By Steve Yarwood
Ssh… They Know
MIBs and Conspiracies… Oh my!
“He had all the correct ID.
The huge black car was immaculate, like it just came out of the showroom.”
T.L. Jones (1997)
We have seen various aspects of the UFO phenomenon amongst the experiences of contactees. These range from the coming of the space brothers to the planet Earth striving to become part of some kind of Star Trek Galactic Federation.
Later on in these articles we will come across even stranger aspects of this amazing subject. And none stranger than the plight of people who believe they have been abducted by aliens, taken aboard spaceships and subjected to experiments.
Meet the Men In Black
Contact is, to some people, a frightening or confusing experience. Yet, modern pop culture has treated it as a jovial sci-fi romp, featuring shape-changing aliens alongside Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. You know what I’m talking about: Men in Black. The thing is, while the Men In Black (MIB) who surround Ufology may be strange, they are not always funny.
There are various types of MIB encounters, but typically they follow a pattern. After a presumably credible person reports a UFO sighting, the witness is visited by a man, or sometimes men, dressed in black suits, black hats and, sometimes, sunglasses (from which they gain the ‘Men In Black’ name). These MIB are often reported driving large, late-model cars, typically Cadillacs. In very rare cases, they are reportedly seen in black helicopters. In one case, a witness even claims to have seen the MIBs exit a car and climb into a UFO.
These men suggest, or the witness assumes, that they are government agents. They often flash convincing-looking badges and demand that the witness recant their story and hand over photographs or physical evidence of the UFO sighting. If the witness refuses or questions their credentials, the MIB often subtly or overtly threaten the witness or their family with bodily harm or other forms of hardship, such as imprisonment. We do not know if any of these threats have ever been realized, but there are (largely unsubstantiated) reports of hardships and harassment being levelled against those who resist.
The number of people who claim to have had MIB encounters is unknown and might be rather small. Chevon Wallace writes: “Some of those who write about UFOs and other strange phenomena rather casually mention ‘countless’ cases where people have been visited by Men In Black. In reality these ‘countless cases’ are difficult to pin down. In fact, there really seems to be a rather small number of MIB cases where there are any details available at all.”
MIB characteristics
Appearance:
MIBs are often described as having olive complexions, with Asian or Romany-like features. Their eyes are often described as strange, odd and sometimes glowing.
Clothing:
MIBs seem to always have new black suits, black hats and sunglasses. The clothing has sometimes been described as being made from a strange, unknown material.
Speech:
MIBs tend to speak in a monotonous, mechanical tone, quite often with a strange accent. Witnesses have also reported that their sentence construction and choice of words is somewhat peculiar.
Behaviour:
MIBs are seemingly mystified by everyday human ways and often are amazed by everyday objects that we take for granted, like bowls of jelly or ballpoint pens. They seem to be similar to The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper, as they have no social skills and ask downright rude and inappropriate questions.
The curious case of Albert K Bender
In 1953, the 200 or so members of the International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB) were taken aback when the October issue of the organization’s journal, Space Review, dropped through the letter box. In it, IFSB founder Albert K. Bender announced that he had been given the truth as to the “mystery of the flying saucers”. He added that, although he would like nothing better than to publish the information, he had been strongly advised against this by a “higher source”.
He went on to urge those who planned to continue their research into the UFO phenomenon to do so with extreme caution. He then disbanded the IFSB and shut down the publication of Space Review. (Am I being slightly cynical in thinking that, coincidentally, the IFSB and Space Review had been losing money at a massive rate up to this point?)
When Bender was questioned about this state of affairs, he would say only that he had been visited in September by three “members of the United States government… wearing dark suits” who fully briefed him on the subject of flying saucers and immediately threatened him with prison time if he ever repeated a word of what he had been told to anyone. Bender spent the next 10 years carefully avoiding any and all questions on the matter.
