The Myth of MJ-12: Appendix A –Pt 2

By Kevin Randle A Different Perspective 6-29-14

The Cutler-Twining Memo

     The one document that seems to have a provenance is an onion skin copy of a short letter that has become known as the Cutler-Twining memo. What appeared to be the corroboration for the MJ-12 committee was found by Shandera and Moore at the National Archives as they reviewed Record Group 341, which had just been declassified.⁷⁶ Located, between two file folders, in a dusty box of recently reviewed material was a memo that mentioned a rescheduling of an MJ-12 briefing. It was a memo for General Nathan F. Twining, then Air Force Chief of Staff, from Robert Cutler, the Special Assistant to the President. Dated July 14, 1954, it established the existence of the MJ-12 committee and that the committee was still active in the mid-1950s.

According to the story as told today, in July 1985, Moore and Shandera flew to Washington to review records that has recently been declassified. They were searching in what was labeled as Records Group 341 which are Headquarters Air Force Intelligence files. They were working in Entry 267 and had reviewed some 120 boxes of papers. While putting one file folder back into the box and pulling out the next, Shandera found a piece of paper between the files. This was the Cutler/Twining memo.⁷⁷

It was less than a page long and was labeled as a “Memorandum for General Twining. The subject was the NSC.MJ-12 Special Studies Project. The text said:

The President has decided that the MJ-12 SSP briefing should take place during the already scheduled White House meeting of July 16, rather than following it as previously intended. More precise arrangements will be explained to you upon arrival. Please alter your plans accordingly.

Your concurrence in the above change of arrangements is assumed.⁷⁸

It was signed by Robert Cutler who was a Special Assistant to the President… or rather, in this case, since the document was a carbon copy, it was noted that the original had been signed with a “/s/” notation.

According to Friedman, the onionskin paper had the proper watermark, the carbon was blue ink and the structure of the memo, or rather the last line, was consistent with others prepared by Cutler or his staff. In other words, there was nothing to suggest that it was fraudulent, at least on the surface.⁷⁹

But that isn’t the whole story of the Cutler/Twining memo. Given this is MJ-12, there had to be some sort of foreign intrigue involved. Friedman made it clear that in March 1985, or about four months before Moore and Shandera made their search, he had been at the Modern Military Branch of the National Archives and talked with Ed Reese. His discussions with Reese, and the possibility that some UFO related material might be in those documents now being reviewed for declassification and release into the public area, lead to Jo Ann Williamson, who thought the review Entry 267 from Air Force Records Group 341 would be completed in about a month.⁸⁰

While that was going on, Moore and Shandera received a number of strange postcards. One with a postmark of New Zealand had a return address of Box 189, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.⁸¹ Another mentioned Reese’s Pieces and Suitland, which was a name of an annex to the National Archives.⁸² These “clues” meant nothing to Friedman or Moore until Shandera found the memo in Box 189 or Record Group 341. These postcards seemed to be pointing the way to the memo and would have made the search easier had anyone been able to decode them.

This would seem to have ended any discussion about the lack of provenance because the document was found at the National Archives in material that was in their collection. It is the only document ever located in an independent area that made a reference to MJ-12. Every other document seemed to have arrived in the mail of various UFO researchers without any provenance for it. The problem, however, is that even though the Cutler/Twining memo was found in a box of recently declassified material, and it was held by the National Archives, it didn’t belong where it was found. There is no record of that memo being in the box prior to Moore and Shandera finding it and though the listings on the boxes are not comprehensive, they are complete.

Reese, who had been talking to Friedman, said, in a letter to the late UFO researcher Robert Todd:

In none of these reviews was the Cutler-Twining memorandum identified as present and requiring any special attention. But the declassification guidelines used by both the Air Force and the National Archives would not have permitted them to declassify National Security Council documents. If discovered in the files during any of these reviews such documents [sic] would have been withdrawn and provided to a National Security Council declassification specialist for final determination. It was never so identified.⁸³

The purpose of such a review was to ensure that no document that was properly classified was released to researchers, historians, or journalists and in this particular case, UFO investigators. The Air Force only had a general idea what was in each box and that meant that an officer had to review every sheet of paper in that box. In such a review, the memo would have been found and removed for the special handling required.

