MJ-12: No Proof that TF, CT, or EBD Documents are Fraudulent, Argues Friedman

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MJ-12: No Proof that TF, CT, or EBD Documents are Fraudulent, Argues Friedman

By Stanton Friedman The UFO Chronicles © 10-25-14

      First I want to thank Kevin Randle for providing another excellent example of the fictional approach to research. I notice he doesn’t mention Dr. Wescott’s outstanding background, details like having been a Rhodes Scholar, having been the president of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the US, having published almost 400 papers etc (there are 3 pages about him in my final Report on MJ-12). Second I did not use the term proof about his comments. This isn’t a math or physics problem. I arranged for papers to be given him. I would say he provided a preponderance of the evidence. I know of nobody better qualified to evaluate the question of whether RHH as opposed to some hoaxer prepared the EBD. Kevin also doesn’t mention that RHH was not some bungling character. He was an Annapolis graduate, had been the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency 1947-1950 and in late 1952 was head of the 3rd Naval District in New York. Washington is not far away. We know that Walter B. Smith, his successor at the CIA had been directed by Truman to coordinate Intelligence briefings for Ike (see his letter p. E-9 in my Report). I have suggested that Typing would have been done at the CIA.

Several other anti MJ-12 articles have recently been posted. But they seem more like fiction than fact; lots of scenarios, but little data or evidence. Let me first summarize where I stand:

I have been on the story for just under 30 years. I believe I have written more than anyone else and done more digging in archives. I had a security clearance for 14 years and have made many visits to 20 archives. I was lucky enough to have a research grant from the Fund for UFO research. For some crazy reason extremist Milton William Cooper said I worked for the CIA and the grant was actually from them!! In fact the Fund had sent out a questionnaire to see what its members thought needed researching. Majestic 12 was selected and I was asked to submit a proposal, which I did. The money was actually raised mostly from the Prince of Liechtenstein. I wrote a 100 + page report of my findings after visits to various Archives such as the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, The National Archives, the Truman and Eisenhower Libraries, the Harvard and Princeton Archives, etc. I included correspondence between myself and Phil Klass and a copy of his check to me for $1000.00 for proving him totally wrong about the typeface on the Cutler Twining memo—typical false reasoning on the part of the MJ-12 debunkers. Because he had all of 9 NSC items done in elite type, he thought it sensible to claim that all NSC memos were done in elite type. Not surprisingly he had never, before or since, been to the Eisenhower Library which had 250,000 pages of NSC material. He had offered to pay me $100.00 for every item meeting his criteria, up to a limit of 10. I sent 14. He paid me, but didn’t bother to tell anybody. There is also no Friedman file in his papers at the American Philosophical Society Library despite 20+ years of correspondence. I wrote a book TOP SECRET/MAJIC and many papers and responded to a host of false claims and assumptions.

Most of this goes back a long while. I spoke with family members of all the MJ-members except 1. I spoke in person with General Twining’s pilot, and his daughter and 2 sons; with Admiral Hillenkoetter’s family; with George Elsey who worked at the Truman library the entire time Truman was there, etc. I had concluded that there are 3, possibly four genuine documents (The Truman Forrestal Memo, The Cutler Twining Memo and the Eisenhower Briefing Document) and a host of phony ones. I believe I have responded to all the anti claims. My focus has been on a host of details that turned out not to be known at the time the documents were received and on a number of fictional claims and a bunch of details that would seem beyond the ken of a hoaxer. For example it was claimed that since the briefing Officer Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter was titled Admiral, that proved the document was false because he had only been a Rear Admiral. The attack neglected to mention that all 6 military guys (2 Army, 2 Navy, 2 AF) were referred to by generic ranks—not just Hillenkoetter. Furthermore, I gathered documents at the Ike Library proving that was standard practice. A good example was provided by documents written by Brigadier General Andrew Goodpaster (Ike’s Staff secretary) referring to himself as General Goodpaster, but signing as Brigadier General Goodpaster. Two archivists supported that view. He always used generic ranks when listing attendees. The claim was interesting fiction.

