Majestic Twelve: One of the Greatest Hoaxes in the History of UFOlogy
As evidence that the Roswell incident was the result of the crash of an alien craft, many UFO enthusiasts and Roswell believers often cite the so-called “Majestic Twelve” documents. The history of these documents is complex and multifaceted. Since no one has ever attempted to write a single, unified post containing all the available information about them, I thought that it would have been worthwhile to do so myself. In my opinion, it is important for people who are new to this topic to have a comprehensive reference. Therefore, I will write a single essay, explaining how the documents came into the hands of UFO researchers, what is their content, and why I believe they should be regarded as a hoax.
There are many documents associated with Majestic Twelve. Some of these documents were allegedly leaked in the early 1980s, while others were supposedly leaked in the 1990s and sent to UFO researcher Timothy Cooper. This essay will focus exclusively on the original Majestic Twelve documents that surfaced in the early 1980s. These early documents are the only ones worth discussing in detail, because they were the first to introduce the concept of Majestic Twelve and the entire lore surrounding it. Proving that the first documents to reference Majestic Twelve are forgeries would mean proving that the very name “Majestic Twelve” itself is a fabrication. Which, in turn, would automatically demonstrate that all subsequent documents referencing Majestic Twelve are fraudulent as well.
Furthermore, it is important to note that the documents sent to Timothy Cooper have never been considered authentic by UFO researchers. Even Stanton Friedman, one of the most vocal advocates of the authenticity of the original 1980s documents, firmly rejected the Cooper documents. In fact, in his pro-Majestic Twelve book Top Secret/Magic,, Friedman devoted several chapters to systematically debunking the documents Cooper received. For this reason, not only is it unnecessary to examine the 1990s documents in detail, but it is also reasonable to assert that their fate is inextricably tied to that of the original documents. If the 1980s documents are discredited, then the entire narrative built upon them inevitably falls apart.
THE HISTORY OF THE DOCUMENTS
The Majestic Twelve documents first appeared in December 1984, when a package with no return address and a postmark from Albuquerque, New Mexico, arrived at the residence of television producer Jamie Shandera in North Hollywood, California. The package contained a roll of 35mm film. When developed, the film revealed a classified memo dated September 24, 1947, in which President Harry S. Truman authorized the creation of “Operation Majestic Twelve.” It also contained a document dated November 18, 1952, which purported to be a briefing document written by Vice Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter and destined to President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower. The document outlined the nature and purpose of Operation Majestic Twelve, describing the Roswell crash and other related events. The text of the Eisenhower Briefing Document is reported below:
Operation Majestic-12 is a top-secret research and development/intelligence operation responsible directly and only to the President of the United States. Operations of the project are carried out under the control of the Majestic-12 (Majic-12) Group, which was established by a special classified executive order of President Truman on 24 September 1947, upon the recommendation of Dr. Vannevar Bush and Secretary James Forrestal.
Members of the Majestic-12 Group were designated as follows:
- Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter
- Dr. Vannevar Bush
- Secy. James V. Forrestal
- Gen. Nathan P. Twining
- Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg
- Dr. Detlev Bronk
- Dr. Jerome Hunsaker
- Mr. Sidney W. Souers
- Mr. Gordon Gray
- Dr. Donald Menzel
- Gen. Robert M. Montague
- Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner
The death of Secretary Forrestal on 22 May, 1949, created a vacancy which remained unfilled until 01 August, 1950, upon which date Gen. Walter B. Smith was designated as permanent replacement.
On 24 June, 1947, a civilian pilot flying over the Cascade Mountains in the State of Washington observed nine flying disc-shaped aircraft traveling in formation at a high rate of speed. Although this was not the first known sighting of such objects, it was the first to gain widespread attention in the public media. Hundreds of reports of sightings of similar objects followed. Many of these came from highly credible military and civilian sources. These reports resulted in independent efforts by several different elements of the military to ascertain the nature and purpose of these objects in the interests of national defense.
