Editing Majestic 12

{{short description|Purported organization that appears in UFO conspiracy theories}}
{{about|the purported secret committee}}
[[File:Truman initiating Korean involvement GettyImages-615308236.jpg|thumb|upright|Ufologists claim that [[Harry S. Truman]] formed the Majestic 12 in 1947]]
'''Majestic 12''', also known as ''Majic-12'', and '''MJ-12''' for short, is a purported organization that appeared in fake documents first circulated by [[Ufology|ufologists]] in 1984, and that some [[UFO conspiracy theories]] still claim to have existed. The organization is claimed to be the [[code name]] of an alleged secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, formed in 1947 by an [[executive order]] by [[President of the United States|U.S. President]] [[Harry S. Truman]] to facilitate recovery and investigation of [[Flying saucer|alien spacecraft]]. The conspiracy gained notoriety over the years after the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] (FBI) declared the documents to be "completely bogus", and many ufologists consider them to be an elaborate [[hoax]].<ref name="Donovan2011">{{cite book |last=Donovan |first=Barna William |title=Conspiracy Films: A Tour of Dark Places in the American Conscious |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bJkhqU1IXHAC&pg=PA107 |access-date=2014-09-17 |date=2011-07-20 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0786486151 |pages=107–}}</ref><ref name=FBI_bogus/> Majestic 12 remains popular among some UFO conspiracy theorists and the concept has appeared in popular culture including television, film, video games, and literature.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2016-01-20 |title=Everything 'X Files' Fans Need to Know about MJ-12, the Most Significant UFO Conspiracy Theory |url=https://www.inverse.com/article/10434-everything-x-files-fans-need-to-know-about-mj-12-the-most-significant-ufo-conspiracy-theory |access-date=2025-02-18 |website=Inverse |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=D'Estefano |first=Diana |date=2022-03-11 |title=How Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's Majestic 12 Conspires to Control the World |url=https://gamerant.com/deus-ex-mankind-divided-majestic-12-conspiracy-world-control-history/ |access-date=2025-02-18 |website=Game Rant |language=en}}</ref>

==History==
On May 31, 1987, it was widely reported that British ufologist [[Timothy Good]] claimed to be in possession of 1950s-era UFO documents. The documents purported to reveal a secret committee of 12, supposedly formed in 1947 by an executive order by U.S. President Harry S. Truman, and explain how the crash of an alien spacecraft at [[Roswell, New Mexico|Roswell]] in July 1947 had been concealed, how the recovered alien technology could be exploited, and how the U.S. should engage with [[extraterrestrial life]] in the future.<ref name="Goldberg2008" /><ref name="Knight2003" /><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94301319/ufo-memo-aliens-crashed/ |title=UFO memo: Aliens crashed |newspaper=The Bismarck Tribune|date=1987-05-31 |page=1}}</ref>

According to ufologist [[Bill Moore (ufologist)|William L. Moore]], his friend, Los Angeles television writer-producer Jamie Shandera, received documents that appeared to be briefing papers describing "Operation Majestic-12" in mid-December 1984. The documents were found on an undeveloped roll of [[135 film|35 mm film]] in a brown paper package that had been dropped through Shandera's mail slot.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Klass |first=Phillip J. |author-link=Philip J. Klass |date=Winter 1987–1988 |title=The MJ-12 Crashed-Saucer Documents |url=https://skepticalinquirer.org/1988/01/the-mj-12-crashed-saucer-documents/ |journal=[[Skeptical Inquirer]] |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=137–138}}</ref> The package bore no additional information other than a New Mexico postmark.<ref name=":1">{{Cite thesis |last=Wood |first=Stacy Elizabeth |title=Making Secret(s): The Infrastructure of Classified Information |date=2017 |access-date=2024-12-20 |degree=Ph.D. |publisher=University of California, Los Angeles |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1925343204 |page=133 |location=United States -- California|id={{ProQuest|1925343204}} }}</ref>

When developed, the roll of film revealed the Truman-Forestall memo, a "[[Classified information|Top Secret]]" memorandum from President Truman to Defense Secretary Forrestal, dated September 24, 1947, authorizing him and Dr. [Vannevar] Bush to proceed with Operation Majestic-12 and the Eisenhower Briefing Document, a seven page "Top Secret/Eyes Only" Majestic-12 document used to brief President-Elect Eisenhower, dated November 18, 1952.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" />