Over time, though, Bender’s suppression of the subject, coupled with the exploitation of it by the IFSB’s chief investigator, Gray Barker, in his sensationalistic 1956 book, ‘They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers’, gradually gave rise to the notion that the three “men in black” had not been government agents at all, but were aliens themselves.
Bender more or less confirmed these suspicions when, in 1962, he published a book detailing his previous experiences called ‘Flying Saucers and the Three Men’ (edited by none other than the aforementioned Gray Barker). Having read the book, I believe it to be total hokum. The book involved (among other things) tales of Bender being taken to the South Pole aboard an alien spacecraft and his subsequent surveillance by the extra-terrestrials through to 1960. They then returned to their home planet, having gathered enough water from planet Earth. For someone who was supposed to have been scared into being silent, he did an awful lot of talking about his encounter and escapades.
As ridiculous as Bender’s book was, it did have an enormous impact on the now-popular image of the Men In Black. In the book, Bender claims that the three men he encountered in 1953 had suddenly materialized in his bedroom. This was certainly something that United States government agents would surely have had difficulty in achieving at any time let alone in 1953. They also appeared to him out of thin air as a giant monster, in an empty cinema. After these reports, it is not surprising that the MIB took on a somewhat supernatural air.
Earlier MIB-type lore
The MIB phenomenon is interesting on many levels. From the modern myth, which does seem to stem from Bender, it seems to go back further into history. Way back, perhaps, to biblical times, where men dressed in black robes and turbans would attempt to lure unsuspecting victims into the desert for unknown sinister purposes.
During the Middle Ages, southern and central Europe were home to legends and myths of black-clad beings that preyed on humans and animals with acts of vampirism. It is also of note that the MIB are often described as having Asian features. This is notable because of a myth known as King of the World.
This myth, hailing from Tibet, China and India, tells of a superior race of human beings that dwell beneath the Earth’s surface. These beings occasionally send their agents to the surface to spy on and meddle in the affairs of the surface dwellers.
Some notable MIB encounters
There is a classic UFO case known as The Solway Firth Spaceman. In 1964, Jim Templeton took a photograph of his daughter near Burgh Marsh, Cumbria, England. When the photograph was developed, there appeared to be a figure dressed like an astronaut behind his daughter; a figure that certainly wasn’t there when the picture was taken. As ever, the photo has divided the UFO community for years. It was a strange case indeed. Even stranger though was what happened shortly after.
While Templeton was at work, a car drew up with two men who claimed to be working for the government. They even flashed official-looking badges. They identified themselves only as number nine and number 10. Templeton agreed to go with them in their car to Burgh Marsh to answer questions about his odd photographic experience.
The questions they asked were as odd as the men themselves. Yes, they asked the usual ones, like where it had happened and who were the other witnesses. Then they asked about weather conditions and the behaviour of any animals in the area. Templeton said he witnessed the animals acting strangely and keeping together for protection.
It was after these questions that the two men began behaving in a hostile manner towards Templeton, questioning the validity of his story. Templeton told both men that he was telling the truth. The men then turned back to their car and drove off, leaving Templeton to find his own way home.
Another strange MIB encounter from England took place in the seaside town of Scarborough, North Yorkshire. In 1968, a 16-year-old girl answered the door to what she originally thought was an insurance salesman. He was tall, wore a black suit and tie, and had a ‘florid’ complexion. The man looked at her for an unnerving length of time then jerked into action asking, in what the young girl described as a computerized voice: “Do you have insurance? Is it now?”
The girl asked him to come back later when her parents would be at home. He began to sweat. As the man removed his hat, she could see he was wearing makeup to disguise a very pale scalp. He asked: “Can I see a glass of water?” She invited him in and gave him a glass of water, which he just looked at before putting it to one side. He then looked at a clock on the mantelpiece. The girl said that it was her father’s retirement present. This baffled the MIB who asked: “Is it your father’s time? Is it here and now?” He kept repeating “your father – his time” before suddenly becoming stiff and immobile. He began to move toward the door, telling the young girl to “watch the lights”. At that, he left in a hurry, disappearing down the street at a seemingly impossible speed.
