by Nick Redfern
In 1990, Moore and Shandera published a highly detailed, 111-pages-long “analytical report” on the Majestic 12 documents. It revealed a great deal of documentation that had hitherto remained hidden from the UFO research community. With regards to their forensic study of the Eisenhower Briefing Document, the pair stated that: “This very controversial document has held up well under an intense effort to examine all aspects of it…” On the matter of the Truman memo, they admitted that “…the case for the document stands on somewhat weaker ground than the case for the companion Eisenhower document.” Overall, the pair concluded that, “…as for the document as a whole, it is either authentic or a well done and very probably official fabrication. We give a value of 35-40% for the former possibility, and 60-65% for the latter.”
The late Philip Coppens, who followed the UFO controversy deeply, said of the Majestic 12 controversy that, “…the stakes were high and if the documents were genuine, it was indeed the smoking gun UFOlogy had been searching for over the past four decades. Hence, the Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR), headed by US Navy physicist Dr. Bruce Maccabee, paid researcher Stanton Friedman $16,000 to investigate the initial MJ-12 documents.”
We’ll soon return to Maccabee, and a strange encounter he had with a Russian official in the post-Majestic 12 era.
Philip Klass, right up until the time of his passing in 2005, was the arch enemy of the UFO research community of the 1960s to the mid-2000s; he was a man who never came across a UFO case he couldn’t solve (in his own mind, at least). Perhaps best known for his long-time writings for Aviation Week & Space Technology - one of the most respected, regular publications dedicated to all things of the aerospace kind - he also spent a decade in the employ of General Electric. Bill Moore had no love for Klass. The feeling was definitively mutual. So, when the Majestic 12 documents appeared publicly, and Klass realized that it was Moore who appeared to be the key figure in the saga of MJ12, he, Klass, chose to take swift and controversial action. Renowned for his mean streak, and his “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”-type demeanor, Klass made no qualms at all about suggesting that Moore himself had created the documents. Klass decided to write to the FBI and tell them what was afoot in saucer land: either highly-classified documents were circulating among who-knew-how-many ufologists, or the whole thing was a huge, grand hoax of epic proportions. Whichever scenario was the correct one, Klass suggested that the FBI needed to take a look at what was going down and figure it all out. Klass chose to pen his letter to William Baker, who, at the time, was the Assistant Director in the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs.
Jacques Vallee - the author of a number of groundbreaking UFO-themed books, such as Passport to Magonia and Messengers of Deception - and a former principal investigator on Department of Defense computer networking projects - stated in his 1991 book Revelations that the FBI turned away from the Majestic 12 documents in “disgust” and professed no interest in the matter. That’s not exactly how it happened, though; far from it. So far as can be determined, when the FBI got deeply involved in the matter of the murky documents and their unclear origins, one investigation – says journalist and author Howard Blum - was undertaken by Special Agent Nicholas Boone (in Los Angeles) and a second one by Special Agent William Zinnikas (in Manhattan). Today, Zinnikas is a private consultant on counterterrorism and security issues. Boone is a successful screenwriter.
As I noted in my self-published paper, MJ-12 – The FBI Connection: the aforementioned Howard Blum - a New York Times bestselling author of such very well-received books as Gangland and Wanted! – spent a great deal of time investigating the matter of the Majestic 12 papers in the late 1980s. While researching and writing his 1990 UFO-themed book, Out There, Blum did his utmost to solve the riddle of flying saucers. He soon learned - just like so many UFO researchers over the years have – that solving just about anything in the domain of UFOs was no easy feat. Blum has stated that of those who were approached by the FBI in the latter part of 1988, one was a “Working Group” established under the auspices of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and which was tasked with looking at the UFO problem.
