The Happening!!
NEW ARGUMENTS RAISED FOR, AGAINST KEY MJ-12 DOCUMENTS//Not for DEBUNKERS (sorry!)
One of the longest and most controversial documents associated with the
alleged super-secret agency known as Majestic Twelve or MJ-12 is a booklet of
approximately 30 pages usually referred to as "SOM 1-01." Its full title is
"Majestic-12 Group Special Operations Manual [SOM]: Extraterrestrial Entities
and Technology, Recovery and Disposal." Like its more famous predecessor, the
Eisenhower Briefing Document, SOM 1-01 first appeared as an undeveloped roll
of 35mm film. It was sent by an anonymous source in 1994 to Don Berliner at
the Fund for UFO Research. In due course, Berliner gave photographic prints
of the pages to researchers Robert and Ryan Wood, who have since carried out
the majority of research on this document. Stanton Friedman also published a
reconstruction and discussion of the document in his book "Top Secret/Majic"
(Marlowe, 1996).
In the view of Robert and Ryan Wood, the document shows many signs of being
authentic and no signs of obvious fraud. If so, it would certainly be among
the most important UFO-related documents ever. As its full title implies, SOM
1-01 purports to be a manual of official procedures for handling
extraterrestrial wreckage and bodies, suggesting that such procedures were
needed and planned for by a super-secret group within the U.S. government.
However, on March 23, 1999, a committee of leading UFO researchers issued a
statement claiming that SOM 1-01 is fake. The signers of the statement were
Jan L. Aldrich, current head of Project 1947 and an expert in military
intelligence; Donald L. Berliner, original recipient of SOM 1-01 and current
Chairman of the Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR); Thomas P. Deuley, Lt.
Commander, U.S. Navy (ret.) and a longtime member of the boards of MUFON and
FUFOR; Richard H. Hall, author, former acting director of NICAP and former
Chairman of FUFOR; and Mark Rodeghier, Ph.D. sociologist and Scientific
Director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS).
Researchers Robert and Ryan Wood immediately offered counter-arguments to the
hoax claim, and Stanton Friedman told CNI News in a telephone interview that
he continues to regard SOM 1-01 as probably authentic.
The text of the joint statement follows:
NEWS ADVISORY
FUND FOR UFO RESEARCH, P.O. Box 277, Mt. Rainier, MD 20712
RELEASE DATE MARCH 23, 1999
For additional information, contact: Don Berliner, 703/684-6032; Richard
Hall, 301/779-8683
JOINT STATEMENT ON SOM-01-1 [sic] MANUAL PURPORTING TO CONFIRM MJ-12
The SOM-01-1 manual arrived in the mail to Don Berliner as a roll of film
from an anonymous source. This immediately raises suspicions, since there is
no identifiable source whose veracity and reputation can be checked and no
original documents that can be subjected to forensic analysis. The manual has
been carefully examined by the undersigned parties, whose collective
experience includes military service in all three major branches; processing
and handling of highly classified military documents; analysis and reporting
on Government documents of various types; historical scholarship; and
extensive knowledge of military, government, and UFO affairs.
We believe this to be a hoax document; a deliberate fake designed to mislead
the public and to plant false information in the UFO research community by
person or persons whose motives are unknown. Deliberately planted false
information ("disinformation") such as this forces investigators to waste
their time checking on its validity rather than on more productive efforts.
Our general reasons for concluding that the manual is a hoax are outlined
below (for more specific details, contact the individuals):
(1) Documents and materials with high classifications have special provisions
attached to them to ensure the ability to trace them at all times and to
verify their integrity, until they are destroyed or declassified. The
security markings on the SOM-01-1 document do not conform to required
security procedures established for all agencies by presidential executive
orders. In some instances they are totally contrary to established security
procedures. No internal evidence exists in the document to show that proper
accountability was exercised by the document's custodians.
(2) The inclusion of some accurate information has been cited as proof of
authenticity, whereas it could equally well be interpreted as a cut-and-paste
job to lend an air of authenticity. Partially legitimate but altered
UFO-related documents are already known to exist.
(3) The content of the manual is strikingly inappropriate for its stated
purpose. A field manual for dealing with crashed craft and alien bodies would
have no reason to include (a) information on UFO history, (b) a chart of UFO
types, (c) information concerning radar detection of UFOs, (d) a list of
natural and artificial aerial phenomena which can be mistaken for UFOs.