A number of witnesses were interviewed and there were several unsuccessful attempts to utilize aircraft in efforts to pursue reported discs in flight. Public reaction bordered on near hysteria at times. In spite of these 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 Roswell Army Air Base (now Walker Field).
On 07 July, 1947, a secret operation was begun to assure recovery of the wreckage of this object for scientific study. During the course of this operation, aerial reconnaissance discovered that four small human-like beings had apparently ejected from the craft at some point before it exploded. These had fallen to Earth about two miles east of the wreckage site. All four were dead and badly decomposed due to action by predators and exposure to the elements during the approximately one week time period which had elapsed before their discovery. A special scientific team took charge of removing these bodies for study. The wreckage of the craft was also removed to several different locations. Civilian and military witnesses in the area were debriefed, and news reporters were given the effective cover story that the object had been a misguided weather research balloon.
A covert analytical effort organized by Gen. Twining and Dr. Bush acting on the direct orders of the President, resulted in a preliminary consensus (19 September, 1947) that the disc was most likely a short range reconnaissance craft. This conclusion was based for the most part on the craft’s size and the apparent lack of any identifiable provisioning.
A similar analysis of the four dead occupants was arranged by Dr. Bronk. It was the tentative conclusions of this group (30 November, 1947) that although these creatures are human-like in appearance, the biological and evolutionary processes responsible for their development has apparently been quite different from those observed or postulated in homo-sapiens. Dr. Bronk’s team has suggested the term “Extraterrestrial Biological Entities”, or “EBE’s”, be adopted as the standard term of reference for these creatures until such time as a more definitive designation can be agreed upon.
Since it is virtually certain that these craft do not originate in any country on earth, considerable speculation has centered around what their point of origin might be and how they get here. Mars was and remains a possibility, although some scientists, most notably Dr. Menzel, consider it more likely that we are dealing with beings from another solar system entirely.
Numerous examples of what appear to be a form of writing were found in the wreckage. Efforts to decipher these have remained largely unsuccessful.
Equally unsuccessful have been efforts to determine the method of propulsion or the nature or method of transmission of the power source involved. Research along these lines has been complicated by the complete absence of identifiable wings, propellers, jets, or other conventional methods of propulsion and guidance, as well as a total lack of metallic wiring, vacuum tubes, or similar recognizable electronic components. It is assumed that the propulsion unit was completely destroyed by the explosion which caused the crash.>
A need for as much additional information as possible about these craft, their performance characteristics and their purpose led to the undertaking known as U.S. Air Force Project Sign in December, 1947. In order to preserve security, liaison between Sign and Majestic-12 was limited to two individuals within the Intelligence Division of Air Material Command whose role was to pass along certain types of information through channels. Sign evolved into Project Grudge in December, 1948. The operation is currently being conducted under the code name Blue Book, with liaison maintained through the Air Force officer who is head of the project.
On 06 December, 1950, a second object, probably of similar origin, impacted the earth at high speed in the El Indio-Guerrero area of the Texas-Mexican border after following a long trajectory through the atmosphere. By the time a 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.
Implications for the National Security are of continuing importance in that the motives and ultimate intentions of these visitors remain completely unknown. In addition, a significant upsurge in the surveillance activity of these craft beginning in May and continuing through the autumn of this year has caused considerable concern that new developments may be imminent. It is for these reasons, as well as the obvious international and technological considerations and the ultimate need to avoid a public panic at all costs, that the Majestic-12 Group remains of the unanimous opinion that imposition of the strictest security precautions should continue without interruption into the new administration. At the same time, contingency plan MJ-1949-04P/78 (Top Secret - Eyes Only) should be held in continued readiness should the need to make a public announcement present itself.