The young girl wondered what “watch the lights” meant. Shortly after the man left, she found out. Her living room filled with tiny bright lights that danced around the room before disappearing through the window.
Incident in Toledo
One night in 1967, Robert Richardson was driving his car in Toledo, Ohio when he hit something, which, he claimed, then disappeared. He stopped to look and found a piece of metal, which he believed originated from the mysterious thing he had hit. A few days later, two men wearing black hats and sunglasses and driving a black 1953 Cadillac visited Richardson at his home at 11 o’clock in the evening to ask questions.
A week after that first visit, two other men arrived, again dressed in black suits, and asked Richardson to hand over the metal he had found. When he told them that he had sent it away for analysis, they threatened to harm his wife if he didn’t get it back. He never heard from them again.
Finally, we come to the story of Dr Herbert Hopkins’s MIB encounter. At home alone on the night of 11 September 1976, Dr Hopkins was using his free time to study a UFO incident when the phone rang.
Dr Hopkins answered the phone and spoke to a man claiming to be a representative of a New Jersey UFO organization. (This turned out to be a phony claim.) Hopkins said: “He wanted to know if he could come here and talk to me about the UFO case. He also asked if I was alone, and I said yes.” Hopkins turned from the phone to turn on the porch lights, only to find the man he spoke to was already coming up the steps. “If he was even as close as across the street or next door telephoning, he could not possibly have gotten here as soon as I did to turn on the light for him,” recalled Hopkins.
When the stranger came in, Hopkins was struck by his appearance: “He wore a neatly tailored black suit, black shoes, black socks, a white shirt with black tie, and he wore a black derby. You don’t see derbies very often, and I thought to myself, ‘This guy looks just like an undertaker’.”
When he sat down, the man took off his derby hat. “This character was as bald as an egg. He didn’t even have eyebrows or eyelashes. It looked like he had smooth, plastic skin—like a doll except it was a dead-white colour,” Hopkins said. “His lips were a brilliant ruby red, and he spoke in an expressionless, monotone, scanning speech. He constructed no phrases and sentences, just a sequence of words evenly spaced. His voice was completely passive with no inflection or intonation, as if you were hearing it from a machine that could talk.”
While talking about the UFO case he had been investigating, Dr Hopkins noticed some very odd things about this MIB. “He sat perfectly motionless and wore grey suede gloves. He idly brushed his lips with the back of a glove, and when he put his hand down, the back of his glove was bright red and the red on his mouth was smeared, so I knew he was wearing lipstick.
“Then I could see that his mouth was a perfectly straight slit. Apparently, he did not have what we call lips, so the lipstick was put on as a decoy—his mouth was more like a ventriloquist’s dummy.”
The odd visitor then told Hopkins to take a coin out of his pocket and hold it in the palm of his hand. “He said, ‘Watch the coin,’ and it started to develop a silver colour instead of copper, and then the silver became blueish and the penny was getting quite fuzzy, out of focus, blurred, and then it simply was gone, it slowly dematerialized.”
Following the coin magic, the stranger ordered the doctor to destroy all information he had gathered about the UFO case. “As he spoke his last words, I noticed his speech was slowing down. His words became slower and farther spaced. He slowly got to his feet, unsteadily, and he said very slowly, ‘My – energy – is – running – low – must – go – now – goodbye.’ Just like that.”
Hopkins said that the MIB, whoever or whatever he was, then clung tightly to the railing as he went down the steps outside, placing both feet on each step, then disappeared around the corner into a bright light.
