The MJ-12 Documents, Reconsidered

It was easy to dismiss the whole thing as a majestic hoax. Do we now have some indirect confirmation?

What if a largely dismissed conspiracy theory turns out to be supported by a surprise paper trail?

First off, be aware that no matter wherever you fall in the spectrum of determination about the content and validity of the MJ-12 (aka Majestic 12, or MAJIC-12) documents, you are being manipulated. All you can do is make a decision for yourself about what to believe. And then maybe later change your mind, possibly several times.

The alleged MJ-12 records are a controversial cache of memos, letters, reports, and manuals that purport to reveal the creation and management of covert U.S. Government programs to study materials recovered from downed Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs, or if you must, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon [UAP]. Flying saucer still works just fine — unless, of course, it crashed).

For those interested in UFOs, the MJ-12 documents are the grandpa of provenance free conundrums. The initial date of their arrival into the hands of UFO investigators was December, 1984. A Los Angeles TV producer named Jamie Shandera received in the mail an anonymous package with a roll of undeveloped film.

The film proved to contain images of documents whose authors were supposedly some of the highest ranking government officials of the 1940s-1950s, as well as involving multiple U.S. Presidents. Before publicizing the materials, Shandera worked quietly with well known ufologists William Moore and Stanton Friedman to ascertain the legitimacy of the records.

The whistle got blown in 1987, however, by a UFO investigator named Timothy Good with the publication of his book Above Top Secret. Outed thus, a sequence of books and public lectures directed toward the UFO community began to consider the MJ-12 documents in extremely fine detail.

After that the fun and games continued for decades, by which time people more or less made their decision about veracity. Some well-respected researchers like the late Stanton Friedman accepted the MJ-12 documents as genuine. Others considered them debunked.

One entrance to the MJ-12 rabbit hole is a website called MajesticDocuments, which displays and ranks the individual records with a scale of attributed reliability. After years of chewing on technical issues like fonts, format, and auto-pen finishes, however, interest in the MJ-12 documents by the UFO commentariat generally moved on.

Many, probably most, people decided the MJ-12 records were a hoax and dismissed their content.

As they were perhaps intended to do by whoever posted them anonymously to a Hollywood producer.

Pay No Attention

If someone says something is unbelievable, is that just what they want you to think?

The effect of the MJ-12 documents on the UFO discussion was much akin to that caused by the more recent Wilson-Davis memo. Released into public view after the death of astronaut Edgar Mitchell, that 14-page document purports to be the account of a car park meeting in 2002 between Vice Admiral Thomas R. Wilson and Dr. Eric W. Davis.

Basically, the Wilson-Davis memo describes a corporate controlled, highly secret program to reverse engineer materials recovered from crashed UFOs. Wilson, who served as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, is said to have been excluded from being read in to something he thought his authority entitled him to know.

That’s a nice little pension you got there. Pity if something happened to it.

The notes of the meeting are attributed to Eric Davis, an astrophysicist who presently works for Aerospace Corporation. Davis has a much attested reputation for congenital truthfulness, but Wilson denied the meeting ever took place (as the notes said he would). In a peculiar statement, Davis did not disavow that he wrote them. In this sense, the same conflict over origin occurred as took place with the MJ-12 documents.

Very recently, however, Christopher Mellon — former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence — had this to say:

“Dr. Davis, author of the famous Wilson-Davis memo, provided specific information lending credence to sensational reports that an official US government program is actively seeking to exploit recovered technology that was fashioned by some other species or perhaps advanced AI machines.”

There. The bombshell. Positive confirmation of authorship by Davis from someone who is in a position to know. Next best thing to Davis himself saying so, which he may yet do behind closed doors on Capitol Hill.

The Wilson-Davis notes have become a tool in the present effort by Congress to get to the root of the UAP mystery. At the Congressional hearings in May, 2022, the document was — to the sheer ecstatic astonishment of many watching online — entered into the official record of the proceedings by Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-Wisconsin).

Mellon, whose longstanding stature as a high ranking public official and his acquaintance with Eric Davis gives him a solid position of credibility, says that Davis wrote the memorandum. Davis has not contradicted him. Mellon is a careful and thoughtful man used to keeping national security secrets who is highly unlikely to offer casually an attribution that could damage his reputation for probity.

The content of the Wilson-Davis document provides grounds for considering that there has long been a large scale concealed program of research and development (R&D) for recovered non-human technology within the military-industrial complex. Just like the MJ-12 documents indicated was the case.

The truth is out there, man.

Houston, We Have Lift Off

Secrets keep company with other secrets.

