171 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
171 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: WILD GOOSE - MJ12 FILE: UFO2123
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Editorial
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Wild Goose
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Two and a half years ago, the MJ-12 briefing document,
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allegedly written in November 1952 to inform President-elect
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Eisenhower of two UFO crashes (Roswell, 1947, and the Texas-
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Mexico border, 1950) and of a supersecret project called
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Majestic-12, was unleashed on the world, by Bill Moore in
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California and Timothy Good in England. Today the issue remains
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unsettled, though at the moment the skeptics seem to have the
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upper hand. (They argue that the signature of President Truman
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on another alleged MJ-12 document, which arrived on the same roll
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of 35mm film that the briefing document did, is identical to
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Truman's signature on another, undisputed, non-UFO document from
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the same period, the implication being that a hoaxer appended a
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real signature to a bogus document.) Within a few weeks Stanton
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Friedman will have submitted his report on his investigation to
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the Fund for UFO Research, which gave him $16,000 with which to
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conduct the inquiry.
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At that time perhaps we will be able to come to a fully-
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informed judgment. And perhaps then, too, we will have a chance
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to reflect on whether it would have been wiser to spend that
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money on further investigation of the Roswell incident, next to
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which MJ-12 (for which so far evidence barely exists) is a
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distinctly secondary issue. It is sadly true that the MJ-12
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uproar, for all the paper it has generated, has produced not much
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of substance (and not a single serious researcher, even Friedman,
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willing to identify himself as a "proponent" of the document).
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Certainly the MJ-12 affair has done little to enhance any real
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understanding of how the United States government dealt with the
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UFO phenomenon, including the presumed hard evidence from the
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Roswell crash.
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This is not to say that the briefing paper is unworthy of
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investigation; it certainly ought to have been, and to be looked
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into, at lease as time and resources permit. But in retrospect
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it seems clear that Roswell, not MJ-12, should have remained the
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primary focus. It is too bad that the issue of the cover-up was
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allowed to drift from something substantive (just how substantive
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will become clear next year when IUR reports in full on what
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CUFOS' Roswell investigation has uncovered) to a document sent
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anonymously and presumably by individuals already implicated in
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what everyone now acknowledges to be the spread of
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disinformation. It must also be noted that it was out of the MJ-
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12 swamp that the lurid pulp fantasies of John Lear, Bill Cooper
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and Bill English bubbled to the surface. According to Bill
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Moore, himself a central figure in the MJ-12 controversy, those
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tall tales about man-eating aliens were cooked up (so to speak)
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by intelligence-agency people seeking further to confuse an
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already deluded UFO buff. Moore acknowledges that he helped the
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process along. As he told an audience at this year's MUFON
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conference, "The entire story of a secret treaty between the U.S.
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government and the aliens, of exchanges of technology between us
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and the aliens, of battles between aliens and American armed
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forces, and of aliens allegedly having implanted human
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beings...came about as a result of this process. I know because
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I was in a position to observe much of this process as it
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unfolded and I was providing regular reports on its effectiveness
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to some of the very people who were 'doing it'..."
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It requires neither imagination nor paranoia to conclude
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that it was also done to Moore, who over a period of years (and
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continuing even now) has been the recipient -- not the only one
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-- of astonishing but unverifiable tales about Extraterrestrial
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Biological Entities, including live ones in government custody.
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Moore's informants, said to be military-intelligence people,
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produced (despite promises) no documentations for any of these
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claims, which had at least the advantage of being less
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insultingly illogical than Lear-Cooper-English's brainless
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scenario. As I remarked in an earlier editorial (IUR,
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September/October 1988), these sorts of claims "make a certain
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hypothetical sense," given what might have followed from a
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Roswell incident (such as an attempt to contact the controlling
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intelligences behind the attempt to contact the controlling
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intelligences behind the UFO phenomenon to learn what their
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purpose is), but "the evidence supporting them is all but
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nonexistent."
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One of the interesting features of the MJ-12 paper, not
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often remarked on, is that it is not in concordance with the EBE
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story. As the EBE story (or at least a part of it) goes, in 1949
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one EBE survived a UFO crash and spent the next three years at
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Los Alamos before expiring in 1952. Supposedly EBE was blabbing
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the full story of the ET visitation to his captors -- a detail
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curiously absent from the Eisenhower briefing document. At the
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same time, as IUR readers will learn in future issues, the
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briefing paper's account of the Roswell event is essentially
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accurate. That is, I suppose, of some small comfort to whoever
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still harbors hope for the briefing paper's authenticity.