The concept of "Majestic 12" emerged during a period in the 1980s when ufologists believed there had been a [[cover-up]] of the [[Roswell incident]] and speculated some secretive upper tier of the U.S. government was responsible.<ref name="Goldberg2008">{{citation |author=Goldberg |first=Robert Alan |title=Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America |pages=189–231 |year=2008 |editor-link=Robert Alan Goldberg |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z8e5YELGGFAC&pg=PA189 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-13294-6 |author-link=Robert Alan Goldberg}}</ref> Shandera and his ufologist colleagues [[Stanton T. Friedman]] and [[Bill Moore (ufologist)|Bill Moore]] say they later received a series of anonymous messages that led them to find what has been called the "Cutler/Twining memo"{{ref label|reference_name_A|a|a}} in 1985 while searching declassified files in the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]]. Purporting to be written by [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|President Eisenhower's]] assistant [[Robert Cutler]] to General [[Nathan F. Twining]] and containing a reference to Majestic 12, the memo is widely held to be a forgery, likely planted as part of a hoax.<ref name="Frazier">{{citation |author=Frazier |first=Kendrick |title=The Hundredth Monkey: And Other Paradigms of the Paranormal |date=2010 |pages=338– |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iJ1v3bggyr8C&pg=PA338 |publisher=Prometheus Books, Publishers |isbn=978-1-61592-401-1 |author-link=Kendrick Frazier}}</ref> Historian [[Robert Alan Goldberg|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".<ref name="Goldberg2008" />

Claiming to be connected to the [[Air Force Office of Special Investigations|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, gray 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.<ref name="Goldberg2008" />

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 [[Debunker|debunkers]] such as [[Philip J. Klass]] were accused of being "[[disinformation]] agents".<ref name="Knight2003">{{citation |author=Knight |first=Peter |title=Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia |date=2003 |pages=490– |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qMIDrggs8TsC&pg=PA490 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-57607-812-9}}</ref>

On October 14, 1988, the syndicated television broadcast ''[[UFO Coverup? Live]]'' introduced Americans to the Majestic 12 hoax.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=81LpCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA20 |title=The Paranormal and the Paranoid: Conspiratorial Science Fiction Television |first=Aaron |last=Gulyas |date=2015-06-11 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-5114-4 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Peebles |first=Curtis |author-link=Curtis Peebles |date=1995-12-12 |title=Watch the Skies!: A Chronicle of the Flying Saucer Myth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zjI4X7ZOvOIC |publisher=Berkley Books |isbn=978-0-425-15117-4 |via=Google Books}}</ref> It featured the first public mention of Nevada's [[Area 51]] as a site associated with aliens.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H9ij_QAvyEEC |title=Before and After Roswell: The Flying Saucer in America, 1947-1999 |first=David A. |last=Clary |date=2001-01-22 |publisher=Xlibris Corporation |isbn=978-1-4628-4129-5 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

== Analysis ==
[[File:Majestic 12 Part 1 of 1 (page 4 crop).jpg|thumb|First page of the alleged Majestic 12 memo with FBI markings]]
Klass's investigation of the MJ-12 documents found that Robert Cutler was actually out of the country on the date he supposedly wrote the "Cutler/Twining memo", and that the Truman signature was "a pasted-on photocopy of a genuine signature—including accidental scratch marks—from a memo that Truman wrote to [[Vannevar Bush]] on October 1, 1947". Klass dismissed theories that the documents were part of a disinformation campaign as "ridiculous", saying they contained numerous flaws that could never fool Soviet or Chinese intelligence. Other discrepancies noted by Klass included the use of a distinctive date format that matched one used in Moore's personal letters, and a conversation reported by Brad Sparks in which Moore confided that he was contemplating creating and releasing some hoax Top Secret documents in hopes that such bogus documents would encourage former military and intelligence officials who knew about the government's (alleged) UFO coverup to break their oaths of secrecy.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Klass |first1=Philip |author-link=Philip J. Klass |date=May 2000 |title=The New Bogus Majestic-12 Documents |url=https://skepticalinquirer.org/2000/05/the-new-bogus-majestic-12-documents/ |access-date=10 July 2017 |website=Skeptical Inquirer}}</ref>