Here are some other false claims covered in detail in my book, report, and papers:

1. The date format, “18 November, 1952” supposedly violates the government style manual and therefore the EBD is phony. I found many examples at Archives of the use of this and several other date formats. This was pre- word processors. False claim.

2. Supposedly the security marking on the Cutler Twining memo of TOP SECRET RESTRICTED was never used by the government until after Ike was out of office. The GAO in its huge report on its search for Roswell Documents noted that they had indeed found examples of this on a number of classified documents even though they had been told (MJ 12) that it was not used. I couldn’t get copies because the documents were still classified. Why would a hoaxer not just use a plain TOP SECRET? False claim.

3. The unsigned Cutler Twining memo supposedly had to be phony because Cutler was out of the country on July 14, 1954. Actually, it would have been a phony if it had been signed or there was an “/s/” next to his typed name. Really smart hoaxer.

We didn’t find out, thanks to Bob Todd, that Cutler was gone until later. I also found at the Ike Library, Cutler’s instructions to James Lay, Exec. Sec. of the National Security Council, “to keep things moving out of my in basket while I am gone.” I also found that Lay met with Ike that day and had a phone conversation with Ike at 4:30PM. George Elsey, White House Aide under Truman, told me after looking at the documents, that of course Lay (who sat next to Cutler at all NSC Meetings) would have prepared a brief memo to General Twining in Cutler’s name. He also could find no problem with the 3 documents or the names of the people on the MJ-12 List.

4. Several objected strenuously to the surprising notion that debunker Dr. Donald Menzel could have been fully aware of UFOs at Roswell, and still be the loudest UFO debunker in the 1950s and 1960s.They objected to my saying he led a double life, despite my very surprising discovery in his papers at the Harvard Archives that he was tightly connected with the NSA, CIA, cryptology and many other intelligence activities—as noted by him to President Kennedy. The critics complained but, so far as I can tell, none went to the Harvard Archives or the Kennedy library. I spent days there and had to get permission from 3 people to see Menzel’s papers. How did anybody know to include him on Majestic 12? They just happened to pick an extraordinary claim that turned out to be true??

5. Some complained that since the EBD says the distance to the Roswell crash site was approximately 75 miles, rather than 62 by car or 100 by plane, it was a fraud. Since when does “approximately” mean precisely or exactly? The Briefing was Preliminary and hardly a guide to how to get to the crash site.

6. Several debunkers claimed vigorously that the documents are phony because all Top Secret code word documents must (they said) have Top Secret control numbers. Two archivists (Eisenhower and Marshall Archives) told me this was nonsense. They had many TS docs that did not have Control numbers. I had even published some earlier. False claim.

7. As an example of irrational thinking it was pointed out that I have claimed that there were crash retrievals in the Plains of San Agustin and Aztec. Since none are mentioned in the EBD either, they never happened or it is fraudulent because they aren’t mentioned. There was nothing that said this was a complete picture of crash retrievals. On the contrary, it says it is preliminary. Neither of these two got news coverage whereas Roswell did.

8. Since the EBD says there was a crash near El Indio-Guerero on 06 December 1950, and I have found no evidence of it, the document must be phony. It also says the burned wreckage was taken to Sandia. I know of no way to gain access to that information since Sandia is a very high security nuclear weapons Lab. False claim. It is certainly not true that absence of evidence is evidence for absence.

9. Robert Hastings has noted that I had agreed in Brazil that it is conceivable that some smart government agent could have done an enormous amount of research to create the documents. I obviously couldn’t prove a negative. Yes, but no one has provided any evidence or facts or names or details establishing that that was the case. I know from all the time, money and effort I’ve spent how difficult that would have been and I started with the documents. This, of course, doesn’t explain how somebody knew all the details that weren’t known until well after the documents were received. Psychic??

10. Many have noted that Rick Doty was based in Albuquerque and that the EBD was postmarked Albuquerque. Albuquerque is a large city, the home of Kirtland and Sandia. This proves nothing. Nor does the fact that he was involved in disinformation.

