Skeptics UFO Newsletter -2- Jan. 1999 Skeptics UFO Newsletter -3- Jan. 1999
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The Skeptics UFO Newsletter (SUN) #55, January 1999
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Dr. Robert Wood Emerges As New Promoter Of MJ-12 Authenticity, Endorses Recent Batch Of Flawed Documents From Secretive
Source
Dr. Robert M. Wood, a respected, long-time engineer/scientist with McDonnell Douglas until his
retirement in 1993, has emerged as a new promoter of MJ-12--an (alleged) super-Top-Secret U.S.
government UFO agency. He and son Ryan--a computer specialist--strongly endorsed the authenticity of
the original MJ-12 papers released in 1987 by William L. Moore, Jaime Shandera and Stanton Friedman as
well as a new batch of obviously flawed MJ-12 documents. Their endorsement came in their paper titled
"Cosmic Watergate: New Evidence of Retrieved UFOs," presented at a UFO conference held in North Haven,
Conn., on Oct. 10-11. Their conference paper focused on about 10 "Top Secret" documents obtained from a
little-known California researcher named Timothy Cooper. Cooper claims the "new" MJ-12 papers were
left in his mailbox by a secretive source named Thomas Cantwheel.
On Nov. 30, these Cooper/Cantwheel/Wood MJ-12 documents were hailed by a respected Silicon Valley
businessman--Joseph P. Firmage--in a two-page press release on the Internet which carried the headline:
"STUNNING TOP SECRET MILITARY DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED ON INTERNET REVEALING RECOVERY OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL VEHICLES AND BODIES DURING TRUMAN
ADMINISTRATION." Copies of the new (and original) MJ-12 papers, which Firmage said had been
authenticated by Dr. Robert M. Wood, were being sent to major U.S. news media organizations. According to
Firmage, "Scientists and the media who reject this claim, particularly in the face of this most recent evidence,
are ignoring the single most important event to confront humanity in perhaps 2,000 years." There was no
mention of the fact that Stanton Friedman had earlier investigated some of Cooper's MJ-12 documents and
concluded that they were COUNTERFEIT, and that this was known to Dr. Wood.
In late 1992, Friedman received a call from Cooper, who claimed to have found three "new" MJ-12
documents in his mailbox. Friedman, who lives in Eastern Canada, suggested that Cooper show the documents to
his good friend Robert Wood, who lives in Southern California. Cooper subsequently provided copies of the three
new documents to Friedman for his analysis, as Friedman reports in his book "Top Secret/MAJIC," p. 144: "The
appearance of the documents was exciting because they were the first Majestic-related documents to surface
since the Cutler-Twining memo [which Moore and Shandera claim they found in the National Archives] in
1985." Friedman said he received two more documents from Cooper several weeks later.
One of the documents--whose authenticity Friedman set out to investigate--purports to be a memo
to President Truman from Rear Adm. Hillenkoetter (who allegedly headed MJ-12), dated "February 1948."
Friedman noted in his book that this "document was extremely poorly reproduced, and Tim [Cooper] was
initially reluctant to pass it on for fear he would be accused of forging it." (Emphasis added.) Friedman
(seemingly) was not disturbed by the fact that the memo did not cite a specific date in February, but
indicated that he was mildly suspicious initially about some of the memo's contents.
There were several other details which should have aroused Friedman's suspicions, but did not. For
example, the centerpiece of the MJ-12 papers made public in 1987 was what purported to be a November
1952 briefing document for President-elect Eisenhower--presumably prepared by
Hillenkoetter--which listed the members of MJ-12. Skeptics earlier pointed out that the list showed "Adm. Roscoe H.
Hillenkoetter" which falsely indicated he was a four-star
admiral. Additionally, as SUN's editor pointed out to Friedman, Hillenkoetter did not use his first name
(Roscoe) in his business letters but instead used his initials--"R.H." Both of these "flaws" in the Eisenhower
briefing document released in 1987 were not repeated in the "Hillenkoetter memo" that Friedman later
received from Cooper. It showed "R.H. Hillenkoetter, Rear Adm. USN."
However, the hoaxer who wrote the "February 1948 memo" unwittingly committed a significant error. In
the lower-left corner the memo listed the agencies which (allegedly) received copies of the memo. This list included
"USAFOSI." In February 1948, when the memo allegedly was written, the Air Force Office of Special
Investigations DID NOT EXIST. It was not created until Aug. 1, 1948, and was never called USAFOSI.
One of the documents which Cooper later sent to Friedman, and which Robert Wood
endorsed, purported to be a Top Secret/Eyes Only memo, signed by President Truman on July 9, 1947, which directed
Lt. Gen. Nathan Twining to "proceed to the White Sands Proving Ground Command Center without delay for the
purpose of making an appraisal of the reported unidentified objects being kept there....Before going to White Sands you
will communicate with General Eisenhower to ascertain whether he desires you to proceed via Kirtland AAF." On
July 9, Twining already was at Kirtland AAF, attending a course on nuclear weapons for
General Officers.