As early as the summer of 1987, spokesmen from the [[White House Press Secretary|White House]] and [[United States National Security Council|National Security Council]] denied the existence of any organization called Majestic 12, MJ-12 or Majic-12.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Humes |first=Edward |author-link=Edward Humes |date=August 24, 1987 |title=UFO hunter is a serious sleuth, not a space case |url=https://www.newspaperarchive.com/us/california/santa-ana/santa-ana-orange-county-register/1987/08-24/page-15 |work=[[Santa Ana Orange County Register]] |page=15 |quote=Spokesmen for the White House and the National Security Council denied the existence of any organization called Majestic-12 or MJ-12 or Majic-12, two abbreviations used in the document.}}</ref>

On September 15, 1988, a special agent at the [[Air Force Office of Special Investigations|United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations]] (OSI) contacted the Dallas branch of the FBI after receiving the Majestic 12 document from an individual at an unnamed school who claimed to have received it in the mail. The FBI then began its own investigation of the supposed "secret" document and quickly formed doubts as to its authenticity. After receiving information from the OSI on November 30 of that year that no such committee had ever been authorized or formed, the FBI declared that the document was "completely bogus". The Director of the FBI subsequently instructed the Dallas office to close their investigation.<ref name="FBI_bogus" />

[[MuckRock]] contributor [[Emma Best (journalist)|Emma Best]] has suggested that the papers were "government sponsored, or at least tolerated, disinformation" because the declassified FBI file on Majestic 12 does not mention any further investigation to find or prosecute the forger responsible for it.<ref name=FBI_bogus>{{cite web |url=http://vault.fbi.gov/Majestic%2012/Majestic%2012%20Part%201%20of%201/at_download/file |title= FBI – Majestic 12 Part 1 of 1 |work=An FBI archive containing details of "Majestic 12" |access-date=April 10, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=North-Best |first=Emma |author-link=Emma Best (journalist) |date=2017-06-05 |editor-last=Brown |editor-first=JPat |title=Conspiracy Weary: FBI's real-life "X-Files" document one of the Bureau's laziest investigations |url=https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/jun/05/fbi-majestic-12/ |access-date=2024-12-11 |website=MuckRock |language=en-US |quote=Despite having at least four different statutes that they could have used to prosecute the forger depending on the circumstances of the case, the declassified FBI file shows that once they announced the files had been forged, the case was closed. Despite the FBI saying they looked into this case because of “a potential violation of federal law under our jurisdiction that we did investigate,“ the Bureau neither investigated the espionage angle they opened the file for, nor any of the potential violations of federal law involved in forging government documents.}}</ref>

In addition to the [[Roswell incident]], the "Eisenhower Briefing Document" also mentioned a second crash in 1950.<ref name="Goldberg-2001">{{cite book |last=Goldberg |first=Robert Alan |author-link=Robert Alan Goldberg |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z8e5YELGGFAC |title=Enemies Within: the Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America |date=2001 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-13294-6 |location=New Haven, Connecticut |chapter=Chapter 6: The Roswell Incident |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z8e5YELGGFAC&pg=PA189 |p=205}}</ref> This second alleged crash was in Mexico, near the towns of [[El Indio, Texas|El Indio]] and [[Guerrero, Coahuila|Guerrero]] along the [[Mexico–United States border|Mexico–US border]].<ref name="Goldberg-2001"/><ref>{{cite book |last=Blum |first=Howard |date= 1990 |title=Out There: The Government's Secret Quest for Extraterrestrials |publisher=Simon and Schuster |location=New York |isbn=978-0-671-66260-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/outtheregovernme00blum |pages=211-212, 287}}</ref> Tom Deuley investigated the Guerrero claim for MUFON, but found no evidence for a reported UFO crash.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/docs/SUN/SUN65.pdf |work=Skeptics UFO Newsletter |date=September 2000 |title=Significant Discrepancy Between EBD And '1st Annual Report' |issue=65 |last=Klass |first=Philip J. |location=Washington, DC |page=4}}</ref><ref>{{multiref
|{{cite magazine |last=Deuley |first=Tom |work=Mutual UFO Network Journal |date=May 1999 |title=The Other Side of MJ-12 |pages=10-12 |url=https://archive.org/details/MUFON_UFO_Journal_-_Skylook/1999_05/page/1/}}
|{{cite magazine |last=Deuley |first=Tom |work=Mutual UFO Network Journal |date=June 1999 |title=The Other Side of MJ-12, Part II |pages=5-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/MUFON_UFO_Journal_-_Skylook/1999_06/page/1/}}
}}<!--Primary source--></ref>

