initial UFO study and lent support from the DRB (according to Smith's memo), confirmed meeting with Bush on a regular but "informal" basis to discuss flying saucers and Smith's UFO work. [6]

• Smith's primary source in 1950 was Dr. Robert Sarbacher, a missile and electronics expert and a consultant for the RDB's guided missile committee. When contacted again in 1983 by William Steinman, Sarbacher in a letter confirmed having the 1950 meeting, reconfirmed that Bush and the RDB were definitely involved, added that mathematician John von Neumann was also definitely involved and he thought Dr. Robert Oppenheimer as well. He also reconfirmed that there had been flying saucer crashes and being told that the material recovered was extremely lightweight and strong. He was told about small alien bodies. [7]

• In later interviews, Sarbacher would also implicate electrical engineer Dr. Eric A. Walker, the executive secretary of the RDB from 1950-1951 and later President of Penn State University. Walker was contacted by phone in 1987 by Steinman. He was asked first whether he had attended meetings at Wright-Patterson AFB concerning the military recovery of flying saucers and bodies of occupants. According to Steinman, he responded, "Yes, I attended meetings concerning that subject matter." When asked as to whether he knew about MJ-12, he responded, "Yes, I know of MJ-12. I have known of them for 40 years." In subsequent interviews and correspondence by other researchers, Walker became much more evasive. But in two interviews from 1990, Walker, while saying he thought the MJ-12 documents were not authentic, also admitted he had had nothing do with MJ-12 "for a long time" but they still existed and were "a handful of elite", no longer military, and no longer all American. "We have learnt so much, and we are not working with them, only contact. The technology is far beyond what is known in ordinary terms of physics."^[27]

• Another person to implicate Bush and Walker as likely being involved was Dr. Fred Darwin, who had been Executive Director for the Guided Missile Committee for the RDB from 1949 to 1954, to which both Sarbacher and Walker acted as consultants. Like Sarbacher, Darwin also suggested John von Neumann, and added alleged MJ-12 member Lloyd Berkner and physicist Dr. Karl Compton.^[28]

• Following a famous close encounter with a 300-foot flying saucer while flying from Iceland to Newfoundland on February 10, 1951 ^[29], Naval Reserve pilot Commander Graham Bethune relates that he and the entire crew were immediately debriefed by USAF and Naval intelligence. In May 1951, Bethune was again questioned by a Naval intelligence officer. Bethune says he then asked the officer where such reports ended up. He responded that they first went to "a committee of twelve men" screening them for "national security impact". If deemed to have such impact, it would never be sent elsewhere. Otherwise, they would be sent to USAF or Naval offices handling ordinary UFO cases. ^[30]

• Although he never used the name "MJ 12", Air Force Brig. Gen. Arthur E. Exon (Commanding Officer of Wright Patterson Air Force Base from 1964-1966) reported that a secret group of mostly high-ranking Pentagon officers were somehow involved with UFO studies; he nicknamed this group the "Unholy Thirteen".^[31] However, this does not necessarily mean Exon's "Unholy 13" and "MJ 12" were the same group. When Stanton Friedman sent Exon a copy of his 1990 "Final Report on Operation Majestic 12," he reported Exon "strongly approved" the contents and that the names of the "Unholy 13" group "were those of high-level personnel he thought would know about what was happening, not of people he knew to be involved in a control group."^[32]

• Author Whitley Strieber in his books Breakthrough (1995) and Confirmation (1998) claimed his uncle Colonel Edward Strieber, who had spent much of his career at Wright-Patterson AFB, knew of MJ-12: "My uncle informed me that he had knowledge of the Majestic project. He spoke of the delivery of alien materials, artifacts, and biological remains to Wright Field from the Roswell Army Air Base in the summer of 1947. He felt sure that the existence of these materials and what to do about them had been debated at the highest levels of the government. ...In 1991, after I had written Majestic [a partly fictionalized account of the Roswell incident], my uncle put me into contact with a general [Arthur Exon] -- an old and trusted friend of his..." Strieber said Exon told him that everybody "from Truman on down" had known about the Roswell incident from the day it happened, and that it was known to be an alien spacecraft "almost as soon as we got on the scene."^[31]

• Edward J. Ruppelt, the director of the Air Force's public UFO investigation Project Blue Book, several times in his 1956 book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects hinted that there was another highly secretive UFO government group (or groups) operating parallel UFO investigations outside the public eye. For example, in discussing the demoralization of Project Sign personnel following the rejection by Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg of their 1948 Estimate of the Situation that UFOs were extraterrestrial, Ruppelt wrote that Sign personnel hardly investigated UFO sightings anymore and instead "More and more work was being pushed off onto the other investigative organization that was helping ATIC [Air Technical Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson AFB]." Regarding the 1950 investigation of the so-called Lubbock Lights, Ruppelt wrote, “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. …they were scientists—rocket experts, nuclear physicists, and intelligence experts. They had banded together to study our UFO reports because they were convinced that some of the UFO’s that were being reported were interplanetary spaceships…”^[33]