In 1990, Blum was interviewed by the now-defunct UFO Magazine and was asked if the Working Group could have been a “front” for another, even more covert, investigative body within the heart of the U.S. government. Maybe, something like Majestic 12. Blum’s response aptly sums up one of the major problems faced by both those inside and outside of government when trying to determine exactly who knows what in relation to the Majestic 12 controversy:
“Interestingly,” said Blum to the staff of UFO Magazine, “members of [the Working Group] aired that possibility themselves. When looking into the MJ12 papers, some members of the group said - and not in jest: “Perhaps we’re just a front organization for some sort of MJ12. Suppose, in effect, we conclude the MJ12 papers are phony, are counterfeit. Then we’ve solved the entire mystery for the government, relieving them of the burden in dealing with it, and at the same time, we allow the real secret to remain held by a higher source. An FBI agent told me there are so many secret levels within the government that even the government isn’t aware of it!”
As I also said in MJ-12 – The FBI Connection: We also know that what was possibly yet another fall 1988 investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Foreign Counter-Intelligence division. Some input into the investigation also came from the FBI office in Dallas, Texas; the involvement of the latter was confirmed to me by Oliver “Buck” Revell, a now-retired Special Agent in Charge of Dallas, Texas’ FBI office. On September 15, 1988, an agent of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations contacted Dallas FBI and supplied the Bureau with a copy of the Majestic 12 papers. This set was obtained from a source whose identity, according to documentation released to me by the Bureau, the AFOSI has deemed must remain classified to this day. On October 25, 1988, the Dallas office transmitted a two-page Secret Airtel to headquarters that read as follows:
Enclosed for the Bureau is an envelope that contains a possible classified document. Dallas notes that within the last six weeks, there has been local publicity regarding “OPERATION MAJESTIC-12” with at least two appearances on a local radio talk show, discussing the MAJESTIC-12 OPERATION, the individuals involved, and the Government’s attempt to keep it all secret. It is unknown if this is all part of a publicity campaign. [Censored] from OSI, advises that “OPERATION BLUE BOOK,” mentioned in the document on page 4 did exist. Dallas realizes that the purported document is over 35 years-old, but does not know if it has been properly declassified. The Bureau is requested to discern if the document is still classified. Dallas will hold any investigation in abeyance until further direction from FBIHQ.
Partly due of the actions of the Dallas FBI Office, and partly as a result of the investigation undertaken by the FBI’s Foreign Counter-Intelligence staff, on November 30, 1988, an arranged meeting took place in Washington D.C. between agents of the Bureau and those of the AFOSI. If the AFOSI had information on Majestic 12, said the Bureau, they would definitely like to know. And, quickly please. A Secret communication back to the Dallas office from Washington on December 2, 1988 read: “This communication is classified Secret in its entirety. Reference Dallas Airtel dated October 25 1988. Reference Airtel requested that FBIHQ determine if the document enclosed by referenced Airtel was classified or not. The Office of Special Investigations, US Air Force, advised on November 30, 1988, that the document was fabricated. Copies of that document have been distributed to various parts of the United States. The document is completely bogus. Dallas is to close captioned investigation.”
At first glance, that would seem to lay matters to rest once and for all. Unfortunately, it does not. It only serves to make things even more confusing and mysterious.
Also in MJ-12 – The FBI Connection, I said: there’s no doubt that the Air Force played a most strange game with respect to the Majestic 12 documents. The FBI was assured by the AFOSI that the
papers were fabricated; however, Special Agent Frank Batten, Jr., chief of the Information Release Division at the Investigative Operations Center with the USAF, confirmed to me that AFOSI has never maintained any records pertaining to either Majestic 12, or any investigation thereof. This begs an important question: how was the AFOSI able to determine that the papers were faked if no investigation on their part was undertaken? Batten also advised me that while the AFOSI did “discuss” the Majestic 12 documents with the FBI, they made absolutely no written reference to that meeting in any shape or form. This is most odd and unusual: government and military agencies are methodical when it comes to documenting possible breaches of security. Arguably, this case should have been no different. Apparently, though, it was.