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".<ref name="Denzler2001">{{citation |author=Denzler |first=Brenda |title=The Lure of the Edge: Scientific Passions, Religious Beliefs, and the Pursuit of UFOs |pages=190– |year=2001 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BnQU2Q65lWsC&pg=PA190 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-93027-8}}</ref>

Ufologists Linda Moulton Howe and Stanton T. Friedman believed the MJ-12 documents to be authentic. Friedman examined the documents and argued that the United States government has conspired to cover up knowledge of a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft.<ref name="Goldberg2008" />

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, Pratt had always been inclined to think the Majestic 12 documents are a hoax.<!--Pratt says this outright, but not sure of the best source right now. It's in his notes and transcripts released by his family in 2007. It's not mentioned in Blum.-->

[[Skeptical movement|Scientific skeptic]] author [[Brian Dunning (author)|Brian Dunning]] investigated the history of the subject, and reported his findings in the 2016 Skeptoid podcast episode "The Secret History of Majestic 12". He cited ufologist Bill Moore's suspicion that, rather than a hoax perpetrated by the UFO community, the papers were actually part of a [[disinformation]] campaign of the US government meant to deflect attention from secret Air Force projects.<ref name = Dunning>{{Skeptoid|id=4528|number=528|title=The Secret History of Majestic 12|date=July 19, 2016|access-date=17 June 2017}}</ref>

==Alleged members==
The following individuals were described in the Majestic 12 documents as "designated members" of Majestic 12.<ref name="Frazier"/><ref name="Blum1991">{{citation |author=Blum |first=Howard |title=Out there: the government's secret quest for extraterrestrials |date=1991 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RYTvAAAAMAAJ |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-671-66260-8 |author-link=Howard Blum}}</ref>
{{div col|colwidth=22em}}
* [[Lloyd Berkner]]
* [[Detlev Bronk]]
* [[Vannevar Bush]]
* [[James Forrestal]]
* [[Gordon Gray (politician)|Gordon Gray]]
* [[Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter]]
* [[Jerome Clarke Hunsaker]]
* [[Donald Howard Menzel|Donald H. Menzel]]
* [[Robert Miller Montague|Robert M. Montague]]
* [[Sidney Souers]]
* [[Nathan Farragut Twining|Nathan F. Twining]]
* [[Hoyt Vandenberg]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}<ref name=":3" />
<ref name=":2" />

==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, 137–46. Reprinted (sans figures) as chapter 7 of ''The UFO Invasion''.
* Philip J. Klass, The MJ-12 Papers – part 2, ''Skeptical Inquirer'', vol XII, #3, Spring 1988, 279–89.
* Philip J. Klass, MJ-12 Papers "Authenticated"?, ''Skeptical Inquirer'', vol 13, #3, Spring 1989, 305–09. Reprinted as chapter 8 of ''The UFO Invasion''.
* Philip J. Klass, New Evidence of MJ-12 Hoax, ''Skeptical Inquirer'', vol 14, #2, Winter 1990, 135–40. 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, [[Committee for Skeptical Inquiry|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.&nbsp;264–68.
* [[Carl Sagan]], ''[[The Demon-Haunted World]]: Science as a Candle in the Dark'', 1995, [[Random House]], {{ISBN|0-394-53512-X}}, p.&nbsp;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}}

==Notes==
{{note label|reference_name_A|a|a}} Not to be confused with the [[Twining memo]] of 1947 establishing [[Project Sign]]

==External links==
* {{Internet Archive|id=majestic-12-documents-for-majic-eyes-only|name=Majestic 12 Documents}}
* [https://vault.fbi.gov/Majestic%2012/ FBI site on Majestic 12]
* [https://www.archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos#mj12 National archives memo on Cutler memo]
* [https://majesticdocuments.com The Majestic Documents] - site dedicated to the Majestic documents

{{UFOs}}
{{Conspiracy theories}}

[[Category:1984 hoaxes]]
[[Category:1984 controversies in the United States]]
[[Category:Forgery controversies]]
[[Category:Hoaxes in the United States]]
[[Category:Roswell incident]]
[[Category:12 (number)]]
[[Category:Presidency of Harry S. Truman]]
[[Category:UFO conspiracy theories in the United States]]
[[Category:United States government responses to UFOs]]