Daniel Tarr (et.al)
Official UFO Investigations
- A review -
2013.
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FOREWORD
The modern UFO mythology has three traceable roots: the late 19th century "mystery airships" reported in the newspapers of western United States, "foo fighters" reported by Allied airmen during World War II, and the Kenneth Arnold "flying saucer" sighting near Mt. Rainier, Washington on June 24, 1947. UFO reports between "The Great Airship Wave" and the Arnold sighting were limited in number compared to the post-war period: notable cases include reports of "ghost fliers" in Europe and North America during the 1930s and the numerous reports of "ghost rockets" in Scandinavia (mostly Sweden) from May to December 1946. Media hype in the late 1940s and early 1950s following the Arnold sighting brought the concept of flying saucers to the public audience.
As the public's preoccupation in UFOs grew, along with the number of reported sightings, the United States military began to take notice of the phenomenon. The UFO explosion of the early post-war era coincides with the escalation of the Cold War and the Korean War. The U.S. military feared that secret aircraft of the Soviet Union, possibly developed from captured German technology, were behind the sightings. If correct, the craft causing the sightings were thus of importance to national security and of need of systematic investigation. By 1952, however, the official US government interest in UFOs began to fade as the USAF projects Sign and Grudge concluded, along with the CIA's Robertson Panel that UFO reports indicated no direct threat to national security. The government's official research into UFOs ended with the publication of the Condon Committee report in 1969, which concluded that the study of UFOs in the past 21 years had achieved little, if anything, and that further extensive study of UFO sightings was unwarranted. It also recommended the termination of the USAF special unit Project Blue Book.
As the U.S. government ceased officially studying UFO sightings, the same became true for most governments of the world. A notable exception is France, which still maintains the s GEIPAN, formerly known as GEPAN (1977–1988) and SEPRA (1988–2004), a unit under the French Space Agency CNES. During the Cold War, British, Canadian, Danish, Italian, and Swedish governments have each collected reports of UFO sightings. Britain's Ministry of Defence ceased accepting any new reports as of 2010.
Ufology and UFO reports
In addition to UFO sightings, certain supposedly related phenomena are of interest to some in the field of ufology, including crop circles, cattle mutilations, and alien abductions and implants. Some ufologists have also promoted UFO conspiracy theories, including the alleged Roswell UFO Incident of 1947, the Majestic 12 documents, and UFO disclosure advocation.
Skeptic Robert Sheaffer has accused ufology of having a "credulity explosion". He claims a trend of increasingly sensational ideas steadily gaining popularity within ufology. Sheaffer remarked, "the kind of stories generating excitement and attention in any given year would have been rejected by mainstream ufologists a few years earlier for being too outlandish."
Likewise, James McDonald has expressed the view that extreme groups undermined serious scientific investigation, stating that a "bizarre 'literature' of pseudo-scientific discussion" on "spaceships bringing messengers of terrestrial salvation and occult truth" had been "one of the prime factors in discouraging serious scientists from looking into the UFO matter to the extent that might have led them to recognize quickly enough that cultism and wishful thinking have nothing to do with the core of the UFO problem."In the same statement, McDonald said that, "Again, one must here criticize a good deal of armchair-researching (done chiefly via the daily newspapers that enjoy feature-writing the antics of the more extreme of such subgroups). A disturbing number of prominent scientists have jumped all too easily to the conclusion that only the nuts see UFOs".
Stanton Friedman considers the general attitude of mainstream academics as arrogant and dismissive, or bound to a rigid world view that disallows any evidence contrary to previously held notions. Denzler states that the fear of ridicule and a loss of status has prevented scientists of pursuing a public interest in UFOs. J. Allen Hynek's also commented, "Ridicule is not part of the scientific method and people should not be taught that it is." Hynek said of the frequent dismissal of UFO reports by astronomers that the critics knew little about the sightings, and should thus not be taken seriously. Peter A. Sturrock suggests that a lack of funding is a major factor in the institutional disinterest in UFOs.
Surveys of scientists and amateur astronomers concerning UFOs
In 1973, Peter A. Sturrock conducted a survey among members of the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, where 1175 questionnaires were mailed and 423 were returned, and found no consensus concerning the nature and scientific importance of the UFO phenomenon, with views ranging equally from "impossible" to "certain" in reply to the question, "Do UFOs represent a scientifically significant phenomenon?" In a later larger survey conducted among the members of the American Astronomical Society, where 2611 were questionnaires mailed and 1356 were returned, Sturrock found out that opinions were equally diverse, with 23% replying "certainly", 30% "probably", 27% "possibly", 17% "probably not", and 3% "certainly not", to the question of whether the UFO problem deserves scientific study. Sturrock also asked in the same survey if the surveyee had witnessed any event which they could not have identified and which could have been related to the UFO phenomenon, with around 5% replying affirmatively.
In 1980, a survey of 1800 members of various amateur astronomer associations by Gert Herb and J. Allen Hynek of the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) found that 24% responded "yes" to the question, "Have you ever observed an object which resisted your most exhaustive efforts at identification?"
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INTRODUCTION
Our current understanding of the history of military UFO (Flying Saucer) investigations is that they began in 1941 with the first crash recovery of a saucer in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. It is believed that some exploitation (reverse engineering) of this event was integrated into the Manhattan Atomic Bomb Project, but that significant efforts did not occur until the July 1947 New Mexico events. Both SECRET cover stories and TOP SECRET research and development projects were started to begin unraveling the greatest technological and biological opportunity in the history of humanity.
"Secrecy is a form of government regulation," is the opening phrase of executive summary of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, 1997. "Excessive secrecy has significant consequences for the national interest when, as a result, policymakers are not fully informed, government is not held accountable for its actions, and most importantly the public cannot engage in an informed debate." The 200-page report can be found at US Government Printing Office or by calling 202-512-1530 and requesting S. Doc. 105-2.
It is critical to remember how security classifications work. Each document, individual or groups of individuals is compartmentalized based on a "need to know." So just because an individual would have a SECRET or TOP SECRET security clearance does not mean that an individual would have access to similarly classified material. In general, these structures are and were very effective in maintaining security. Security classifications have changed over time; in the 1947 timeframe, military documents were either CONFIDENTIAL, RESTRICTED, SECRET, TOP SECRET or TOP SECRET/CODEWORD. Since each government agency establishes their own security procedures, it is possible to find many variations in security policy and labeling. For example, CIA, NSA, and DoD have different but compatible procedures.
Majestic 12 [MJ12] (USA 1947)
In December, 1984, Jaime Shandera, a Hollywood movie producer and UFO researcher, received an unusual package through the post. Inside was just one roll of undeveloped 35mm black and white film. There were no accompanying letter or return address, the only clue to where the package came from was by the postmark which was Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Once developed, the film contained negatives of what appeared to be an eight page briefing paper, prepared on 18th November, 1952, for president-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower. A warning on the first page read, 'This is a TOP SECRET - EYES ONLY document containing compartmentalized information essential to the national security of the United States'. On page two was a list of 12 influential US scientists, military leaders and intelligence advisors. It was not until viewing page three that the subject of the papers became clear, 'the recovery of a crashed flying saucer and alien bodies near Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947'.
The final page of the briefing paper was a memorandum, dated 24th September,1947, from President Harry Truman to his secretary of Defence, James Forrestal. In it, Truman instructs Forrestal to proceed with 'Operation Majestic-12', but gives no hint at what that might be.
Alone, the Forrestal memo was meaningless. But when read next to the 1952 briefing paper, the story behind them became clear: in July 1947, a 'flying disc-shaped aircraft' crashed landed in Roswell, New Mexico, and 'extra-terrestrial biological entities' (EBEs) are recovered by the military. When President Truman is informed about the crash, he authorizes Defence Secretary Forrestal to set up a committee to investigate and deal with the situation.
In 1952, when Eisenhower becomes President-elect, he is briefed on Operation Majestic-12. The briefing paper lists the 12-man committee and gives details of the saucer crash. The final paragraph stresses the need to 'avoid public panic at all costs', confirming that the government is covering up the truth about UFOs.
Are these Documents Real?
In the UFO research community, the opinion is split. In one corner, Stanton T. Friedman, who has dedicated over 10 years of research to finding the truth, Bill Moore and Jaime Shandera believe the documents to be real. In the other corner are Kevin Randle,Armen Victorian and our old friend Philip Klass, all of whom have reasons to believe they are faked. To add to the mystery surrounding the Majestic-12 papers (also known as MJ-12, or MAJIC), a number of other similar packages have turned up over the last few years. The first was a postcard delivered to Bill Moore in 1985. Postmarked New Zealand, it suggested him to research newly declassified documents at the US National Archives. Moore and Shandera did so, and found a memo confirming the existance of MJ-12, written by Eissenhower's Special Assistant for National Security, Robert Cutler, and addressed to Nathan Twining, the US Air Force Chief Of Staff.
Between 1992 and 1996, another UFO researcher named Tim Cooper, received a number of MJ-12 documents, all of which he quietly shared with Friedman. Several were proved hoaxes but, according to Cooper and Friedman, two single-page documents appear to be genuine. The first is a brief instruction to General Nathan Twining (an alleged member of MJ-12) concerning his activities during a July 1947 trip to New Mexico, the site of the crashed saucer.
The second document is a memo to President Truman, dictated by US Secretary of State, George C. Marshall to his Executive Secretary, R.H. Humelsine. While there is no direct mention of MJ-12 in the memo, the reference at the top reads 'MAJIC EO 092447 MJ-12.
The most spectacular new MJ-12 document was posted in 1994 to Don Berliner, a longtime UFO investigator and science writer. The anonymous roll of film contained 23 pages of a 'Majestic-12 Group Special Operations Manual', dated April, 1954. It was a detailed instruction manual entitled 'Extra-terrestrial Entities and Technology, Recovery and Disposal'.
The Council Of Twelve
Because most of the MJ-12 documents are on film, the original paper or ink cannot be analysed. However there are many factual details that can be checked, such as the background of the 12 members of the committee, the dates of meetings, the style and format of similar documents, and the validity of the signatures. Clearly, MJ-12 had an all-star cast, as well as Secretary of Defence Forrestal, there were the first three Directors of Central Intelligence, an Air Force General, an Army General, the Secretary of the Army and five of the US's most influential scientists. This was the cream of the US's military, scientific and intelligence communities. If there was to be a top-secret government group investigating UFOs, this would have been it.
The Twelve Members
Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter
First Director of Central Intelligence (1947-50). In 1960, he acknowledged there was a UFO cover-up.
Dr Vannevar Bush
Chairman of the Joint Research and Development Board (1945-49). Advisor to the President, and key player in atomic bomb development.
James Forrestal
First US Secretary Of Defence. In 1949 he had a mental breakdown and committed suicide (some conspiracy theorists believe he was murdered) replaced by General Walter Beddell Smith.
Nathan Twining
Commander of Air Materiel Command at Wright Field and later, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US's highest military position.
General Hoyt Vandenberg
Chief of Military Intelligence during World War II and second Director of Central Intelligence (1946-47).
Dr Detlev Bronk
Biophysicist. Head of the National Academy of Science, and Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board of the Atomic Energy Committee.