• UFO researcher and MJ-12 skeptic Brad Sparks, however, says evidence points to the group described by Ruppelt investigating the "Lubbock Lights" as being the CIA's Office of Scientific Investigation (OS/I), not "MJ-12". However, Sparks has also found evidence that the CIA OS/I division (today called the Directorate of Science and Technology) became the primary investigative group for the DOD's Research and Development Board (RDB) starting in January 1949. Researcher David Rudiak has pointed out that the 1950-51 Canadian documents mentioning an MJ-12-type group under Vannevar Bush's direction has them operating precisely out of the RDB, which would again directly link "MJ-12" to the secret group investigating the Lubbock Lights, as described by Ruppelt. Furthermore, MJ-12 was supposed to be the control group, and it would be very much in Bush's management style to assign investigative responsibility to others rather than MJ-12 conducting the detailed investigations themselves.^[34]

• UFO and paranormal researcher Ethan A. Blight has presented refutation of many of the arguments put forth by critics of the documents, especially those of UFO debunker Philip J. Klass, which are used in the "Arguments against" section below.^[35] Stanton Friedman has likewise presented arguments that many of Klass' and other objections are either weak or completely bogus.^[36] Both Blight and Friedman argue that there exists no conclusive evidence against the authenticity of the documents, which, while not proving the documents' authenticity, removes much doubt. Both also argue that such false or misleading arguments are in fact characteristic of UFO debunkers in general.

The National Archives building in Washington, DC The United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records. ... Robert Cutler (1895 – 1974) was a U.S. administrator. ... is the 195th day of the year (196th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 197th day of the year (198th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Stanton T. Friedman (born July 29, 1934, Elizabeth, New Jersey) is a physicist and ufologist, currently residing in New Brunswick, Canada. ... Philip Julian Klass (November 8, 1919–August 9, 2005) was born in Des Moines, Iowa and died in Merritt Island, Florida. ... The word pica can refer to: An abnormal appetite for earth and other non-foods - see pica (disorder). ... Prestige Elite, also known simply as Prestige, is a monospaced typeface. ... Dorothy Mae Kilgallen (July 3, 1913 – November 8, 1965) was an Irish-American journalist and television game show panelist, perhaps best known nationally for her coverage of the Sam Sheppard trial, her syndicated newspaper column, The Voice of Broadway, and her role as panelist on the television game show What... is the 46th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar). ... Timothy Good is a leading British researcher and writer on UFOs, and a former professional violinist. ... Wilbert Brockhouse Smith (born 1910 in Lethbridge, Alberta, died December 27, 1962) was a Canadian electrical engineer, radio engineer, ufologist and contactee. ... is the 325th day of the year (326th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Project Magnet was an unidentified flying object (UFO) study programme established by the Canadian Department of Transport (DOT) on December 2, 1950, under the direction of Wilbert B. Smith, senior radio engineer for the DOTs Broadcast and Measurements Section. ... Modus operandi (often used in the abbreviated form MO) is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as mode of operation. ... Donald Edward Keyhoe (June 20, 1897 - November 29, 1988) was an American Marine Corps officer with some flight experience, writer of many aviation articles and stories in a variety of leading publications, and manager of the promotional tours of aviation pioneers, especially of Charles Lindbergh. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... Omond McKillop Solandt, C.C., O.B.E., C.D., M.D., D.Sc. ... The Department of National Defence, frequently referred to by its acronym DND, is the department within the government of Canada with responsibility for Canadas military, known as the Canadian Forces. ... For other persons named John Neumann, see John Neumann (disambiguation). ... J. Robert Oppenheimer[1] (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist, best known for his role as the director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons, at the secret Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. ... Eric Arthur Walker born April 29, 1910 in Long Eaton, England, died February 17, 1995 was president of Penn State University from 1956 to 1970 and founding member of the National Academy of Engineering[1]. Dr. Walker earned a Bachelors Degree from Harvard University in Electrical Engineering, a Masters Degree... The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (commonly known as Penn State) is a state-related land-grant university in Pennsylvania, with over 80,000 students at 24 campuses throughout the state. ... Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a U.S. Air Force base in Greene and Montgomery counties, adjacent to Fairborn and Dayton, Ohio. ... For other persons named John Neumann, see John Neumann (disambiguation). ... Lloyd V. Berkner (born February 1, 1905, in Milwaukee, died June 4, 1967, in Washington, D.C.) was the U.S. physicist and engineer who first measured the height and density of the ionosphere. ... Karl Taylor Compton (1887-1954) was the president of MIT from 1930 until 1948. ... Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a U.S. Air Force base in Greene and Montgomery counties, adjacent to Fairborn and Dayton, Ohio. ... Louis Whitley Strieber (born June 13, 1945) is an American writer best known for his horror novels The Wolfen and The Hunger and for Communion, a non-fiction description of his experiences with non-human entities. ... Edward J. Ruppelt (1922 - 1960) was a United States Air Force officer probably best-known for his involvement in Project Blue Book, a formal governmental study of unidentified flying objects. ... Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) conducted by the United States Air Force. ... Project Sign was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects undertaken by the United States Air Force in late 1947 and dissolved in late 1948. ... General Hoyt Sanford Vandenberg was the second chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C. The general was born at Milwaukee, Wis. ... The Estimate of the Situation[1] was a document written in 1948 by the personnel of United States Air Forces Project Sign -including the project’s director, Captain Robert R. Sneider - which explained their reasons for concluding that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was the best explanation for unidentified flying objects. ... The lights can be seen in this image published by the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. ...