Among the many criticisms of the MJ-12 documents, one key element has been the lack of any other government documents that refer to such a group or organization called Majestic or MAJIC. This absence of corroborating references outside of the document images received by Jamie Shandera was the straw on the camel’s back for many people to conclude that the whole thing was a hoax.

Of course, some folks considered that a super secret organization powerful enough to be called a “shadow government” might not have their existence noted by name in more everyday records. Instead, the thought came that such people would likely use an innocuous “insider’s” shorthand term for referring to themselves when needed where unwanted eyes and ears might peek or overhear. Like, say, on a daily scheduling calendar.

Meet the “Special Group” (SG).

On December 15, 2022, the National Archives released an additional 13,173 documents concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. All of this was supposed to be public long before now according to the John F. Kennedy Records Collection Act of 1992.

However, Federal agencies like the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI have strongly resisted compliance with the law. Whether they are protecting still surviving operatives (seriously?) or just covering their past mistakes (or malfeasance) remains an open question.

Among this tranche of newly available Kennedy era documents is the daily calendar of Allen Dulles, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953 to 1961. Part had earlier been “sanitized” by some censors at the CIA in 1998. Maybe they didn’t know what “SG” meant.

A user with the handle Harry_is_white_hot published on Reddit an intriguing discovery found in the newly revealed Dulles calendar. One of the MJ-12 documents alleges to be a directive from President Kennedy to Director Dulles for a review of “MJ-12 Intelligence Operations.” The one page letter is dated June 28, 1961. Although the date stamp is partly illegible, we can see that the National Security Council dispatch time is the next day sometime after 3 PM.

The full presentation on Reddit covers a host of aspects and considerations related to the CIA, calendar synchronicity, individuals involved, and MJ-12. The writer points out the appearance of abbreviated notations for the “Special Group” that appear subsequently in the diary.

For us here, that comes down to the newly revealed fact that among these strange connections is a correlation between the date and time of the Kennedy MJ-12 document and Dulles’s actual daily calendar. On that date, Dulles did meet alone with President Kennedy twice in a day — the only time that ever happened. Following a less than 45 minute long noon meeting, there was a second Oval Office encounter in the afternoon at 3:30 PM.

It would be a bizarre coincidence indeed that someone in the 1980s who decided to fake a Presidential letter to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency referencing MJ-12 would pick a date when Allen Dulles met twice privately with the President (there was no Internet to consult, and the Kennedy White House Daily Schedules were not easily accessible).

Not a smoking gun, but certainly a curious downlight into the shadowy world of MJ-12.

A Matter of Corso

Transistors and lasers and fiber optics, oh my!

In 1997, Philip James Corso published a book (some say co-authored, others say tarted up by ufologist William J. Birnes) called The Day After Roswell. Corso was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army who served in the White House on the staff of the National Security Council from 1953 to 1957. He also worked in other sensitive military assignments during a long career of government service.

In his book, Corso describes administering a covert program to disperse recovered non-human technology into the hands of American private industry for reverse engineering. He reported that the results of this secret corporate handshake produced, among other things, integrated semi-conductor circuits, lasers, particle beam accelerators, Kevlar, fiber optics, and other technologies in modern use.

Profits, many, there are.

Corso indicates that this hidden research and development program was related to the work of a secret group led by Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter. In other words, that covert R&D technology transfer might just fit in the shoes of what is revealed by the MJ-12 documents (where Hillenkoetter’s name appears at the top of a list of the twelve original members; see second illustration above).

Here we come to one of the fun ironies in ufology. As noted, after doing extensive forensic research the much respected Stanton Friedman accepted at least most of the MJ-12 documents as genuine. Friedman did not, however, believe what Corso said. He explained his conclusion, gently, by saying that Corso had “just wanted to leave something nice to his son.”

That is how many people left Corso in the rear view mirror when he passed away in 1998. For the mainstream, if there is such a thing in ufology, Stanton Friedman had spoken. Yet taken together with the MJ-12 documents and the Wilson-Davis memo, there is an uneasy continuity of narrative between them and The Day After Roswell.

Perhaps the time has come to hit the reset button on evaluation of both Corso’s account and the MJ-12 documents.

The National Disclosure Authorization Act

If something wasn’t there, we wouldn’t be looking.

The marvel that is the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2023 passed Congress, was signed by President Biden on December 23, 2022, and is now law. The requirements of the legislative body that has oversight over our democracy and its institutions are made clear in 31 pages of extraordinarily precise text regarding UAP.

Language in the NDAA is reportedly based on briefings to Congresspersons, Senators, and their staffs from people in the know about hidden R&D programs working with corporate defense contractors to reverse engineer non-human technology. It wasn’t written on a whim as part of a fishing expedition.