Dr Jerome Hunsaker
Renowned aircraft designer and Chairman of the National Advisory Committe on Aeronautics.
Rear Admiral Sidney Souers
First Director of Central Intelligence (1946). Appointed first Executive Secretary of National Security Council in 1947.
Gordon Gray
Assistant Secretary of the Army. Became the National Security Advisor and Director of CIA's Psychological Strategy Board.
Dr Donald Menzel
Harvard Professor of Astrophysics, and debunker of UFOs. Held a Top Secret Ultra clearance and was a security advisor to several presidents.
Major General Robert Montague
Head of the Special Weapons Project at the Atomic Energy Commission at Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Dr Lloyd Berkener
Executive Secretary of the Joint Research and Development Board. Member of the CIA-funded UFO Committee in 1950s.
The only member in this list who seems out of place is Dr Donald Menzel, a Harvard University Astronomer. He had written three anti-UFO books and many papers debunking flying saucers. All but Menzel were known to have a high-level security clearance, and because of this many researchers were inclined to think that the MJ-12 documents were bogus. However in April 1986, Stanton Friedman was allowed access to Menzel's papers at the Harvard University Archives. He learned that Menzel had a 30-year association with the National Secutiry Agency and that he also had a Top-Secret Ultra clearance with the CIA. It has also been proved that Menzel made numerous visits to New Mexico in 1947 and 1948, paid for by government expenses.
The earliest reference to Majestic is in the memo supposedly sent by Truman to Forrestal. The memo, which names the President's science advisor Vannevar Bush, is dated 24th September, 1947. This happens to be the only day between May and December on which Truman met with Bush. Forrestal also met Bush that day, and this date is also significant in that it was the day after Nathan Twining, Commanding General of the Air Materiel Command (AMC), sent a secret memo to the Pentagon relating to 'flying discs'. In it Twining states, 'The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious'.
Also, a flight log from July 1947 shows that Twining had flown to New Mexico on 7th July, 1947. According to the briefing paper, this was the same day that 'a secret operation was began to assure recovery of the wreckage... for scientific study'. Could this be just coincidence?
Genuine or fake, the MJ-12 documents are certainly the most intriguing to have surfaced in the history of UFOlogy.
[ Source: Majestic 12 ]
Investigations and proof of eligibility
Operation Majestic-12 was established by special classified presidential order on September 24, 1947 at the recommendation of Secretary of Defense James Forrestal and Dr. Vannevar Bush, Chairman of the Joint Research and Development Board. The goal of the group was to exploit everything they could from recovered alien technology.
Buried in a super-secret "MAJIC EYES ONLY" classification that was above TOP SECRET - long before the modern top secret codeword special access programs of today - Major General Leslie R. Groves (who commanded the Manhattan Project to deliver the atomic bomb) kept just one copy of the details of crashed alien technology in his safe in Washington, D.C.
Ambitious, elite scientists such as Vannevar Bush, Albert Einstein, and Robert Oppenheimer, and career military people such as Hoyt Vandenberg, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, Leslie Groves, and George Marshall, along with a select cast of other experts, feverishly and secretively labored to understand the alien agenda, technology, and their implications.
Einstein and Oppenheimer were called in to give their opinion, drafting a six-page paper titled "Relationships With Inhabitants Of Celestial Bodies". They provided prophetic insight into our modern nuclear strategies and satellites, and expressed agitated urgency that an agreement be reached with the President so that scientists could proceed to study the alien technology.
The extraordinary recovery of fallen airborne objects in the state of New Mexico, between July 4 - July 6, 1947, caused the Chief of Staff of the Army Air Force-s Interplanetary Phenomena Unit, Scientific and Technical Branch, Counterintelligence Directorate to initiate a thorough investigation. The special unit was formed in 1942 in response to two crashes in the Los Angeles area in late February 1942. The draft summary report begins -At 2332 MST, 3 July 47, radar stations in east Texas and White Sands Proving Ground, N.M. tracked two unidentified aircraft until they both dropped off radar. Two crash sites have been located close to the WSPG. Site LZ-1 was located at a ranch near Corona, Approx. 75 miles northwest of the town of Roswell. Site LZ-2 was located approx. 20 miles southeast of the town of Socorro, at latitude 33-40-31 and longitude 106-28-29-.
The first-ever-known UFO crash retrieval case occurred in 1941 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. This crash kicked off early reverse-engineering work, but it did not create a unified intelligence effort to exploit possible technological gains apart from the Manhattan Project uses.
The debris from the primary field of the 1947 crash 20 miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico was called ULAT-1 (Unidentified Lenticular Aerodyne Technology), and it excited metallurgists with its unheard-of tensile and shear strengths. The fusion nuclear (called neutronic at that time) engine used heavy water and deuterium with an oddly arranged series of coils, magnets, and electrodes - descriptions that resemble the -cold fusion- studies of today.
Harry Truman kept the technical briefing documents of September 24, 1947 for further study, pondering the challenges of creating and funding a secret organization before the CIA existed (although the Central Intelligence Group or CIG did exist) and before there was a legal procedure of funding non-war operations.
In April 1954, a group of senior officers of the U.S. intelligence community and the Armed Forces gathered for one of the most secret and sensational briefings in history. The subject was Unidentified Flying Objects - not just a discussion of sightings, but how to recover crashed UFOs, where to ship the parts, and how to deal with the occupants. For example, in the -Special Operations Manual (SOM1-01) Extraterrestrial Entities Technology Recovery and Disposal,- MAJESTIC-12 -red teams- mapped out UFO crash retrieval scenarios with special attention given to press blackouts, body packaging, and live alien transport, isolation, and custody.
Majestic Documents.com is not another rehash of the famous Roswell story - it contains over 500 pages (and growing) of newly surfaced documents, many of which date years before the Roswell crash. Unlike other websites, a central theme of validating authenticity is woven throughout the site while telling the exciting story of the U.S. government's work on retrieval and analysis of extraterrestrial hardware and alien life forms from 1941 to present.
Our Compact Disc (CD), The Secret: Evidence That We Are Not Alone, shows 117 pages of -leaked- top secret UFO documents, most of them never before seen by the public. Some 26 pages were allegedly prepared for a 1954 Special Operations Manual (SOM1-01). This can be purchased on our website along with two other books that provide both the raw original documents and retyped replicas that are often easier to read. The CD provides an initial discussion as to why this briefing manual and the other documents are almost certainly authentic.
The Majestic documents tell a mind-boggling story of deception, intelligence and counterintelligence, revolutionary alien technology, missing nuclear weapons, and compartmentalized secrecy spanning in time from the first crashed disc retrieval in 1941 until three days before President Kennedy-s assassination in 1963.
Our investigation team, led by Robert and Ryan Wood-a father and son team with 50 years of combined UFO study-has applied their skills as both sleuths and scholars. Painstakingly verifying -deep throat- sources, meticulously analyzing old and controversial documents, they arrive finally at conclusions that are as well grounded in fact as they are stunning in their implications.
UFO-related secret programs have consumed a significant part of America-s black budget since the Manhattan Project. The 1997 government-disclosed intelligence budget portion alone is $26 billion and according to Tim Weiner-s 1990 book Blank Check, the total black-budget was about $35 billion in 1990. Even the most sensational conspiracy of modern times-the Kennedy assassination-is likely linked to the UFO cover-up and the military cabal, as several of the documents demonstrate.
Overall, the United States UFO program grew out of necessity. First, to determine the alien threat, second to exploit their advanced technology in any way we could to gain a military, economic or even a psychological advantage and win World War II, and third to maintain power, authority, and control of both technology, governments, and world stability. Initially, to make the project public would have sent unpredictable turmoil into science, religion, politics, and global economics.
Even the most hardened skeptic, after reviewing the data presented and seeing copies of the original documents, will find it hard to deny the reality of military and government cover-up for over 50 years. All of the usual questions, which the thoughtful skeptical reader has, have either already been addressed or soon will be in our ongoing research. We welcome website visitors- comments, criticism, and support.
Majestic Documents.com is a groundbreaking look at the United States UFO program called Majestic and the top secret government documents that tell the story of presidential and military action, authorization, and cover-up regarding UFOs and their alien occupants. A remarkable work of investigative journalism, this website is the first to authenticate top secret UFO documents that tell a detailed story of the crashed discs, alien bodies, presidential briefings, and superb secrecy. Special attention is paid to the forensic authentication issues of content, provenance, type, style and chronology. The story the documents tell leaves the reader with little doubt that the cover-up is real, shocking, and at times unethical.
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Project Sign (USA 1947–1949)
The first official USAF investigations of UFOs were Project Sign (1947–1949) and its successor Project Grudge (1949). Several hundred sightings were examined, a majority of them having a mundane explanation. Some sightings were classified as credible but inexplicable, and in these cases the possibility of an advanced unknown aircraft could not be ruled out. The initial memos of the project took the UFO question seriously. After surveying 16 early reports, Lt. Col. George D. Garrett estimated that the sightings were not imaginary or exaggerations of natural phenomena. Lt. General Nathan F. Twining expressed the same estimate in a letter to Brig. General Schulgen.
Declassified in 1997 as part of the GAO's investigation sponsered by the late Congressman Schift (Rep - New Mexico) in the Roswell incident, project SIGN began in 1947 as an Air Force investigation of UFOs, headed by Col. H. M. McCoy, Chief of Intelligence, Air Materiel Command, Wright Patterson AFB, Dayton Ohio. Project SIGN ended in early 1949 when the name was changed to Project GRUDGE, though Col. McCoy remained in charge of the successor project. The 900 pages of released documents are primarily UFOB intelligence reports, some with good data and administrative correspondence, green fireball reports of 48-49 in the desert southwest. The Fund for UFO Research has an excellent summary of the Air Force's project SIGN documents.
At approximately 3.00 p.m. on the afternoon of 24 June 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold had his now-classic UFO encounter near the Cascade Mountains, Washington State. According to Arnold, he viewed nine, elliptical-shaped objects flying in a wedge-like formation and stated that the objects flew as a saucer would if it were skimmed across a pool of water. The Flying Saucer mystery had begun. In the weeks and months after Arnold’s now-historic encounter, a wealth of other reports reached both the military and the media.
On 28 June, while flying at a height of 10,000 feet and 30 miles northwest of Lake Meade, Nevada, an Air Force Lieutenant reported seeing five or six white, circular-shaped UFOs in close formation and traveling at a speed of approximately 285 miles per hour.
The following day, a party of three – including two scientists – reported seeing a large UFO near the White Sands Missile Range. They were able to keep the object in view for almost a full minute and described it as disk-shaped, moving at high speed and with no discernible wings.
On 7 July 1947, five Portland, Oregon, police officers reported varying numbers of disks flying over different parts of the city; and on the same day, William Rhoads of Phoenix, Arizona, saw an object not dissimilar to that reported by Kenneth Arnold. Seventy-two hours later, a Mr. Woodruff, a Pan-American Airways mechanic, reported seeing a circular-shaped UFO flying at high speed near Harmon Field, Newfoundland.