Arguments against

To recapitulate, the original MJ-12 documents are the 1947 Truman memo establishing MJ-12, the 1952 Eisenhower briefing document, and the 1954 Cutler/Twining memo from the National Archives.

Below are a number of arguments against the authenticity of various MJ-12 documents:

• The FBI investigated the matter, and quickly formed doubts as to the documents' authenticity. FBI personnel contacted the U.S. Air Force, asking if MJ-12 had ever existed. The Air Force reported that no such committee had ever been authorized, and had never been formed. The FBI presently declares that "The investigation was closed after it was learned that the document was completely bogus."^[37]
• Critics note^[38] that the documents are of suspicious provenance. Shandera and Good both claimed to have received documents from anonymous senders, and most subsequent MJ-12 documents have surfaced under equally questionable circumstances.
• Though Good initially thought the documents were genuine, he has since, according to Philip Klass, expressed "suspicions about the new ... documents" due to "some factual anomalies in their content."^[39]
• UFO researcher Jerome Clark discusses the MJ-12 documents in the "Hoaxes" section of his The UFO Book, and strongly favors a hoax interpretation. He notes that as of 1998, a mere "handful" of ufologists support the documents' authenticity.
• Another bit of evidence--which perhaps argues against Menzel's membership, at least--is that in 1949, he reported a UFO encounter to the U.S. Air Force. It is argued Menzel would have no reason to send a "confidential" UFO report to the Air Force two years later when he witnessed two aerial lights he described as "exceptional." Furthermore, Menzel's 1949 report makes no mention of any such group as MJ-12. See the main Donald Menzel page for more information and a counterargument.
• Scientific forensic linguistic testing was applied to select Majestic Documents in 2007 by Dr. Carol Chaski and found scientific forensic evidence to disprove attributed authorship. Dr. Chaski is the founder of The Institute for Linguistic Evidence (ILE), a research organization that validates reliable document authentication techniques and provides assistance to investigators and attorneys in criminal and civil trials whenever the authorship of any document is questioned or suspicious.."^[40]

• Nevertheless, the format by the Majestic-12 Documents, with Justification (typesetting) and different fonts and type-sizes, generates right doubts:

The first typewriter with IBM typeballs (selector compensator) and with it to replaceable fonts was IBM 72, built from 1962, and only the successors of this machine also had the memory necessary for Justification (typesetting) Provenance is the origin or source from which anything comes. ... This article is about Philip Julian Klass, the UFO researcher. ... Jerome Clark (1946 - ) is an American researcher and writer, specializing in unidentified flying objects and other anomalous phenomena; he is also a songwriter of some note. ... A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. ... 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Donald Howard Menzel (April 11, 1901 – December 14, 1976) was an American astronomer. ... In typesetting, justification is the setting of text or images within a column or measure to align along both the left and right margin. ...

That is the fact that in 1954 no typewriter could have been able to produce these documents, and although these only one handfuls of people should be accessible, immediately a printer's factory for her production was troubled!

Briefing document and Truman letter

Much evidence has been found, leading skeptics to argue that the briefing document and Truman letter are fake.

• The typewriter used
  • The typewriter used for the Truman letter was a Smith Corona model which did not exist until 1962 - fifteen years after the document was allegedly written.
  • The typewriter ribbon was worn and the keys were dirty. Truman documents from the period that are known to be authentic used fresh ribbons and clean keys.

• The Truman signature
  • The signature of Harry Truman on the alleged letter to Forrestal is identical to the one known to be authentic on a letter to Vannevar Bush on October 1, 1947. The one on the briefing document is 3 to 4 percent larger and bolder, but this is explained by the fact that photocopiers do not reproduce things at exactly the same size. They match when the size is corrected and one is laid over the other.
  • Both signatures show a unique slip of the pen when starting the "H".
  • The "T" in the October 1, 1947 signature intersected the final "s" in "Sincerely yours". The same point on the Forrestal letter is slightly thinner, as if the intersection with the "s" had been modified with liquid paper or the like before photocopying.
  • Since two different signatures from one person will always differ, this shows that the authentic Truman signature from the letter to Bush was copied onto the bogus letter to Forrestal, which was then photocopied.

• Date format and name format in the briefing document
  • The dates have a superfluous comma after the month, e.g. "18 November, 1952". A comma is not used after the month in this date format. Every date in the briefing document has this error.
  • No known authentic letters or memos from Hillenkoetter has the error of the superfluous comma and none used the prepended zero.
  • All known authentic Hillenkoetter letters and memos use "R. H. Hillenkoetter" as the author's name, whereas the briefing document uses "Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter".