When the chilling encounter was over, a terrified, intimidated Hopkins destroyed all traces of any UFO materials he had. As is quite common following MIB visitations, Dr Hopkins then began to have trouble with his telephone. He would often pick it up to find that the line was dead. His patients began to complain that when they called him he either didn’t answer, or they would get a voice that claimed his number was out of service. When a connection to the doctor’s phone was successfully made, it was often mysteriously broken in the middle of a conversation. The phone company determined that Hopkins’s phone line was definitely being tampered with, but were at a loss to explain how or by whom.
On September 24, 1976, less than two weeks after Dr Hopkins’s strange encounter, his daughter-in-law, Maureen, received a phone call from a man claiming to be an acquaintance of her husband, John. The man asked if he and a friend could pay a social call to the house. Her husband was unable to place the man but he was curious as to who he was and agreed to meet him at a nearby restaurant. At the restaurant, John was confronted by a very strange-looking man and his even stranger-looking female companion. Both were dressed in odd-looking, old-fashioned clothes.
Despite the fact that John had certainly never met the man before and that there was something inherently weird about the pair, he found himself inexplicably inviting them to return with him back to his home. The man and woman both appeared to have great difficulty in simply walking, taking rapid short steps while leaning impossibly forward. The woman’s legs, judging from her particularly odd locomotion, appeared to be joined to her hips in a peculiar manner.
Once back at Hopkins’s home, the strange man and woman put on a bizarre display. While the man continuously groped and fondled his companion (occasionally asking John if he was “doing it right”), he asked John and Maureen rather personal questions. At one point, John left the room and the man took the opportunity to invite Maureen to sit next to him on the couch.
When Maureen politely declined, the extremely forward guest inquired as to “how [she was] made,” and whether she had any nude photographs of herself available. When John returned to the room, the woman suddenly and awkwardly stood up and announced that it was time for them to leave. The man also rose but moved no further.
The woman waited several moments, making no attempt whatsoever to go around her partner, then turned to John and said: “Please move him. I can’t move him myself.” Suddenly the man became reanimated and the two lurched out the door together, one behind the other. Thankfully, Hopkins never saw these two people again and their ungainly exit marked the conclusion to the Hopkins family MIB Affair.
As you can see, the MIB phenomenon is as strange and weird as it is mysterious and, at times, threatening. No wonder it has led people over the years to ask questions of governments and defence agencies as to their possible involvement. No government or agency has admitted any responsibility for MIB sightings or activity, which places the MIB phenomenon partly in the realms of conspiracy theory. Aspects of Ufology either thrive or get drawn into conspiracy theories, which brings us to the second part of this chapter.
Ufology Conspiracies
Project Serpo
Project Serpo is an alleged exchange program that took place between the United States of America and an extra-terrestrial race between 1965 and 1978.
In 2005, a retired senior official in the US Defence Intelligence Agency, who called himself Request Anonymous, began releasing documents to a private UFO email list. Some believe this individual to be Richard C. Doty, a well-known disinformation agent, who now denies any involvement in the release of these documents.
The data given said one creature from the Roswell crash survived and scientists managed to communicate with it at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The creature claimed to be from the planet Serpo in the Zeta Reticuli system. The scientists reverse-engineered a communications device and contacted the planet Serpo.
The creature died in 1952 but the US Government and Serpo had already begun planning an exchange program. Approval was originally given by President Kennedy and then President Johnson, which led to a meeting at Holloman Airbase in April 1964. In July 1965, an alien spacecraft left Earth with 12 human crew members. The program was only supposed to have lasted until 1975 but, for unknown reasons, was instead ended in 1978. Only six crew people returned. Two had died on Serpo and four others had decided to stay there.
In December 2006, Anonymous sent Victor Martinez, the moderator of the UFO email list, photographs of the expedition, which were proven to be fakes. Anonymous then vanished, never to be heard of again. If this information did indeed come from Richard C Doty, then it is certainly difficult to give Project Serpo any credence at all.