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Another small source of comfort has been the absence of any truly
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compelling arguments against the briefing document itself, though
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plenty of arguments pretending to be that have been advanced.
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(As already noted, an MJ-12-related document, part of the
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briefing paper's appendix, Truman's supposed September 24, 1947,
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order bringing Majestic-12 into being, does appear vulnerable.)
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Friedman and Moore have done a good job of showing where the
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critics are mistaken, but even they concede this is not an
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argument for the briefing paper's authenticity. It is always
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possible, and in this case maybe even probable, that the critics
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are right even if their reasons are wrong.
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Perhaps the most surprising claim the briefing paper makes
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is that Donald Menzel, Harvard astronomer and archdebunker of UFO
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reports, was a member of Majestic-12, thus making him a conscious
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agent of an anti-UFO disinformation campaign. This remarkable
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assertion led Friedman to conduct the sorts of inquiries into
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Menzel's background that no one had done before. Friedman
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learned ("the Secret Life of Donald H. Menzel," IUR,
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January/February 1988) that Menzel possessed the highest security
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clearances and was well-placed within the U.S. intelligence
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community -- just as he would have had to be to be privy to the
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Ultimate Secret. This amounts to a finding of the consistent-
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with-the-hypothesis variety, but nothing more. No hint that
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Menzel secretly took UFOs seriously has come to light, and those
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who knew him best, including his wife, reject the idea out of
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hand. To this Friedman rejoins, reasonably enough, that Menzel
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would not have breathed a word of this even to family members.
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Yet Menzel's ferocious UFOobia was far in excess of what he would
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have had to exhibit to lead the press and fellow scientists away
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from the scent (not that most even knew there was a scent),
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suggesting that he was not acting under orders but out of the
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sort of manic obsession that has fueled other sincere if
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misguided debunkers.
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Nonetheless Menzel's appearance on the MJ-12 list is
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undeniably curious. Presumably it means something. It may
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indicate, since practically nothing of Menzel's secret life in
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intelligence was known before Friedman's investigation, that the
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hoax (if hoax it was) was perpetrated by individuals privy to
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classified information. In other words, this is no ordinary
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hoax; it had a serious purpose connected with national-security
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concerns. On the other hand, the hoaxer may have erred in making
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one extraordinary claim too many. Amusingly, it is not the
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briefing document's claim of a UFO crash that is the most
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difficult to believe; it is the claim that Menzel knew about it.
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The evidence for the crash is substantial, that for Menzel's
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knowledge of it is nil. A friend of mine once suggested that
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perhaps Menzel's name was put on the list for a reason: to
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assure any knowledgeable person within the intelligence community
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that the briefing paper was not, after all, a real leak of real
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information.
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None of this is to say, of course, that the MJ-12 briefing
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document has been proven to be bogus, or that no such project
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(whether called MJ-12 or something else) could have existed. But
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it is to say that, despite the enormous, even heroic, research
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efforts of Stan Friedman, the issue is as unresolved -- and
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probably unresolvable -- as ever. It could be true. It could be
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one of those exceedingly rare instances in human history when
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diamonds are found floating in cesspools. That doesn't happen
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often. More conceivably (though also unprovably), the briefing
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paper was hatched as part of a scheme to distract investigators
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form pursuits truly threatening to the cover-up.
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To all present appearances (though future events may
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radically alter our perception), the MJ-12 controversy has gotten
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us nowhere, maybe less than nowhere, since it has consumed
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valuable time that might have been spent more productively on
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other matters, not the least of them Roswell. From the
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beginning, it is true, CUFOS encouraged the MJ-12 investigation
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and IUR has reported, and will continue to report, new
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developments. But ufology's resources are limited and I think
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most would agree, after 2 1/2 years, that MJ-12 has eaten up too
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many of them already. Unless Friedman's Fund report brings forth
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major new evidence, all of us would be well-advised to move on to
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something else. If an answer to the MJ-12 puzzle is to be found,
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perhaps we'll get to it one day, while we're looking for
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something else. But as a whole new chapter in the Roswell saga
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begins to unfold, we have better things to do than to pursue a
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wild goose across a barren landscape. -- Jerome Clark
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=================================================================
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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