(4) Military manuals of this type establish standards and define tasks which
must be performed to accomplish the mission. The manual fails to establish
such standards and is completely silent on personnel qualifications and
equipment requirements. Furthermore, the methods of recovery and site
security described in the manual are inadequate and tactically unsound.
Regulations, materials, and training publication references cited are grossly
inadequate or completely missing.
The undersigned parties take UFO reports seriously and advocate thorough
scientific investigation. However, when it comes to analysis of 2nd and 3rd
and nth generation copies of documents, forensic analysis is almost
impossible. Content analysis already has shown serious problems with MJ-12
related documents.
The only way SOM-01-1 and other alleged "documentary proof" of MJ-12 could
conceivably be authenticated would be by locating a documentary paper trail
of certifiably original documents in government archives, or in private
papers of important people. Even then, allegedly authentic documents would
need to be subjected to forensic examination to determine such things as the
age of the paper. And document experts would need to examine them for
internal accuracy and style. Given the track record of fake documents and
shoddy scholarship, rigorous peer review is essential.
\signed\ [end joint statement]
Stanton Friedman told CNI News that the signers of the joint statement were
already on record as being opposed to SOM 1-01 for various reasons. "We have
a long history here of people who've been attacking this right from the
start... There's politics behind this -- animosities, personalities, lack of
objectivity.
"I would say it's very likely that the document is genuine," Friedman
continued. "I am wary of any judgments that say, 'This is different from
that,' or 'This is what should have been in there.' Nobody knows that. I've
spent a lot of time in archives, and I'm very leery of saying that difference
means fraud... In so many instances, I have seen people make proclamations
about what is and isn't legitimate, only to find that they are in error when
I find real documents at real archives that contradict what they've said."
Friedman offered an example of this problem. He said that Jan Aldrich, a
signer of the joint statement, had criticized SOM 1-01 for having the seal of
the War Department on it. Aldrich argued that such a seal would be an
anachronism on a document dated 1954. But, said Friedman, "I've got War
Department seals on documents from 1967! Not everyone abandoned the thing."
On March 24, Robert Wood posted a response to the joint statement. Excerpts
follow:
COMMENTS ON THE JOINT STATEMENT ON SOM 1-01
Concern about authenticity is always critical to document examiners, and
sometimes provides helpful specifics to assist in determining genuineness.
Unfortunately, the recently posted piece (Joint Statement) raises no new
issues that have not been [previously] discussed.
One must avoid pre-judging a document fake merely because the provenance is
imperfect. We know that someone photographed a manual and mailed it to Don
Berliner, as stated. Other authentication issues of chronology, type
details, format are often critical to provide authentication clues. None of
them were discussed in the Joint Statement. Furthermore, it is quite
possible that the original copy that was photographed will be located and
analyzed for dating in a variety of ways.
It is not, however, necessary to test the manual physically to know that it
was produced on a hot lead printing press as described in our references,
clearly using the equipment correct for the era stated. This is clear from
the details of the type anomalies (the raised z, for example [a type-face
oddity also found in authenticated documents produced by the Government
Printing Office in 1954]) as well as the slavish adherence to the applicable
style manual of 1953.
If it is a fake, it is one that was produced on a 1954 monotype machine. The
Joint Statement suggests that it was a fake to mislead the UFO community. It
does not appear to me that the UFO community is worth such an expensive hoax,
even if it could have been pulled off.
The principal weight of the argument made by the Joint Statement clearly
depends on the signer credentials as persons familiar with security,
communications, and military procedures in three cases and general
familiarity with Government documents with the other two. None of the
signers mention that they had access to top secret material in 1954 or have
even handled classified material of that era. Because security procedures
are always being improved, this makes their perception of what "would have"
been done have low value for this document if it was created in 1954.
I am familiar with many of the objections raised in the past, and believe
that this topic can not be logically treated with generalities. We have dealt
with each specific objection raised and have heard no logical argument to
counter them. These include the obvious ones of restricted and top secret on
the same page, satellites in 1954, radar recognizing shape, Area 51 existing
in 1954, and the absence of document control. The Joint Statement primarily
seems to be addressing the security and document control issue. Commenting,
therefore on each paragraph:
(1) "Presidential executive orders established for all agencies" implies that
we would expect to see identical security procedures wherever one looked. In
fact, there are clear examples of the CIA and the DoD and the old AEC and the
State Department using different markings and procedures in this era. Today,
many things may be the same, but we are talking about 1954. It is true there
is no internal evidence to show that the copy that was photographed had a
copy control number, but it was issued to Kirtland AFB. If it were the only
one at Kirtland, that would be a control.