• Other issues
  • The "TOP SECRET/MAJIC EYES ONLY" stamped on the document used a rubber stamp with movable letters, unlike actual classification stamps. The "I" was raised slightly.
  • Authentic Top Secret documents have a page count and page numbering: "Page __ of __ pages". The briefing document does not have this.
  • The warnings against copying do not match the wording of actual documents from the period of 1952.
  • The document uses "media" instead of "press", "extra-terrestrial" instead of "alien", and uses "impacted" as a verb--these words were not in common use until the 1960s.
  • James Mosley, who personally knew alleged MJ-12 member Menzel found evidence that Menzel and alleged co-member Hillenkoetter did not know each other.

• Record searches. Other than the questioned Cutler memo, no other document mentioning MJ-12 has been found (not even the original briefing document).
  • The National Archives found no record of an NSC meeting on July 16, 1954. A search of all NSC meetings for July 1954 did not find any mention of MJ-12 or Majestic.
  • A branch of the National Archives searched NSC records for any listing of MJ-12 or Majestic and found none.

Smith Corona is a US company who manufactures typewriters. ... For the victim of Mt. ... is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Liquid Paper, a brand name of whiteout, white-out, or opaque correction fluid, is used to cover up mistakes on paper without retyping the entire sheet. ... Green people redirects here. ... is the 197th day of the year (198th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar). ...

The Cutler Memo

• The NARA has issued a detailed list of problems which calls the Cutler memo's authenticity into question.

1. The document was located in Record Group 341, entry 267. The series is filed by a Top Secret register number. This document does not bear such a number.^[17]
2. The document is filed in the folder T4-1846. There are no other documents in the folder regarding "NSC/MJ-12."
3. Researchers on the staff of the National Archives have searched in the records of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, and in other related files. No further information has been found on this subject.
4. Inquiries to the U.S. Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council failed to produce further information.
5. The Freedom of Information Office of the National Security Council informed the National Archives that "Top Secret Restricted Information" is a marking which did not come into use at the National Security Council until the Nixon Administration. The Eisenhower Presidential Library also confirms that this particular marking was not used during the Eisenhower Administration.
6. The document in question does not bear an official government letterhead or watermark. The NARA conservation specialist examined the paper and determined it was a ribbon copy (i.e. not a carbon copy) prepared on "dictation onionskin." The Eisenhower Library has examined a representative sample of the documents in its collection of the Cutler papers. All documents in the sample created by Mr. Cutler while he served on the NSC staff have an eagle watermark in the bond paper. The onionskin carbon copies have either an eagle watermark or no watermark at all. Most documents sent out by the NSC were prepared on White House letterhead paper. For the brief period when Cutler left the NSC, his carbon copies were prepared on "prestige onionskin."
7. The National Archives searched the Official Meeting Minute Files of the National Security Council and found no record of an NSC meeting on July 16, 1954. A search of all NSC Meeting Minutes for July 1954 found no mention of MJ-12 nor Majestic.
8. The Judicial, Fiscal and Social Branch searched the indices of the NSC records and found no listing for: MJ-12, Majestic, unidentified flying objects, UFO, flying saucers, or flying discs.
9. NAJA found a memo in a folder titled "Special Meeting July 16, 1956" which indicated that NSC members would be called to a civil defense exercise on July 16, 1956.
10. The Eisenhower Library states, in a letter to the Military Reference Branch, dated July 16, 1987:

"president Eisenhower's Appointment Books contain no entry for a special meeting on July 16, 1954 which might have included a briefing on MJ-12. Even when the President had 'off the record' meetings, the Appointment Books contain entries indicating the time of the meeting and the participants ...

"The Declassification office of the National Security Council has informed us that it has no record of any declassification action having been taken on this memorandum or any other documents on this alleged project ..."

Robert Cutler, at the direction of President Eisenhower, was visiting overseas military installations on the day he supposedly issued this memorandum − July 14, 1954. The Administration Series in Eisenhower's Papers as President contains Cutler's memorandum and report to the President upon his return from the trip. The memorandum is dated July 20, 1954 and refers to Cutler's visits to installations in Europe and North Africa between July 3 and 15. Also, within the NSC Staff Papers is a memorandum dated July 3, 1954, from Cutler to his two subordinates, James S. Lay and J. Patrick Cone, explaining how they should handle NSC administrative matters during his absence; one would assume that if the memorandum to Twining were genuine, Lay or Cone would have signed it."

