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Majestic 12, also known as Majic-12, and MJ-12 for short, is a purported organization that appeared in fake documents first circulated by ufologists in 1984, and that some UFO conspiracy theories still claim to have existed. The organization is claimed to be the code name of an alleged secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, formed in 1947 by an executive order by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to facilitate recovery and investigation of alien spacecraft. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) declared the documents to be "completely bogus", and many ufologists consider them to be an elaborate hoax.[1][2] Majestic 12 remains popular among some UFO conspiracy theorists and the concept has appeared in popular culture including television, film, video games, and literature.
On May 31, 1987, it was widely reported that British ufologist Timothy Good claimed to be in possession of 1950s-era UFO documents. The documents purported to reveal a secret committee of 12, supposedly formed in 1947 by an executive order by U.S. President Harry S. Truman, and explain how the crash of an alien spacecraft at Roswell in July 1947 had been concealed, how the recovered alien technology could be exploited, and how the U.S. should engage with extraterrestrial life in the future.[3][4][5]
According to ufologist William L. Moore, his friend, Los Angeles television writer-producer Jamie Shandera, received documents that appeared to be briefing papers describing "Operation Majestic-12" in mid-December 1984. The documents were found on an undeveloped roll of 35 mm film in a brown paper package that had been dropped through Shandera's mail slot.[6] The package bore no additional information other than a New Mexico postmark.[7]
When developed, the roll of film revealed the Truman-Forestall memo, a "Top Secret" memorandum from President Truman to Defense Secretary Forrestal, dated September 24, 1947, authorizing him and Dr. [Vannevar] Bush to proceed with Operation Majestic-12 and the Eisenhower Briefing Document, a seven page "Top Secret/Eyes Only" Majestic-12 document used to brief President-Elect Eisenhower, dated November 18, 1952.[6][7]
The concept of "Majestic 12" emerged during a period in the 1980s when ufologists believed there had been a cover-up of the Roswell UFO incident and speculated some secretive upper tier of the U.S. government was responsible.[3] Shandera and his ufologist colleagues Stanton T. Friedman and Bill Moore say they later received a series of anonymous messages that led them to find what has been called the "Cutler/Twining memo"[a] in 1985 while searching declassified files in the National Archives. Purporting to be written by President Eisenhower's assistant Robert Cutler to General Nathan F. Twining and containing a reference to Majestic 12, the memo is widely held to be a forgery, likely planted as part of a hoax.[8] Historian Robert Goldberg wrote that the ufologists came to believe the story despite the documents being "obviously planted to bolster the legitimacy of the briefing papers".[3]
Claiming to be connected to the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations, a man named Richard Doty told filmmaker Linda Moulton Howe that the MJ-12 story was true, and showed Howe unspecified documents purporting to prove the existence of small, gray humanoid aliens originating from the Zeta Reticuli star system. Doty reportedly promised to supply Howe with film footage of UFOs and an interview with an alien being, although no footage ever materialized.[3]
Soon, distrust and suspicion led to disagreements within the ufology community over the authenticity of the MJ-12 documents, and Moore was accused of taking part in an elaborate hoax, while other ufologists and debunkers such as Philip J. Klass were accused of being "disinformation agents".[4]
On October 14, 1988, the syndicated television broadcast UFO Coverup? Live introduced Americans to the Majestic 12 hoax.[9][10] It featured the first public mention of Nevada's Area 51 as a site associated with aliens.[11]
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Klass's investigation of the MJ-12 documents found that Robert Cutler was actually out of the country on the date he supposedly wrote the "Cutler/Twining memo", and that the Truman signature was "a pasted-on photocopy of a genuine signature—including accidental scratch marks—from a memo that Truman wrote to Vannevar Bush on October 1, 1947". Klass dismissed theories that the documents were part of a disinformation campaign as "ridiculous", saying they contained numerous flaws that could never fool Soviet or Chinese intelligence. Other discrepancies noted by Klass included the use of a distinctive date format that matched one used in Moore's personal letters, and a conversation reported by Brad Sparks in which Moore confided that he was contemplating creating and releasing some hoax Top Secret documents in hopes that such bogus documents would encourage former military and intelligence officials who knew about the government's (alleged) UFO coverup to break their oaths of secrecy.[12]
As early as the summer of 1987, spokesmen from the White House and National Security Council denied the existence of any organization called Majestic 12, MJ-12 or Majic-12.[13]
On September 15, 1988, a special agent at the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) contacted the Dallas branch of the FBI after receiving the Majestic 12 document from an individual at an unnamed school who claimed to have received it in the mail. The FBI then began its own investigation of the supposed "secret" document and quickly formed doubts as to its authenticity. After receiving information from the OSI on November 30 of that year that no such committee had ever been authorized or formed, the FBI declared that the document was "completely bogus". The Director of the FBI subsequently instructed the Dallas office to close their investigation.[2]
MuckRock contributor Emma Best has suggested that the papers were "government sponsored, or at least tolerated, disinformation" because the declassified FBI file on Majestic 12 does not mention any further investigation to find or prosecute the forger responsible for it.[2][14]
In addition to the Roswell incident, the memo also mentioned a second UFO crash on December 6, 1950 in the vicinity of the towns of El Indio and Guerrero along the Mexico–US border. In an effort to determine the veracity of this claim (and in turn, the memo), UFO investigator Dennis Stacy and others made several trips to area in the early 1990s to seek evidence of whether such a crash had occurred. While he was able to find one local resident in Guerrero, Mexico who claimed to have witnessed the crash of a fireball followed several days later by the arrival of a military contingent in the area, Stacy was unable to find any additional witnesses or conclusive evidence of a crash site.[15]
Later in 1996, a document called the MJ-12 "Special Operations Manual" circulated among ufologists. It is also widely considered to be a fake and "a continuation of the MJ-12 myth".[16]
Ufologists Linda Moulton Howe and Stanton T. Friedman believed the MJ-12 documents to be authentic. Friedman examined the documents and argued that the United States government has conspired to cover up knowledge of a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft.[3]
The name "Majestic 12" had been prefigured in the UFO community when Bill Moore asked National Enquirer reporter Bob Pratt in 1982 to collaborate on a novel called MAJIK-12. Because of this, Pratt had always been inclined to think the Majestic 12 documents are a hoax.
Scientific skeptic author Brian Dunning investigated the history of the subject, and reported his findings in the 2016 Skeptoid podcast episode "The Secret History of Majestic 12". He cited ufologist Bill Moore's suspicion that, rather than a hoax perpetrated by the UFO community, the papers were actually part of a disinformation campaign of the US government meant to deflect attention from secret Air Force projects.[17]
The following individuals were described in the Majestic 12 documents as "designated members" of Majestic 12.[8][18]
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