Questions about the Cutler/Twining memo were regularly sent to the Archives. On May 9, 1988, Jo Ann Williamson, the Chief of the Military Reference Branch produced a letter with the subject of “Reference Report on MJ-12 (Revised). She wrote:

1. The document was located in Record Group 341, entry 267. The series is filed by a Top Secret register number. This document does not bear such a number.

2. The document is filed in the folder T4-1846. There are no other documents in the folder regarding “NSC/MJ-12.”

3. The Military Reference Branch (Edward Reese) has conducted a search in the records of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, and other related files. No further information has been found on this subject.

4. Inquiries to the U.S. Air Force, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council failed to produce further information.

5. The Acting Director of the Freedom of Information Office of the National Security Council informed us that “Top Secret Restricted Information” is a marking which did not come into use at the National Security Council until the Nixon Administration. The Eisenhower Presidential Library also confirms that this particular marking was not used during the Eisenhower Administration.

6. The document in question does not bear an official government letterhead or watermark. The NARA conservation specialist (Mary Ritzenthaler) examined the paper and determined it was a ribbon copy prepared on “diction onionskin.” The Eisenhower Library has examined a representative sample of the documents in its collection of the Cutler papers. All documents in the sample created by Mr. Cutler while he served on the NSC staff have an eagle watermark in the bond paper. The onionskin carbon copies have either an eagle or no watermark at all. Most documents sent out by the NSC were prepared on White House letterhead paper. For the brief period when Mr. Cutler left the NSC, his carbon copies were prepared on “prestige onionskin.”

7. The Judicial, Fiscal and Social Branch searched the Official Meeting Minute Files of the National Security Council and found no record of a NSC meeting on July 16, 1954. A search of all NSC Meeting Minutes for July 1954 found no mention of MJ-12 or Majestic.

8. The Judicial, Fiscal and Social Branch (Mary Ronan) searched the indices for the NSC records and found no listing for: MJ-12, Majestic, unidentified flying objects, UFO, flying saucers, or flying discs.

9. The Judicial, Fiscal and Social Branch (Mary Ronan) found a memo in a folder titled “Special Meeting July 16, 1956” which indicated that NSC members would be called to a civil defense exercise on July 16, 1956.

10. The Eisenhower Library states, in a letter to the Military References Branch, dated July 16, 1987:

“President Eisenhower’s Appointment Books contain no entry for a special meeting on July 16, 1954 which might have included a briefing on MJ-12. Even when the President had ‘off the record’ meetings, the Appointment Books contained entries indicating the time of the meeting and the participants…

The Declassification Office of the National Security Council has informed us that it has no record of any declassification action having been taken on this memorandum or any other documents on this alleged project…

Robert Cutler, at the direction of President Eisenhower, was visiting Overseas military installations on the day he supposedly issued this memorandum --- July 14, 1954. The Administration Series in Eisenhower’s Papers as President contains Cutler’s memorandum and report to the President upon his return from the trip. The memorandum is dated July 20, 1954 and refers to Cutler’s visits to installations in Europe and North Africa between July 3 and 15. Also, within the NSC Staff Papers is a memorandum dated July 3, 1954, from Cutler to his two subordinates, James S. Lay and J. Patrick Coyne, explaining how they should handle NSC administrative matters during his absence; one would assume that if the memorandum to Twining were genuine, Lay or Coyne would have signed it.”

When certifying a document under the seal of the National Archives we attest that the reproduction is a true copy of a document in our custody. We do not authenticate documents or the information contained in a document (underlining in original.)⁸⁴

Given all this, and the searches made, it is clear that the Cutler/Twining memo had been planted in the Archives, probably to provide a provenance for it and the other MJ-12 documents.⁸⁵ There was nothing found in any of the searches that would suggest the document was legitimate. It had been smuggled into the Archives and it was claimed that it was found in the specific location mentioned.

Friedman suggested that such activity was impossible. There are rigid inspections of briefcases, files, notebooks and other items. In fact, he suggested that all such items had to be secured in lockers prior to entering the various research rooms. He wrote:

Archives not only don’t let you bring any original documents out, they won’t allow you to bring anything into secure areas. All of your belongings – briefcases, notebooks, jackets, even scrap paper – are placed in a locker outside the secure areas. If you require notepaper while you’re working, the clerks give you some – from inside.⁸⁶

Except, of course, the security going in is not quite that strict and notepads and legal pads are allowed in. They might flip through them, but they do allow them in. Coming out, the rules are tighter, especially after it was discovered that some researchers in other historical areas were carrying out documents a couple of pages at a time.⁸⁷