As the summer of 1947 drew to a close and the Air Force had become an independent entity of the military, Air Intelligence demanded a report from Air Materiel Command regarding the then-current opinions on "flying disks". Lieutenant General Nathan F. Twining, the Commander of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field, held a conference with individuals attached to the Propeller Laboratories of Engineering Division T-3, the Air Institute of Technology, and the Office of Chief Engineering Division. The result was a 23 September 1947, memorandum sent by Twining to Brig. General George Schulgen, Chief of the Air Intelligence Requirements Division. It concluded that:
a. The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.
b. There are objects probably approximating the shape of a disk, of such appreciable size as to appear to be as large as man-made aircraft.
c. There is a possibility that some of the incidents may be caused by natural phenomena, such as meteors.
d. The reported operating characteristics such as extreme rates of climb, maneuverability, and actions which must be considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar, lend belief to the possibility that some of the objects are controlled either manually, automatically, or remotely.
e. The apparent common description of the objects is as follows:
(1) Metallic or light reflecting.
(2) Absence of trail, except in a few instances when the object apparently was operating under high performance conditions
(3) Circular or elliptical in shape, flat on bottom and domed on top.
(4) Several reports of well kept formation flights varying from three to nine objects.
(5) Normally no associated sound, except in three instances a substantial rumbling roar was noted.
(6) Level flight speeds normally above 300 knots are estimated.
f. It is possible within the present U.S. knowledge - provided extensive detailed development is undertaken - to construct a piloted aircraft which has the general description of the object in subparagraph (e) above which would be capable of anapproximate range of 7,000 miles at subsonic speeds.
g. Any development in this country along the lines indicated would be extremely expensive, time consuming, and at the considerable expense of current projects and therefore, if directed, should be set up independently of existing projects.
h. Due consideration must be given to the following:
(1) The possibility that these objects are of domestic origin - the product of some high security project not known to AC/AS-2 or this Command.
(2) The lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these objects.
(3) The possibility that some foreign nation has a form of propulsion, possibly nuclear, which is outside of our domestic knowledge.
As a result, Air Materiel Command requested that a directive be issued assigning a permanent project to study the UFO phenomenon. On 30 December 1947, Major General L. C. Craigie, Director of Research and Development, issued an order that would establish Project Sign as the investigative body tasked with examining UFO reports. It would be the role of Sign to: “… collect, collate, evaluate and distribute to interested government agencies and contractors all information concerning sightings and phenomena in the atmosphere which can be construed to be of concern to the national security.”
During the first six months of 1948, Project Sign studied UFO reports at Wright-Patterson AFB and focused much of its attention on the possibility that some UFOs were, indeed, other-worldly in origin.
On 5 August 1948, the Project Sign team determined that it was time for an evaluation of the data obtained. As a result, a Top Secret Estimate of the Situation was prepared by the US Air Force’s Air Technical Intelligence Center, which concluded that UFOs were interplanetary spacecraft. This was to cause widespread dismay and concern amongst the higher echelons of the military and the conclusions of the report were rejected, largely on the orders of Chief of Staff, General Hoyt Vandenberg, who argued that the Estimate was bereft of any firm evidence to support such beliefs. As a result of this, the ET-hypothesis lost favor within Sign; and those involved in the production of the report were rapidly reassigned alongside rumors of a lack of morale within the project.
Nevertheless, by the end of 1948, Project Sign had received several hundred UFO reports, of which 167 had been classed as “good”; and almost 40 of which were considered to be “unknown”. By 16 December 1948, however, the work of Sign (much of which supported the ET-hypothesis) came to a close; and Brigadier General Donald Putt changed the name and made way for the more debunking-oriented Project Grudge.
If the Estimate of the Situation report was rejected by General Vandenberg, one might ask, is that because the conclusion was based on faulty data or is there a more sinister scenario? It is known that the project only carried a 2A restricted classification (with 1A being the highest); and whilst the project could, under required circumstances, be assigned a higher clearance, this suggests strongly that Sign personnel did not have blanket need-to-know with respect to the UFO mystery. Interestingly, the author and investigator Kevin Randle has spoken with a U.S. colonel who had worked with ATIC in the late 1940s and who confirmed the existence of the Estimate of the Situation and was aware that it had been hand-delivered to Vandenberg. According to the colonel, Vandenberg ordered that two paragraphs be removed from the Estimate – both of which referred to UFO crashes in New Mexico. Vandenberg’s actions seem to suggest that (a) Project Sign’s conclusions were being manipulated from the very beginning; and (b) there were those within the military that wanted Sign kept strictly out of the crashed UFO/Majestic 12 loop.
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Project Grudge (USA 1947–1949)
Declassified on July 23, 1997, Project Grudge was originally released in August of 1949 as a SECRET Technical Report (NO 102-AC 49/15-100) by the headquarters of the Air Materiel Command, Wright Patterson AFB, Dayton Ohio. Approved by Lt. Col. Hemstreet and Col. Watson, it is 406 pages long and covers a large number of UFO sightings along with investigation analysis, conclusions, and supplementary reports. Overall, it is just the basic background work on pedestrian UFO sightings by many credible military witnesses. No discussion of crashes, alien bodies, or the other TOP SECRET material found in more classified reports — just the way you would expect it.
The following extract (classified SECRET) is taken from the SUMMARY to the U.S. Air Force’s PROJECT GRUDGE TECHNICAL REPORT on UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS of August 1949. Prepared by Lt. H. W. Smith and Mr. G. W. Towles for the Commanding General Harold E. Watson, Colonel, USAF, Chief Intelligence Department, it states:
While there are approximately 375 incidents on record, only incidents Nos. 1 thru 244 are encompassed in this report. Of the later incidents, many have not yet been investigated, few have been completely tabulated, and none have been submitted to the consulting agencies. It is certain that better over-all results will be obtained in the analysis of the later reports, as these incidents generally have been more completely investigated. Since 5 December 1948, a series of recurring phenomena described as “green fireballs” have been reported in the general vicinity of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dr. Lincoln La Paz, noted meteoritic expert, has been directly, though unofficially, associated with the investigation of these sightings and has himself observed the phenomena. Dr. La Paz states he is convinced the green fireballs are not ordinary meteors. This group of incidents has little or nothing in common with other incidents on file with Project “Grudge”, therefore, these incidents are not considered in this report. The Scientific Advisory Committee was asked to investigate this matter and had advised that an independent investigation be conducted in the field of atmospheric research.
Upon eliminating several additional incidents due to vagueness and duplication, there remain 228 incidents, which are considered in this report. Thirty of these could not be explained, because there was found to be insufficient evidence on which to base a conclusion.
It is important to stress that Project Grudge was one of three acknowledged U.S. Air Force projects dealing with UFO investigations – the other two being Sign and Blue Book. Between 1948 (the year that saw the creation of Project Sign) and 1969 (the year in which Project Blue Book was officially terminated), 12,618 UFO reports were investigated by personnel assigned to these three projects. According to the Air Force, out of this total only 701 UFO reports remained unexplained; and that with respect to the remainder, “…there was no indication of a technology beyond our own scientific knowledge…” The Air Force further asserted (and continues to assert to this day) that no sighting “…could be considered an extra-terrestrial vehicle [and] throughout Project Blue Book there was never a shred of evidence to indicate a threat to our national security.”
How then do we reconcile these statements with the Majestic documents, the very demonstrable threats to national security posed by UFOs and cited in the documents, and the data pertaining to UFO crash-retrievals suggesting that at least some UFOs are alien spacecraft? It must be noted that the bulk of the data pertaining to projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book was classified up to Secret level only. However, as the Majestic documents make abundantly clear, data pertaining to crash-retrievals was classified at Top Secret level and need-to-know clearance to access such information was strictly required. Furthermore, consider the following extracted from a 1969 USAF memorandum prepared by Brigadier General C.H. Bolender, the Air Force’s Deputy Director of Development: “[R]eports of unidentified flying objects which could affect the national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system.”
Project Grudge can be downloaded in the "Authentication" section under Documents Obtained from the National Archives.
See more at » Wikipedia - Project Grudge
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Project Flying Saucer Working Party [FSWP] (UK 1950–1951)
The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence, alarmed by reports of seemingly advanced unidentified aircraft, followed the US military's example by conducting its own study on UFOs in 1950. A research group was formed based on the recommendation of the chemist Henry Tizard, and was involved in similar work, such as "Project Sign". After less than a year, the directorate, named the "Flying Saucer Working Party" (FSWP), concluded that most observations were either cases of mistaken identity, optical illusions, psychological delusions, or hoaxes, and recommended that no further investigation on the phenomena should be undertaken. In 1952, the directorate informed Prime Minister Winston Churchill, after his inquiry about UFOs, that they had found no evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft. The FSWP files were classified for fifty years and were released to the British public in 2001.
Flying Saucer Working Party (or FSWP) was the name of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) first "official study into UFOs", which has its roots in a study commissioned in 1950 by the MOD’s then Chief Scientific Adviser, the great radar scientist Sir Henry Tizard. As a result of his insistence that UFO sightings should not be dismissed without some form of proper scientific study, the Department set up what writer Nick Pope has described as "arguably the most marvellously-named committee in the history of the civil service" .
The Flying Saucer Working Party was set up in October 1950 by Ministry of Defence Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Henry Tizard, who felt that UFO reports should not be dismissed out of hand without some serious study. He duly authorised the setting up of a small study team to look into the phenomenon. This is the group's final report, which was released to UFO researchers Dr David Clarke and Andy Roberts in 2001 by the MOD, following requests made under the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information. A detailed commentary and analysis of this material can be found at the Real UFO Project website including scans of the report and associated documents.
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Project Magnet (Canada 1950–1954)
Project Magnet, led by senior radio engineer Wilbert B. Smith from the Department of Transport, had the goal of studying magnetic phenomena, specifically geomagnetism, as a potential propulsion method for vehicles. Smith believed UFOs were using this method to achieve flight. The final report of the project, however, contained no mention of geomagnetism. It discussed twenty-five UFO sightings reported during 1952, and concluded with the notion that "extraterrestrial space vehicles" are probable.
Along with the Smith group, a parallel committee dedicated solely to dealing with "flying saucer" reports was formed. This committee, called Project Second Story, was sponsored by the Defence Research Board, with its main purpose being to collect, catalog, and correlate data from UFO sighting reports. The committee appeared to have dissolved after five meetings, as the group deemed the collected material unsuitable for scientific analysis.
The genesis of Project Magnet can be largely traced back to a memorandum of 21 November 1950 that Wilbert B. Smith, an official with the Canadian Government’s Department of Communications (and who held a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering), wrote to the Department of Transport. Smith, who had a personal interest in UFOs and had studied the subject, stated in his proposal that (a) the Canadian Government should be prompted to establish an official UFO investigation project; and (b) that he was on the track of something that would lead to an understanding of both how UFOs were powered and the development of new technological advances on Earth.
