In UFO conspiracy theories, Majestic 12 is the code name of an alleged secret committee
of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, formed in 1947 by an executive
order by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to facilitate recovery and investigation of alien
spacecraft.
The concept originated in a series of supposedly "leaked" secret government documents first
circulated by ufologists in 1984.
Upon examination, the FBI declared the documents to be "completely bogus", and many ufologists
consider them to be an elaborate hoax.
Majestic 12 remains popular among some UFO conspiracy theorists and the concept has appeared
in popular culture including television, film, and literature.
Origin The concept of "Majestic Twelve" emerged during
a period in the 1980s when ufologists believed there had been a cover-up of the Roswell UFO
incident and speculated some secretive upper tier of the US government was responsible.
Their suppositions appeared to be confirmed in 1984 when ufologist Jaime Shandera said
he received an envelope containing film which, when developed, showed images of eight pages
of documents that appeared to be briefing papers describing "Operation Majestic Twelve".
The documents purported to reveal a secret committee of twelve supposedly authorized
by US president Harry Truman in 1952, and explain how the crash of an alien spacecraft
at Roswell in 1947 had been concealed, how the recovered alien technology could be exploited,
and how the US should engage with extraterrestrial life in future.
Shandera and his ufologist colleagues Stanton T. Friedman and Bill Moore say they later
received a series of anonymous messages that led them to find what has been called the
"Cutler/Twining memo" in 1985 while searching declassified files in the National Archives.
Purporting to be written by General Nathan Twining to President Eisenhower's assistant
Robert Cutler and containing a reference to Majestic 12, the memo is widely held to be
a forgery, likely planted as part of a hoax.
Historian Robert Goldberg wrote that the ufologists came to believe the story despite the documents
being "obviously planted to bolster the legitimacy of the briefing papers".
Claiming to be connected to the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations,
a man named Richard Doty told filmmaker Linda Moulton Howe that the MJ-12 story was true,
and showed Howe unspecified documents purporting to prove the existence of small, grey humanoid
aliens originating from the Zeta Reticuli star system.
Doty reportedly promised to supply Howe with film footage of UFOs and an interview with
an alien being, although no footage ever materialized.
Soon, distrust and suspicion led to disagreements within the ufology community over the authenticity
of the MJ-12 documents, and Moore was accused of taking part in an elaborate hoax, while
other ufologists and debunkers such as Philip Klass were accused of being "disinformation
agents".
The Federal Bureau of Investigation began its own investigation of the supposed "secret"
documents and quickly formed doubts as to their authenticity.
The U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations stated that no such committee had ever been
authorized or formed, and that the documents were “bogus.”
The FBI subsequently declared the MJ-12 documents to be "completely bogus.”
Later in 1996, a document called the MJ-12 "Special Operations Manual" circulated among
ufologists.
It is also widely considered to be a fake and "a continuation of the MJ-12 myth".
Earlier mentions According to journalist Howard Blum the name
"Majestic 12" had been prefigured in the UFO community when Bill Moore asked National Enquirer
reporter Bob Pratt in 1982 to collaborate on a novel called MAJIK-12.
Because of this, Blum writes, Pratt had always been inclined to think the Majestic 12 documents
a hoax.
Alleged members The following individuals were described in
the Majestic 12 documents as "designated members" of Majestic 12.
Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter Vannevar Bush
James Forrestal Nathan Twining
Hoyt Vandenberg Detlev Bronk
Jerome Clarke Hunsaker Sidney Souers
Gordon Gray Donald Menzel
Robert M. Montague Lloyd Berkner
Popular culture The Majestic 12 stories inspired the television
series Dark Skies and have appeared as a plot element in The X-Files.
Alien abduction claimant Whitley Strieber wrote a novel called Majestic in 1989 which
focused on the origins of MJ-12.
References
Further reading Stanton T. Friedman, TOP SECRET/MAJIC, 1997,
Marlowe & Co., ISBN 1-56924-741-2 Philip J. Klass, The MJ-12 Crashed Saucer
Documents, Skeptical Inquirer, vol XII, #2, Winter 1987-88, 137-146.
Reprinted as chapter 7 of The UFO Invasion.
Philip J. Klass, The MJ-12 Papers - part 2, Skeptical Inquirer, vol XII, #3, Spring 1988,
279-289.
Philip J. Klass, MJ-12 Papers "Authenticated"?, Skeptical Inquirer, vol 13, #3, Spring 1989,
305-309.
Reprinted as chapter 8 of The UFO Invasion.
Philip J. Klass, New Evidence of MJ-12 Hoax, Skeptical Inquirer, vol 14, #2, Winter 1990,
135-140.
Reprinted as chapter 9 of The UFO Invasion.
Also reprinted in The Outer Edge: *Classic Investigations of the Paranormal, edited by
Joe Nickell, Barry Karr, and Tom Genoni, CSICOP, 1996.
Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer, The Crashed Saucer Forgeries, International UFO Reporter,
March 1990, 4-12.
Curtis Peebles, Watch the Skies: a Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth, 1994, Smithsonian
Press, ISBN 1-56098-343-4, pp 264–268.
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1995, Random House,
ISBN 0-394-53512-X, page 90.
Kathryn S. Olmsted, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War
I to 9/11.
Chapter 6: Trust No One: Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories from the 1970s to the
1990s.
2009 Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-975395-6 External links
FBI site on Majestic 12 National archives memo on Cutler memo