Friedman, Moore and Shandera, in their analysis, conclude that the document is authentic, but that it was planted where it didn’t belong for Moore and Shandera to find. They suggest it might be disinformation, but that it is disinformation with a nefarious purpose behind it. In fact, Friedman in a letter to Randle wrote, “Of course I am convinced by the evidence that the CT memo is indeed genuine and was planted by an insider…”⁸⁸

The Truman Memo

Accompanying the Eisenhower Briefing Document, as found on the 35 mm film developed by Moore, is a one page memo, written on White House stationery, which notes Truman’s plan on how the recovery at Roswell was to be treated at the highest levels of the government.⁸⁹ It is, in essence, though not in fact, an executive order by the president to the Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, telling him that he is authorized to “proceed with all due speed and caution upon your undertaking. Hereafter this matter shall be referred to only as Operation Majestic Twelve.”⁹⁰

It is signed by President Truman, and it was part of the Eisenhower Briefing Document, arriving on the same role of 35 mm film.⁹¹ If this document is a fake, then it too would suggest that the entire EBD is a fake as well.

There are a number of problems with this memo, one of which Friedman frequently points out. It was typed on two typewriters and Friedman believes that this adds to the authenticity of the document. Others, who have dealt with fraudulent government documents in the past, suggest that this is just one more proof that the both documents are faked.

The major flaw is the Truman signature. While no one is suggesting that it is a forgery, they are suggesting that it had been lifted from another, legitimate document, pasted onto the memo and then copied to remove any cut lines that might appear.⁹² In the age of copy machines and white out, it is done all too often with all too many documents. With Photoshop and other computer programs today, the process is even easier.

A second major problem on the Truman memo is that the signature on it matches, exactly, another Truman signature, this one from a letter dated October 1, 1947. There is a spurious ink up stroke on one of the bars in Harry that is unique to what is now called the donor document or donor signature.⁹³

The positioning of the signature on the memo also makes it suspect. Truman habitually placed his signature so that the stroke on the "T" touched the bottom of the text on his letters, notes, memos and other written and signed communications.⁹⁴ On the disputed Truman memo that is not the case.

Questioned documents expert Peter Tytell,⁹⁵ who originally received copies of the EBD and the Truman memo from Friedman,⁹⁶ said about this problem:

[Philip] Klass is the one who came up with the prototype signature. And that's an absolute slam dunk. There's no question about it. When you look at the points where it intersects the typing on the original donor memo [that is, the October 1, 1947 letter] for the transplant, you can see that it was retouched on those points on the Majestic-12 memo. So, it's just a perfect fit. The thing was it wasn't photocopied and it wasn't photographed straight on... The guy who did one of the photographic prints had to tilt the base board to try and get the edges to come out square so whoever did the photography of the pieces of paper was not doing this on a properly set up copy stand. It was done, maybe on a tripod, or it was done hand held. However it was done, the documents were not photographed straight on... There's a slight distortion of the signature but it is not enough to make the difference here. Nowadays it you could probably get it to fit properly with computer work but it's not that the signature is an overlay but it's that at those discrete points, and their dumb document examiners [Moore and Shandera whose “experts” attempted to explain these problems] talked about the thinning of the stroke at this point. At that particular point, at the exact spot where it touches a typewritten letter and it has to be retouched to get rid of the letter."⁹⁷

Moore and Shandera, in their The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report wrote, after measuring the Truman signature, that it isn't an exact match as others had claimed. They suggest it is close, and, according to various handwriting experts, this makes the signature more consistent with authenticity.

The controversy over that memo wasn't ended there. Joe Nickell and John Fischer, two skeptics with what is now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), who were interested in MJ-12, received a copy of The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report in 1991. Nickell and Fischer believed, according to an unpublished paper Further Deception: Moore and Shandera's MJ-12 Report, "...[The Moore and Shandera report] provides lessons in how not to investigate a Ufologically related questioned document case... Not only is neither a trained investigator, let alone a document specialist, but both are crashed-saucer zealots and one (Moore) has actually been suspected of having forged the documents."⁹⁸

Then, to make their case, Nickell and Fischer, examined the status of the investigation of the Truman memo. They wrote that the document is "an incompetent" hybrid, and say that "no genuine memo has yet been discovered with such an erroneous mixture of elements."⁹⁹

The important point here is that there is a mixture of errors on the Truman memo. It could be suggested, if there was but a single mistake, this might have been a onetime occurrence. Unfortunately, as noted, there are other errors on the document as well and that suggests to many researchers that it is fraudulent.