Nazis build a fully functioning UFO from alien technology
Many conspiracy theories and even sci-fi stories claim that the Nazis built and were about to deploy UFOs in World War II. These, allegedly, currently survive in secret underground bases in Antarctica, South America or the United States, along with their creators.
According to these reports, the Nazis destroyed all the paperwork that was connected with these secret super machines, but there are suggestions that they used a form of anti-gravity in these craft, allowing them to travel at speeds of around 2,000kph. These craft would have certainly been Hitler’s main force in his plan to launch UFO attacks on both London and New York.
This theory is further fuelled by the claims of Igor Witkowski, who claims in his book ‘Prawda O Wunderwaffe’ (The Truth About the Wonderwaffe) that a bell-shaped craft was being created by the Nazis and that Hitler wanted the best scientists and engineers at his disposal. There is also a selection of photographs and eyewitness accounts that apparently offer ‘definitive proof’ that the Nazis were indeed building flying saucers during World War II.
According to a paper in Polar Record, and a few other conspiracy theory websites, the Nazis built a secret base in Antarctica. Allegedly, they hid Hitler here towards the end of the war and fought off British and US planes in a secret operation using the flying saucers we hear so much about. The US and British forces eventually destroyed the base with nuclear weapons but, apparently, various governments then strived to conceal this from the people at large.
There are a few facts here and there used to justify these claims. There was, indeed, a German expedition to Antarctica in 1938-39. There was also classified British military activity in Antarctica during the war and a nuclear explosion in 1958 carried out by the US Operation Highjump. Although intended to be kept secret, this eventually got out. However, there is no other proof to justify the suggestions of a secret Nazi base in Antarctica.
Area 51
According to the CIA, Area 51 is more correctly known as Homey Airport or Groom Lake. Other names include Dreamland and Paradise Ranch. Although its purpose has never officially been released, it is most likely used for the development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons.
Quite literally thousands of government employees work at Area 51 and all are sworn to secrecy. Why? The development of secret experimental craft is one likely reason, but what if there is more?
In 1989, a man called Bob Lazar appeared on Las Vegas TV station KLAS to blow the whistle on his involvement in activities at the secret facility. He alleged that he was part of a team that was working on reverse-engineering extra-terrestrial spacecraft.
Lazar claimed to have knowledge of historical involvement of alien beings visiting the Earth for the past 10,000 years. He alleged that the aliens had been working with humans at the base until the 1970s. The aliens, nicknamed ‘the kids’, were allegedly given part of the base to use for their own research in exchange for hardware, technology, fuel and training. At some point in the 1970s a conflict occurred between the humans and aliens that left more than 40 people dead, including the scientists that the aliens were teaching. The aliens then abandoned the base, leaving nine spacecraft and promising to return.
President Eisenhower secretly meets aliens
For many years there has been a persistent rumour or conspiracy theory that President Dwight D. Eisenhower met with alien visitors in 1954, in a hastily arranged trip.
As the story goes, he was urgently called away from his scheduled routine to see an alien craft and its wreckage, and he exchanged pleasantries with beings from beyond the stars. The alleged location for this clandestine meeting was Edwards Air Force Base, California, USA.
The basis of this story was that during the week of 17-24 February 1954, when he was in Palm Springs, California, he disappeared on the Saturday evening (20 February). When the press learned that Ike was not where he was scheduled to be, they demanded an explanation.
When the press did not get their answer quickly enough, rumours began to spread that the President was either very ill or, worse, had died. To counteract these rumours, Press Secretary James Haggerty summoned the press to a hastily called press conference, at which he told them that Eisenhower had suffered a broken tooth while eating a chicken dinner and visited a local dentist for an emergency dental repair.
It was left at that but in 1979 it was discovered that the dentist’s wife knew nothing of this visit and the rumours gained new momentum, continuing to this day. You would think that the dentist would have surely mentioned he had treated the President. I know I would have. Probably I’d have even tried for a signed picture. Also fuelling the fire, records at the Eisenhower Library, which kept all the documents relating to his health, showed no dental work in February 1954.
Many ‘thank you’ notes were sent out to those who aided in the President’s Palm Springs visit. These include the usual: florists, those who offered to play golf with Eisenhower, people who met his plane the minister who presided over the Sunday service the President attended, among others. However, no dentist is mentioned.
Witness to this Eisenhower contact story comes from the son of a former Navy Commander who claimed that his father had been present at the Eisenhower event. According to Charles L. Suggs, a retired sergeant from the US Marine Corps, his father Charles L. Suggs (1909-1987), a former US Navy commander, attended the event. In a 1991 interview, Suggs stated that, according to his father he: “accompanied President Ike along with others on Feb. 20th. They met and spoke with two white-haired Nordics that had pale blue eyes and colorless lips. The spokesman stood a number of feet away from Ike and would not let him approach any closer.”
Once again, this is absolutely fascinating stuff, but with no clear-cut evidence. As with all conspiracy theories though, there is just enough of that ‘what if?” to tantalise and tease. So, to finish this chapter off, I want to present to you the granddaddy of UFO conspiracies.
The Majestic 12 Documents
In December 1984, Hollywood film producer Jaime Shandera received a package through the post. The package contained just one roll of monochrome film. Posted in Albuquerque, New Mexico it had no return or sender’s address, nor an accompanying letter. Shandera had the film developed and was surprised to find negatives of what appeared to be an eight-page briefing paper dated 18 November 1952.
The first page of this paper carried the warning ‘TOP SECRET – EYES ONLY’ and was for the attention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. On page two was a list of 12 eminent US scientists, military leaders and intelligence advisors. On page three, the subject of the paper was stated as the recovery of a crashed flying saucer and alien bodies near Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947.
The final page of the briefing paper was a memo dated 24 September 1947 from President Harry S. Truman to his secretary of defense, James Forrestal, instructing Forrestal to proceed with ‘Operation Majestic-12’.
The paper and the memorandum appeared to show that, in 1947, a flying disc-shaped craft crashed near Roswell and extra-terrestrial biological entities (EBEs) were recovered by the military. President Truman was authorizing Forrestal to set up a committee to deal with the situation. In 1952, newly elected President Eisenhower is then briefed about the situation by the papers, including details of the 12-man committee, the saucer crash and the need to avoid public panic.
In 1985, researcher Bill Moore received a postcard, postmarked New Zealand, advising him to search some recently declassified files at the US National Archives. Along with Shandera, Moore did this and found a memo confirming the existence of MJ-12 (another name for Majestic-12, along with the name MAJIC), written by Eisenhower’s Special Assistant for National Security, Robert Cutler, addressed to Nathan Twining, US Air Force Chief of Staff.
Tim Cooper, UFO researcher, also received a number of MJ-12 documents, some of which were hoaxes. However, according to Cooper and fellow researcher Stanton Friedman, two single-page documents appeared to be genuine.
The first contains brief instructions to General Nathan Twining (alleged MJ-12 member) regarding his activities during a trip to New Mexico in July 1947, to the site of a crashed UFO. The second is a memo, dictated by a US Secretary of State to his secretary Carlisle H. Humelsine, to President Truman. The reference at the top of the memo contains: ‘MAJIC EO 092447 MJ-12’.
Then, in 1994, UFO researcher Don Berliner received an anonymous roll of film containing 23 pages of a ‘Majestic-12 Special Operations Manual’. The earliest reference to Majestic-12 is in the memo allegedly sent by Truman to Forrestal, naming the president’s science advisor, Vannevar Bush, and dated 24 September 1947.
The original paper and ink of these documents cannot be analyzed as they normally would be as they are on film, not paper. But the factual details can be checked, such as the background of the 12 members of MJ-12, dates and times and signatures, etc. The alleged members did, indeed, prove to be the cream of the United States Intelligence, Military and Scientific communities—exactly the people that could be expected to be members of a group investigating UFOs.