Wood Claims Discrepancies Show Cooper Documents Are Authentic
During Dr. Wood's talk in Connecticut he admitted that there are factual discrepancies in Cooper's
documents but he claimed that these "tend to indicate authenticity instead of lack of authenticity. Hoaxers
generally try to make sure they are perfect." One of the several discrepancies mentioned by Wood between
the original (alleged) Nov. 18, 1952, briefing document for President-elect Eisenhower and the contents of
the documents from Cooper was that the Eisenhower briefing document said that four ET bodies had been
recovered from the crashed saucer while two of Cooper's documents said there were five bodies. Wood
offered the following possible explanation: "The people who wrote the document didn't necessarily put in
everything that was factually true. There might have been five recovered aliens and one of them was still
alive and they didn't want to tell Eisenhower...that we really had an alive guy [ET]."
An even more significant discrepancy is that the Eisenhower Briefing Document, allegedly written
on Nov. 18, 1952, states that "On 07 July, 1947, a secret operation was begun to assure recovery of the
wreckage of this object [singular] for scientific study." According to the Eisenhower briefing document, "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..." (Emphasis added.)
However, one of the Cooper/Cantwheel documents purports to be a July 9, 1947, report by the
Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit [IPU] which (allegedly) had been dispatched to New Mexico to recover the
two crashed UFOs. This document reports "The extraordinary recovery of fallen airborne objects [plural] in
the state of New Mexico, between 4 July - 6 July 1947..." Contemporary media accounts show that rancher
Mac Brazel did not come to Roswell to report finding the unusual debris until July 7. The Cooper document
claims that "radar stations in east Texas and White Sands Proving Ground, N.M. tracked two unidentified
aircraft unitl (sic) both dropped off radar. Two crash sites have been located....Site LZ-1 was located at a
ranch near Corona, approximately 75 miles northwest of the town of Roswell. Site LZ-2 was located
approximately 20 miles southwest of the town of Socorro...[near] Oscura Peak." This July 9, 1947,
document does not mention any other crashed-saucer recovery in New Mexico at that time. However,
another of the Cooper/Cantwheel documents, allegedly written by Hillenkoetter on Sept. 19, 1947, refers to
"a subsequent capture of another similar craft 30 miles east of the Army's Alamogordo Army Air Field on 5
July 1947..."
IPU's July 9 report said: "Personnel were mainly interested in LZ-2 [Oscura Peak] as this site
contained the majority of structural detail of the craft's airframe, propulsion and navigation technology. The
recovery of five bodies in a damaged escape cylinder, precluded (sic) an investi-gation at LZ-1 [Corona]....First
reports indicated the first crash investigators from Roswell AAF [thought] that LZ-1 was the remains of a
AAF top secret MOGUL balloon project. When scientists from Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory arrived to
inspect LZ-2, it became apparent to all concerned that what had crashed in the desert was something out of
this world." (Emphasis added.)
CURIOUS "COINCIDENCES" AND DISCREPANCIES
Wood Withholds Friedman-Discovered Evidence Of A Hoax
Friedman, understandably, hoped that Tim Cooper's "new" documents would support the
authenticity of the original MJ-12 papers. The IPU document which reported recovery of a crashed saucer
in the vicinity of Oscura Peak seemed to confirm the Plains of San Agustin crashed-saucer tale of Barney
Barnett, which Friedman has long endorsed. However, when his investigation showed obvious evidence
that some of the documents were counterfeit, Friedman did not withhold such information from his
readers. For example, one of Cooper's letters purportedly written by Secretary of State George C. Marshall
turned out to be a slightly revised version of a letter that Marshall had sent to Presidential candidate
Thomas E. Dewey during the 1944 campaign. The authentic Marshall letter sought Dewey's cooperation in
keeping secret the fact that the U.S. had cracked the Japanese military encryption code. In Friedman's book
he wrote: "With this unambiguous fraud as background, I became convinced that several other items [Cooper
documents] were retyped and slightly changed versions of old memos or letters."
Dr. Wood presumably read Friedman's book because he wrote a very favorable review of the book
in the Spring 1997 issue of the journal published by Peter Sturrock's Society for Scientific Exploration. In
Wood's review, he mentioned "three documents from Timothy Cooper, a California researcher who has been
sending Friedman material from unknown sources. These three documents are supportive of the existence of
an MJ-12 Majic project." (Emphasis added.) Wood's claim is challenged on p. 159 of Friedman's book where
he wrote that he now believed that the "Hillenkoetter memo [February 1948]--the first document that Tim
Cooper had sent me--was really a doctored version of a memo...sent to President Roosevelt during World
War II."
