Obviously, the serious and talented men allegedly comprising the MJ-12 board added credibility to the documents received by Jaime Shandera. And they certainly looked legitimate. Upon hearing of them, the Federal Bureau of Investigation couldn’t initially tell weather or not they were real (click here to download the FBI’s file on MJ-12). The Bureau’s interest centered around the possible breach of national security resulting from the dissemination of classified material. If genuine, the MJ-12 documents could possibly constitute a threat to the defense structure. It could also provide vindication for ufologists.

Captain Kevin Randle (USAFR), in his 2002 book Case MJ-12: The True Story behind the Government's UFO Conspiracies, offered a compelling explanation of why the MJ-12 Documents were forgeries. He listed a number of reasons, but I’ll just mention a few of the most salient.

First of all, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the alleged author of the Eisenhower briefing, seems not to know his own rank. On the header, he refers to (supposedly) himself as Admiral, when in fact he was only a Rear Admiral, a serious faux pas in front of a president who also happened to be first five-star general in American history.

As for Truman’s signature, it had to have been copied or traced onto the photographed page. After diligent research, an exact duplicate of the autograph was found in a letter housed at Truman’s presidential library in Independence, MO. An individual will virtually never sign his name exactly the same way twice in his or her life. There will be countless variations, some microscopic. Here, we have an exact match. Moreover, Truman historians have noted that the president had a tendency to overlap his signature with the text of memos and letters. In the MJ-12 documents the signature appears considerably below the body of the letter, and does not touch the text.

More importantly, this document represents itself as an Executive Order, yet it’s unnumbered. Attachment “A” of the Truman/Forrestal memo cites the creation of MJ-12 as pursuant to “Special Classified Order #092447.” Yes, there is such a thing as a Special Classified Order, but it follows the same numeric sequence as ordinary Executive Orders. In other words, if presented with a list of Executive Orders, they should say something like “#092446 - Blah, blah, blah; #092447 - [Top Secret]; #092448 - Whatever.” Truman indeed changed the guideline for numbering in EO #10006. Still we would have to think that Truman came up with 82,441 more before he got around to creating this panel. That would barely give him time to play the piano. Worse still, the inaugural date listed fell before the change, and thus should have been in the old FDR numerical system, which would make it seven thousand and something.

The documents also contain formatting errors. The dates, as given, are not punctuated correctly in terms of military convention at that time. For example, the date when Brazel showed his UFO to Marcel was given as “07 July, 1947.” The correct expression of this date should be either “7 July 1947" with no comma and no zero, “07 July 1947" with no comma, or “7 July, 1947.” If you found one or two of those, you could simply chalk it up to a mistake on the part of a secretary who was new to the job; but not here where the error is repeated time and again. Also, each new president defines classification terms. Nowhere does the category of “Majic Eyes Only” ever come up as a restriction of any kind.

The documents were photographed on an angle, so it took awhile to figure out that the typewriter used was a Smith-Corona P102. Shandera and Moore quickly moved to find another expert to say that the typeface was actually a Ransmayer & Rodrian 664, or an Underwood UP3A. Sure enough, the fonts look pretty close to what you see in the documents, but only if you don’t account for the angle. When you do, the only one left standing is the Smith-Corona, first manufactured in 1966 -- fourteen years after these documents were supposedly typed.

Moore and Shandera set about to prove the existence of MJ-12. They went to the National Archives to document any precedents for the unusual formats, typeface, et cetera. It was there where they got their hands on some recently declassified material, Record Group 341. The Archives’ administration describes the contents of this record group as follows:

Record Group 341
Records of Headquarters U.S. Air Force (Air Staff)
Administrative History

Headquarters U.S. Air Force, also known as the Air Staff, was established September 18, 1947, under terms of the National Security Act of 1947. The Chief of Staff is directly responsible to the Secretary of the Air Force and presides over the Air Staff which is divided into five functional groupings each headed by a deputy chief of staff.
Records Description

Dates: 1948-1954

Volume: 74 cubic feet

Records from the Director of Construction, Southwest Region in Fort Worth), who reported t the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Installations. The records relate to construction and maintenance of various air force bases and installations in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Included are correspondence, lists of property, and reports. Nontextual records include site maps.
Finding Aids

· Box contents list
· "Places" database in RG 269.
· Entries 505 through 511 in Helene Bowen, comp., Preliminary Inventory of the Records of Headquarters, United States Air Force, NM 15 (1963).

One of the documents in this 74 cubic foot block contained a reference to Majestic-12, according to Jaime Shandera and William Moore. At first glance, that would seem to prove that such a group existed, especially since it exists among other material that might seem related (specifically, the construction and maintenance of air force bases), and dates from the correct time (1948-1954). But Randle argued that this would run counter to the standard, bureaucratic procedures involved with declassifying information. The Library of Congress evaluates whole volumes of documents before recommending that the issuing agency downgrade the classification status. So if there were a project operating under the name of, or tangentially related to, MJ-12, one would expect to find an entire series of documents pertaining to it, not just one. A lone reference to MJ-12 out of context, Randle figured, would very likely not seen the light of day if legitimate.

I’d bet good money that those arguing against the existence of UFOs took at least a modicum of joy in declaring the MJ-12 Documents fraudulent. Aviation Week editor and noted UFO “debunker” Philip Klass, who coordinated an MJ-12 report by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) called them “clumsy counterfeits.” CSICOP Committee chair Dr. Paul Kurtz (Philosophy, SUNY Buffalo) described them as “one of the most deliberate acts of deception ever perpetrated against the news media and the public.”

If we accept the documents produced by Shandera and Moore as fraudulent (though some, like Stanton Friedman, still insist that they aren’t), does that necessarily mean MJ-12 never existed? Does it disprove the notion that US military, intelligence services and civilian leaders met with scientific experts about the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation?

Stanton Friedman has stood by his original assertion of the MJ-12 documents’ authenticity. Taking his arguments (which I’ll get to later) into consideration, we are still left asking if the documents are in fact forgeries. Could there be a explanation for their idiosyncrasies?

Before answering those questions, I’d like to bring up something completely different. Hopefully, by series’ end, the connection between this and the following digression will become clear.