The Majestic 12 (MJ-12) Documents

The story starts before the envelope. In January 1981 a teletype known as the Aquarius document, used in disinformation aimed at Paul Bennewitz, mentioned restricted access to "MJ Twelve." In 1982 Bob Pratt, Richard Doty and ufologist William L. Moore worked on an unpublished fiction manuscript called The Aquarius Project. Moore knew crashed saucers well. He had co-written The Roswell Incident with Charles Berlitz in 1980.

The evening of December 11, 1984. Jaime Shandera was sitting at home reading Variety. He heard someone drop something through the mail slot in his front door. By one account, it came just after a phone call from Moore. A brown envelope. An Albuquerque, New Mexico postmark. Inside, a canister of exposed but undeveloped black and white 35mm film.

Moore developed the film in his kitchen. The frames showed a briefing dated November 18, 1952, for President-elect Eisenhower, by "ADM. ROSCOE H. HILLENKOETTER (MJ-1)." It told of a disc that crashed about seventy-five miles northwest of Roswell Army Air Base in 1947. Four small human-like beings had ejected before it exploded. All four were dead and badly decomposed. A second object, it said, struck near El Indio and Guerrero on the Texas and Mexico border on December 6, 1950. A memo attributed to Truman authorized "Operation Majestic Twelve."

In 1985 Shandera, Moore and physicist Stanton T. Friedman found the Cutler-Twining memo, dated July 14, 1954, in declassified files at the National Archives. In spring 1987 British author Timothy Good received his own copy of the briefing. Good was about to go public. So Moore and Shandera released theirs. The London Observer ran the story on May 31, 1987. On June 24, Friedman debated Philip Klass on ABC Nightline.

The White House and National Security Council denied that any "Majestic 12, MJ-12 or Majic-12" had existed. In September 1988 an AFOSI agent passed a copy to the FBI in Dallas. On November 30, 1988, AFOSI told the Bureau no such committee had ever been authorised. The document was "completely bogus." The case was closed. The National Archives listed problems with the Cutler-Twining memo. No Top Secret register number. Onionskin paper, no letterhead. And Cutler was overseas from July 3 to 15, 1954.

Klass argued Truman's signature was a pasted photocopy from a genuine October 1, 1947 memo to Vannevar Bush. The date format, he said, matched Moore's own letters. Brad Sparks called MJ-12 an elaborate disinformation campaign by Moore, Doty and other AFOSI personnel. On July 1, 1989, at a MUFON conference, Moore admitted feeding false alien information to Bennewitz. Doty denies any role in MJ-12. Friedman held that the originals were "almost certainly genuine," citing linguist Roger Wescott and Twining's pilot logs. He was also the first to expose later forgeries.

On October 14, 1988, the special UFO Cover-Up? Live brought MJ-12 to a mass audience. An informant called "Falcon" spoke of alien guests from Zeta Reticuli. One was fond of strawberry ice cream. Friedman later regretted taking part. The idea lived on in Dark Skies, The X-Files and the Deus Ex games. No original government paper has ever surfaced. Only the film. And the question of who sent it.