According to Smith: "The existence of a different technology is borne out by the investigations which are being carried on at the present time in relation to flying saucers." Smith also advised the DoT that, having made a number of discreet inquiries at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC, he had learned the following from a Dr. Robert Sarbacher:
A. The matter is the most highly classified subject in the United States government, rating higher even than the H-bomb.
B. Flying saucers exist.
C. Their modus operandi is unknown but concentrated effort is being made by a small group headed by Dr. Vannevar Bush.
D. The entire matter is considered by the United States authorities to be of tremendous significance.
On receipt of the memorandum, the Canadian Department of Transport quickly approved Smith's proposal to officially investigate UFO reports; and on 2 December 1950, Project Magnet — a classified Canadian government project — swung into action and a number of high-quality UFO reports caught the attention of Magnet staff. On 10 August 1953, Smith submitted the following report: "It appears then, that we are faced with a substantial probability of the real existence of extraterrestrial vehicles, regardless of whether they fit into our scheme of things. It is therefore submitted that the next step in this investigation should be a substantial effort toward the acquisition of as much as possible of this technology."
Three months later, at Shirleys Bay, Ontario, a station for investigating and detecting UFOs was established; and on 8 August 1954, the equipment "went wild," recalled Smith later. All of the available evidence suggested that a UFO had flown in close proximity of the station. Regrettably the entire vicinity was bathed in clouds and no visual sighting was made; the instrumentation, however, did record a major disturbance. Two days later, the DOT announced that Project Magnet was being shut down. The speed with which the project was shut down has led to allegations that a decision was taken to continue studies at a far more covert level. It is intriguing to note, too, that in the early 1980s Dr. Robert Sarbacher reaffirmed his knowledge of secret U.S. Government UFO investigations overseen by Vannevar Bush and admitted that he was aware that the U.S. had in its possession both crashed UFOs and alien bodies. Wilbert Brockhouse Smith died on 27 December 1961, at the age of 52.
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Project Blue Book (USA 1951–1969)
As a continuation of Project Sign and Project Grudge in 1951, the USAF launched Project Blue Book, led by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt. Under Ruppelt, the collection and investigation of UFO sightings became more systematic. The project issued a series of status reports, which were declassified in September 1960 and made available in 1968. Project Blue Book was terminated in December 1969, following the report of the Condon Committee. Until then, 12,618 incidents had been investigated, the grand majority of which explained by conventional means. 701 cases, around 6%, remained "unidentified". Officially, the USAF concluded from the project that the phenomena investigated were of no concern to national security, and that there was no evidence the sightings categorized as "unidentified" were caused by extraterrestrial aircraft.
On 11 September 1951, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt took over the reins of Project Grudge; and one month later, a revamped version was established – Grudge II. The Battelle Memorial Institute, a "think-tank" consulting firm, was asked to prepare a statistical study of UFO reports obtained up until that time period. Several months later, in March 1952, Grudge II was officially designated as Project Blue Book – a project that would remain in existence until 1969.
There can be no doubt, however, that the role of Blue Book's mission was radically different to that of both projects Sign and Grudge. For the most part, Blue Book's approach was directed by a panel formed in late 1952 by the CIA known as The Scientific Advisory Panel on UFOs, or more popularly, The Robertson Panel. Although it was determined that there was a distinct lack of evidence to support the notions that UFOs were extra-terrestrial in origin, the Robertson Panel nevertheless felt that UFO sightings represented a potential danger to national security that could be exploited for propaganda and psychological means by the Soviets. It was this concern that prompted the Robertson Panel to conclude that UFO mystery should be demystified. This was to be the role assigned to Blue Book.
Whilst it is true that some staff assigned to Blue Book (such as Edward Ruppelt) were genuinely interested in resolving the UFO mystery and made praise-worthy moves to do so, on many occasions, bizarre and simply inaccurate explanations were offered to try and resolve as many cases as possible. Moreover, despite all the hype that continues to surround Blue Book, it was never anything more than an exercise in public relations and received minimal staffing from one officer, two clerks and a number of typists. Until it was officially terminated in 1969, Blue Book continued to present seemingly adequate explanations to the UFO mystery whilst the real work went on behind the scenes. As evidence of this, consider the following extracted from a 1969 USAF memorandum prepared by Brigadier General C.H. Bolender, the Air Force’s Deputy Director of Development. “Reports of unidentified flying objects which could affect the national security are made in accordance with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11, and are not part of the Blue Book system.”
Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 (USA, 1952–1954)
Ruppelt contracted a team of scientists from the Battelle Memorial Institute to evaluate the early sightings gathered by Project Blue Book. They conducted analysis, primarily statistical, on the subject for almost two years. The study concluded that the more complete the data was and the better the report, the more likely it was that the report was classified as "unidentified". However, the report emphasized the subjectivity of the data, and stated that the conclusions drawn from the study were not based on facts, but on the subjective observations and estimations of the individual. Furthermore, the report summary and conclusion stated that "unknowns" were not likely something beyond the era's technology, and almost certainly not "flying saucers".
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Project Moondust & Blue Fly
Although ostensibly two projects involved in the recovery and exploitation for the US Government of foreign space debris such as crashed satellites, rocket boosters and so on, there is intriguing data at our disposal showing that both projects have been involved in the recovery of far more exotic items – including possibly crashed UFOs and UFO debris. A 1961 US Air Force document states that:
In addition to their staff duty assignments, intelligence team personnel have peacetime duty functions in support of such Air Force projects as Moon Dust, Blue Fly and UFO, and other AFCIN directed quick reaction projects which require intelligence team operational capabilities.
Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO): Headquarters USAF has established a program for investigations of reliably reported unidentified flying objects within the United States.
Blue Fly: Operation Blue Fly has been established to facilitate expeditious delivery to Foreign Technology Division of Moon Dust or other items of great technological intelligence interest.
Moon Dust: As a specialized aspect of its overall material exploitation program Headquarters USAF has established Project Moon Dust to locate, recover, and deliver descended foreign space vehicles.
Of the approximately 1000 pages of official documentation on Moon Dust and Blue Fly that have now been released into the public domain by the Department of State, Air Force, Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA, one near illegible report from 1965 is titled: "FRAGMENT METAL, RECOVERED IN THE REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO, ORIGIN BELIEVED TO BE AN UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT."
Similarly, a DIA paper from 1967 states the following with regard to a UFO encounter over Agadir: "This report forwards translations of two articles which appeared in the Potit Morocain. Each article is separately identified as to source. Although the two articles are very contradictory, the page one coverage afforded this sighting demonstrates a high level of interest in the subject of UFOs, and presages future reporting which could be valuable in pursuit of Project Moon Dust."
It should be noted to that Project Moon Dust is referenced in the 1-page CIA paper pertaining to crashed UFOs, alien bodies, the late actress Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedy brothers John and Robert.
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Robertson Panel (USA 1953)
Before the final Battelle report was published, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had developed an interest in UFOs as a national security issue, and set up a committee to examine existing UFO data. The panel, headed by mathematician and physicist Howard Percy Robertson, met from January 14 to 17, 1953. It concluded unanimously that the UFO sightings posed no direct threat to national security, but did find that a continued emphasis on UFO reporting might threaten government functions by causing the channels of communication to clog with irrelevant reports and by inducing mass hysteria. Also, the panel worried that nations hostile to the US might use the UFO phenomena to disrupt air defenses. To meet these problems, the panel stated that a policy of public education on the lack of evidence behind UFOs was needed, to be done through the mass media and schools, among others. It also recommended monitoring private UFO groups for subversive activities.
The recommendations of the Roberson Panel were partly implemented through a series of special military regulations. The December 1953 Joint-Army-Navy-Air Force Publication 146 (JANAP 146) made publication of UFO sightings a crime under the Espionage Act. The Air Force Regulation 200-2 (AFR 200-2) revision of 1954 made all UFO sightings reported to the USAF classified. AFR 200-2 revision of February 1958 allowed the military to deliver to the FBI names of those who were "illegally or deceptively" bringing UFOs to public attention.
For years rumors have circulated to the effect that the Central Intelligence Agency has been deeply implicated in the UFO mystery and in the crashed UFO controversy in particular. These assertions are further bolstered by the contents of the Majestic 12 documents. Nevertheless, at an official level at least, the CIA has only confirmed its direct involvement in one UFO study – the so-called Robertson Panel. To fully understand the official story of the Robertson Panel, take note of the following from the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) historian, Gerald Raines:
In January 1953, H. Marshall Chadwell [CIA Director of Scientific Intelligence] and H. P. Robertson, a noted physicist from the California Institute of Technology, put together a distinguished panel of nonmilitary scientists to study the UFO issue. It included Robertson as chairman; Samuel A. Goudsmit, a nuclear physicist from the Brookhaven National Laboratories; Luis Alvarez, a high-energy physicist; Thornton Page, the deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office and an expert on radar and electronics; and Lloyd Berkner, a director of the Brookhaven National Laboratories and a specialist in geophysics.
The charge to the panel was to review the available evidence on UFOs and to consider the possible dangers of the phenomena to US national security. The panel met from 14 to 17 January 1953. It reviewed Air Force data on UFO case histories and, after spending 12 hours studying the phenomena, declared that reasonable explanations could be suggested for most, if not all, sightings. For example, after reviewing motion-picture film taken of a UFO sighting near Tremonton, Utah, on 2 July 1952 and one near Great Falls, Montana, on 15 August 1950, the panel concluded that the images on the Tremonton film were caused by sunlight reflecting off seagulls and that the images at Great Falls were sunlight reflecting off the surface of two Air Force interceptors.
The panel concluded unanimously that there was no evidence of a direct threat to national security in the UFO sightings. Nor could the panel find any evidence that the objects sighted might be extraterrestrials. It did find that continued emphasis on UFO reporting might threaten "the orderly functioning" of the government by clogging the channels of communication with irrelevant reports and by inducing "hysterical mass behavior" harmful to constituted authority. The panel also worried that potential enemies contemplating an attack on the United States might exploit the UFO phenomena and use them to disrupt US air defenses.
To meet these problems, the panel recommended that the National Security Council debunk UFO reports and institute a policy of public education to reassure the public of the lack of evidence behind UFOs. It suggested using the mass media, advertising, business clubs, schools, and even the Disney corporation to get the message across. Reporting at the height of McCarthyism, the panel also recommended that such private UFO groups as the Civilian Flying Saucer Investigators in Los Angeles and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization in Wisconsin be monitored for subversive activitiesThe Robertson panel's conclusions were strikingly similar to those of the earlier Air Force project reports on SIGN and GRUDGE and to those of the CIA's own OSI Study Group. All investigative groups found that UFO reports indicated no direct threat to national security and no evidence of visits by extra-terrestrials.
Following the Robertson panel findings, the Agency abandoned efforts to draft an NSCID on UFOs. The Scientific Advisory Panel on UFOs (the Robertson panel) submitted its report to the IAC, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Federal Civil Defense Administration, and the Chairman of the National Security Resources Board. CIA officials said no further consideration of the subject appeared warranted, although they continued to monitor sightings in the interest of national security. Philip Strong and Fred Durant from OSI also briefed the Office of National Estimates on the findings. CIA officials wanted knowledge of any Agency interest in the subject of flying saucers carefully restricted, noting not only that the Robertson panel report was classified but also that any mention of CIA sponsorship of the panel was forbidden. This attitude would later cause the Agency major problems relating to its credibility.