11. I have trouble believing that it is just a coincidence that September 24, 1947, the date of the TF memo, was the only date in an 8 month period that Truman, Bush and Forrestal met together. Or that the CT memo was coincidentally done while Cutler was out of the country and therefore was not signed . . . very smart hoaxer. Or that August 1, 1950, when W.B. Smith was named to replace James Forrestal on MJ-12 was the only date in the first 10 months of 1950 when Truman met with Smith. I list a bunch more “coincidences” in my Final Report.

Yes, Rick Doty was involved with false documents re Bennewitz etc., and was the first to mention MJ-12. Where is there any evidence that he faked EBD knowing enough to pass inspection? Has he been shown to have visited the Truman, or Eisenhower or Harvard Archives, etc? Klass made all kinds of claims but never went to the Ike Library. Have Greenwood, Hastings, Randle, Rojas been to the Presidential Libraries or the various Archives? Do they have any idea how much effort I’ve spent trying to show the documents were phony?

Cannot the debunkers recognize that provenance would have revealed the identity of the crime committing informant? Hoaxers normally do as little as possible to call attention to strange details, like the offset and different typeface in the numerical portion of the date on the TF, or the absence of signature on TC, or the period after the date on TF.

In short then, fiction is not the same as nonfiction. Research requires facts, data, and evidence. Nobody has shown any to establish that the TF,CT, or EBD were fraudulent Scenarios are interesting but not evidence.

I am still looking for a list of reasons that each of the 3 (CT, TF, EBD) are fraudulent. I have shown that a number of so-called MJ-12 documents were indeed false based on direct evidence. For example, in the Book “Wedemeyer Reports” by General Wedmeyer, I found three items that were retyped and Xeroxed to keep the hand written portions--clearly emulations. I found a number of other emulations, proofs of hoaxing. I have yet to see any for the 3 genuine ones.

Visit Stan's site . . .

See Also:

Roger Wescott, Roscoe Hillenkoetter and MJ-12

MJ-12: The Hoax That Quickly Became a Disinformation Operation

MJ-12 Debate Continues: Alejandro Rojas Rebukes Stanton Friedman

MJ-12 Debate Continues: Kevin Randle's Final Word on The Matter?

MJ-12 Debate Continues: Stanton Friedman Counters

MJ-12 Debate Continues: Kevin Randle Queries Stanton Friedman

MJ-12: Stanton Friedman Fires Back; The Disputation with Kevin Randle Continues ...

MJ-12: Kevin Randle Rails Against Stanton Friedman's Rebuttal

MJ-12: Alejandro Rojas Accepts Stanton Friedman's Debate Challenge

MJ-12: Renowned Ufologist, Stanton Friedman Issues Debate Challenge To Naysayers

More False Claims About Majestic 12

The Myth of MJ-12: Appendix A –Pt 1

The Myth of MJ-12: Appendix A –Pt 2

The Myth of MJ-12: Appendix A –Pt 3

"Appendix A: The Myth of MJ-12" An Annotated Commentary By Barry Greenwood

Operation Bird Droppings
The MJ-12 Saga Continues:

UPDATE 1:
Operation Bird Droppings
The MJ-12 Saga Continues:

Bird Droppings and MJ-12, Stanton Friedman Responds . . .

An Historical Curio re "MJ-12"

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MJ-12 Debate Continues: Stanton Friedman Counters

By Stanton Friedman The UFO Chronicles © 10-8-14

Kevin:

     Thank you for once again demonstrating your illogicality and inaccuracy with regard to the MJ-12 documents. Your basic rule is: Absence of evidence is evidence for absence which is illogical. Let me be specific, though as you know from previous items I have written, I provided a long list of examples. You bring up Willingham again for reasons unknown. I have never said that his story proves anything. Of course I don't have any evidence that there was a saucer crash at el Indio Guerrero. on 06 December, 1950.The document says ...."By the time the search team arrived, what remained of the object had been almost totally incinerated. Such material as could be recovered was transported to the A.E.C. facility at Sandia, New Mexico, for study." That was a nuclear weapons lab. As you are well aware, I do not have access to classified information about the results of that study or anything else. That surely doesn't mean that there was no study done. I suspect that the search team was there because "the long trajectory" was observed on radar and would also have provided classified information.