Like Tytell, Nickell and Fischer had pointed out that the Truman signature had been "placed uncharacteristically low."¹⁰⁰ Moore and Shandera countered by saying, "The problem with this assertion is that those who make it used only letters signed by Truman as the basis for their study."¹⁰¹ Nickell and Fischer responded, writing, "We did no such thing... here Moore and Shandera are guilty of outright misrepresentation... we studied typed letters and memos, handwritten notes, engraved thank-you cards, inscriptions and photographs... In every instance where Truman had personally signed the text... our observation of close placement applied."¹⁰²

The only exceptions to this that have been found are documents that contain Truman’s signature but were not signed by him. That is to say, his signature had been printed on the document. As a case on point, many veterans of the Second World War have a certificate signed by Truman but the signature was printed on the document rather than signed individually by Truman.

There one other point that should be made. Friedman has repeatedly said that most of those examining the Truman memo have ignored the fact that the date was added by a different typewriter.¹⁰³ He believes the use of two different typewriters adds a note of authenticity to the document.¹⁰⁴ However, those versed in examining forged documents suggest that the use of two typewriters on a single document is a red flag suggesting forgery.

Fatal Errors

It could be argued that the questions raised by various individuals have been, if not answered, at least addressed. It could be argued that none of them, alone, is sufficient to invalidate the MJ-12 documents. It might be said that in the aggregate, those questions do suggest that MJ-12 is a massive hoax. But there are some things taken alone do more than suggest a hoax. They seem to prove it.

In both Barry Greenwood and Brad Sparks’ MUFON Symposium presentation in 2007, and later in an article adapted from the paper and published in the MUFON UFO Journal under Sparks’ by-line, there is a discussion of what they see as a fatal error in the Eisenhower Briefing Document.¹⁰⁵

To explain what they mean by a “fatal error,” they quote Stan Friedman, who had said that one way of determining if “the document is a phony [is] on the basis of any mistaken information in it.”¹⁰⁶

Both Bill Moore and Jaime Shandera echoed his concerns at one time or another by suggesting the same thing. Erroneous information in a document does suggest that it has been forged. They all are suggesting, as did Sparks and Greenwood, that these sorts of fatal errors would prove that the EBD, at best was disinformation and at worse a hoax, that diverted attention from more important areas of research.¹⁰⁷

The error that Sparks and Greenwood point out in the EBD is that the distance to the debris field near Corona, New Mexico, is sufficiently inaccurate that this constitutes a major mistake. Those creating the report for review by a president would not make that sort of mistake. Such an error, even over something as minor as the distances involved, should throw the entire document into question.

According to Sparks, “The EBD wrongly claimed that the Roswell crash site [the Mack Brazel debris field] was ‘approximately 75 miles from the Roswell base, when in fact it was only 62 miles away.”¹⁰⁸ This is an error that Sparks has been pointing out from 1987. He computed the actual distance at 62 air miles and the distance by road it is over 100 miles, again not 75 miles mentioned in the EBD.¹⁰⁹

Sparks suggested that the origin of the 75 mile figure was the 1980 book, The Roswell Incident. It is, at best, an estimate that is not based on the facts that should have been available to an aviation unit. Their navigation needed to be precise and even a miniscule error made at the beginning of a flight could result in missing the destination by dozens of miles. Those in Roswell would have known the precise distance to the Brazel debris field and that should have been reflected in the EBD.

There is a secondary problem that neither Sparks nor Greenwood considered and that was a site where more of the craft and the bodies had been found. In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, researchers had identified only the Brazel debris field and another site in the western part of New Mexico along the Plains of San Agustin. Oddly, the EBD does not mention that site, nor does it mention the other sites closer to Roswell.¹¹⁰ It would seem that a document prepared for the president-elect, and prepared to brief him on the recovery operation would contain all the relevant information. But, in the early 1980s, no one was talking about a body site near Roswell.¹¹¹

These are not the only errors in the short paragraph in the Eisenhower Briefing Document which said, “In spite of those efforts, little of substance was learned about the objects until a local rancher reported that one had crashed in a remote region of New Mexico located approximately seventy-five miles northwest of the Roswell Army Air Base (now Walker Field).”