Despite the history of the CIA’s involvement in the UFO controversy as presented by Haines and the Agency itself, suspicions abound that the full story has yet to be told. Victor Marchetti, formerly of the CIA, has stated that he heard from within “high-levels” of the Agency accounts of the bodies of “little gray men” recovered from a crashed UFO held at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio. Similarly, the late UFO investigator Major Donald Keyhoe learned from insider sources that the purpose of the Robertson Panel was to debunk and demystify the UFO subject and to allow the CIA to continue its UFO investigations at a far more covert level – something that ties in with the material presented in the Majestic documents.
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Brookings Report (USA 1960)
Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs, often referred to as "the Brookings Report," was a 1960 report commissioned by NASA and created by the Brookings Institution in collaboration with NASA's Committee on Long-Range Studies. It was submitted to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics of the United States House of Representatives in the 87th United States Congress on April 18, 1961. It was entered into the Congressional Record and can be found in any library possessing the Congressional Record for that year.
The report has become noted for one short section titled, "The implications of a discovery of extraterrestrial life," which examines the potential implications of such a discovery on public attitudes and values. The section briefly considers possible public reactions to some possible scenarios for the discovery of extraterrestrial life, stressing a need for further research in this area. It recommends continuing studies to determine the likely social impact of such a discovery and its effects on public attitudes, including study of the question of how leadership should handle information about such a discovery and under what circumstances leaders might or might not find it advisable to withhold such information from the public. The significance of this section of the report is a matter of controversy. Persons who believe that extraterrestrial life has already been confirmed and that this information is being withheld by government from the public sometimes turn to this section of the report as support for their view. Frequently cited passages from this section of the report are drawn both from its main body and from its footnotes.
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Condon Report (USA 1966–1968)
After the recommendations of the Robertson Panel, the USAF wanted to end its involvement in UFOs, and pass Project Blue Book to another agency. In October 1966, the USAF contracted the University of Colorado, under the leadership of physicist Edward U. Condon, for $325,000 to conduct more scientific investigations of selected UFO sightings and to make recommendations about the project's future. The committee looked at ninety-one UFO sightings, of which 30% was unidentifiable. The report concluded that there was no "direct evidence" that UFOs were extraterrestrial spacecraft, that UFO research from the past twenty-one years had not contributed anything to scientific knowledge, and that further study was not justified. As a direct result of the Condon report, Project Blue Book was closed in December 1969. Many ufologists, however, were not satisfied with the Condon report, and considered it a cover-up.
The Condon Committee was the informal name of the University of Colorado UFO Project, a group funded by the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1968 at the University of Colorado to study unidentified flying objects under the direction of physicist Edward Condon. The result of its work, formally titled Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, and known as the Condon Report, appeared in 1968.
After examining hundreds of UFO files from the Air Force's Project Blue Book and from the civilian UFO groups National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), and investigating sightings reported during the life of the Project, the Committee produced a Final Report that said the study of UFOs was unlikely to yield major scientific discoveries.
The Report's conclusions were generally welcomed by the scientific community and have been cited as a decisive factor in the generally low level of interest in UFO activity among academics since that time. According to a principal critic of the Report, it is "the most influential public document concerning the scientific status of this UFO problem. Hence, all current scientific work on the UFO problem must make reference to the Condon Report".
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RAND Corporation paper (USA, 1968)
The RAND Corporation produced a short internal document titled "UFOs: What to Do?", published in November 1968. The paper gave a historical summary of the UFO phenomenon, talked briefly about issues concerning extraterrestrial life and interstellar travel, presented a few case studies and discussed the phenomenological content of a UFO sighting, reviewed hypotheses, and concluded with a recommendation to organize a central UFO report-receiving agency and conducting more research on the phenomenon.
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Project Snowbird (USA 1972)
The original and only documented reference to this project came in 1983 when the “Project Aquarius Briefing Document” was shown to William L. Moore (the co-author of the book, The Roswell Incident) by an insider source in the U.S. Intelligence community. According to the documentation briefly revealed to Moore, Project Snowbird was established in 1972 to research and test-fly a recovered alien spacecraft. To date, attempts to resolve this claim via the Freedom of Information Act have been unsuccessful. The existence of another Project Snowbird, however, has been verified. This was a joint U.S. Army-U.S. Air Force military exercise established in 1955 to train troops to fight in the sub-Arctic region.
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Project Identification (USA 1973-1980)
In 1973, a wave of UFO sightings in southeast Missouri prompted Harley D. Rutledge, physics professor at the University of Missouri, to conduct an extensive field investigation of the phenomenon. The findings were published in the book Project Identification: the first scientific field study of UFO phenomena. Although taking a specific interest in describing unidentified aerial phenomena, as opposed to identifying them, the book references the presumed intelligence of the sighted objects. Rutledge's study results were not published in any peer-reviewed journal or other scientific venue or format
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Project Hessdalen (Norway 1985-)
Since 1981, in an area near Hessdalen in Norway, unidentified flying objects have been commonly observed. This so-called Hessdalen phenomenon has twice been the subject of scientific field studies: Project Hessdalen (1983–1985, 1995–) secured technical assistance from the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, the University of Oslo, and the University of Bergen, while Project EMBLA (1999–2004) was a team of Italian scientists led by Ph.D. Massimo Teodorani from the Istituto di Radioastronomia di Bologna.
Both studies confirmed the presence of the phenomenon and were able to record it with cameras and various technical equipment such as radar, laser, and infrared. The origin and nature of the lights remains unclear. Researchers from Project EMBLA speculated the possibility that atmospheric plasma had been the origin of the phenomenon.
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Project Condign (UK 1996–2000)
Project Condign (not to be confused with the Condon Committee) was the name given to a secret UFO study undertaken by the British Government's Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) between 1997 and 2000.
The results of Project Condign were compiled into a 400-page document titled Unidentified Aerial Phenomena in the UK Air Defence Region that drew on approximately 10,000 sightings and reports that had been gathered by the DI55, a section of the Directorate of Scientific and Technical Intelligence (DSTI)within the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). It was released into the public domain on 15 May 2006 after a September 2005 Freedom of Information Act request by UFO researchers Dr David Clarke, a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, and Gary Anthony, a former BUFORA astronomical consultant. The identity of the report's author/s was not made public.
The report concluded that UFOs had an observable presence that was “indisputable”, but also that they did not represent crafts under intelligent control. According to its author/s the majority of analyzed UFO sightings can be explained by the misidentification of common objects such as aircraft and balloons, while the remaining unexplainable reports were most likely the result of a supernormal meteorological phenomena not fully understood by modern science. This phenomenon is referred to in the report as "Buoyant Plasma Formation," akin to Ball Lightning, and is hypothesized to produce an unexplained energy field which creates the appearance of a Black Triangle by refracting light. The electromagnetic fields generated by plasma phenomena are also hypothesized to explain reports of close encounters due to inducing perceptual alterations or hallucinations in those affected. The Condign report suggests that further research into "novel military applications" of this plasma phenomenon is warranted, and that "the implications have already been briefed to the relevant MoD technology managers." The report also notes that scientists in the former Soviet Union have identified the close connection between the 'UFO Phenomena' and Plasma technologies," and are "pursuing related techniques for potential military purposes."
The report described people who believed themselves to have had close encounters as being convinced of what they said that they had seen/experience, but also as not representing proof that such encounters were real. It attributed a number of cases to the “close proximity of plasma related fields” which it said could “adversely affect a vehicle or person".
According to Clarke, the release of the documents did not shed any new light on UFOs or the UFO phenomenon, but did show that the DIS had been conducting a far larger investigation of the topic than it had previously let on.
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Sturrock Panel Report (USA, 1997)
From Sept. 29 to Oct. 4, 1997 a workshop examining selected UFO incidents took place in Tarrytown, New York. The meeting was initiated by Peter A. Sturrock, who had reviewed the Condon report and found it dissatisfying. The international review panel consisted of nine physical scientists, who responded to eight investigators of UFO reports, who were asked to present their strongest data. The final report of the workshop was published under the title "Physical Evidence Related to UFO Reports" in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 1998. The study concluded that the studied cases presented no unequivocal evidence for the presence of unknown physical phenomena or for extraterrestrial intelligence, but argued that a continued study of UFO cases might be scientifically valuable.
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COMETA Report (France 1999)
COMETA (Comité d'Études Approfondies, "Committee for in-depth studies") is a private French group, which is mainly composed of high-ranking individuals from the French Ministry of Defence. In 1999 the group published a ninety-page report entitled "Les OVNI et la défense: à quoi doit-on se préparer?" ("UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare For?"). The report analyzed various UFO cases and concluded that UFOs are real, complex flying objects, and that the extraterrestrial hypothesis has a high probability of being the correct explanation for the UFO phenomenon. The study recommended that the French government should adjust to the reality of the phenomenon and conduct further research. Skeptic Claude Maugé criticized COMETA for research incompetency, and claimed that the report tried to present itself as an official French document, when in fact it was published by a private group.
Originally published in France in 1999, the Cometa Report (titled UFOs and Defense: What Should We Prepare For?) made a valuable contribution to the subject of UFOs. The following is extracted from an opening statement contained in the report from French Air Force General Denis Letty and gives valuable background data on Cometa and its findings. “The accumulation of well-documented sightings made by credible witnesses forces us to consider from now on all of the hypotheses regarding the origin of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, and the extraterrestrial hypothesis, in particular.” The document continues:
Although no characterized threat has been perceived to date in France, it seemed necessary to the former auditors of the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Defense Nationale (IHEDN) to take stock of the subject. Along with qualified experts from extremely varied backgrounds, they are grouped together to form a private in-depth fact-finding committee, which was christened COMETA. This committee was transformed into a COMETA association, which I chair.
COMETA members included: Air Force General Bruno Le Moine, weapons engineer General Pierre Bescond and Chief of Police Denis Blancher. Those who contributed to the study included: Edmond Campagnac, former Technical Director of Air France; Squadron Commander Michel Perrier; and Air Force General Joseph Domage. Among the subjects covered within the report are: the testimony of French pilots who had seen UFOs; close encounters in France; aeronautical cases from around the world; radar-based UFO incidents; and political, religious and scientific implications relating to the UFO mystery. The July 1947 events at Roswell, New Mexico are also covered in an appendix titled “The Roswell Affair – Disinformation.” This section makes a valuable contribution to the way in which the U.S. government’s program of disinformation has been utilized to successfully diffuse interest in, and confuse the truth surrounding, the Roswell UFO crash.
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"Disclosure Project" (USA, 2001)
On May 9, 2001, twenty government workers from military and civilian organizations spoke about their experiences regarding UFOs and UFO confidentiality at the National Press Club in Washington D.C.. The press conference was initiated by Steven M. Greer, founder of the Disclosure Project, which has the goal of disclosing alleged government UFO secrecy. The purpose of the press conference was to build public pressure through the media to obtain a hearing before the United States Congress on the issue. Although major American media outlets reported on the conference, the interest quickly died down, and no hearing came forth.
On November 12, 2007, another press conference- the "Fife Symington Press Conference"(USA, 2007), moderated by former Governor of Arizona Fife Symington, was held at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. Nineteen former pilots and military and civilian officials spoke about their experiences with UFOs, demanding that the U.S. government engage in a new investigation of the phenomenon.