The NDAA law provides protection for whistleblowers to come forward. Apparently some already have in conversations with Congress. Journalists mention there is a list of at least 20 such individuals ready to speak of their personal knowledge concerning efforts to reverse engineer recovered non-human technology.

Anything sounding familiar? Again?

The fact that a highly divided, rather more than less dysfunctional political institution has passed into law on a bipartisan basis this microscopic examination of UAP secrecy is eye catching.

The Committee will come to order and stop growling.

The sparkling jewel in the crown of the NDAA UAP sections is the demand for a report going all the way back to January 1, 1945, for everything in government files related to UAP. This includes, by the way, an account of any historical efforts to manipulate (read: deceive) the American public.

We should all want to know (specifically!) how we have been misused and abused by those who have sequestered UAP information for the past 75 years. Naturally, though, people like you and me are excluded from any direct access to classified information dislodged by the NDAA.

However, like the inquisitive Redditor who dug into the recently released Kennedy assassination documents, we have a role to play. For all the petty childish bickering among the smugly victimizing egos on #UFOTwitter, there exists in ufology an enormous reservoir of knowledgeable eyeballs not constrained by a non-disclosure agreement.

The extensive research that has accumulated through civilian UFO organizations, been uncovered by independent investigators, and excavated from government files by Freedom of Information Act requests is at our disposal.

We also have (still possibly untrustworthy) things like the MJ-12 documents, the account of Philip Corso, and the Wilson-Davis notes. Even though these sources are separated by decades, they all (strikingly) tell the same story. In this light, for example, we may also wish to reconsider the reports in the 1970s by UFO investigator Leonard Stringfield of multiple crash recoveries.

But what if we have already been given pieces of the puzzle in such a way as to disregard the possibility they fit?

Denying The Denial

What goes around comes around can also be an exit strategy.

While we ready ourselves for whatever dribble of public information we get through the NDAA, we have an opportunity to look back on what we have already learned. It may turn out that we have been told more than we think. On purpose.

Among the people in the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies that have suppressed the existence of UAP for 75 years are the most skilled and well practiced psychological manipulators on the planet. Deception is an integral part of their ethos. Moral and ethical considerations, even human decency, have been shown historically not to interfere with their work when need be.

These very clever folks successfully managed the minds of hundreds of millions of trusting Americans, as well as broader humanity, into believing UAP didn’t exist. They created still potent stigma and taboo to enforce this perspective.

Great work, fellas. Let’s break for lunch then head out to the Nimitz and pick up those hard drives.

One aspect of getting their task done is to plan ahead. The question comes to mind wondering if they might have periodically included a kill switch in case UAP circumstances changed.

Everyone knows the best place to hide something is right in front. There is a narrative here of UFO crash recoveries being reverse engineered that was presented to us over decades, all covered with the pixie dust of incredulity. If something is a priori deemed inconceivable, you are less likely follow up with a click on the headline.

Don’t bother, that’s nonsense. Can we interest you in a war somewhere to sell c̶a̶p̶i̶t̶a̶l̶i̶s̶m — er, democracy?

It seems like a kind of pressure release valve. Anytime something new comes up that looks like something old which has already been impugned, then there is less interest (and no need go to all the trouble of a false flag).

Wilson-Davis? Sounds like MJ-12, and everyone knows that’s BS.

We are told there are those in the Pentagon and related corners of the secret keeping universe that want UAP disclosure. There are now said to be a substantial number of whistleblowers lining up to testify to Congress about their knowledge of crash recovery programs. And here we are with the prospective outcome of the NDAA requirements, too.

Perhaps the time is coming upon us when we will have enough parts to assemble and discern the truth on our own. None too swiftly, though, as the NDAA historical report is not due for 570 days from the day of President Biden’s signature. But realistically, if you reconsider the MJ-12 → Corso → Wilson-Davis consistency, the cat can appear part way out of the bag already. If you look at it in a certain way.

As we intended. Never tie a secret too tight. Always leave some space to doubt the truth.

It is impossible to believe that the psyops people didn’t plan ahead for this very contingency and prepare an exit. Could it be that the MJ-12 documents were planted as bread crumbs for a future moment that is nearly at hand? Either faction, pro or con disclosure, might have done it. Are the numerous threads about UFO crash recoveries over the years all strings meant to be pulled when the moment arrives?

See, we didn’t really lie, we just got everyone to laugh at you for asking.

We have many questions for these people, to be sure. But you can almost hear their answer:

Our work here is done.

For regular insight into the UFO/UAP issue, check out Need to Know with Coulthart and Zabel.