You have described the response of Peter Tytel, a noted forensic Documents examiner to whom I had sent a copy of the EBD "it was just perfect because the whole thing of the twelve pages or however many pages it was. Most of the pages were blank pages with just five words written on them like TOP SECRET or Appendix A or something like that." The fact is the EBD was 7 pages (plus the TF memo) and only one (page 7) had just Appendix A on it. Strangely you did not even include that page in your book. You quoted Tytel's off hand remark that the typewriter was of much later vintage. A full professional evaluation by James Black paid for by Dr. Robert M Wood stated the typeface was from an Underwood Standard from May 1940.

Several authorities claimed that TOP SECRET Restricted was not used during Ike's terms. The GAO found examples and said so. Blind Luck? The date of the TF was the only day in a many month period when Truman, Bush and Forrestal met. Blind Luck? The hoaxer threw a dart at a dart board and found the one time when Cutler was out of the country so didn't sign the CT or put a /s/. Of course he blindly knew that Menzel would pass muster though nobody else did. He knew to put a period after the date on TF knowing that Bush always did. He knew that James Lay had been instructed to keep things moving out of Cutler's in Basket. George Elsey, who worked for Truman all the time he was President , said Lay would have written the memo for Cutler (after I pointed out Lay's instructions from Cutler and found that there was nothing wrong with the 3 documents, etc., ad nauseum). Also chose an unusual carbon paper but knew it would eventually pass muster.

Another example is that you claimed truly that nowhere did I find any mention of MJ-12 in Donald Menzel's papers ... no Marginal notes, no oblique references etc. Menzel according to his own words to Jack Kennedy had been connected to the NSA and its Navy predecessor for decades. I have seen no reference to this connection predating my discovery in his papers at the Harvard Archives. You expect him to have left classified notes and information lying around? There were no classified papers there. His secretary assured me that he was very careful about security. Remember that the 156 pages of NSA UFO documents finally released were classified TOP SECRET UMBRA and one could only read 1 line per page.

You are now claiming that Dr. Buskirk claimed that Gerald Anderson was in his anthro class.at Albuquerque High School. I have trouble believing that he did so claim. You will recall that I visited the high school and twice talked by phone to the student whom you claimed recalled Gerald from that class. He denied it even after I sent him and another student a copy of a picture of Gerald from the High School yearbook. Your evidence please—not your wishful thinking.

I have as you know, noted many pieces of data not known to be true until after we received the CT,TF, and EBD . How did a hoaxer know those?? Time travel such as invoked by the USAF when claiming Crash Test Dummies not dropped until 6 years after Roswell accounted for the Body stories? Why do you falsely claim that I said the TF signature "exactly matches" one on a Truman Bush letter? You made that up. I said "matches" not "exactly matches." That is as bad as Klass saying Letter 9 times for the TF MEMO and his falsely claiming Pica Type wasn't used at the NSC. He paid me $1000.00 for proving him wrong about that after I provided 14 examples.

Why don't you mention the findings of world class linguistics expert Dr. Roger Wescott who reviewed 27 examples of Hillenkoetter writings including the EBD and said "in my opinion there is no compelling reason to regard any of these communications as fraudulent or to believe that any of them were written by any one other than Hillenkoetter himself. This statement holds for the controversial presidential briefing memorandum of November 18, 1952 ...." You talk about drafts being destroyed. Onionskin copies were all over the place. None of the three is a draft. "Preliminary briefing" is not a draft.

The person who filmed the TOP SECRET MAJIC briefing and distributed the film to a person without a clearance or need to know was guilty of a crime. A hoaxer would have finally said gotcha. Provenance is a silly argument. Want a written confession, too? You have a solid military background, but still falsely claimed that calling Hillenkoetter Admiral (instead of rear admiral) meant the EBD was phony. You asked for another item by him with a signature. There is no signature by RHH on the EBD In fact it was standard practice to use generic ranks as you would have known if you had gone to the Ike Library. It is a lot closer to you than it is to me.
Time to throw in the towel. The 3 items are genuine.

See Also:

MJ-12 Debate Continues: Kevin Randle Queries Stanton Friedman

MJ-12: Stanton Friedman Fires Back; The Disputation with Kevin Randle Continues ...