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"Citizens Hearing" on Disclosure (USA, 2013)
From April 29 to May 3, 2013 researchers, activists, and military/agency/political witnesses representing ten countries gave testimony in Washington, DC to six former members of the United States Congress about events and evidence indicating an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race.
The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure was an unprecedented event in terms of size, scope and the involvement of former members of the U. S. Congress. With over 30 hours of testimony from 40 witnesses over five days The event was the most concentrated body of evidence regarding the extraterrestrial subject ever presented to the press and the general public at one time.
The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure set out to accomplish what the U. S. Congress had failed to do for forty-five years - seek out the facts surrounding the most important issue of this or any other time - evidence pointing toward an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race.
Forty researchers along with military/agency/political persons of high rank and station came to the National Press Club in Washington, DC to testify to six former members of the United States Congress.
The main ballroom of the National Press Club was configured to resemble a Senate hearing room. There were press areas, an audience area, witness tables and committee tables. To the extent possible the protocols for congressional hearings were followed. Committee members received written statements from witnesses, heard oral statements and ask whatever questions they wished about the subject matter at hand.
Hearing witnesses testified for 30 hours over five days in five morning and five afternoon sessions, each composed of two panels of witness, each panel lasting approximately 90 minutes. Most panels were centered on specific topics. Some panels covered a range of topics.
The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure was an unprecedented event seeking to reach four targeted audiences - the poltical media, the United States Congress, the White House and the citizens of all nations. The primary goal of the Hearing is to bring about Disclosure this year by ending the governmental policy of a truth embargo preventing the appropriate institutional engagement of the evidence indicating an extraterrestrial presence.
In service to this goal The organizers of the Citizen Hearing have launched the Citizen Hearing Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization (CHF) The larger mission of this organization is to educate the public, the media and political leaders regarding controversial issues which do not receive the appropriate degree of consideration by mainstream institutions. In that regard the CHF will pursue other initiatives which address citizen grievances, abuses of power and secrecy, and media neglect.
The first task before the CHF will be to fund a multi-nation initiative to put a joint resolution before the United Nations General Assembly calling for a U. N. backed world conference to assess the evidence pointing toward and extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race. This task was put to the CHF by former members of the U. S. Congress who served on the CHD committee.
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US Air Force
The Air Force, General Accounting Office, Mogul Balloons and Crash-Test Dummies
As evidence that the controversy surrounding the so-called Roswell Incident refuses to roll over and die, in the 1990s the Air Force published two investigative reports pertaining to the events of July 1947. The following is taken from the Air Force’s press release on the first report published in 1994 in response to an inquiry launched by the General Accounting Office — the investigative arm of Congress. The GAO’s inquiry came as a direct result of questions initiated by the late New Mexican Representative, Steven Schiff. According to the Air Force’s massive, near-1000 page report (The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert, 1994) the debris found at Roswell was most likely from a Mogul balloon — a Top Secret Army-Air-Force device designed to assist the U.S. military in detecting evidence of nuclear tests by the Soviets. But what of the reports of alien bodies? In 1997, the Air Force expanded on this aspect of the Roswell affair in a document titled The Roswell Report: Case Closed:
This report discusses the results of this exhaustive research and identifies the likely sources of the claims of "alien bodies" at Roswell. Contrary to allegations, many of the accounts appear to be descriptions of unclassified and widely publicized Air Force scientific achievements. Other descriptions of "bodies" appear to be actual incidents in which Air Force members were killed or injured in the line of duty.
The conclusions are:
Air Force activities which occurred over a period of many years have been consolidated and are now represented to have occurred in two or three days in July 1947."Aliens" observed in the New Mexico desert were actually anthropomorphic test dummies that were carried aloft by U.S. Air Force high altitude balloons for scientific research.
The "unusual" military activities in the New Mexico desert were high altitude research balloon launch and recovery operations. Reports of military units that always seemed to arrive shortly after the crash of a flying saucer to retrieve the saucer and "crew," were actually accurate descriptions of Air Force personnel engaged in anthropomorphic dummy recovery operations.
Claims of "alien bodies" at the Roswell Army Air Field hospital were most likely a combination of two separate incidents:
- a 1956 KC-97 aircraft accident in which 11 Air Force members lost their lives; and,
- a 1959 manned balloon mishap in which two Air Force pilots were injured. This report is based on thoroughly documented research supported by official records, technical reports, film footage, photographs, and interviews with individuals who were involved in these events.
Despite the Air Force’s attempts to diffuse the controversy surrounding the Roswell events of 1947 and preempt the GAO’s findings, it is significant to note several key factors. First, Mogul balloons possessed no unusual characteristics such as those described by the witnesses to the event. Second, the crash-test dummy experiments that the Air Force asserts led to the legends of alien bodies being recovered were not initiated until the 1950s. Third, during the course of its investigation, the GAO learned that all of the administrative records of Roswell Army Air Field from March 1945 until December 1949 and all outgoing messages from the base from October 1946 to December 1949 had been inexplicably destroyed. The Roswell enigma continues — despite the best efforts of the Air Force to lay the matter to rest.
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Congressional Hearings
There have only ever been two official Congressional Hearings held on UFOs. The House Armed Services Committee convened the first such hearing in 1966 in response to widely publicized UFO sightings and repeated public and media criticism of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book. The hearing had the noted support of former U.S. President, Gerald Ford, the House Minority Leader. However, the only witnesses who testified were allied to Project Blue Book. As a result, the Secretary of the Air Force announced that there would be an outside, independent review of Blue Book. This was to be the genesis of the University of Colorado’s Scientific Study of UFOs – or the » Condon Committee project (after Edward U. Condon), as it is popularly known. Two years later, the House Science and Astronautics Committee convened a second hearing (which occurred during the final stages of the Condon Committee project) to review the scientific evidence for UFOs. It took the form of a scientific symposium in which six scientists testified and six others submitted prepared papers
In 1969, the Condon Committee published its findings. According to the director of the project, physicist Dr. Edward U. Condon, no scientific evidence existed in support of a genuine UFO mystery for UFO. The result? It was recommended that Project Blue Book should be terminated. Critics of the Condon Report have noted, however, that no less than 30 per cent of the cases investigated by the committee defied explanation. According to the critics, such as Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Dr. Condon's conclusions were politically oriented rather than scientific: the Air Force wanted Blue Book closed at the earliest opportunity.
Nevertheless, of the six scientists who testified as part of the University of Colorado’s study, five were of the opinion that UFOs were still a valid area for investigation. Of those, the late Dr. James McDonald concluded: "My own study of the UFO problem has convinced me that we must rapidly escalate serious scientific attention to this extra- ordinarily intriguing puzzle."
Following the release of the » Condon Report, » Project Blue Book was set for termination, with an announcement to that effect made in March 1969. A formal directive was finalized in December of that year by Air Force Secretary Robert C. Seamans, Jr. According to Seamans: "The continuation of Project Blue Book cannot be justified either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science.”
From the commencement of » Project Sign to the conclusion of Project Blue Book, 12,618 UFO reports were analyzed. Of these, 18% (701 cases) were catalogued as unidentified – and nearly half of which dated from 1952. Since the close of Blue Book, the Air Force has constantly tried to distance itself from the UFO subject – publicly, at least. The Air Force’s current fact sheet on UFOs states that "since the termination of Project Blue Book, nothing has occurred that would support a resumption of UFO investigations by the Air Force." Nevertheless, as the Freedom of Information Act has shown, official interest in the UFO subject continues - albeit at a restricted and far more covert level than that of Project Blue Book.
In 2013 a new attempt called the » Citizens Hearing was triggered to bring the subject matter in front of Congress. From April 29 to May 3, 2013 researchers, activists, and military/agency/political witnesses representing ten countries gave testimony in Washington, DC to six former members of the United States Congress about events and evidence indicating an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race. The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure was an unprecedented event in terms of size, scope and the involvement of former members of the U. S. Congress. With over 30 hours of testimony from 40 witnesses over five days The event was the most concentrated body of evidence regarding the extraterrestrial subject ever presented to the press and the general public at one time.
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CIA UFO Investigations
Two new intelligence documents released under the US Freedom of Information Act reveal how the British MoD set up a permanent standing committee to investigate UFOs after the closure of the ‘Flying Saucer Working Party.’
They were released with exemptions to Dr David Clarke and Andy Roberts in June 2001 following a successful appeal under the FOIA. Their contents are revealed in Out of the Shadows. We wish to thank CIA historian Gerald Haines for assistance in locating these records.
The documents, written by the CIA’s Assistant Director of Scientific Intelligence, Dr H. Marshall Chadwell, also set out the “certain potential dangers which are related to these sightings” at the height of Cold War tension. They spell out the “problems of communications confusion...and the serious effects of mass hysteria” that it was feared could be purposely induced by an enemy “at a critical time by faked reports”.
This interest in the potential use of UFOs for psychological warfare is underlined by other intelligence reports from this period, including the well known briefing by CIA Director Walter B. Smith from 1952. These concerns re-emerged in the conclusions and recommendations made by the CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel early the following year.
Dr Chadwell was present in June 1951 at the meeting in London of the MoD’s Directorate of Scientific Intelligence (DSI) when the Flying Saucer Working Party presented their final report on ‘unidentified flying objects.’ The report debunked all sightings as misidentifications, hoaxes and illusions and recommended very strongly that no further investigations of ‘mysterious aerial phenomena’ be undertaken unless or until solid material evidence was found.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill was briefed on the contents of the report in July 1952 following the ‘flap’ of radar-visual sightings over Washington D.C. that intensified intelligence interest in UFOs.
In September 1952 further sightings were made by the crews of NATO ships and planes participating in “Exercise Mainbrace” which aimed to simulate a Soviet attack on western Europe. The report which received the most publicity was the sighting of a ‘flying saucer’ by two RAF officers and three aircrew near Coastal Command Shackleton Squadron HQ at Topcliffe in North Yorkshire. According to Captain Ed Ruppelt, of the USAF’s Project Blue Book, it was these sightings which led the Royal Air Force to “officially recognise the UFO.”
In the memo “British Activity in the field of ‘unidentified flying objects’”, Chadwell reveals that the MoD had “a standing committee on flying saucers” set up “about 16 months ago”, i.e. after the Working Party had been disbanded. This new committee was now the responsibility of Dr R.V. Jones, who replaced Dr Bertie Blount as Director of Scientific Intelligence in September 1952.
Chadwell notes that the group had concluded “that the observations are not enemy aircraft and that none have been over [Britain?].” Of interest are Chadwell’s comments on what he calls “the Yorkshire incident”, the sightings made by RAF aircrew during Exercise Mainbrace.
“In some RAF field, there was some sort of demonstration to which high officials of the RAF in London had been invited,” he writes. “During the show, a ‘perfect flying saucer’ was seen by these officials as well as RAF pilots. So many people saw it that many articles appeared in the public press. This is disturbing to Jones because he realizes that the creation of the correction of public opinion is part of his responsibilities.
The memo also reveals that Dr R.V. Jones had expressed an interest in seeing the famous movie film of UFOs taken by a US Navy non-commissioned officer at Tremonton, Utah, in the summer of 1952. The film had already been screened to a gathering of intelligence officers at an air force base in Texas.
The British “standing committee” referred to by Chadwell was a branch of the Air Ministry’s Deputy Directorate of Intelligence or D.D.I. (Tech). In 1952 the branch operated from the Hotel Metropole on Northumberland Avenue, near Trafalgar Square. The branch had five sections dedicated to the study “of the technical aspects of air and missile weapon systems of the Sino-Soviet bloc and all other foreign countries.”
A senior air intelligence officer, Wing Commander Myles Formby, led the section dedicated to the investigation and analysis of UFO reports. From 1952 to 1960 this branch was based in Room 800 in the Metropole Building.
Formby had played a leading role in the Flying Saucer Working Party and had close links with the USAF’s Air Technical Intelligence Center. Following the Mainbrace sightings he was spent three weeks in the USA working on the ‘UFO problem’ with his opposite number at the Pentagon, USAF Colonel William 'Bill' O. Farrior.
Interviewed in 2001 Formby told us: “I was the Chairman of the Committee in 1952. It was the job of the Committee to investigate all reports of possible unidentified phenomena and to decide what should be done about them. As far as I was concerned we never really got a concrete report and I was skeptical at the time and remain skeptical. We did get reports from as far away as New Zealand. There were between four and 12 reports, all unsubstantiated. I also suspect that there were a lot that ‘never saw the light of day.’ Although statements were taken from those who had reported sightings I took it ‘with a pinch of salt.’
“The report that we drew up was used as a reference document and I spent about three weeks in America drawing up the report with my counterpart who was a full Colonel in the USAF. I don’t think that the report was ever published but it was circulated at the highest level and was used as a ‘yard stick’ for future action. I would describe it as ‘the X-Files’!”
For the full story of the Flying Saucer Working Party and D.D.I. (Tech)’s UFO investigations, see chapters 5 and 6 of ‘Out of the Shadows.’
FBI UFO Investigations
FBI Investigation of the Eisenhower Briefing Document
The purpose of this report is to relate the way in which the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) became involved in the investigation of the Majestic 12 documents in
the late 1980s. The story is a strange and convoluted one and involves the surveillance of
U.S. citizens and authors, liaisons with the Air Force (and possibly the CIA), and even
allegations of Soviet intelligence links to the story.
That the FBI has had involvement in the UFO subject is no secret: in 1976, the
researcher (and author of the book The UFO-FBI Connection, 2000) Bruce Maccabee
obtained via the Freedom of Information Act more than one thousand pages of UFOrelated
files from the FBI that dated back to 1947; and since then additional files have
surfaced on a variety of issues linked to the UFO controversy. But what of the FBI link to
MJ12?
The first person to publicly air the original batch of two MJ12 documents – the
so-called Eisenhower Briefing Document and the Truman Memorandum – was the British
author Timothy Good, who did so in May 1987 in his book Above Top Secret (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1987). Essentially, the first document is a 1952 briefing prepared by Admiral
Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter for President-elect Eisenhower, informing him that a UFO and
alien bodies had been recovered from the New Mexico desert in 1947. The second is a
1947 memorandum from President Harry Truman to Secretary of Defense James
Forrestal, authorizing the establishment of MJ12.
Shortly after Good’s publication of the documents, additional copies surfaced in
the USA via the research team of Stanton Friedman (a nuclear physicist), William Moore
(the co-author of the book, The Roswell Incident (Granada Books, 1980) and Jaime
Shandera (a television producer).
Moore had been working quietly with a number of intelligence “insiders” who
had contacted him shortly after publication of The Roswell Incident in 1980. From time to
time various official-looking papers would be passed onto Moore, the implication being
that someone in the U.S. Government, military or Intelligence Community wished to
make available information on UFOs that would otherwise have remained forever outside
of the public domain. It was as a result of Moore’s insider dealings that a roll of film
negatives displaying the documents was delivered in the mail to the home of Shandera in
December 1984.
Moore, Friedman and Shandera worked carefully for two and a half years in an
attempt to determine the authenticity of the documents. With Timothy Good’s release,
however, it was decided that the best course of action was to follow suit. As a result, a
huge controversy was created that continues on fifteen years later.
But how and why did the FBI become embroiled in the MJ12 affair? Howard
Blum is an award-winning author and former New York Times journalist, twice
nominated by the editors of that newspaper for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative
Reporting. In 1990, Blum’s book Out There (Simon & Schuster, 1990) was released, and
detailed his investigation of U.S. military and governmental involvement in the UFO
subject. According to Blum, on 4 June 1987, the UFO skeptic, Philip J. Klass, wrote to
William Baker, Assistant Director at the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs. “I
am enclosing what purport to be Top Secret/Eyes Only documents, which have not been
properly declassified, now being circulated by William L. Moore, Burbank, California,
91505…” The Bureau swung into action.
Jacques Vallee—the UFO author, investigator, and former principal investigator
on Department of Defense computer networking projects—stated in his book Revelations
(Ballantine, 1991) that the FBI turned away from the MJ12 documents in “disgust” and
professed no interest in the matter. Papers and comments made to me by the FBI and the
Air Force Office of Special Investigations, however, reflect a totally different scenario.
Furthermore, there are indications that the FBI launched (or were at least involved in)
several MJ12-linked investigations during the late 1980s.
Of those investigations, one definitely began in the latter part of 1988. Howard
Blum has stated that of those approached by the FBI “in the fall of 1988,” one was a
“Working Group” established under the auspices of the Defense Intelligence Agency
tasked with looking at the UFO problem. In 1990, Blum was interviewed by UFO
Magazine (Vol. 5, No. 5), and was asked if the Working Group could have been a “front”
for another even more covert investigative body within the U.S. government. 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.
“Interestingly,” said Blum, “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!”
We also know that what was possibly a separate fall 1988 investigation was
conducted by the FBI’s Foreign Counter-Intelligence division (which I have been advised
operated out of Washington and New York). Some input into the investigation also came
from the FBI office in Dallas, Texas (the involvement of the latter confirmed to me by
Oliver B. Revell, Special Agent in Charge at Dallas FBI).
On September 15, 1988, an agent of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations
contacted Dallas FBI and supplied the Bureau with another copy of the MJ12 papers.
This set was obtained from a source whose identity, according to documentation released
to me by the Bureau, AFOSI has deemed must remain classified to this day.
Before addressing the involvement of the FBI’s Foreign Counter-Intelligence
division in this matter, let us focus our attention on Dallas FBI. 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 which 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 as a result of the actions of the Dallas FBI Office and partly as a result of
the investigation undertaken by the FBI’s Foreign Counter-Intelligence people, on
November 30, 1988 an arranged meeting took place in Washington DC between agents of
the Bureau and those of AFOSI. If the AFOSI had information on MJ12, said the Bureau,
they would like to know.
A Secret communication back to the Dallas office from Washington on 2
December 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. There can be no dispute that the Air Force has played a most
strange game with respect to MJ12. The FBI was assured by AFOSI that the MJ12 papers
were fabricated. However, Special Agent Frank Batten, Jr., chief of the Information
Release Division at the Investigative Operations Center with the USAF, admitted to me
on April 30, 1993 that AFOSI is not now maintaining (nor ever has maintained) any
records pertaining to either MJ12, or any investigation thereof. This begs an important
question. How was AFOSI able to determine that the papers were faked if no
investigation on their part was undertaken? Batten has also advised me that while AFOSI
did “discuss” the MJ12 documents with the FBI, incredibly they made absolutely no
written reference to that meeting in any shape or form. This is most odd: government and
military agencies are methodical when it comes to documenting possible breaches of
security.
Richard L. Weaver, formerly the Deputy for Security and Investigative Programs
with the U.S. Air Force (and the author of the US Air Force’s 1995 near-1000 page
report, The Roswell Repor: Fact Vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert), advised me
similarly on 12 October 1993. “The Air Force considers the MJ12 (both the group
described and the purported documents to be bogus,” stated Weaver. He, 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 has also stated that, based
on his correspondence with Weaver on the issue of MJ12, he too is 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 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 MJ12, 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.
If the Bureau learned anything further about MJ12 in the post-1989 period, then
that information has not surfaced under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act.
Perhaps the Bureau, unable to get satisfactory answers from the military and the
intelligence community, simply gave up the chase; I do not know. I do know, thanks to
Richard L. Huff, Bureau Co-Director within the Office of Information and Privacy, that
MJ12 remains the subject of an FBI headquarters Main File that is titled “Espionage.”
Today that file is in “closed status.” But why would the MJ12 documents be linked with a
FBI HQ Main File titled “Espionage? It is here that we have to turn our attention to the
FBI’s Foreign Counter-Intelligence division.
Some of the information related above was published in my book The FBI Files.
As is often the case with published authors, people who read their books will contact
them with information based on the material contained within the pages of the book. In
the wake of the publication of The FBI Files, I was contacted by a man about whom I
will say little. I will say that he offered that he had formerly served with the FBI in the
time period that the FBI was investigating MJ12 and had knowledge of the Bureau’s
interest in the MJ12 documents. He also supplied information that convinced me that he
was genuine. According to the man, the FBI had actually been aware of the intricacies of
the MJ12 saga for some two years before Timothy Good published the documents in
Above Top Secret. However, I was advised, the investigation was intensified after the
documents were publicized in the U.S. I was further told that initially there was a fear on
the part of the Air Force and the FBI’s Foreign Counter-Intelligence people that the MJ12
papers had been fabricated by Soviet intelligence personnel who intended using them as
“bait.”
That bait was to be used on U.S. citizens who had a personal interest in UFOs but
who were also working on sensitive defense-related projects—including the Stealth
fighter. The hope on the part of the Soviets, it was suspected by the FBI and AFOSI, was
that by offering the MJ12 papers to those targeted sources within the U.S. defense
industry, the Soviets would receive something of value of a defense nature in return. The
man was unsure precisely how the investigation concluded. He did know, however, that
no charges were brought against anyone. This is an ingenious scenario but it must be
stressed that my source reiterated that the Soviet theory was simply that—a theory and
nothing more. It was, he said, one of several avenues being actively pursued by the FBI at
the time. A similar comment was made by Gerald Haines, historian of the National
Reconnaissance Office, in his controversial paper, “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs:
1947–1990.”
In a section of the report dealing with CIA involvement in UFO investigations in
the 1980s, Haines commented that: “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).”
It should also be noted that the Haines paper claims that no original MJ12
documents were known to exist; however, he neglects to reference the so-called Cutler-
Twining memorandum that Moore and Shandera located in the National Archives.
There is further evidence, too, that the FBI has in its archives more information
pertaining to MJ12 than has surfaced into the public domain thus far. On November 16,
1988, the UFO researcher Larry Bryant wrote to Ms. Hope Nakamura of the Center for
National Security Studies and advised her that in a then-recent conversation with William
Moore, he had been informed of Moore’s efforts to secure the release of the FBI’s file on
him. The bulk of the FBI’s dossier on Moore (which amounted to no less than fifty-five
pages) was being withheld for reasons directly affecting the national security of the
United States of America.