Richard L. Weaver, formerly the Deputy for Security and Investigative Programs with the U.S. Air Force (and the author of the U.S. Air Force’s 1995 near-1000 page, mega-sized report, The Roswell Report: Fact Vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert), advised me similarly on October 12, 1993: “The Air Force considers the MJ12 (both the group described and the purported documents to be bogus.” Weaver, too, conceded, however, that there were “no documents responsive” to my request for Air Force files on how just such a determination was reached. Stanton Friedman also stated that, based on his correspondence with Weaver on the issue of Majestic 12, he, too, was dissatisfied with the responses that he received after filing similar FOIA requests relating to the way in which the Air Force made its “bogus” determination. Moreover, there is the fact that AFOSI informed the FBI that, “copies of that document have been distributed to various parts of the United States.” To make such a statement AFOSI simply must have conducted at least some form of investigation or have been in receipt of data from yet another agency. On the other hand, if AFOSI truly did not undertake any such investigation into Majestic 12, then its statement to the FBI decrying the value of the documents is essentially worthless, since it is based on personal opinion rather than sound evaluation.
We aren’t quite done with Majestic 12 and the FBI. It’s now time to take a look at an astounding theory that one arm of the FBI – the Foreign Counterintelligence division – addressed: that the Majestic 12 papers were the work of the Soviets. But, just before we do that, let’s see how and why counterintelligence is such a vital component of the important work of the special-agents of the FBI. In the Bureau’s own words:
Spies might seem like a throwback to earlier days of world wars and cold wars, but they are more prolific than ever—and they are targeting our nation’s most valuable secrets. The threat is not just the more traditional spies passing U.S. secrets to foreign governments, either to make money or advance their ideological agendas. It is also students and scientists and plenty of others stealing the valuable trade secrets of American universities and businesses—the ingenuity that drives our economy—and providing them to other countries. It is nefarious actors sending controlled technologies overseas that help build bombs and weapons of mass destruction designed to hurt and kill Americans and others. Because much of today’s spying is accomplished by data theft from computer networks, espionage is quickly becoming cyber-based.
The FBI has been responsible for identifying and neutralizing ongoing national security threats from foreign intelligence services since 1917, nine years after the Bureau was created in 1908. The FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, which is housed within the National Security Branch, has gone through a lot of changes over the years, and throughout the Cold War the division changed its name several times. But foiling and countering the efforts of the Soviet Union and other communist nations remained the primary mission.
While the Counterintelligence Division continues to neutralize national security threats from foreign intelligence services, its modern-day mission is much broader. The FBI is the lead agency for exposing, preventing, and investigating intelligence activities on U.S. soil, and the Counterintelligence Division uses its full suite of investigative and intelligence capabilities to combat counterintelligence threats. While the details of the FBI’s strategy are classified, the overall goals are as follows:
*Protect the secrets of the U.S. Intelligence Community, using intelligence to focus investigative efforts, and collaborating with our government partners to reduce the risk of espionage and insider threats.
*Protect the nation’s critical assets, like our advanced technologies and sensitive information in the defense, intelligence, economic, financial, public health, and science and technology sectors.
*Counter the activities of foreign spies. Through proactive investigations, the Bureau identifies who they are and stops what they’re doing.
*Keep weapons of mass destruction from falling into the wrong hands, and use intelligence to drive the FBI’s investigative efforts to keep threats from becoming reality.
All of which brings us back to Majestic 12 and the FBI.
FBI agents attached to the Foreign Counterintelligence division came up with three theories to try and solve the riddle of the Majestic 12 papers: (a) that they were the work of the likes of the Falcon and his equally shadowy cohorts in the Paul Bennewitz saga; (b) that they were the creations of a think-tank within the Defense Intelligence Agency, which had fabricated them as a means to divert UFO investigators from a real Majestic 12-type group; and (c) that they had been put together by Soviet disinformation experts. Howard Blum states that the FBI’s reasoning for suspecting the Russians were at the heart of the Majestic 12 affair revolved around “muddying the waters, creating dissension, spreading paranoia in the ranks – those were all the day-in, day-out jobs of the ruthless operation.” Revenge against U.S. Intelligence – for having spun their own UFO-themed operations against Russia in earlier years and decades – was also seen as a distinct possibility.