The last surviving member of MJ-12 had died before Shandera received the original film but the activities, correspondence and telephone logs, etc of the members could certainly be investigated.
Investigations have since shown that this was the only day between May and December that Truman did meet with Bush. After a tremendous amount of research Stanton Friedman also proved that Forrestal also met with Bush on that day.
The 24 September 1947 is also important because Nathan Twining, Commanding General of the Air Materiel Command , sent a secret memo to the Pentagon regarding ‘flying discs’, including the words: “The phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.”
Also, flight logs from 1947 show that Twining had flown to New Mexico on 7 July 1947. According to the original paper, this was the same day that “a secret operation was begun to assure recovery of the wreckage for scientific study.” (Roswell?)
Are these genuine documents or hoaxes accompanied by several coincidences? There is a lot of disagreement among ‘experts’ on both sides. One of the main problems with the documents is the signature on the Truman document. It appears to be wrongly positioned on the page and, when compared with an authentic signature, it appears to be almost exactly the same, implying that it has been copied.
Genuine or fake, the MJ-12 documents are certainly some of the most interesting documents in the history of Ufology and, because of the details involved, it seems that if they were faked then it was done by someone with inside knowledge—perhaps someone who thought the public had ‘a right to be informed’ that the US Government is wilfully covering up the truth about UFOs.
The named members of MJ-12 were:
Rear Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter: first CIA director.
Dr. Vannevar Bush: chaired wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development and predecessor National Defense Research Committee; set up and chaired post-war Joint Research and Development Board (JRDB) and then the Research and Development Board (RDB); chaired NACA; President of Carnegie Institute, Washington D.C.
James Forrestal: Secretary of the Navy; first Secretary of Defense (replaced after his death on MJ-12 by Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, 2nd CIA director)
Gen. Nathan Twining: headed Air Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson AFB; Air Force Chief of Staff (1953-1957); Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff (1957-1961)
Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg: Directed Central Intelligence Group (1946-1947); Air Force Chief of Staff (1948-1953)
Gen. Robert M. Montague: Guided missile expert; 1947 commander of Fort Bliss; headed nuclear Armed Forces Special Weapons Center, Sandia Base
Dr. Jerome Hunsaker: Aeronautical engineer, MIT; chaired NACA after Bush
Rear Adm. Sidney Souers: first director of Central Intelligence Group, first executive secretary of National Security Council (NSC)
Gordon Gray: Secretary of the Army; intelligence and national security expert; CIA psychological strategy board (1951-1953); Chairman of NSC 5412 committee (1954-1958); National Security Advisor (1958-1961)
Dr. Donald Menzel: Astronomer, Harvard; cryptologist during war; security consultant to CIA and NSA
Dr. Detlev Bronk: Medical physicist; aviation physiologist; chair, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council; president Johns Hopkins University and Rockefeller University
Dr. Lloyd Berkner: Physicist; radio expert; executive secretary of Bush’s JRDB
The question we have to ask is, if this group is so super-secret how on Earth we have got to know about it? The first mention of MJ-12 was in a document that was alleged by Richard Doty (yes, you’ve heard this name before and when you delve further into some UFO cases will no doubt hear it again), an ex-special agent for the US Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), to have been created as disinformation.
Doty says he was ordered by his superiors to give the document to UFO researchers while working for AFOSI. He says this was only one incident in a campaign that lasted years. Was Doty picked by the AFOSI to pass out documents to slowly disseminate information to the general public or did he just make it all up? Or is it, as Doty suggests, that the documents were made to let researchers think they had been observing alien technology when they were actually catching small glimpses of secret experimental US Air Force projects.
Again, it is an interesting, yet complex affair. The MJ 12 case is huge. It has been covered by many books and documentaries. I only hope that what is within this small tome is enough to pique your interest.