Bryant went on to explain that Moore was attempting to find legal assistance in
challenging the nondisclosure of the majority of the FBI’s file. In a determined effort to
lend assistance to Moore, Bryant drafted a lengthy and detailed advertisement that he
proposed submitting to a number of military newspapers for future publication.
Titled UFO SECRECY/CONGRESS-WATCH, the ad specifically addressed the
eye-opening fact that the Bureau’s file on Moore was classified at no less than Secret
level, and that at least one other (unnamed) U.S. government agency was also keeping
tabs on Moore and his UFO pursuits. In particular those pursuits relating to certain
“whistle-blower testimony” which Moore had acquired from a variety of sources within
the American military and government. Courageously, Bryant signed off urging those
reading the advertisement to contact their local congressman and to press for nothing less
than a full-scale inquiry into the issue of UFOs.
Bryant’s advertisement was ultimately published (in the November 23, 1988 issue
of The Pentagram, a publication of the U.S. Army); yet as spirited as it was, it failed to
force the FBI to relinquish its files on Moore. By 1993, the FBI’s dossier on Moore
(which was classified at Secret level) was running at sixty-one pages, of which Moore
had succeeded in gaining access to a mere six.
In 1989, Bryant, mindful of the FBI’s surveillance of William Moore, attempted
to force the Bureau to release any or all records on Stanton Friedman. On 2 August of
that year, Bryant received the following response from Richard L. Huff. “Mr. Friedman is
the subject of one Headquarters main file. This file is classified in its entirety and I am
affirming the denial of access to it.”
Bryant’s efforts on Friedman’s behalf came after he (Friedman) had filed FOIA
requests with both the Bureau and the CIA. The response from the CIA was that it had no
responsive files – except for a ‘negative’ name check from the FBI, who subsequently
refused to reveal details of either the size of the file or its security classification.
On August 28, 1989, Bryant filed suit in the District Court for the Eastern District
of Columbia. “My complaint,” explained Bryant, “seeks full disclosure of the UFOrelated
content of the FBI dossier on Stan Friedman. Neither Stan not I have been able to
convince the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to loosen its grasp on that dossier,
which Bureau officials assert bears a security classification.” Fortunately, in Friedman’s
case, a “small portion” of the FBI’s file pertaining to him was eventually released (on
November 13, 1989) as a result of Bryant’s actions. The remainder of the FBI file on
Friedman has never surfaced.
What are we to make of all this? Consider the following. The FBI conducted
several investigations of MJ12 (via its Dallas Office; its Headquarters at Washington,
DC; and its Foreign Counter-Intelligence division). It had close liaison with the Air Force
Office of Special Investigations on an MJ12-related operation that may have also
involved the CIA in an attempt to crack a Soviet intelligence operation that may or may
not have existed. And the fact that the Bureau holds an extensive Secret file on William
Moore (co-author of the first book on the Roswell crash and a key figure in the MJ12
saga) and a file of unknown size and classification on Stanton Friedman is more than
notable. It also suggests that more information currently exist in the archives of the FBI
on MJ12 than has been declassified thus far. Whether or not the FBI was ever fully
satisfied by its investigations into the murky world of MJ12 and with what it was told by
the AFOSI is debatable, however. The final word I will leave to one of Howard Blum’s
FBI sources: “All we’re finding out is that the government doesn’t know what it knows.
There are too many secret levels.”
NASA UFOs
Those with an interest in determining what has been learned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) about UFOs will in most cases be presented with the following press release:
No branch of the United States Government is currently involved with or responsible for investigations into the possibility of advanced alien civilizations on other planets or for investigating Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO's). The US Air Force (USAF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have had intermittent, independent investigations of the possibility of alien life on other planets; however, none of these has produced factual evidence that life exists on other planets, nor that UFO's are related to aliens. From 1947 to 1969, the Air Force investigated UFO's; then in 1977, NASA was asked to examine the possibility of resuming UFO investigations. After studying all of the facts available, it was determined that nothing would be gained by further investigation, since there was an absence of tangible evidence.
In October 1992, NASA was directed by Congress to begin a detailed search for artificial radio signals from other civilizations under the NASA Towards Other Planetary Systems (TOPS) / High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS) program (also known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project). Congress directed NASA to end this project in October 1993, citing pressures on the US Federal budget. The HRMS did not detect any confirmed signal before it was stopped. However, similar work continued through efforts of private groups and through academic institutions. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (» SETI Institute) in Mountain View, CA, effectively replaced the Government project, borrowing the signal processing system from NASA. The SETI Institute is a nonprofit corporation conducting research in a number of fields including all science and technology aspects of astronomy and planetary sciences, chemical evolution, the origin of life, biological evolution, and cultural evolution.
During several space missions, NASA astronauts have reported phenomena not immediately explainable; however, in every instance NASA determined that the observations could not be termed "abnormal" in the space environment. The 1947 to 1969 USAF investigations studied UFO's under Project Blue Book. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was terminated December 17, 1969. Of the total of 12,618 sightings reported to Project Blue Book, 701 remain "unidentified."
The decision to discontinue UFO investigations was based on an evaluation of a report prepared by the University of Colorado entitled, "Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects;" a review of the University of Colorado's report by the National Academy of Sciences; previous UFO studies; and Air Force experience investigating UFO reports during the 1940's, '50's and '60's. As a result of experience, investigations, and studies since 1948, the conclusions of Project Blue Book were: (1) no UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force was ever a threat to our national security; (2) there was no evidence submitted to, or discovered by, the Air Force that sightings categorized as "unidentified" represented technological developments or principles beyond the range of modern scientific knowledge; and (3) there was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as "unidentified" were extraterrestrial vehicles.
With the termination of Project Blue Book, the USAF regulation establishing and controlling the program for investigating and analyzing UFO's was rescinded. Documentation regarding the former Project Blue Book investigation was permanently transferred to the Modern Military Branch, National Archives and Records Service, in Washington, DC 20408, and is available for public review and analysis.
Since the termination of Project Blue Book, nothing has occurred that would support a resumption of UFO investigations by the U.S. government.
Since neither NASA nor the Air Force is engaged in day-to-day UFO research, neither one reviews UFO-related articles intended for publication, evaluates UFO-type spacecraft drawings, or accepts accounts of UFO sightings or applications for employment in the field of aerial phenomena investigation.
It should be noted that there are very few indications of deep involvement in the Majestic projects on the part of NASA personnel; therefore, that NASA should take a stance very much like that of Project Blue Book is not surprising.
GEPAN & SERPA & GEIPAN (France, 1977–present)
In 1977, the French Space Agency CNES Director General set up a unit to record UFO sighting reports. The unit was initially known as Groupe d’Etudes des Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non identifiés (GEPAN), changed in 1988 to Service d'expertise de rentrée atmosphérique Phenom (SERPA) and in 2005 to Groupe d'études et d'informations sur les phénomènes aérospatiaux non identifiés (GEIPAN).
GEIPAN found a mundane explanation for the vast majority of recorded cases, but in 2007, after 30 years of investigation, 1,600 cases, approximately 28% of total cases, remained unexplained "despite precise witness accounts and good-quality evidence recovered from the scene" and are categorized as "Type D". In April 2010, GEIPAN statistics stated that 23% of all cases were of Type D. However, Jean-Jacques Velasco, the head of SEPRA from 1983 to 2004, wrote a book in 2004 noting that 13.5% of the 5,800 cases studied by SEPRA were dismissed without any rational explanation, and stated that UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin.
In 2000, Sepra refocused on the original mission of UAP (unidentified aerospace phenomenon) research, albeit with limited resources. In 2001, the Director General requested an audit to help decide on the future of this CNES department.
Since 1977, Gepan and then Sepra have collected close to 6,000 reports from eyewitnesses, mostly on the ground butabout 6% who observed phenomena from aircraft.
Once reported events have been grouped into observation cases, about 22% remain unexplained after investigation and analysis.
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United Nations (UN) and UFOs
Thanks to the lobbying of Eric Gairy, the Prime Minister of Grenada, the United Nations General Assembly addressed the UFO issue in the late 1970s. On July 14, 1978, a panel, with Gordon Cooper, J. Allen Hynek, and Jacques Vallée among its members, held a hearing to inform the UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim about the matter. As a consequence of this meeting, the UN adopted decisions A/DEC/32/424 and A/DEC/33/426, which called for the "establishment of an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, co-ordinating and disseminating the results of research into unidentified flying objects and related phenomena".
At its 87th plenary meeting, on 18 December 1978, the UN General Assembly, on the recommendation of the Special Political Committee recommended the establishment of an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, co-ordinating and disseminating the results of research into unidentified flying objects and related phenomena.
UN General Assembly decision 33/426, 1978
Establishment of an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, co-ordinating and disseminating the results of research into unidentified flying objects and related phenomena.
At its 87th plenary meeting, on 18 December 1978, the General Assembly,on the recommendation of the Special Political Committee adoptedthe following text as representing the consensus of the membersof the Assembly:
"1. The General Assembly has taken note of the statements made, and draft resolutions submitted, by Grenada at the thirty-second and thirty-third sessions of the General Assembly regarding unidentified flying objects and related phenomena.
"2. the General Assembly invites interested Member States to take appropriate steps to coordinate on a national level scientific research and investigation into extraterrestrial life, including unidentified flying objects, and to inform the Secretary-General of the observations, research and evaluation of such activities.
"3. The General Assembly requests the Secretary-general to transmit the statements of the delegation of Grenada and the relevant documentation to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, so that it may consider them at its session in 1979.
"4. The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space will permit Grenada, upon its request, to present its views to the Committee at its session in 1979. the committee's deliberation will be included in its report which will be considered by the General Assembly at its thirty-fourth session."
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UN Outer Space Office Background
THE UNITED NATIONS ROLE IN SPACE
The United Nations has been a forum for international discussions relating to space activities and the environment for many years. But in the last few years, like many other organizations, it has paid increasing attention to the need to protect the environment, including the space environment.
The work of the United Nations relating to space activities and the environment focuses on the promotion of international cooperation in the use of space technology for monitoring the terrestrial environmental; and working to ensure that space activities do not themselves cause damage to the space or Earth environment.
The efforts of the United Nations to promote international cooperation in space fall into two rather different categories. One is the negotiation of international political and legal agreements. For these efforts, the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and its Legal Subcommittee are the primary forums, and the major participants are the space powers. The developing countries with space programmes, including Brazil, China and India, are playing an increasingly active role in the international policy debates, in particular with respect to the space and Earth environments.
The second category of United Nations space activities is the provision of technical assistance to developing countries, mainly through the Programme on Space Applications. This Programme is overseen by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, and the major participants are, of course, the developing countries. Efforts to promote the use of space technology for monitoring and protecting the terrestrial environment fall mainly into this category.
The United Nations monitoring role has focused on education and training for developing countries. The Office for Outer Space Affairs, through its Programme on Space Applications, organizes short seminars, workshops and training courses and arranges for fellowships for long-term education through institutions in countries with advanced facilities. Since its inception in 1970, this Programme has concentrated its efforts on Remote Sensing of the Earth, Life Sciences, Space Transportation Systems, Planetary Exploration, and Astronomy.
The fields of planetary exploration and astronomy are commonly subsumed under the term Basic Space Science.
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