In addition, although the Cutler memo was supposedly a carbon copy, it was folded as if it had been in a shirt pocket, which would be unusual for a carbon copy put in a file. The memo is in the National Archives; the question is how it got there, and if it is authentic. Nara can refer to: The city of Nara, Nara Prefecture, Japan The Nara Period of the History of Japan Nara prefecture, part of the Kansai region of central Honshu, Japan Nara is a major Manchu clan. ... More than one country maintains a national archive: The Canadian Library and Archives Canada The New Zealand Archives New Zealand (formerly National Archives) The United States National Archives and Records Administration The United Kingdom National Archives This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might... The United States Secretary of Defense is the head of the United States Department of Defense, concerned with the armed services and The Secretary is a member of the Presidents Cabinet. ... Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States of America symbol The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is a group comprising the Chiefs of service of each major branch of the armed services in the United States armed forces. ... Seal of the Air Force. ... The White House National Security Council (NSC) in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the President. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Nixon redirects here. ... A letterhead is the heading at the top of a sheet of letter paper, usually consisting of a name and an address, and for corporate use, their Corporate design. ... This article is about physical paper watermarks. ... Typewritten page of canary onionskin, 1912. ... Carbon copying, often abbreviated to c. ... is the 197th day of the year (198th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar). ... UFO redirects here. ... is the 197th day of the year (198th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... A car from 1956 Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The old United States civil defense logo. ... is the 197th day of the year (198th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... A car from 1956 Year 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Eisenhower library The Eisenhower Presidential Center includes the Eisenhower presidential library, President Dwight David Eisenhowers boyhood home, Museum, and gravesite. ... is the 197th day of the year (198th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year 1987. ... is the 197th day of the year (198th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar). ... Robert Cutler (1895 – 1974) was a U.S. administrator. ... is the 195th day of the year (196th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 201st day of the year (202nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 184th day of the year (185th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 184th day of the year (185th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1954 (MCMLIV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1954 Gregorian calendar). ... Carbon copying, often abbreviated to c. ...

A document entitled "SOM1-01: Extraterrestrial Entities and Technology, Recovery and Disposal" (ref. http://209.132.68.98/pdf/som101_part1.pdf) and found on www.majesticdocuments.com contains paragraphs with subheads set in the sans serif "Helvetica" typeface. The document purports to be from 1954 yet the typeface in question was first designed in 1957 by the Swiss graphic designer, Max Miedinger. The capitalized sans serif letter "R" (and others) found on many pages confirms that this typeface is not the much earlier Akzidenz Grotesk sans serif typeface. This evidence seems to strongly suggest that this document is a fabrication.

MJ-12 in later conspiracy theory

This section does not cite any references or sources. (August 2007) Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Soon after their disclosure, MJ-12 was absorbed into many other alleged conspiracies; Milton William Cooper's works (especially Behold A Pale Horse) are key in this introducing MJ-12 to a wider, conspiratorially-minded audience, and have generated significant criticism as unfounded. Some of these later versions insist that the "M" in "MJ-12" stands not for "Majestic" but for "Majority". Milton William Cooper (May 6, 1943 - November 5, 2001) was an American writer, shortwave broadcaster, and militia supporter. ... Behold a Pale Horse is a book by William Milton Cooper. ...

In the Unofficial X-Files Companion: Volume 2 author N.E. Genge remarks that according to less extravagant conspiracy theory lore, Majestic 12 was created with a more humble goal: to cover up alien activities on Earth, and liaise with the aliens to obtain technology in exchange for knowledge and testing on human biology. Green people redirects here. ... By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a mastery of technology sufficient to leave the surface of the Earth for the first time and explore space. ... For the song by Girls Aloud see Biology (song) Biology studies the variety of life (clockwise from top-left) E. coli, tree fern, gazelle, Goliath beetle Biology (from Greek: Βιολογία - βίος, bio, life; and λόγος, logos, speech lit. ...

Present-day MJ-12

Many theories suggest that MJ-12's efforts continue to the present. For example, UFO researcher Bill Hamilton says he has identified the present-day members of MJ-12. Gordon Novel, a shadowy figure associated with various CIA conspiracies, Watergate, and the Jim Garrison investigation of the Kennedy assassination, in a recent interview, further adds that most are Americans with a few foreigners. Allegedly they were involved with Kennedy's murder because Kennedy wanted to end the cover-up. They are major world power brokers and manipulate events behind the scenes in a bid for total world power. Supposedly a key motivation behind the cover-up is reverse-engineering captured alien technology in order to obtain such domination. Moreover, many criminal acts have been committed towards this end, including numerous murders to maintain security and control of international drug trafficking to pay for the huge research and security costs. Novel background and interview Watergate redirects here. ... Earling Carothers Jim Garrison (November 20, 1921 - October 21, 1992) — who changed his first name to Jim in the early 1960s — was the Democratic District Attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana from 1962 to 1973. ... John F. Kennedy The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 PM Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC). ...

Another person to say that MJ-12 still existed was Dr. Eric Walker (see Arguments for above). When originally contacted, Walker said he had known of their existence since their creation in 1947. Similar to Novel, Walker in a later 1990 interview said the current membership was mostly American but had added some foreigners. They were a highly elite group of individuals and Walker repeatedly discouraged interviewers from trying to learn more, saying there was nothing the average person could do.

References in popular culture

• WPRT Paranormal Radio with Captain Jack
• Majestic 12 is an animated group of weak superheroes from Zatch Bell!.
• In television, this conspiracy has largely inspired several TV series:
  • The X-Files, in which they are often referred to as "The Syndicate" and Mulder receives a top secret file regarding MJ-12. They are first spoken of in the episode "Anasazi."
  • Dark Skies (1996-1997), in which the name MJ-12 is specifically used and has later notables as members, such as Robert Kennedy, astronomer Carl Sagan, CIA director Allen Dulles, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. The Kennedy assassination was supposedly engineered by MJ-12 because President Kennedy wanted to make the alien presence public. Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen was also supposedly murdered by MJ-12 for knowing too much.
  • In Stargate SG-1 there is a fictional government organization known as "The Trust", whose goals are similar to that of Majestic 12; Procuring new alien technology and covering up all alien activity.
• An episode of Serial Experiments Lain featured a brief overview of the Majestic-12 conspiracy.
• The Majestic-12 conspiracy (or ones like it) makes a prominent appearance in several computer, video and roleplaying games:
  • Deus Ex and its sequel Deus Ex: Invisible War feature their own Majestic 12, as a rebel faction of the Illuminati.
  • The Delta Green supplement to the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, features Majestic-12 as a major antagonist organization for the player characters to investigate and fight against.
  • The alternate-reality game Majestic is inspired by the conspiracy.
  • Perfect Dark features a similar conspiracy.
  • Majestic Twelve is the name of the fourth Space Invaders game in Japan. It is called Super Space Invaders '91 internationally.
  • In Destroy All Humans!, The human enemies which pose the most threat to Crypto are known as "Majestic", and its leader mentions "Majestic 12" among her final words. In the second, an English branch of the society is called M16 (a parody of MI6).
• Political satirist Christopher Buckley parodied Majestic-12 in his novel Little Green Men.
• The committee is featured in Robert Doherty's Area 51 novel series, in which all but two of the top members are "reprogrammed" by an alien computer found in South America. The main characters of the series (who are not members) are sometimes referred to as "the new Majic-12" or "Majestic-13."
• Alien abduction claimant Whitley Strieber wrote a novel called Majestic in 1989, which dealt with the formation of MJ-12 following the alleged UFO crash near Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947. His 2006 novel The Grays, while not making specific reference to the term MJ-12, relates the story of a similar governmental organization called simply "the Trust."
• Majestic-12 also appears in Scarecrow, a recent action novel by Matthew Reilly, albeit in a slightly different form. The group in Matthew Reilly's novel is a group of the world's richest business men, who operate in the shadows, bringing different leaders into and out of power when it suits them. Also they were responsible for attempting to bring about a change in the world superpowers, a change Scarecrow prevented.
• MJ-12 is one of a line of computers sold by PC maker Alienware.
• MJ13 are a British rock band who take their name from the Majestic 12 and the 13 months of the Mayan Calendar.
• American punk-rock band U.S. Bombs on their CD Covert Action perform a song called Majestic Twelve about the thirteen families who rule the world.
• Foo Fighters singer/guitarist Dave Grohl's publishing company is named "M.J.-Twelve Music".
• The last line of the blink-182 song 'Aliens Exist' goes "I'm not like you guys, twelve majestic lies". Writer of the song, Tom DeLonge (Vox, Guitar) is a strong believer in all things paranormal.
• The Dutch Reggae group Beef have a song named 'Top Secret' concerning Majestic 12 on their album Beef.
• Majestic 12 is the name of a model of inline-skates that were produced by the company Roces (as of 2005 they are named M-twelve).
• MJ-12 was a shadow group of multinational corporation officials, who wanted to secure Noah's Ark in order to usher in the apocalypse, according to manga comic series Spriggan.
• Record 'Channel Zero' by artist 'Canibus', contains a couple of references to Majestic 12; "Approximately fifty years ago, under the direction of president Harry Truman, and in the interest of national security, a group of twelve top military scientific personnel were established...", "...MJ twelve is not majestic...".
• A company called Majestic 12 developed the computer game Cricket Captain for D&H Games.
• Majic 12 was also a Hungarian demogroup.
• The Metal Gear series of video games occasionally makes references to a clandestine group known by several names, which is generally referred to as the Patriots. In an account of the groups history, it is said to have 12 members, which may be a reference to Majestic-12.
• A rock band from Wilmington, NC are called The Majestic Twelve.
• A game company called Majestic Twelve Games makes pen and paper tactical war games, including the popular starship combat board game Starmada.
• The Starsea Invaders trilogy by Harry Stine features extensive alien encounters on earth, and active MJ12 cast
• Band "Clutch" references MJ 12 as damning us to hell in the song "Animal Farm" from their self-titled album.

Zatch Bell!, known in Japan as Konjiki no Gash!! (manga) and Konjiki no Gash Bell!! (anime) (金色のガッシュベル!! Konjiki no Gasshu Beru!! literally translates to Golden Gash Bell!!), is a shōnen manga series by Makoto Raiku published in Shogakukans Shonen Sunday, which has been adapted as an anime TV series... A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ... This article is about the TV show. ... The Syndicate was a mysterious group featured in The X-Files TV show. ... Special Agent Fox William Mulder (born October 13, 1961), nicknamed Spooky Mulder, is a fictional character played by David Duchovny on the 1993-2002 television series, The X-Files. ... Dark Skies is an United States sci-fi/drama television series which aired 1996-1997 for 20 episodes. ... Robert Kennedy Robert Francis Bobby Kennedy, also called RFK (November 20, 1925–June 6, 1968) was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, and was appointed by his brother as Attorney General for his administration. ... Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer and astrochemist and a highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics, and other natural sciences. ... Allen Welsh Dulles (April 23, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was an influential director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953 to 1961 and a member of the Warren Commission. ... For other uses, see Hubert Humphrey (disambiguation). ... John F. Kennedy The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 PM Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC). ... Dorothy Mae Kilgallen (July 3, 1913 – November 8, 1965) was an Irish-American journalist and television game show panelist, perhaps best known nationally for her coverage of the Sam Sheppard trial, her syndicated newspaper column, The Voice of Broadway, and her role as panelist on the television game show What... Stargate SG-1 (often abbreviated as SG-1) is a science fiction television series, part of the Stargate franchise. ... Original run July 6, 1998 – September 28, 1998 No. ... Computer and video games redirects here. ... This article is about the video game. ... Deux Ex: Invisible War is a computer game. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Deus Ex. ... Illuminata redirects here. ... Delta Green is a setting for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game created by Adam Scott Glancy, Dennis Detwiller, and John Tynes of the Seattle gaming house Pagan Publishing. ... Call of Cthulhu is a horror fiction role-playing game based on the story of the same name written by H.P. Lovecraft and the so-called Cthulhu Mythos the story inspired. ... This article or section should include material from Playable character A player character or playable character (PC for short) is a fictional character in a game, usually a role-playing game (RPG), that is controlled by one of the players. ... Majestic was one of the first alternate reality games (ARGs), a type of game that blurs the line between in-game and out-of-game experiences. ... This article is about the video game. ... Space Invaders ) is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado in 1978. ... Destroy All Humans! is a video game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by THQ. It was released for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 computer entertainment systems on June 21, 2005. ... The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), more commonly known as MI6 (originally Military Intelligence Section 6), or the Secret Service, is the United Kingdom external security agency. ... Christopher Buckley Christopher Taylor Buckley (born 1952) is an American political satirist and author of several novels. ... For other uses, see Little Green Men (disambiguation). ... Area 51 were written by Robert Doherty, the pen name of author Bob Mayer. ... Louis Whitley Strieber (born June 13, 1945) is an American writer best known for his horror novels The Wolfen and The Hunger and for Communion, a non-fiction description of his experiences with non-human entities. ... Scarecrow is the fifth Matthew Reilly novel, and the third to feature the main character Captain Shane Schofield, USMC. It was released in 2003. ... Matthew John Reilly, (born 2 July 1974 in Sydney), is an Australian action/thriller writer. ... Alienware is an American computer hardware company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dell Computer Corporation. ... The Maya calendar is a system of complex and highly developed calendars created by the Maya Civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. ... U.S. Bombs are an American punk rock band, consisting of vocalist Duane Peters, guitarists Chuck Briggs (who recently died of AIDS-related complications) and Kerry Martinez, bassist Wade Walston, and drummer Chip Hanna. ... This article is about the band. ... David Eric Grohl (b. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... This article is about the vessel described in the Hebrew scriptures. ... Serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday Komik Remaja (Defunct) Original run 1989 – 1996 No. ... Demogroups are teams of demosceners, who make computer-based audio-visual works of art known as demos. ... For the original video game titled Metal Gear, see Metal Gear. ... G. Harry Stine (March 26, 1928 - November 2, 1997) is widely regarded as the father of model rocketry. ...

References

Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 226th day of the year (227th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 226th day of the year (227th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 226th day of the year (227th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 226th day of the year (227th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 226th day of the year (227th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 226th day of the year (227th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 121st day of the year (122nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Bibliography

• Greg Bishop, Project Beta, 2005, Paraview/ Pocket Books (Simon & Schuster), ISBN 0-7434-7092-3
• Howard Blum, Out There, 1990, Pocket Books (Simon & Schuster), ISBN 0-671-66261-9
• Arthur Bray, The UFO Connection, 1979, Jupiter Publishing (Canada), ISBN 0-9690135-1-5
• C.D.B. Bryan, Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien Abduction, UFOs and the Conference at M.I.T., 1995, Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 0-679-42975-1
• Grant Cameron and T. Scott Crain, UFOs MJ-12 and the Government, 1992, Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), ISBN 99914-2-090-8
• Jerome Clark, The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial; Visible Ink, 1998; ISBN 1-57859-029-9
• Jerome Clark, Unexplained! - 347 strange sightings, incredible occurrences, and puzzling physical phenomena, 1993, Visible Ink Press, ISBN 0-8103-9436-7, pp 400, 402-403.
• Richard M. Dolan, UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Coverup, 1941-1973, 2002, Hampton Roads Publishing Company, ISBN 1-57174-317-0
• Kendrick Frazier, Barry Karr, and Joe Nickell (editors), The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incodent, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups, 1997, Prometheus Books, ISBN 1-57392-131-9, chap 7-9.
• Stanton T. Friedman, TOP SECRET/MAJIC, 1997, Marlowe & Co., ISBN 1-56924-741-2
• Timothy Good, Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-up, 1988, Quill (William Marlow), ISBN 0-688-09202-0
• Timothy Good, Beyond Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Security Threat, 1997, Pan Books (MacMillan Publishers), ISBN 0-330-34928-7
• Steven M. Greer, Disclosure : Military and Government Witnesses Reveal the Greatest Secrets in Modern History, 2001, ISBN 0-9673238-1-9
• Michael Hesemann and Philip Mantle, Beyond Roswell: The Alien Autopsy Film, Area 51, & the U.S. Government Coverup of UFOs, 1997, Marlowe & Company, ISBN 1-56924-781-1
• Philip J. Klass, The MJ-12 Crashed Saucer Documents, Skeptical Inquirer, vol XII, #2, Winter 1987-88, 137-146. Reprinted (sans figures) as chapter 7 of The UFO Invasion, above.
• Philip J. Klass, The MJ-12 Papers - part 2, Skeptical Inquirer, vol XII, #3, Spring 1988, 279-289.
• Philip J. Klass, MJ-12 Papers "Authenticated"?, Skeptical Inquirer, vol 13, #3, Spring 1989, 305-309. Reprinted as chapter 8 of The UFO Invasion, above.
• Philip J. Klass, New Evidence of MJ-12 Hoax, Skeptical Inquirer, vol 14, #2, Winter 1990, 135-140. Reprinted as chapter 9 of The UFO Invasion, above. Also reprinted in The Outer Edge: Classic Investigations of the Paranormal, edited by Joe Nickell, Barry Karr, and Tom Genoni, CSICOP, 1996.
• William L. Moore and Jaime H. Shandera, The MJ-12 documents: An analytical report, 1991, Fair Witness Project
• Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer, The Crashed Saucer Forgeries, International UFO Reporter, March 1990, 4-12.
• Curtis Peebles, Watch the Skies: a Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth, 1994, Smithsonian Press, ISBN 1-56098-343-4, pp 264-268.
• Kevin D. Randle, Case MJ-12: The True Story Behind the Government's UFO Conspiracies, 2002, HarperTorch, ISBN 1-56924-741-2
• Kevin D. Randle, Conclusion on Operation Majestic Twelve, 1994, UFORI
• Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1995, Random House, ISBN 0-394-53512-X, page 90.
• John Spencer, The UFO Encyclopedia, 1991, Avon Books, ISBN 0-380-76887-9, pp 199-200
• Susan Wright, UFO Headquarters: Investigations on Current Extraterrestrial Activity, 1998, St. Martin's

The Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON for short, is headquartered in Morisson, Colorado. ... Jerome Clark (1946 - ) is an American researcher and writer, specializing in unidentified flying objects and other anomalous phenomena; he is also a songwriter of some note. ... Kendrick Frazier was born in Windsor, Colorado is a science writer and editor. ... Joe Nickell was born December 1, 1944 and is a prominent investigator of the paranormal. ... Prometheus Books is a publishing company founded in August 1969 by Paul Kurtz and publishes scientific, educational, and popular books, especially those of a secular humanist or scientific skepticism nature. ... Stanton T. Friedman (born July 29, 1934, Elizabeth, New Jersey) is a physicist and ufologist, currently residing in New Brunswick, Canada. ... Timothy Good is a leading British researcher and writer on UFOs, and a former professional violinist. ... Philip Julian Klass (November 8, 1919–August 9, 2005) was born in Des Moines, Iowa and died in Merritt Island, Florida. ... The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, or CSICOP, is a U.S. organization founded to encourage the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and disseminate factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific... Joe Nickell was born December 1, 1944 and is a prominent investigator of the paranormal. ... Curtis Peebles is an aerospace historian for the Smithsonian Institution and the author of several books. ... Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer and astrochemist and a highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics, and other natural sciences. ... The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is a 1997 book by Carl Sagan. ... // Random House is a publishing house based in New York City. ... John Spencer can refer to different people: John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer (1734-1783) John Spencer, 3rd Earl Spencer (1782-1845), British politician John Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer (1835-1910), British politician John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer (1924-1992), father of Diana, Princess of Wales John Spencer (British politician) (1708... Avon is a paperback imprint of HarperCollins. ...

External links

• Majestic-12 Documents full original scan at PDF
• The Majestic Documents
• Russian version of "The Majestic Documents"
• FBI site on Majestic 12
• Wilbert Smith papers on Dr. Vannevar Bush heading super-secret saucer study
• More on Wilbert Smith, Vannevar Bush, and UFOs from Grant Cameron's Presidential UFO Web site
• Cutler memo is fake
• National archives memo on Cutler memo
• UFO Historical Review
• Dr. Dan Burisch's Website
• Dr. Dan Burisch's Interview on MJ-12 Jeff Rense Program July 13, 2006
• Italian Article in DNA Magazine about MJ-12's current Lineup
• The Secret Pratt Tapes and the Origins of MJ-12

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