Directly connected to the Soviet theory is the fact that, as U.S. Intelligence learned to its consternation during both the 1970s and the 1980s, an unclear number of unnamed UFO researchers, with important links to the U.S. defense industry, had been compromised by Soviet agents. It went like this: those saucer-seekers who worked in the field of defense, and who had been caught tightly in a Kremlin web, would secretly provide the Russians with top secret data on the likes of the F-117 Nighthawk “stealth fighter” and the B-2 Spirit “stealth bomber” - which, at the time, were still highly classified and in test-stage out at the likes of the notorious Area 51. In return, the KGB would provide those same American researchers with sensational documents on crashed UFOs and dead aliens. The plan that Moscow had in mind was for the Russians to get their eager hands on real top secret U.S. documents that could be used to advance Russian military aviation programs; but those hapless UFO investigators would receive nothing but faked garbage from their Soviet handlers, such as – you’ve got it - the Majestic 12 documents. This very much echoes the concerns that Australia’s intelligence agency, the ASIO, had about pilot Ricky Royal years earlier, in the late-1950s. It’s important to note there is evidence to support this 1970s/1980s “dangling carrot” theory, in relation to the Majestic 12 documents and the Russians, as we’ll now see.
In 1999, Gerald K. Haines – in his position as the historian of the National Reconnaissance Office - wrote a paper titled “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90.” It’s now in the public domain, thanks to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. It can be read at the CIA’s website. Haines’ paper detailed the history of how, and why, the CIA became interested and involved in the phenomenon of UFOs. Although Haines covered a period of more than forty years, I will bring your attention to one particular section of his paper, which is focused on the 1970s-1980s. Haines wrote: “During the late 1970s and 1980s, the Agency continued its low-key interest in UFOs and UFO sightings. While most scientists now dismissed flying saucers reports as a quaint part of the 1950s and 1960s, some in the Agency and in the Intelligence Community shifted their interest to studying parapsychology and psychic phenomena associated wi
th UFO sightings. CIA officials also looked at the UFO problem to determine what UFO sightings might tell them about Soviet progress in rockets and missiles and reviewed its counterintelligence aspects.”
The Soviets, then, were camouflaging their secret rocket tests by spreading false and fantastic tales of UFOs. Haines also noted something that is absolutely key to the story that this book tells and particularly so with regard to the Majestic 12 papers: “Agency analysts from the Life Science Division of OSI and OSWR officially devoted a small amount of their time to issues relating to UFOs. These included counterintelligence concerns that the Soviets and the KGB were using U.S. citizens and UFO groups to obtain information on sensitive U.S. weapons development programs (such as the Stealth aircraft), the vulnerability of the U.S. air-defense network to penetration by foreign missiles mimicking UFOs, and evidence of Soviet advanced technology associated with UFO sightings [italics mine].”
What about those “U.S. citizens” that Haines referred to? Let us see.
The 1970s and 1980s were the decades in which Paul Bennewitz was most active, at least in terms of his UFO research in and around Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was almost certainly one of those Americans who Haines was talking about and whose actions the CIA’s counterintelligence people were worried about. That the U.S. Air Force was very concerned by the possibility that Bennewitz was unknowingly being used by the Soviets; that was reason enough alone to practically force-feed Bennewitz with almost unending, nightmarish horror stories of dangerous and deadly aliens under Dulce, New Mexico. And then, have Bill Moore report back on the extent that those same horror stories were destabilizing Bennewitz’s increasingly paranoid mind. All of this strongly suggests that Moore may have been as much a victim as Bennewitz was: both men may have been fed wholly bogus material. Interestingly, Haines actually references Shandera and Moore’s work on the Majestic 12 documents in the “Notes” section of his very own paper.
