The MJ-12 Documents – Who? Why? How?

originally posted by: Tinel
It is interesting that whenever we seem to be moving in the direction of a possible Disclosure something huge happens that makes things very complicated for such an outcome to occur:"UFOs: Past, Present and Future"/Emenegger- enter Watergate.

You mean Bernstein and Woodward spoiled UFO disclosure for everybody? It's amusing to contemplate a group of incompetent bozos breaking into Watergate in 1972 with a view to disrupt a TV documentary two years later, but dependent on The Washington Post staff being 'in on it' so that Tricky Dicky would throw himself into the abyss in 1974... just in time. That's one hell of a conspiratorial jigsaw!

Fun, though.

a reply to: mirageman

It was clear but my point is that it is irrelevant to modern times.

a reply to: mirageman

Hi MM! AMAZING research as always. Do you know if disciplinary records like Doty's would be recoverable by FOIA?

Also are you associated with the "Mirage Men" movie?

Keep on pumping it out!

,
Psycho

a reply to: psychotronics

Well this is all irrelevant to modern times for some people of course. But Doty is still around and still telling his tales.

There are FOIA records available : Doty FOIA documents

But they are of little value in wading through the story. I'd suggest reading through Open letter to the U.S. Air Force regarding allegations of UFO disinformation as a starting point.

Great work MM, and an accurate, useful, and informative synopsis of the MJ 12 story.

Tainted goods indeed, MJ12, but you never know; I personally could accept the existence of an MJ12 type group deep within the government but the actual documents IMO were a part of the massive misinformation let out during the ’80s which includes all the affairs from Bennewitz to the Howe documentaries that were never made. The evidence points to this being under the aegis of the air force AFOSI and their lag dog and demon Doty.

It appears the air force deceivers were feeling their cheerios after they so successfully destroyed Paul Bennewitz and so decided to proceed on with much more misinformation peddling amongst the UFO mavens so eager to get the “secrets.”

The point is they know that they can bamboozle certain researchers, Howe and Moore for instance, who were scammed and those types so eager to believe they can be deceived by drawing them towards “secret” information and then used to spread the dis-misinformation they ( the IC) were consciously spreading in the 80s and ’90s.

Careful analysis of this period demonstrates they spread this misinformation on many levels from the supposed sublime (the Serpo hoax) to the ridiculous—the Bennewitz affair and the aliens in caves eating humans alive-syndrome at Dulce.

This misinformation has created a platform for an ongoing scenario of a mythological( though mostly false or distorted information) thematic story for believers in the ridiculous aspect of ufology.


I think the new misinformation spreaders such as TTSA have been given the new UFO meme to spread which is in the form of "disclosure" and allure for new-technology eager beavers but is really just upgraded misinformation for the new era.

I think Stanton Freidman was the main anchor who led the MJ12 docs are elegit movement, a sober and I believe honest researcher. But the documents are too tainted by the associations near to it, namely, Bill Moore and Jaime Shandera not to mention Doty lurking in the dark.

a reply to: Willtell

I disagree with you to an extent about Friedman, Will.

I think, like many after him, he started off with honest intentions and diligent research. But then he reached the brick wall sometime in the late 80s. Around the time he decided suing Jenny Randles over her comments in a newspaper. From then on he decided to take the path of most commercial benefit to himself and let truth become a casualty.

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: Willtell

From then on he decided to take the path of most commercial benefit to himself and let truth become a casualty.

One could almost call this frequent "Bugger it, let go for the Big Bucks instead" syndrome that affects so many researchers in the latter stages of their lives, as a virus in itself.

As they simply become another brick in the aforementioned wall that they can never breach.

We don't need no authentication,
We just need more cash control.

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: Willtell

I disagree with you to an extent about Friedman, Will.

I think, like many after him, he started off with honest intentions and diligent research. But then he reached the brick wall sometime in the late 80s. Around the time he decided suing Jenny Randles over her comments in a newspaper. From then on he decided to take the path of most commercial benefit to himself and let truth become a casualty.

Maybe your right but we have to always consider frail human nature, MM, and compared to most he was most of the time sober but never forget we're human and subject to folly now and then...few are perfect.


But far from supporting him, I was making the point he was the frontman, the honest guy in this misinformation operation and he was an anchor for legitimizing MJ12, that’s why those two agents Jaimie and Bill Moore were around him during the revelation of MJ 12. Or were instructed to be around him.

Most cons require a straight guy in the midst.

One thing about Freidman, the books I’ve read of his were kind of boring. I have his MJ 12 book and in it, I recall, he was convincing but personally I never put much stock in MJ 12.


In the early years of my ufo research, I gave it more credence than I do now.

You know to believe MJ 12 one has to believe Roswell. That’s why Freidman may have latched on to it.
I personally don’t buy Roswell; I think it was a balloon.

No Roswell then no MJ12 since that was the reason for it.
Then one may be obligated to buy into the conspiracies surrounding James Forestall.

But regarding this MJ12, why did the government want to advertise this misinformation, to me is the question that is interesting. If it is a hoax, then why?

On its face, it would seem that it’s a part of a pattern going back to the early ’80s and may have started with the Roswell resurrection which we know Moore and Freidman were integral actors in.

Great thread.

I always found the theory that MJ-12 was a cover up for some kind of real non-UFO Continuity of Government group intriguing. Maybe they were afraid something was about to come out about such a top secret disaster planning committee and this kind of cold and calculated (and semi-fascist) power grab wouldn't go over too well.