In 1947 it had been the Roswell Army Air Field that had later become Walker Air Force Base. It seems unlikely that military men would get the designation of the base wrong in both places that it is mentioned.¹¹² These two mistakes are the sort that a civilian would make when talking about a military installation and who was not familiar with the way the military named its facilities. It is not the sort of mistake that a military man would make.

That meant there were three errors in that one short paragraph that shouldn’t have been made. It could be argued that 75 miles was close enough for “government work” as they say, but it would seem that the name of the base in Roswell would have been accurate, given who was allegedly preparing the document and who would be reading it.

Another Fatal Error

These are not the worse of the errors that appeared in the EBD, however. In a paragraph on page five it was reported, “On 06 December, 1950, (sic) a second object, probably of similar origin, impacted the earth at high speed in the El-Indio – Guerrero area of the Texas – Mexican boder [sic] after following a long trajectory through the atmosphere. By the time a search team arrived, what remained of the object had been almost totally [sic] incinerated. Such material as could be recovered was transported to the A.E.C. facility at Sandia, New Mexico, for study.”¹¹³

The problem here is that this one paragraph reflects the UFO situation as it existed in the 1980s and not as it was in 1952 when the document was alleged to have been prepared and certainly not as it exists today. To understand this, it is necessary to understand UFO research as it existed in the late 1970s and the early 1980s.

In the 1970s, W. Todd Zechel, a researcher of limited talent for investigation, claimed to have discovered a reference in a 1968 newspaper suggesting that a military officer had been at the scene of a UFO crash in 1948.¹¹⁴ Using that article as a base, he was able to locate Robert B. Willingham, reported by Zechel to be a retired Air Force colonel. In 1977, Willingham signed an affidavit about his UFO experience. This was the discussion of a UFO crash just south of the Texas border in Mexico which would become the basis of that paragraph in the EBD.

According to what Willingham said then:

Down in Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, we were testing what turned out to be the F-94. They reported on the [radar] scope that they had an unidentified flying object at a high seep to intercept our course. It came visible to us and we wanted to take off after it. Headquarters wouldn’t let us go after it and it played around a little bit. We got to watching how it made 90 degree turns at this high speed and everything. We knew it wasn’t a missile of any type. So then we confirmed it with the radar control station on the DEW Line (NORAD) and they kept following it and they claimed that it crashed somewhere off between Texas and the Mexican border. We got a light aircraft, me and my co-pilot, and we went down to the site. We landed out in the pasture right across the from where it hit. We got over there. They told us to leave and everything else and then the armed guards came out and they started to form a line around the area. So, on the way back, I saw a little piece of metal so I picked it up and brought it back with me. There were two sand mounds that came down and it looked to me like this thing crashed right in between them. But it went into the ground, according to the way people were acting around it. But you could see for, oh I’d say, three to five hundred yards where it had went across the sand. It looked to me, I guess from the metal that we found, chunks of metal, that it either had a little explosion or it began to disintegrate. Something caused this metal to come apart.

It looked like it was something that was made because it was honeycombed. You know how you would make a metal that would cool faster. In a way it looked like a magnesium steel but it had a lot of carbon in it. I tried to heat it with a cutting torch. It just wouldn’t melt. A cutting torch burns anywhere from 3200 to 3800 degrees Fahrenheit and it would make the metal hot but it wouldn’t even start to melt.¹¹⁵

In 1980, Moore published The Roswell Incident, which, of course laid out what he knew about the Roswell UFO crash at that time. In that book, Moore mentioned, briefly, the Willingham tale without identifying Willingham specifically or giving much in the way of detail.

Moore wrote, “Then a second group, Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS), was formed in 1978 under the directorship of W. T. Zechel, former director of GSW [Ground Saucer Watch] and one-time radio-telephone operator for the Army Security Agency [ASA]. CAUS’s announced aim was nothing less than an ‘attempt to establish that the USAF (or elements thereof) recovered a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft’ in the Texas-New Mexico-Mexico border sometime in the late 1940s.”¹¹⁶

This information clearly came from Zechel and was, basically, attributed to him. It doesn’t quite square with the affidavit that Willingham signed for him, but the affidavit has no date on it and there is no precise location, other than near the Texas-Mexican border.

The problem for Zechel and later for Willingham, was what Willingham had originally said about the crash. The story was that Zechel had found, in the NICAP files, an article about UFOs in a newspaper clipping that had appeared in a small, weekly in Pennsylvania. A search for that article proved fruitless, but a one paragraph story about the crash did appear in Skylook, at one time the official publication of MUFON.