Skeptics UFO Newsletter -4- Jan. 1999
If Friedman's book showed that he suspected that some of Cooper's MJ-12 documents were
counterfeit, one should expect Dr. Wood and son Ryan to be at least cautious in endorsing their
authenticity. But in Dr. Wood's closing comments at the recent UFO conference in Connecticut he said:
"THESE DOCUMENTS ARE GENUINE. NOBODY SHOULD LEAVE THIS ROOM FEELING THAT
THESE DOCUMENTS ARE ANYTHING BUT GENUINE!"
"MJ-12 Special Operations Manual," Which Surfaced In Early 1994,
Also Is Endorsed By Dr. Wood Despite Its Many Flaws
Another "MJ-12 document" surfaced on March 14, 1994, when long-time UFOlogist Don Berliner
received a roll of undeveloped 35 mm. black/white film which had been mailed from La Crosse, Wisc., by an
anonymous source. When the film was developed on March 22, it contained photos of 21 pages from a 31-plus-page document titled "MAJESTIC-12 GROUP SPECIAL OPERATIONS MANUAL (SOM-101):
EXTRATERRESTRIAL ENTITIES AND TECHNOLOGY RECOVERY AND DISPOSAL." The document, dated April 7, 1954, carried the classification "TOP
SECRET/MAJIC EYES ONLY." Berliner, co-author with Friedman of the 1992 book "Crash At Corona," promptly gave a copy to the General Accounting Office (GAO)
which had just launched its investigation into crashed-saucer claims [SUN #25/Jan. 1994].
Curiously, more than eight months would elapse before Berliner decided to inform his co-author/partner about SOM 1-01, which Friedman later characterized as "the mother of all Majestic-12
documents" in his book "Top Secret/MAJIC" (p. 161). Friedman devotes a chapter of the book to SOM 1-01
and reproduces much of its contents. Friedman says he later provided a copy of the SOM 1-01 to his friend
Dr. Robert Wood for analysis and authentication, explaining that "I trust [Wood] completely; excellent
technical background, sound judgment, very knowledgeable about UFOs and high security." (During Wood's
employment by McDonnell Douglas he held a "Top Secret" security clearance.)
Friedman's chapter on SOM 1-01 suggests that when the book was published in 1996, he had ambivalent
views on the authenticity of SOM 1-01: "A detailed proposal to validate this document by investigating
internal references, the appropriateness of the procedures enumerated, the relationship to other MJ-12
documents, and the occurrences of any possible anachronisms has been made by myself, Dr. Wood, Dr. Bruce
Maccabee, and another researcher, and it awaits funding. Based upon past experience, authentication will be
no easy task..." Authentication, or "de-authenti-cation," would be easier if Friedman and Wood were more
rigorous and less credulous.
The alleged objective of SOM 1-01, as stated on p. 4, is: "This operations manual is published for
the information and guidance of all concerned. It contains information on determination, documentation,
collection, and disposition of debris, devices, craft, and occupants of such craft as defined as Extraterrestrial
Technology or Extraterrestrial Biological Entities (EBEs) in Section II of this chapter." But the contents of
SOM 1-01 reveal it was written to provide useful "evidence" for those who promote the myth of crashed-saucer recovery and government coverup. Much of the information in SOM 1-01 would not be needed by
UFO-recovery teams.
DISCREPANCIES REVEAL MJ-12 SPECIAL OPERATIONS MANUAL IS A HOAX
On p. 4, SOM 1-01 instructs MJ-12 UFO-recovery units on how to keep the press and the public from
learning that any UFOs are ET craft by falsely explaining UFO sightings and crashed saucers as "meteors,
downed satellites, weather balloons and military aircraft..." (Emphasis added.) But as of April 1954, no man-made earth satellite had ever been launched and more than three years would elapse before the first
satellite was launched by the USSR on Oct. 4, 1957. It reentered on Jan. 4, 1958. Thus, if prior to late
1957 an MJ-12 unit followed SOM 1-01's instructions and tried to explain a crashed UFO as being a
"downed satellite," it would be an obviously ridiculous explanation. Dr. Wood sought to counter this
discrepancy by claiming
Skeptics UFO Newsletter -5- Jan. 1999
that "in 1954 there were references in open literature talking about our plans for satellites." (Emphasis added.)
Wood did not cite a single specific to back up his claim. He couldn't. It was not until April 26, 1955, that the
USSR became the first to announce plans to build and launch an earth satellite. And it was not until July
29, 1955, that President Eisenhower announced that the U.S. would also build and launch a satellite.
Some of the discrepancies are a bit subtle. For example, a "Current Situation" status report on p. 3 states
that as of early 1954, "Several dead entities have been recovered along with a substantial amount of wreckage
and devices from downed craft....One of the crashes was the result of direct military action" (but no details are
provided). The Eisenhower briefing document states that four dead ETs were recovered in New Mexico in
mid-1947, while two of the Cooper documents report five ET bodies. But nearly seven years later, only
"several dead" ETs have been recovered?? SOM 1-01 reports two types of ETs: