by Nick Redfern
Also contained in the Cooper files was a document titled UFO Reports and Classified Projects, in which I saw for the first time that aforementioned Orange County motel-room. It offers a very controversial, non-UFO-themed, explanation for what occurred at Roswell back in July 1947. I doubt that anyone in Ufology – aside from myself, Bob Wood and Tim Cooper – has ever seen the document in its original form. And I do mean “original.” It’s not a photocopy. The relevant extract reads as follows, in relation to 1947-era classified U.S. military programs:
“One of the projects underway at that time incorporated re-entry vehicles containing radium and other radioactive materials combined with biological warfare agents developed by IG Farben for use against allied assault forces in Normandy in 1944. When a V-2 warhead impacted near the town of Corona, New Mexico, on July 4, 1947, the warhead did not explode and it and the deadly cargo lay exposed to the elements which forced the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project to close off the crash site and a cover story was immediately put out that what was discovered was the remains of a radar tracking target suspended by balloons.”
Of IG Farben, the Holocaust Research Project states: “IG Farben was a German Limited Company that was a conglomerate of eight leading German chemical manufacturers, including Bayer, Hoechst and BASF, which at the time were the largest chemical firms in existence. Prior to the First World War these firms had established a community of interests – Interessengemeinschaft – hence the initials IG which merged into a single company on the 25 December 1925, thus constituting the largest chemical enterprise, in the whole world.”
Britannica.com gets to the heart of the absolute worst part of IG Farben’s “work.” They note: “During World War II, IG Farben established a synthetic oil and rubber plant at Auschwitz in order to take advantage of slave labor; the company also conducted drug experiments on live inmates. After the war several company officials were convicted of war crimes (nine being found guilty of plunder and spoliation of property in occupied territory and four being found guilty of imposing slave labor and inhumane treatment on civilians and prisoners of war).”
Scum? Yep.
It appears – within the pages of the UFO Reports and Classified Projects document that Cooper acquired – that someone wanted to make a connection between the Roswell affair of 1947 and IG Farben. It’s important to note, though, that Timothy Cooper specifically chose not to release this particular document into the public domain. In fact, it may well have been the only allegedly leaked document that he never made public. Why did Cooper choose to keep this report out of the hands of Ufology? I don’t know. Perhaps it was too controversial for even Cooper, which is certainly saying something. What I can state for sure, however, is that had I not found the relevant papers in the voluminous files of Cooper back in 2002, it’s highly doubtful that they would ever have surfaced. Most probably, had Cooper chosen to reveal the document, then it would have likely created a firestorm within Ufology. After all, linking the world’s most famous UFO case with Holocaust-connected IG Farben would have provoked a huge controversy and created even more distrust about the actions of the U.S. Government. If the Soviets were behind the UFO Reports and Classified Projects document, then that may well have been the goal. But, that’s not all.
Far more controversial is another supposedly leaked document titled Majestic Twelve Project, 1st Annual Report. Its subtitle makes the subject of the document clear: A Review of the President’s Special Panel to Investigate the Capture of Unidentified Planform Space Vehicles by U.S. Armed Forces and Agencies. Oddly, the document lacks a date; however, it does not refer to any events or incidents that post-date 1951, which suggests it was written in that year. Or, written to make us think it was created in 1951. Cooper’s notes – the ones that I had access to in 2002 – show that he received the Report in three sections, rather than as one unified document. The cover-page turned up in Cooper’s Big Bear Lake mailbox on January 19, 1994. It was almost a year later – specifically on December 30, 1994 – when Cooper obtained the Table of Contents. The rest of the document was provided to him on February 22, 1995.
It’s important to note there are significant problems with the overall content of the 1st Annual Report. By that, I mean it’s a hoax; there is no doubt about it, whatsoever. I’ll show you why: The membership of what is described as Majestic 12’s “Special Panel” was said to have been the following: Dr. Vannevar Bush; General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, USAF; Brigadier General George [pF. Schulgen, USAF; Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer; Detlev Bronk, of the National Research Council; Jerome Hunsaker, of the National Academy of Sciences; James Doolittle; Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton; Rear Admiral Paul F. Lee, Office of Naval Research; Major General George C. McDonald, USAF; Dr. Hugh L. Dryden; Admiral John Gingrich; Major General George C. McDonald, USAF; and Major General Luther D. Miller, U.S. Army.
In my summary report to Bob Wood, which was written shortly after I was finished with Cooper’s voluminous files in Orange County, I stated the following: “General J. Lawton Collins is described as Deputy Chief of Staff, United States Army. In reality, Collins was Deputy Chief only from 1947 to mid-August 1949. He attained the rank of Chief of Staff on August 16, 1949 and held that position until August 15, 1953. Likewise, Major General Luther D. Miller is listed in the Report as Chief of Chaplains with the Army. He was, but only from 1945 to 1949. Similarly, the reference to Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton being Chairman of the Military Liaison Committee to the Atomic Energy Committee is incorrect: he was attached to the Liaison Committee of the AEC in 1947 and through early 1948, but by June 1948 he was Secretary General of the Air Force. Hoyt S. Vandenberg is listed in the Report as Vice Chief of Staff with the U.S. Air Force; yet, in reality, he had attained the rank of Chief of Staff by April 30, 1948. George C. McDonald’s name appears in the Report as the Director of Intelligence with the Air Force. McDonald was indeed appointed to that position – in October 1947. However, in June 1948, he became Chief of the Air Section of the United States’ Military Commission at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and did not even return to the United States until June 1950, at which point he was assigned to the Office of the Department of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel.”
I continued to Bob Wood: “Quite clearly, there is a very recognizable trend here: whoever wrote the 1st Annual Report specifically described the ranks held by the alleged members of the Special Panel in 1947 and into the early part of 1948 only. The ranks that practically all of the members held in 1947 and 1948 were utterly redundant by 1951.” Someone screwed up.
For some Majestic 12 proponents, this was a big problem. For others, it wasn’t: they just ignored this glaringly huge elephant in the room and stuck rigidly to their “I want to believe” stance. Then, there’s the matter of a mysterious virus. The writer of the 1st Annual Report went on to say:
BW [Biological Warfare] programs in U.S. and U.K. are in field test stages. Discovery of new virus and bacteria agents so lethal, that serums derived by genetic research, can launch medical science into unheard of fields of biology. The samples extracted from bodies found in New Mexico, have yielded new strains of a retro-virus not totally understood, but, give promise of the ultimate BW weapon. The danger lies in the spread of airborne and bloodborne outbreaks of diseases in large populations, with no medical cures available.
Current research in U.S. and U.K., can be accelerated when studies are complete. Understanding the human makeup through EBE [“Extraterrestrial Biological Entity,” allegedly a term used by MJ12 to describe aliens] research will bring a varied wealth of information in how cells replicate themselves and may help in developing new drugs and markets. Healthcare industries are considered the best source of R&D for DoD programs.
In “Annex A” of the report there’s this, which is equally controversial:
The Panel was concerned over the contamination of several SED personnel upon coming in contact with debris near the power plant. One technician was
overcome and collapsed when he attempted the removal of a body. Another medical technician went into a coma four hours after placing a body in a rubber body-bag. All four were rushed to Los Alamos for observation. All four later died of seizures and profuse bleeding. All four were wearing protective suits when they came into contact with body fluids from the occupants. Autopsies on the four dead SED technicians are not conclusive. It is believed that the four may have suffered from some form of toxin or a highly contagious disease. Tissue samples are currently being kept at Fort Detrick, Md. In the opinion of the senior AEC medical officer, current medical equipment and supplies are wholly inadequate in dealing with a large scale outbreak of the alien virus.
In my report to Bob Wood, I added the following, which specifically addressed the references to Fort Detrick and the matter of retroviruses: “There are two aspects of these specific extracts [of the document] that have provoked extreme controversy within the tightly knit UFO research arena: namely, the allegation that tissue samples had been forwarded to Fort Detrick, and the reference to a poorly defined ‘retrovirus.’”