According to that story:

Col. R. B. Willingham, CAP squadron commander, has had an avid interest in UFO’s for years, dating back to 1948 when he was leading a squadron of F-94 jets near the Mexican border in Texas and was advised by radio that three UFO’s “flying formation” were near. He picked them up on his plane radar and was informed one of the UFO’s had crashed a few miles away from him in Mexico. He went to the scene of the crash but was prevented by the Mexican authorities from making an investigation or coming any closer than 60 feet. From that vantage point the wreckage seemed to consist of “numerous pieces of metal polished on the outside, very rough on the inner sides.”¹¹⁷

This then, matches with the information published by Moore in his book. The paragraph in The Roswell Incident, puts Zechel in touch with Moore, and proves that Zechel had shared his UFO crash information with Moore. Zechel, then, according to what Willingham said later, was responsible for the exact location of the crash. Zechel believed the crash had taken place on December 6, 1950 and was documented by an alert that had greatly concerned the military on or about that date.¹¹⁸ Researcher Dr. Bruce Maccabee had found the documentation for the alert in a batch of papers released by the FBI after a FOIA request.

Zechel also provided the location for the crash, putting it near the small Mexico towns of El Indio and Guererro, not all that far south of the Texas border. This was what Zechel believed in the late 1970s and was what he was telling Moore at that same time. In fact, Zechel complained that Moore had put the material in the MJ-12 document to suggest the craft had burned to stop Zechel from publishing a book about it.¹¹⁹

When the Willingham story first surfaced, in the late 1970s, many inside the UFO community believed it. The source was identified as a retired Air Force colonel, and he was named. Nearly everyone believed that this credential, meaning he was a high-ranking Air Force officer, lent credibility to the story.¹²⁰ Even the Center for UFO Studies was caught up in it, recording an interview with Willingham and including it on an LP with other, high-caliber witnesses.

It wasn’t until decades later that Willingham’s military record was checked by UFO researchers. According to the documents available, Robert B. Willingham entered the Army in December 1945 and was discharged in January 1947. He rose to the rank of E4 and is technically a veteran of World War II.¹²¹ The war was not officially declared over until 1946 and anyone serving in the military in that transitional period is considered a World War II veteran.

Investigating further it was learned that Willingham had been an officer in the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), an auxiliary of the Air Force. Members are civilians who serve without pay or benefits but do wear a modified Air Force uniform and are awarded military ranks. Willingham apparently rose to lieutenant colonel in the CAP.

He did attempt to convince the Air Force that he deserved a military pension based on his service in the CAP. He enlisted the aid of his congressional representatives but searches of his records did not corroborate his claimed service on active duty in the Air Force, assignments in the Air Force Reserve, training as a military pilot or service in Korea.¹²²

Noe Torres and Ruben Uriarte interviewed Willingham for a book about his experiences. Willingham told them that Zechel had made up the December 6, 1950 date and that he had picked a crash site closer to Del Rio, Texas.¹²³ Willingham knew the 1950 date was wrong because he had been serving in Korea on that date, or so he claimed.

In fact, Willingham changed the date again, telling Torres and Uriarte that it had happened in 1954, and later telling others it might have been 1955.¹²⁴ He also said the location was south of Lantry, Texas, just across the border in Mexico.¹²⁵ In other words, critical information about the crash had been changed a third or fourth time.

What this does, because there is no other witness to have talked about this particular event, is further invalidate the EBD. Willingham has tied the date to Zechel and Zechel provided Moore with that information in the hope of obtaining a publisher for his envisioned book.

This then, is a fatal flaw simply because no one had mentioned any crash that fit the facts in the EBD until the late 1970s. The paragraph that mentions the crash is based on faulty information that is the invention of a man who did not serve as an Air Force officer, did not fly fighters, and whose military career is with the CAP. No evidence has ever surfaced to corroborate the statements made by Willingham, to corroborate his claims of high military rank, or his suggestion he was an Air Force fighter pilot.

⁷⁶Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Analytical Report, pp. 92 -94; Friedman and Berliner, Crash at Corona, pp. 68 – 69; Alexander, UFOs: Myths, pp. 127 – 128; Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, pp. 86 – 102.

⁷⁷Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, pp. 86 – 102

⁷⁸Copies of the memo have been printed in several books, including Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Analytical Report, Appendix I; Friedman, Top Secret Majic, p. 87 – 88

⁷⁹Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, p. 91; Friedman, Final Report, pp. 24 – 27.

⁸⁰Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, pp. 88 – 89.

⁸¹ This is more of the “movie” intrigue that seems to fascinate Moore. To point him in the right direction, those insiders attempting to leak information arrange for postcards to be sent from exotic locations with obscure references that mean nothing until later. According to Friedman, he has never seen the postcards but mentions that two others have. He fails to name them in published sources.

⁸² Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Analytical Report, pp. 92 - 93

⁸³ Robert Todd, “MJ-12 Rebuttal,” MUFON UFO Journal, No. 261, January 1990, p. 17

⁸⁴Jo Ann Williamson, For the Record Memo dated May 9, 1988 about “Reference Report on MJ-12 (revised). Reproduced here as it was sent to researchers with the same underlining and emphasis as the original. See also “National Archives MJ-12 Response,” MUFON UFO Journal, September 1987, pp. 17 -18.

⁸⁵Even Friedman believes that the Cutler/Twining memo was planted in the National Archives. In his Final Report on Operation Majestic Twelve, he wrote on page 56, “Whoever planted it at the National Archives…” Moore and Shandera, in their Analytical report, wrote on page 103, “All things considered, we conclude a 95% probability that the document is genuine, and that it was deliberately planted in the National Archives by person or persons unknown who then systematically undertook to be sure that we would discover it there.” See also, Dolan, Cover-Up, p. 405

⁸⁶Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, p. 90

⁸⁷Based on Randle’s experience at the National Archives in the Washington, D.C., including research there as late as 2002. See also Burkett, Stolen Valor, pp. 435 – 443; Greenwood, “MJ-12 Magic Act,” MUFON UFO Journal, 236, December 1987, pp. 14 – 15.

⁸⁸Friedman in a letter to Randle, February 2001; Randle, Case MJ-12, p. 189

⁸⁹See Timothy Good, Above Top Secret, p. 551; Randle, Case MJ-12, p. 303; Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, p. 229

⁹⁰Cutler – Twining memo, dated September 24, 1947, unsigned. Original document in the custody of the National Archives.

⁹¹Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Analytical Report, p. 76 – 77.

⁹²“Government UFO Papers – Fact or Fiction?” Search Magazine, Winter 1987 – 88, No. 173, p. 48; Philip J. Klass, “New Evidence of MJ-12 hoax, Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 1990, pp. 135 – 140; Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Analytical Report, pp. 89 – 92; Friedman, Top Secret/Majic, 83 – 85.

⁹³It might be said that this extra stroke on the “H” in Harry makes this signature unique and for that reason easily identifiable. It has not been observed on other, authenticated signatures, which suggests that this signature is a transfer from another, authentic document that has been identified.

⁹⁴Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer, “The Crashed-saucer Forgeries,” International UFO Reporter, March/ April 1990, p. 8; Ted R. Spickler, “The Truman MJ-12 Letter,” International UFO Reporter, May/June 1991 pp. 12-13; Ronald Story, The Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters, New American Library, 2001: 322 - 324.

⁹⁵Tytell is the expert that CBS sought out to validate the documents that alleged that President Bush had not finished his Air Guard service. When Tytell called them back, they told him that his services were no longer needed. CBS had decided that the documents, now considered forgeries by nearly everyone were authentic and passed on the chance to have them validated by Tytell.

⁹⁶Peter Tytell, personal interview by Randle, August 20, 1996; Randle Case MJ-12, pp. 190 – 191; Philip Klass, “New Evidence of the MJ-12 Hoax,” Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 1990.

⁹⁷Peter Tytell, personal interview by Randle, August 20, 1996. See also Peter Tytell, personal interview by Philip Klass October 12, 1989.

⁹⁸Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer, “Further Deception: Moore and Shandera’s MJ-12 Report,” Unpublished paper, January, 1991

⁹⁹Ibid.

¹⁰⁰Nickell and Fischer, Forgeries, pp.

¹⁰¹Moore and Shandera, MJ-12 Analytical Report, p. 90

¹⁰²Nickell and Fischer, “Further Deceptions,” p. 3

¹⁰³Stan Friedman, “Debunking a Debunker,” Privately Published, 1988, p.4

¹⁰⁴B. G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley, Stolen Valor, 1998.

