>>The following article is the first of two parts excerpted from "Just Cause", the quarterly newsletter of CAUS, Citizens Against UFO Secrecy. Run by Barry Greenwood and Lawrence Fawcett, this organization attempts to gain access to government documents on UFOs through the Freedom of Information Act. ______________________ MJ12: MYTH OR REALITY? ______________________ Did a secret government panel once intensively study a crashed-UFO case with compelling physical evidence at its disposal? Did this panel set the UFO debunking policy for the government which persists to this day? These are certainly questions which h ave echoed throughout UFOlogy for decades, generating scores of wild rumors. Many of the rumors died a quick death while others lingered, helped along mainly by a cadre of conspiracy theorists/supporters. One such story was Frank Scully's Artec, New Mexic o UFO crash, which formed the basis for the 1950 book "BEHIND THE FLYING SAUCERS". In virtually all of theses cases, the substance necessary to the credibility of the story was sorely lacking. Recent revelations have shown that at least a small number of the surviving rumors deserve a day in court, most notably the Roswell, NM incident of 1947, involving the alleged crash of a UFO and the recovery and study of the debris (and bodies) at Wri ght Field (now Wright-Patterson AFB, OH). A relatively new rumor has surfaced which we would like to discuss in some detail because it is new and it bears some interesting connections to old stories. CAUS does not yet endorse this as fact. Our long-standing policy of requiring conclusive gove rnment documentation still stands and will always stand. We have yet to see such documentation in this instance. Nevertheless, it is hoped that open discussion will elicit practical response toward proving or burying this latest tale. During the final stages of "CLEAR INTENT" [Greenwood and Fawcett, 1984], I had collected documents related to multiple sightings of UFOs over Kirtland AFB, NM in August, 1980. The story of this series of reports is in the Epilog of CLEAR INTENT. What wasn't inserted in the book was a document, allegedly a government document, which had made the rounds in the so-called UFO grapevine. It told of an analysis performed of the "Dr. Bennewitz" photographic data which had been part of the subject matter in t he confirmed AFOSI [Air Force Office of Special Investigations] file release on Kirtland. It concluded that some of the photos were "legitimate negatives of unidentified aerial objects." The document went on to discuss, very briefly, a top-secret "Project Aquarius" and something called "MJ 12". These terms meant little to us at the time so inquiries were launched to determine the origin of the terms and the document. No government agency had any knowledge of the matter, and the alleged originator, AFOSI, said that the document was a "fabrication". Since we had no evidence to prove otherwise and since the document came from a source other than the FOIA [Freedom Of Information Act], I chose not to use it in CI. My copy of the Aquarius document contained several misspellings and irregularities in format, further adding to my suspicions but I did not rule out the possibility of this perhaps being a retyped version of an original, legitimate document by a "mole" in the military. The piece was filed and remained in limbo for a time. This past summer the mysterious "MJ 12" portion of the Aquarius document surfaced again when CAUS was advised by several members that California UFO researcher Lee Graham was conducting inquiries into MJ 12, apparently based on specific information fr om an unknown individual in the government. The specifics were rather intriguing. MJ 12, or Majestic 12, was a panel formed to investigate and report its findings to the President of the United States on the matter of Unidentified Flying Objects. It addressed in particular the Roswell, NM incident of July 2, 1947. Second of two-part excerpt from "Just Cause", newsletter of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy, regarding the controversial "Aquarius" memo, and "MJ 12". _______________ What about the data in the "MJ12" report? The date is immediately telling. September 18, 1947, is the birthday of the CIA, the official first day of their existence! Is it a coincidence or a tell-tale clue to the document being phony? Or could this report have been one of the first orders of business for the flegdling CIA? The connection of the 1947 Roswell incident to this affair makes sense. Based on the information unveiled by Bill Moore, Stan Friedman and others, the Roswell crash was clearly a major topic in high government circles. It strains credibility to think that piles of metallic debris would have been sent to Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio from New Mexico for analysis if the material were simply parts of what should have been an easily-recognizable radar reflector balloon to Army Air Force officers. After the arrival of the material at Wright-Patterson and wherever else it may have gone, official documentation ceases. No useful government files describing analysis of the debris have been unearthed. Obviously analysis took place somewhere. Where is the report? If the Roswell object were a strange device of some sort, then involvement of the individuals listed as MJ 12 would make sense. My first thoughts upon seeing this list of people is that if a UFO had crashed and was recovered, this would be the kind of panel that I would want to put together to investigate the matter. All of these individuals were at the top in their respective areas of experience during the late 1940's and had the added benefit of government experience behind them. The Majestic 12 indeed! A number of them were later involved in the UFO phenomenon. In fact, fully half of the panel would make a mark on UFO history during and after 1947: o Hoyt Vandenberg - said to have read the now-famous 1948 "Estimate of the Situation" and subsequently ordered it downgraded and destroyed for lack of evidence that UFO's were interplanetary. o Roscoe Hillenkoeter - Former board member of NICAP and proponent of UFO reality. o Vannevar Bush - Mentioned in the formelry top secret Canadian "Smith memo" of November 21, 1950, as the head of a "concentrated effort" to study UFOs. o Nathan Twining - Authored a well-known September 1947 Air Force memo strongly endorsing the serious nature of UFOs. o Donald Menzel - Author of 3 books debunking the UFO phenomenon. o Lloyd Berkner - member of the CIA's "Robertson Panel" of 1953. Panel members' background show that most had connections to either the National Security Council or the Research and Development Board (R&DB). The R&DB figures prominently in testimony given to us by Dr. Robert Sarbacher and CAUS is convinced that UFO file material exists in the R&DB's holdings at the National Archives. Another curiousity. General Twining's pro-UFO "flying discs" memo (see CLEAR INTENT, pp.213-214) dated September 23, 1947, comes only five days after the MJ12 report. Could Twining's possible connection to an MJ12 panel have had an influence on his wr iting of the 9/23/47 memo? The listing of Vandenberg and particularly Donald Menzel as MJ12 members is a major curiousity since both had later negative involvement in UFOs. If an MJ12 Panel concluded that UFOs were real, Menzel's and Vandenberg's debunking would seem illogical. Or would it?