MJ-12: Kevin Randle Rails Against Stanton Friedman's Rebuttal

MJ-12: Alejandro Rojas Accepts Stanton Friedman's Debate Challenge

MJ-12: Renowned Ufologist, Stanton Friedman Issues Debate Challenge To Naysayers

More False Claims About Majestic 12

The Myth of MJ-12: Appendix A –Pt 1

The Myth of MJ-12: Appendix A –Pt 2

The Myth of MJ-12: Appendix A –Pt 3

"Appendix A: The Myth of MJ-12" An Annotated Commentary By Barry Greenwood

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[UFO] Skeptics or Debunkers?

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By Rich Reynolds
The UFO Iconoclast(s)
4-19-12

     Philip Klass and Donald Menzel did more to cause the science/media/public dismissal of flying saucers and UFOs than any other persons or groups extant during the voluminous era of the phenomena.

And they did it with a patina of rectitude that is not only unjustified but hellishly erroneous.

They were debunkers, not skeptics, and they had an agenda that was based in purposeful or aberrant denial.


Menzel in his books -- UFOs: Flying Saucers-Myth-Truth-History (1953), The World of Flying Saucers (1963, co-authored with Lyle G Boyd), and The UFO Enigma (1977, co-authored with Ernest H. Taves -- went to excruciating lengths to fit UFO sightings into a framework of astronomical and meteorological explanations that stretched credulity and Ockham’s Razor to the breaking point.

Fixing a temperature inversion and the planet Venus as a confluent for sightings was a typical ploy. Wikipedia provides this about Menzel:

“All of Menzel's UFO books argued that UFOs are nothing more than misidentification of prosaic phenomena such as stars, clouds and airplanes; or the result of people seeing unusual atmospheric phenomena they were unfamiliar with. He often suggested that atmospheric hazes or temperature inversions could distort stars or planets, and make them appear to be larger than in reality, unusual in their shape, and in motion. In 1968, Menzel testified before the U.S. House Committee on Science and Astronautics - Symposium on UFOs, stating that he considered all UFO sightings to have natural explanations.

He was perhaps the first prominent scientist to offer his opinion on the matter, and his stature doubtless influenced the mainstream and academic response to the subject. Perhaps Menzel's earliest public involvement in UFO matters was his appearance on a radio documentary directed and narrated by Edward R. Murrow in mid-1950.

Menzel had his own UFO experience when he observed a 'flying saucer' while returning on 3 March 1955 from the North Pole on the daily Air Force Weather "Ptarmigan" flight. His account is in both Menzel & Boyd and Menzel & Taves. He later identified it as a mirage of Sirius . . ..”

Klass was a brilliant, hard-working debunker. His knotty analyses of UFO events and sightings are almost legendary, but invariably wrong, because they are tainted by his inherent bias against UFOs as a viable phenomenon.

In the book, pictured left, Science and the Paranormal [Edited by George O. Abell and Barry Singer, Charles Scribner’s Sons, NY, 1983, Chapter 18, Page 310 ff.], Klass deconstructs the noteworthy Coyne helicopter confrontation with a UFO in October 1973 near Mansfield, Ohio.

Klass presents a detailed account of the Coyne encounter and its aftermath. The minutiae included in his “analysis” of the encounter provides a seeming overlay of forensic debate but when Klass’s approach is scrutinized, one realizes that his devaluation of the Coyne crew’s report rests on a usual Klass barb that Coyne and his crew misremembered what they did when they saw a UFO coming toward their helicopter.

Klass writes that they misperceived an Orionids fireball (or meteor) and miscalculated the timings of various aspects of the event: the fireball’s fly-by, the seconds during which the collective control was pressed to keep the helicopter from, firstly, hitting the ground and, secondly, from accelerating back into the sky.

The magnetic compass’s erratic behavior was an afterthought of Captain Coyne, inserted several years after the initial event and report(s) Klass suggests.

The inability to communicate with local air terminal towers was ascribed to the distances that intervened between them and the Bell helicopter Klass tried to document.