Although the envelope bore no name or identifying marks, Shandera presumed that the package had been delivered by his friend William Moore, a prominent UFO researcher and the co-author of the very first book about the Roswell crash, titled The Roswell Incident. However, when Shandera showed him the envelope, Moore denied having seen it before. Nevertheless, when Moore had the opportunity to read the Eisenhower Briefing Document, he quickly discerned a connection between the document and his own Roswell research. After receiving both the Truman-Forrestal Memo and the Eisenhower Briefing Document, Moore and Shandera, together with Stanton Friedman, embarked on a meticulous effort to determine the authenticity of the documents and validate their content. This endeavor involved extensive research and fact-checking, which led them to spend significant time at the National Archives, combing through government records and declassified materials. Their goal was to uncover any circumstantial evidence or corroborating details that could indicate the authenticity of both documents.
In March 1985, Stanton Friedman visited the National Archives during a trip to Washington, D.C. While there, Friedman was informed that Air Force intelligence files were undergoing a classification review, which might yield information related to UFO phenomena. This promising lead prompted a return visit in July 1985 by Moore and Shandera, who meticulously searched through the records identified as Entry 267 of Air Force Record Group 341. After painstakingly reviewing over 120 boxes of documents, Shandera stumbled upon a peculiar memo dated 14 July 1954, addressed to General Nathan Twining and signed by Robert Cutler, then Special Assistant to President Eisenhower. This memo, known as the “Cutler-Twining Memo,” stated:
"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.”
The document was an administrative note, devoid of substantive details, but its reference to "MJ-12 " was groundbreaking. The memo was typed on onionskin paper with a watermark and bore a red pencil mark through its security classification, consistent with archival practices for declassified materials. The discovery provided the first tangible link to the existence of Majestic Twelve.
Following this significant find, Moore, Shandera, and Friedman undertook further efforts to authenticate the Cutler-Twining Memo. By 1987, Moore, Shandera, and Friedman had gathered enough evidence to confidently present their findings, and decided to officially and publicly release the documents in a press conference. The release ignited intense debate within the UFO research community and the broader public. Some researchers hailed the documents as conclusive evidence of extraterrestrial visitation, while others questioned their authenticity, claiming that Moore and Shandera were the perpetrators of a hoax.
THE AQUARIUS DOCUMENT AND “MJ-TWELVE”
Contrary to what one might think, the first mention of Majestic Twelve does not come from the Truman-Forrestal Memo or the Eisenhower Briefing Document, but rather from a 1981 teletype, commonly referred to as the “Aquarius Document.” However, in order to understand the history of the Aquarius Document, one must first thoroughly understand the history of the Bennewitz affair. The Bennewitz affair has a very complicated history, but I will attempt to summarize it as clearly and comprehensively as possible.
In December 1979, Paul Bennewitz, a physicist and businessman from Albuquerque, began observing, photographing, and filming unidentified flying objects over the Manzano Weapons Storage Area, a highly sensitive nuclear weapons depot located just east of Kirtland Air Force Base and directly bordering his neighborhood of Four Hills. Concerned by what he had witnessed, Bennewitz reported his observations to various authorities, including the Air Force, members of the UFO research community, and even the media.
Because the presence of unidentified flying objects over a nuclear weapons site posed a potentially serious issue for national security, the Air Force feared that Bennewitz’s claims might attract unwanted scrutiny. Rather than addressing the situation openly, they launched a covert effort to discredit him. The goal was to feed him sensational and exaggerated information so that he would disseminate it and, as a result, come across as unreliable and unstable. This, in turn, would ensure that no one would take anything he said seriously, and people would entirely disregard — if not outright dismiss — the genuine UFO sightings he had reported in December 1979.