I explained to Wood why, exactly, this was all very problematic: “Medline, the computerized database on biomedical research that has access to all medical related journals dating back to 1965, confirms that the first modern usage of the term retrovirus did not surface until the 1970s; and it was in the September 8, 1977 issue of Nature that we see the term first used in its now well-defined format. Similarly, the term retrovirus is actually derived from the first two letters of Reverse Transcriptase. Eleni Papadopolus-Eleopulos, a bio-physicist engaged in AIDS research states in her paper, A brief history of Retroviruses: ‘Reverse transcriptase is an enzyme first discovered in Oncoviruses in 1970 hence their present name, retroviruses.’ As Papadopolus-Eleopulos’ statement makes clear, the term retrovirus was an outgrowth of terminology applied to an enzyme that was not even discovered until years after the 1st Annual Report was allegedly written.”
I also informed Bob Wood that, “…Fort Detrick did not receive that title until 1956: from 1943 until 1955 the installation was designated Camp Detrick, having previously been known as Detrick Field…This has led some commentators to suggest that, even though the 1st Annual Report does not refer to any events that post-date 1951, the document must, therefore, be of 1956, or post-1956, vintage. This scenario, however, falls apart for one, specific reason. Of those listed as members of the Majestic 12 Special Panel, one is General Hoyt S. Vandenberg. Unfortunately, Vandenberg died in 1954. Therefore, he could not possibly have been a member of such a Panel in 1956, two years after his death.”
Clearly, the 1st Annual Report is not a genuine document; all of the available evidence is stacked solidly against it. But, we’re not quite done. We now come to what may be the most important part of the whole story of Timothy Cooper and those so-called leaked documents. It’s time to go back to the matter of the KGB and its 1980s-era plan to convince the world that certain elements of the U.S. Government engineered HIV for malicious purposes.
As the U.S. Department of State recorded: “In March 1992, then-Russian intelligence chief and later Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov admitted that the disinformation service of the Soviet KGB had concocted the false story that the AIDS virus had been created in a U.S. military laboratory as a biological weapon.”
Now, let us take another look at certain, important threads contained in the 1st Annual Report. The Majestic 12 papers reference a “new virus,” “a retro-virus not totally understood,” “blood-borne outbreaks of diseases,” “the ultimate BW [Biological Warfare] weapon,” “a highly contagious disease,” and the connection between “Healthcare industries” and “DoD [Department of Defense] programs.” Mirroring the above, it’s a fact that HIV is a retrovirus. It’s also a blood-borne virus. And, as the Department of State reported, the Russians were spreading a rumor that, “…the AIDS virus had been created in a U.S. military laboratory as a biological weapon.” The additional rumor was that shadowy elements of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry were in on the conspiracy.
In light of all these distinct and undeniable parallels, it’s very easy to see how some people – of an extremely conspiratorial mind – might come to believe that the discovery of such a dangerous alien virus, in 1947, and the recovery of a crashed UFO in New Mexico, led to the creation of HIV. It’s a fact that of all the Majestic 12-themed papers that were provided to Cooper, it’s this one – more than any other – which provoked so much controversy. Admittedly, the document is filled with suggestive threads that fit neatly within the parameters of the AIDS conspiracy theory. That may well have been the goal of the creators of the 1st Annual Report.