¹⁰⁵Brad Sparks, “The Secret Pratt Tapes and the Origins of MJ-12,” MUFON UFO Journal, September 2007, pp. 3–10; Sparks, “Secret Tapes, Part II,” MUFON UFO Journal, October 2007, pp. 3 – 11; Brad Sparks and Barry Greenwood, “The Secret Pratt Tapes and the Origins of MJ-12,” MUFON Symposium Proceedings 2007, pp. 95 -159; Stan Friedman, “Friedman Rebuttal to: Sparks-Greenwood Paper Regarding Bob Pratt, Roswell & MJ-12, MUFON UFO Journal, October 2007, pp. 12 – 13: Brad Sparks, “Brad Sparks Response to Stan Friedman’s Rebuttal to Sparks-Greenwood Symposium Paper, MUFON UFO Journal, November 2007, pp. 11 -14

¹⁰⁶Sparks, “Secret Pratt Tapes,” September 2007, p. 7. See also, Friedman, Comments on CSICOP/Majestic-12, August 26, 1987, p. 3; Moore, Shandera, Friedman, “Debunkers Ignore the Evidence,” September 11, 1987; p. 5; September 5, 1987, Focus, p. 5a.

¹⁰⁷Ibid.

¹⁰⁸There were various figures given for the distance to the ranch. The Roswell Daily Record of July 9, 1947, reported, “He [Brazel] returned to his ranch, 85 miles northwest of Roswell…” The Albuquerque Tribune, on July 9, uses the same 85 mile figure. Others used various figures giving the distance from Corona, New Mexico, one suggesting Brazel lived 30 miles southeast and another reporting 25 miles.

¹⁰⁹Sparks, “Secret Pratt Tapes,” September 2007, pp. 7 – 8.

¹¹⁰Thomas J. Carey and Donald R. Schmitt, Witness to Roswell: Revised and Expanded Edition, 2009, pp. 107 – 108.

¹¹¹In the 1980s, the conventional wisdom was a debris field on the ranch managed by Brazel and a second site on the Plains of San Agustin on the other side of New Mexico. Curiously, that second site is not mentioned in the MJ-12 papers. It wasn’t until Randle, Schmitt and Carey developed information of a body site closer to Roswell, with Carey and Schmitt finding additional witnesses who provided a more precise location.

¹¹²Survey of various official documents including the Unit History of the 509th Bomb Group in Roswell, June 1947 –
November 1947.

¹¹³The Eisenhower Briefing Document, page 5, copies available in many books and on line.

¹¹⁴Noe Torres and Ruben Uriarte, The Other Roswell, 2008, pp. 2 -3.

¹¹⁵Affidavit on file with CUFOS. See also, Kevin Randle, A History of UFO Crashes, 1995, pp 192 -193 for the text of the Willingham affidavit.

¹¹⁶Berlitz and Moore, Roswell Incident, p 131.

¹¹⁷Skylook, March 1968, p. 3

¹¹⁸Len Stringfield, The Crash/Retrieval Syndrome, privately published, 1980, p.22.

¹¹⁹Len Stringfield, “Retrievals of the Third Kind,” MUFON Symposium Proceedings,” pp. 81 -82

¹²⁰For another take on how this relates to the Eisenhower Briefing Document, see Greenwood, “MJ-12 Magic Act,” MUFON UFO Journal, December 1987, p. 13. Greenwook links the Del Rio UFO crash, to that in Moore’s book, The Roswell Incident, and to the El Indio – Guerrero crash. See also Jerry Clark, “Crashed Saucers – Another View,” UFO Report, February, 1980, pp. 28 – 31, 50, 52, 54 – 56.

¹²¹Public information section of Willingham’s service record came from the National Archives (NARA) in St. Louis that houses all military records except those still serving whether on active duty, in the reserve, or as part of the National Guard.

¹²²Documentation about Willingham’s service from the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver, the Military records stored in St. Louis, and documentation supplied by Willingham in his attempt to secure a military pension for his service with the CAP. It should be noted here that Willingham does not have the necessary twenty years of military service (active duty, reserve or National Guard) required for a military pension. Documents submitted as evidence show signs of having been altered.

¹²³Willingham, personal interview by Kevin Randle, March 2009.

¹²⁴Torres and Uriarte, Other Roswell, pp. 23 – 38; Willingham interview with Randle.

¹²⁵Ibid.

See Also:

The Myth of MJ-12: Appendix A –Pt 1

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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