A few years back Grant Cameron claimed someone in the know shared this idea with him. Of course he moved on to other things and we never heard about it again.

Nice thread!

I think that the whole MJ-12 story has value today as a cultural phenomenon, more than anything else. The same with the entire Roswell lore. It was something that had such a great impact in the topic back in the day that it's interesting to look at it as a cultural artifact.

Myself, I was on the fence for a long time. Most of the evidence points to the documents as fakes or forgeries, but no one has been able to point at a specific or definitive source for them nor (in my opinion) prove beyond any doubt that they are, in fact, false. But the same goes in the other direction: none of the defenders have been able to prove beyond any doubt that they are authentic.
Back in the day I was also willing to lend the documents some credibility because of the fact that, even if they were forgeries, the best way for these "intelligence" activities to work is to slip some degree of truth in them.

But, at the end, the story relies too much on Roswell being an actual alien crash, which is something I don't believe anymore.

But as I said: as a foundational element of the entire 80s and 90s UFO/conspiracy lore, I think the story still deserves to be told, as long as you go a it with a skeptic perspective.

originally posted by: mirageman
a reply to: Case74282

the mythology that there is a coverup deep within the US government to conceal the existence of an alien presence on Earth.

Genius really to give it its due.

To stymie real research for 30 years, soften the public to the knowledge that something is out there but then also get them to think its all under Govt control.

You have to hand it to AFOSI, they had most of us fooled for at least a while and the majority still.

a reply to: Willtell

But regarding this MJ12, why did the government want to advertise this misinformation, to me is the question that is interesting. If it is a hoax, then why?

Why they choose any particular covert disclosure method can be an interesting meditation on its own.
Solvers of the old CIA Kryptos puzzle report that it was more like a religious experience for them.
So alien visitation isn't anything new, Pyramids and ancient sites like the well known Stonehenge were designed by alien intelligence studying extraterrestrial phenomena.
More recently projects like the Praetorian Gate renaissance are interesting to reverse engineer.
The book of Revelations in the Bible contained secret codes that Sir Isaac Newton disclosed covertly.
Maybe they are afraid disclosure would cause people to suffer distress and become insane like Van Gogh?

On the other hand some people seem to unnecessarily hide esoteric clues that could lead to a more truthful understanding. Disclosure might lead to a neighing and braying crowd that can no longer be controlled and what one person deems to be an unfairly esoteric clue, another might consider dangerously empowering their wolves.

a reply to: mirageman

When you were making the Mirage Men movie did you feel anything when you looked into Doty's eyes?

originally posted by: ConfusedBrit
Excellent work, MM - so much food for thought, I'll need to re-read it to take it all in!

A couple of points...

MJ-12 also missed the General Nathan F. Twining memo of September 23rd 1947 which clearly states the US lack of any physical evidence of ‘crashed craft’.

Rather then "missing" the 1947 memo, their response seemed to be: If you can't beat the 1947 memo, just hoax another one - thus the creation of the infamous Cutler-Twining memo dated 1954, allegedly discovered in the National Archives by Moore and Shandera in 1985, who say they found it by rummaging through the 126th box of USAF files. Needless to say, it is generally regarded as a scam.

The following year on May 24th 1989 Bob Lazar, a friend of John Lear, appeared on Las Vegas TV claiming to have worked at Area 51 back engineering alien craft from Zeta Reticuli.

Lazar being friends with the 'eccentric' Mr Lear in the first place is enough to set off every alarm clock of common sense, reinforced by Lazar faking an S-4 payslip as well as his S-4 identity badge with its convenient "MAJ" trimmings...

It is amazing how the fingers of MJ-12 have fiddled their way through many layers of ufology since the early 80s, as well as some of its biggest 'celebrities'.

Well, if true, how or why did Los Alamos have bob in their phone book? Or was all of Los Alamos in on the fake as well?

originally posted by: psychotronics
a reply to: mirageman

When you were making the Mirage Men movie did you feel anything when you looked into Doty's eyes?

I had nothing do with either the Mirage Men documentary or the Mirage Man comedy movie.

a reply to: Violater1

These debates about small details create endless circular arguments that prove nothing in themselves.

What can you take from Lazar's story that irrefutably proves he worked on an alien spaceship as he claimed.

The answer is nothing.

a reply to: Slichter


Maybe. I always go to the default fact in the Robertson Panel in 1952 or 1953 where they basically told the Intelligence community to bamboozle the public. In their conclusions at location 4a they said in their report:

a. That the national security agencies take immediate steps to strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of the special status they have been given and the aura of mystery they have unfortunately acquired.

The IC spooks are still running off this order or recommendation from the Robertson panel of spreading misinformation amongst the UFO lore and milieu.

link

The Robertson Panel recommended that a public education campaign should be undertaken in order to reduce public interest in the subject, minimising the risk of swamping Air Defence systems with reports at critical times, and that civilian UFO groups should be monitored.[2] The Robertson Panel's report was contained within a larger internal CIA report by F C Durant, a CIA officer who served as Secretary to the Panel, which summarises the activities of the panel and its conclusions. This wider document is commonly referred to as the Durant Report.[2]

So consequently, over the years the IC has indulged in myriad misinformation schemes to number 1: control the media awareness, and its reporting and editorial attitude towards ufos, and 2: make ufology look ridiculous and absurd, and number 3: monitor, infiltrate, influence and control the ufo groups.

Ufology is still way out of the mainstream and popular mainly on alternative history cable channels way out of mainstream awareness and interest and that's where they want it.