In early 1980, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) assigned Special Agent Richard C. Doty to the Bennewitz case. Doty was instructed to establish contact with Bennewitz and lead a carefully orchestrated disinformation campaign. This effort began almost immediately after the Air Force learned of Bennewitz’s initial reports. Soon after Doty’s involvement began, Bennewitz started receiving strange electronic signals at his home. These transmissions, which were engineered and transmitted by the Air Force itself, contained intelligible messages that Bennewitz interpreted as communications from the occupants of the UFOs he had seen. The messages conveyed claims such as “the number of our crashed saucers is eight,” “our race is dying on home planet,” and “women of Earth are needed.” Convinced that these transmissions were authentic, Bennewitz came to believe that an alien presence was operating near the base and attempting to contact him directly.
In 1981, Doty approached William Moore — a prominent UFO researcher — and recruited him into the operation. According to what Moore himself admitted later, the Air Force — through Doty — offered him a deal: if he collaborated with them in managing the Bennewitz affair, spied on other UFO researchers, and spread disinformation on their behalf, they would grant him access to classified documents about UFOs. Moore accepted the deal and began working with the Air Force.
Through Doty and Moore, the Air Force gradually convinced Bennewitz that he was on the brink of discovering a large alien plot to conquer the planet. According to the narrative they constructed, the signals he was tracking were linked to the activities of the so-called “Greys,” small humanoid beings who, he was told, came from the double star system of Zeta Reticuli. Bennewitz was led to believe that these extraterrestrials were operating from a concealed base deep within Mount Archuleta, near the town of Dulce, New Mexico. To reinforce his beliefs, the Air Force installed fake ventilation shafts on the mountain and airlifted old storage tanks, jeeps, and equipment shacks to remote locations around Dulce, creating the illusion of an underground facility. Bennewitz was persuaded that the Greys stationed within the base were responsible for the cattle mutilations that had been reported in the area and that they were conducting horrific experiments on human prisoners, implanting devices that would allow them to control and monitor their test subjects.
The deception had a profound impact on Bennewitz. He began conducting frequent aerial surveys of Mount Archuleta, searching for evidence of the supposed alien base. During one of these flights, he discovered a site that appeared to be the scene of a crash. Seeing an opportunity, the Air Force reinforced his belief in an alien presence by feeding him further disinformation, this time suggesting that the crashed object was a nuclear-powered craft — an experimental vehicle allegedly built through the reverse-engineering of alien technology. As the operation became more complex, Bennewitz was further misled to believe that the Greys had established a clandestine pact with the U.S. government. This alleged agreement, he was told, granted the aliens permission to abduct American citizens for medical experimentation in exchange for providing advanced technology to the government. He was also persuaded to believe that the aliens had later broken the treaty, leading to a violent underground battle between the U.S. military and the Greys stationed within the Dulce Base. According to the story, the nuclear-powered craft that had crashed on Mount Archuleta had been shot down by the aliens during this conflict.
Over time, the sustained stress and anxiety took a severe toll on Bennewitz’s mental health. His growing paranoia led him to suspect that his own wife had been implanted with an alien device, and that extraterrestrials were entering his home at night to inject him with unknown substances. He eventually suffered a breakdown in 1988 and was hospitalized for several months. Tragically, his mental health never fully recovered, and he passed away in 2003.
As UFO researcher Robert Hastings eloquently explained in a letter to Robert J. Durant dated October 2005:
Despite Richard Doty’s recent public “explanation” regarding the reasons for the campaign against Paul Bennewitz, I am of the opinion that Bennewitz may have actually photographed and filmed bona fide UFOs over the Manzano Weapons Storage Area, which is located just east of Kirtland Air Force Base. It was this nuclear weapons depot, now decommissioned, which directly bordered Bennewitz’s subdivision, Four Hills. If you are familiar with some of the nuclear weapons-related UFO sightings — including those at intercontinental ballistic missile sites and weapons research laboratories — then you may also be aware that a few of those sightings have occurred at Weapons Storage Areas.