And the green glow the crew witnessed as the UFO allegedly flew over their helicopter came from the tinted glass at the fringe of the cockpit. The red glow of the UFO was that of the surmised fireball.

(J. Allen Hynek, an eminent astronomer himself said that the Orionid display didn’t produce fireballs.)

With a recent case of a pilot, waking from an in-seat nap, mistaking the planet Venus for an approaching airplane, putting his 747 into a dive that injured several passengers and attendants, one can accept the possibility that Captain Coyne and his crew were flummoxed by a stray Orionid meteor, except that Hynek said fireballs do not occur during the Orionid display.

Moreover, the crew’s actions indicated that the helicopter was influenced in some way by the approaching UFO, and the mistakes attributed to them by Klass as errant behavior is possible certainly but hard to accept as the mistakes that Klass piles up are too many and too egregious for a trained helicopter crew.

It’s far easier to accept that Coyne and his men actually had a near collision with a UFO – an Unidentified Flying Object (or thing).

Klass, like Menzel, presents a set of possibilities, all acceptable at a superficial level, but when weighed in the balance, require too many machinations to be reasonably feasible.

No, Klass and Menzel were not skeptics; they were debunkers….and not very skilled debunkers either, as their “explanations” always teetered on the edge of charlatanry; they were UFO atheists or something worse.

. . . More


See Also:

Debunkers at it Again

Science and Charlatans

Walking in Phil Klass' Footsteps

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Flying Saucers or Not? Canada Sighting Station To Seek Scientific Proof11-11-1953

- click on image(s) to enlarge -

By The Toronto Star
11-11-1953

     

See Also:

'Saucers' May Be Experiments By Likely Foe, Says Scientist

Flying Saucers: General Nathan Twining Denies They are U.S. Experiment


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"There Was a Time When the USAF Gave the MSM Permission to Ask Questions About UFOs . . ."

They don't teach this in J-school

By Billy Cox
De Void
9-19-08

     Still agog over ABC’s emasculating refusal Tuesday night to get the Air Force on record about the UFO incident Stephenville, De Void nearly wept with nostalgia this week when alerted to the existence of a 41-year-old book.

It’s called “Problems of Journalism: Proceedings of the Society of Newspaper Editors, 1967.” Veteran UFO watcher Robert Barrow (robert-barrow.blogspot.com) picked it up for $3.50 in 1968, and the chapter he blogged about involves a round table discussion between UFO researchers and newspaper editors.

Gasp — it’s true. There was a time when the USAF gave the MSM permission to ask questions about UFOs because its own official study (which turned out to be crap, but that’s another story) was underway.

What’s great about Barrow’s post is how, way back then, one of the few real heroes in any government-authorized assessment of UFOs doubted the media had the stones for the job. Physicist Dr. James McDonald, a member of the University of Colorado panel contracted by the USAF to analyze its data, told journalists they were blowing the story.

“Something is going on here of the greatest scientific interest that has been shoved under a rug, ridiculed and laughed out of court,” the former Navy cryptographer told them.

“You and your feature writers have helped ridicule it. It’s easier to write a funny story. And once the Air Force tells you there’s nothing to it, what is more logical than to say ‘People see things; there are a lot of nuts around the country’? And that has led to the net effect that very few of these are reported.”

McDonald would go on to be the leading critic of the Colorado report, a whitewash that allowed the USAF to rinse its hands of UFO transparency once and for all. But what’s also interesting are remarks made by Harvard astronomer and UFO debunker Donald Menzel, who never read a report he couldn’t explain or deride:

“The Air Force has made its mistakes. They never have had enough scientists in the project. They have failed to follow up certain sightings of special importance. To me their questionnaire is amateurish, almost cleverly designed to get the wrong answer and lose track of the facts.”

Four decades later, of course, McDonald’s pessimism has been borne out. And really, as ABC “PrimeTime” proved, you don’t even have to ridicule UFOs anymore. Just pile a lot of colorful garbage in the picture window, keep away from the Air Force, and call this exercise in paternalism whatever you want — like journalism.

More . . .

See Also:

Hey, ABC: Reporting is Believing

USAF Still Silent on Stephenville

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