Now, we come to the matter of that curious name of Timothy Cooper’s primary informant, “Thomas Cantwheel.” As I noted earlier in this chapter, “Cantwheel” is not a real name. And it never has been a real name, either. It is, however, very similar to a genuine one. That of “Cantwell.” There may have been a very specific reason as to why “Cantwheel” chose that particular name when dealing with Cooper and with regards to a deadly virus with AIDS-like aspects attached to it. It might have been designed – as a less than subtle pointer - to have Cooper come to the conclusion that AIDS had been created by the U.S. Government, and that there was, incredibly, an extraterrestrial component to all of this. Check out the following from Source Watch:
“Dr. Alan Cantwell [italics mine], author of AIDS and the Doctors of Death: An Inquiry into the Origin of the AIDS Epidemic and Queer Blood: The Secret AIDS Genocide Plot, believes that HIV is a genetically modified organism developed by U.S Government scientists; that it was introduced into the population through hepatitis B experiments performed on gay and bisexual men between 1978-1981 in Manhattan, Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, Denver, and Chicago (these experiments were directed by Dr. Wolf Szmuness); and that there is an ongoing government and media cover-up regarding the origin of the AIDS epidemic. Similar theories have been advanced by Dr. Robert B. Strecker and by Milton William Cooper, author of Behold a Pale Horse.”
Milton William Cooper, it should be noted, was one of the most controversial and over-the-top conspiracy-theorists of the 20th century. He died in a shoot-out, at his Eagar, Arizona home on November 5, 2001. Apache County sheriff’s deputies were there to arrest him on an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge. Cooper was someone whose claims should be laid to rest, and particularly so the claim that AIDS was designed to deliberately target and kill people.
So, what do we have here? Well, we have tales of a highly dangerous retrovirus, of a Cantwell vs. a Cantwheel, of tainted blood, of big business in cahoots with the Pentagon, and of a mysterious couple of informants who were never really identified and who vanished into the ether (or who went back to Moscow…) after handing over controversial files to a UFO researcher who thought he was getting the real deal. Put all of that together and we have a heady brew of controversial proportions. Not only that, Dr. Alan Cantwell concluded that Fort Detrick played a role in all of this – a facility that appears in Timothy Cooper’s Majestic 12 papers, too, in relation to research into a deadly alien virus, as you will recall.
Put all of these issues together and what do we have? I suggest that we have a very strange and highly alternative attempt, in the 1990s, to resurrect the Russians’ “America created AIDS” disinformation program of the previous decade. But, this time (when The X-Files was extremely popular and the adventures of Mulder and Scully were reigniting U.S. public interest in UFOs) by carefully using crashed UFOs, dead aliens, and an extraterrestrial virus as the key components in the plot; all fabricated and completely bogus. Indeed, no-one should believe or conclude there is a real connection between HIV, AIDS and extraterrestrials. It’s as ridiculous as it is offensive. For those who created the document, the problem was that Cooper chose to quit Ufology and sold all of his files to Bob Wood. And, when it came to the viral angle of all this, Cooper chose not to bite anyw
ay. At least, as far as I could tell from his files, that is. Cooper may not even have appreciated the significance of the various, glaring threads, as well as that Cantwheel-Cantwell issue, strategically placed right in front of his eyes. Also, most of the UFO research community didn’t buy into the Cooper material. Thus, the result was that the UFOs-Aliens-U.S. Government-AIDS operation stalled and finally died. Let’s hope that it stays that way.
16. “How covert agents infiltrate the Internet”
Now, in our final chapter, it’s time to ask an important question: does this strange game of aliens, disinformation and lies still continue in today’s world? Certainly, the vast majority of the programs designed to use the UFO subject as a tool of manipulation took place during the height of the Cold War; that much is abundantly clear. It should be noted, though, that while the available data is limited, we can say that UFOs – or, rather, the mystique and the legend that surrounds them – are still of interest to the intelligence services of several nations. In a strange way, the evidence has a link to the saga of none other than the ultimate 21st century whistleblower, Edward Snowden.
If, prior to 2013, someone were to ask you for your thoughts on Edward Snowden, you would almost certainly reply: “Who? Huh?” His family, friends, and work colleagues aside, Snowden was unknown. Just about completely. That all changed – and it changed radically – in the summer of 2013. That was when the shocking story of the National Security Agency’s top secret programs of widespread surveillance came tumbling out into the public domain. It created shockwaves that are still reverberating to this day. Not only was Snowden suddenly the most talked about man on the planet, he was also – in many quarters – public enemy number one.