In view of these facts [about other UFO sightings at various Weapons Storage Areas], I have suggested the following scenario to other researchers: Bennewitz — a reputable businessman whose company held contracts to supply engineering components to various government agencies — photographed bona fide UFOs above the Manzano Weapons Storage Area and then talked about it to anyone who would listen, including the Air Force, ufologists, and the media. Because nuclear weapons-related UFO incidents were — and are — extremely sensitive, a decision was made by the Air Force to undermine Bennewitz’s credibility. Consequently, the Office of Special Investigations at Kirtland Air Force Base formulated a disinformation scheme whereby the talkative Bennewitz would be provided with outrageous stories of alien visitations at Kirtland, underground alien bases in the Southwest, secret U.S.-alien treaties, and all the rest of it.
Once this “inside information” had been passed along to others by the increasingly paranoid Bennewitz, the legitimate media — as well as the more rational members of ufology — would quickly lose interest in his claims, leaving only the most gullible to “oooh” and “ahhh” at these amazing “revelations.” The net result? The initial, bona fide UFO sightings at a highly sensitive nuclear weapons facility got lost in all of the hoopla and were only rarely, if ever, mentioned in the articles and news stories about Bennewitz’s claims.
If you want a comprehensive overview of the Bennewitz case, I highly recommend you to read Project Beta by Greg Bishop and X Descending by Christian Lambright. These books provide an in-depth analysis of the events, how they unfolded, and their implications.
You might wonder: what does the Aquarius Document have to do with the Bennewitz case? And the answer is: the Aquarius Document is one of the forged papers handed to Bennewitz by the Air Force. Specifically, Doty gave it to Moore, who then passed it on to Bennewitz. Of particular significance is a line within the document that marks, in essence, the very first mention of Majestic Twelve. This pivotal sentence appears near the end of the document and is quoted below:
Results of Project Aquarius are still classified Top Secret with no dissemination outside official Intelligence channels, and with restricted access to MJ-Twelve.
This sentence is extremely important, because the Aquarius Document was handed to Bennewitz in March 1981, three years before the Eisenhower Briefing Document and the Truman-Forrestal Memo arrived at Shandera’s house. It resets the clock on these matters, and suggests that Moore had seen a reference to MJ-Twelve in 1981, which is something that has now disappeared from the discussion of the Majestic Twelve documents.
LINDA HOWE AND MAJESTIC TWELVE
In early 1983, Linda Howe — hot off the success of her regional Emmy Award-winning documentary on cattle mutilations, A Strange Harvest — had been tapped to produce an HBO special with the proposed title of UFOs: The E.T. Factor. On April 9, 1983, Howe met with Richard Doty at Kirtland Air Force Base, an incident that seems lifted straight out of a spy novel. As Howe recounted in An Alien Harvest:
I sat down with my back to the windows. [Doty] sat behind the desk. “You know you upset some people in Washington with your film, A Strange Harvest. It came too close to something we don’t want the public to know about.” That began a brief discussion about my documentary. I asked him why extraterrestrials were mutilating animals. Richard Doty said that the subject was classified beyond his need to know. He told me I had been monitored while I was making the film. […]
[Doty] reached with his left hand to a drawer on the left side of the desk and opened it. He pulled from the drawer a brown envelope. He opened it and took out several standard letter sized sheets of white paper. "My superiors have asked me to show this to you,“ he said, handing me the pages. “You can read these and you can ask me questions, but you can’t take any notes.” I took the papers and I read the top page. It was entitled “Briefing Paper for the President of the United States of America” on the subject of unidentified aerial craft or vehicles.
Richard Doty then stood up and said, “I want you to move from there.” He motioned me toward the large chair in the middle of the room. “Eyes can see through windows.” I got up and moved to the big chair, confused. I didn’t know what was happening. As I looked at the pages in my lap a second time, I wondered why he was showing them to me. I was very uncomfortable, but I wanted to read and remember every word…
The documents given to Linda Howe detailed four distinct saucer crashes that were said to have occurred in Roswell, Aztec, Kingman, and Mexico. The Roswell incident reportedly involved a lone survivor referred to as “EBE,” an acronym for Extraterrestrial Biological Entity. EBE was described as being four feet tall, with gray skin and no hair, possessing a large head and prominent eyes that were likened to those of a child, though he was said to have the intellect of “a thousand men.” EBE was allegedly held captive at the Los Alamos Laboratories until his death in 1952.
According to Howe, the documents stated that Project Blue Book was a public relations operation that was supposed to divert attention from the real investigative projects. In his conversations with Howe, Doty mentioned MJ-12, but suggested “MJ” stood for “Majority” rather than “Majestic.” Whatever the real name, it was a committee of twelve high ranking government officials, scientists, and military officers who set the policy for the cover-up and the dissemination of disinformation about UFOs and government interest in them.
One of the documents claimed that extraterrestrials had, approximately two thousand years ago, created a being who was placed on Earth to teach humanity about peace and love, a reference that strongly implied a connection to Jesus Christ. According to the documents, after EBE’s death, other extraterrestrials, identified as EBE-2 and EBE-3, arrived on Earth as part of an exchange program. Doty informed Howe that EBE-3 was still alive and indicated that she might have an opportunity to interview him. Furthermore, Doty claimed that high-level intelligence officers were in possession of classified materials, including film footage of a UFO landing at a military base and other photographs, which he suggested could be used for Howe’s documentary. He assured her that he would contact her in the future using the code name “Falcon.”
Several months later, however, Doty told Howe that he had been removed from the case and referred her to other intelligence contacts. These individuals also delayed providing the promised materials, continuing to string her along for many more months. Ultimately, the prolonged delays led HBO to withdraw from the project, leaving Howe without the necessary resources to proceed with her documentary.
This information is significant, as it strongly suggests that Doty had a deep and deliberate involvement in the creation of what would later become the Eisenhower Briefing Document. In fact, the documents that were shown to Linda Howe contained a great deal of the same content that would eventually appear in the Eisenhower Document. For example, the acronym “EBE” can be found in both documents. Similarly, the document that was shown to Linda Howe referenced a UFO crash that allegedly happened in Mexico. This crash is a clear allusion to the so-called “Del Rio crash,” which the Eisenhower Document specifically places near the border between Mexico and Texas, in the El Indio-Guerrero region. Therefore, just like with the Aquarius Document, we are faced with a situation where information that would later appear in the Eisenhower Document had already surfaced before that document was ever sent to Shandera. Which, much like in the case of the Aquarius Document, resets the clock on these matters.
75 MILES? NO, 62 MILES
In both Brad Sparks and Barry Greenwood’s paper, The Secret Pratt Tapes and the Origins of MJ-12, and later in an article adapted from the paper and published in the MUFON Journal under the by-line of Brad Sparks, there is a discussion of what they regard as a fatal error in the Eisenhower Briefing Document.
To explain what they mean by a “fatal error,” they quote Stanton Friedman, who had stated that one way to determine whether “the document is a phony is on the basis of any mistaken information in it.” Both William Moore and Jaime Shandera echoed this concern at various times by suggesting the same principle. Erroneous information in a document strongly indicates that it has been forged. All of them, including Sparks and Greenwood, argue that such fatal errors would demonstrate that the Eisenhower Document, at best, constituted disinformation and, at worst, was a hoax designed to divert attention from more significant areas of research.
The error identified by Sparks and Greenwood in the Eisenhower Briefing Document pertains to the distance to the debris field near Corona, New Mexico, which is so significantly inaccurate that they consider it a major flaw. Brad Sparks asserted that “the Eisenhower Document wrongly claimed that the Roswell crash site, which refers to the Mack Brazel debris field, was approximately 75 miles from the Roswell base, when in fact it was only 62 miles away.” He has been highlighting this error since 1987. Sparks calculated the actual distance to be 62 air miles, while the distance by road exceeds 100 miles, further emphasizing that the 75-mile figure mentioned in the Eisenhower Document is incorrect. Such an error, even over something as minor as the distances involved, should throw the entire document into question, because those creating such a report for review by a president would not commit an error of this nature.
Sparks suggested that the 75 mile figure originates from The Roswell Incident, published by William Moore and Charles Berlitz in 1980. 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. The staff of Roswell Army Air Field would have known the precise distance to the Brazel debris field, and this information should have been reflected in the Eisenhower Document.
A MAJOR FLAW
As previously mentioned, the Eisenhower Briefing Document refers to two UFO crashes: the Roswell incident and another crash that allegedly occurred on December 6, 1950, in the El Indio-Guerrero area near the Texas-Mexico border. This second crash is relatively obscure, but its inclusion in the document is significant, as it serves as additional evidence that the document is not genuine.
In fact, the story came to light in the late 1970s through the efforts of W. Todd Zechel, a UFO researcher who claimed to have discovered a 1968 newspaper article referencing a UFO crash. Building upon this vague lead, Zechel contacted Robert B. Willingham, who described himself as a retired Air Force colonel. In 1977, Willingham signed an affidavit in which he recounted visiting the crash site, observing unusual debris, and even recovering a piece of metal that he described as having a honeycomb-like structure and being resistant to extremely high temperatures.
However, as the years passed, Willingham’s story began to change in significant ways. Initially, he claimed that the crash occurred in 1948, while he was flying an F-94 jet along the Texas-Mexico border. He stated that he had been alerted to a UFO on radar and that the object subsequently crashed south of the border. Over time, the date shifted multiple times, with Willingham later asserting that the event took place on December 6, 1950, then in 1954, and finally in 1955. The location of the crash also changed, moving from the El Indio-Guerrero area to a site closer to Del Rio, Texas, and eventually to a region south of Lantry, Texas.
Willingham’s credibility was definitively undermined when various researchers started looking into his background. While he presented himself as a retired Air Force colonel, investigators discovered that he had never served in the Air Force at all. Instead, he had been a member of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), a civilian auxiliary of the Air Force, where he held the rank of lieutenant colonel. His military record showed that he enlisted in the Army in December 1945, achieved the rank of E4, and was discharged in January 1947. Furthermore, no evidence has ever surfaced to corroborate his claims, and no additional witnesses have come forward to support his account.
Since the story of the Del Rio UFO crash relies entirely on Willingham’s testimony, and since Willingham has proven to be an unreliable witness, it is clear that there was never any UFO crash in Del Rio. This, in turn, means that the inclusion of this alleged UFO crash in the Eisenhower Document represents a significant flaw. An authentic presidential briefing document written in 1952 cannot, by definition, include a demonstrably false story that was created in the 1970s. Therefore, the inclusion of the Del Rio UFO crash in the Eisenhower Document proves that the document was not created in 1952.
THE SMOKING GUN
A significant controversy surrounding the Majestic Twelve documents concerns the unusual date formatting they exhibit, which appears inconsistent with the standard practices employed by the United States government during the late 1940s and early 1950s. During that period, government documents typically used a specific date style: the day written as a number, followed by the fully spelled-out name of the month, and concluded by the complete year written numerically (e.g., “2 March 1948”). Although, on rare occasions, a comma might appear after the month, this was exceedingly uncommon. In one examined sample of 600 pages, only three instances of this anomaly were identified, all originating from a single individual in Air Force Intelligence.
Philip Klass, a well-known UFO skeptic, drew attention to the fact that the Eisenhower Briefing Document deviated from this conventional style. He highlighted that it not only included an additional, uncommon comma after the month but also added a leading zero before single-digit dates (e.g., “07 July, 1947”). Klass noted that such formatting was absent from authentic government documents of the time, but was present in the personal writings of William Moore. Consequently, critics raised the question of whether Moore had been involved in the creation of the Majestic Twelve documents.
In 1990, Barry Greenwood received a letter from Jun-Ichi Takanashi, a respected UFO researcher who has since passed away. In this letter, Takanashi claimed to have discovered five government documents concerning Green Fireballs that exhibited the same peculiar date formatting as the Majestic Twelve documents. Green Fireballs were mysterious luminous objects reported in the late 1940s and early 1950s, often seen streaking across the skies near sensitive military installations, particularly in New Mexico. Some researchers speculated that these phenomena might have been related to classified military projects, while others suggested a possible extraterrestrial origin.
Initially, Greenwood considered the possibility that the dating style in the Majestic Twelve documents might have genuinely been used by the government. However, Takanashi made an important observation. He noted that out of the five documents he had examined, only one appeared to be a direct copy of an original government document. The other four had been retyped, presumably for better readability, and all of these retyped documents were included in William Moore’s 1983 publication, The Mystery of the Green Fireballs. Recognizing the need to verify the authenticity of these documents, Greenwood embarked on a thorough investigation. He located the original versions of the retyped documents in the Project Blue Book microfilms stored at the National Archives, specifically in Roll 88, which contained the OSI Chronological Files. Upon comparison, Greenwood discovered that Moore had modified the date formatting during the retyping process. Moore consistently added the uncommon comma after the month and, in one instance, inserted a leading zero before a single-digit date that had not existed in the original document (e.g., “9 February 1949” became “09 February, 1949”).
It became evident that Moore had a habit of retyping government documents to improve their legibility. However, in doing so, he inadvertently introduced his distinctive style of date formatting into these reproductions. Moore referred to these retyped documents as "faithful reproductions” in his publication, but the alterations in date formatting created a strong resemblance between these documents and the Majestic Twelve documents. Which, in my opinion, definitively proves that the Eisenhower Briefing Document, the Truman-Forrestal Memo, and the Cutler-Twining Memo were fabricated by Richard Doty with the assistance of William Moore, whose consistent use of this unusual date formatting across his personal writings implicated him in the creation of the documents.
CONCLUSIONS
After thoroughly examining all available evidence, I believe the case against the authenticity of the Majestic Twelve documents is overwhelming. The internal inconsistencies, factual errors, and peculiar stylistic choices, combined with their suspicious origin and connection to known disinformation agents such as Richard Doty, leave little room for doubt. These documents are not genuine, and there is every indication that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations had a hand in creating them. They had the means, the motive, and the right people to pull something like this off. The way they handled the Bennewitz affair proves that this kind of disinformation campaign was well within their playbook.
So why would they do it? Most likely to push and reinforce the idea that an alien spacecraft had crashed at Roswell. By putting out a dramatic story about UFO crashes, dead alien bodies, and secret recovery teams, they managed to hijack the conversation. Instead of asking the right questions or following more credible leads, researchers got pulled into chasing after this made-up narrative. Spreading a flashy, attention-grabbing story about flying saucer crashes and secret committees reverse-engineering alien technology can be a great way to confuse the public and distract UFO researchers from a more worthwhile avenue of investigation. In the end, the MJ Twelve documents did exactly that. They created confusion, divided researchers, and polluted the whole topic with noise.
From now on, whenever you come across a reference to Majestic Twelve, think of Richard Doty, of Paul Bennewitz, of the Air Force. And every time you see someone mentioning Majestic Twelve, send a link to this post. It is important for people to know where this story originated from, and why it should die, once and for all.
MY SOURCES
- Top Secret/Magic by Stanton Friedman
- Project Beta by Greg Bishop
- X Descending by Christian Lambright
- Important New Revelations About the Paul Bennewitz Affair by Robert Hastings
- Crash: When UFOs Fall From The Sky by Kevin Randle
- The Myth of MJ-12 by Kevin Randle
- Case MJ-12 by Kevin Randle
- The Secret Pratt Tapes and the Origins of MJ-12 by Brad Sparks and Barry Greenwood