(2) Simply saying that it "could equally well be interpreted as a cut-and-
paste job" has no bearing on whether it was. We should be looking for
evidence, not speculation, in document authentication. We are eagerly
collecting known fake documents that have fooled questioned document
examiners because there are so few.
(3) The Joint Statement authors offer their opinion that the manual "would
have no reason to include..." On the contrary, it is easy to imagine (a)
that the leaders had found that all people hunger for a bit of history on
this topic and they didn't want [to] have the troops waste time in
speculation; (b) they needed a chart of UFO types to get a feeling for what
they might be up against; (c) there really wasn't any radar information -- it
just said that radar had determined the shapes and sizes to be this or that;
(d) the list of phenomena was provided (actually, all unclassified) so that
they were not fooled themselves if they were in the field. These are my
"could have" comments that counter the "would have" comments. All of them are
speculation: first, theirs -- now, mine. Speculation is not usually an
effective authentication technique.
(4) This military manual clearly is trying to tell the troops or civilian
personnel (if they were CIA) in the field how to go out, recover the parts,
the bodies, where to send them, and how to keep the public in the dark.
Personnel and equipment requirements need not go in an instruction manual.
The people reading it were selected to read it and do the job. It is not
clear to me why the methods of recovery and site security are inadequate and
tactically unsound. Without specifics, one can hardly have a discussion. If
regulation, material, and training publication references are always required
by DoD manuals, perhaps this strongly suggests that it was a CIA manual, and
they decided not to bother with those items.
There are many exceptions to procedures over the years. Furthermore, the
statement that implies that the CIA and the DoD have identical security
procedures is patently false.
We would welcome a point by point discussion of specific objections, but I
think that my partner Ryan Wood and I have already dealt with the most
important concerns raised over the years... [W]e certainly agree that we need
to keep the scholarship levels high and peer review standards objective.
[End of Wood statement. NOTE: An extensive analysis of SOM 1-01 and other
alleged MJ-12 documents can be found on a CD-ROM produced by Robert and Ryan
Wood, titled "The Secret: Evidence That We Are Not Alone." For information,
call toll-free 800-845-2151. Further information can also be found on Joseph
Firmage's Project Kairos website, http://www.TheWordIsTruth.org]
The_Sage
>Date written: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 03:44:50 GMT
>MsgID:<SIQp8.9957$15....@www.newsranger.com>
>NEW ARGUMENTS RAISED FOR, AGAINST KEY MJ-12 DOC
>Researchers Robert and Ryan Wood immediately offered counter-arguments to the
>hoax claim, and Stanton Friedman told CNI News in a telephone interview that
>he continues to regard SOM 1-01 as probably authentic.
Stanton Friedman is not an expert on how to tell fake government
documents from real ones, so his opinion means nothing.
The Sage
=============================================================
My Home Page : http://home.rmci.net/thesage
"Be careful when casting out your demons, lest you cast out
the best part of yourself" -- ??
=============================================================
hugh
> NEW ARGUMENTS RAISED FOR, AGAINST KEY MJ-12 DOC
>
> One of the longest and most controversial documents associated with the
> alleged super-secret agency known as Majestic Twelve or MJ-12 is a booklet of
> approximately 30 pages usually referred to as "SOM 1-01." Its full title is
> "Majestic-12 Group Special Operations Manual [SOM]: Extraterrestrial Entities
> and Technology, Recovery and Disposal." Like its more famous predecessor, the
> Eisenhower Briefing Document, SOM 1-01 first appeared as an undeveloped roll
> of 35mm film. It was sent by an anonymous source in 1994 to Don Berliner at
> the Fund for UFO Research. In due course, Berliner gave photographic prints
> of the pages to researchers Robert and Ryan Wood, who have since carried out
> the majority of research on this document. Stanton Friedman also published a
> reconstruction and discussion of the document in his book "Top Secret/Majic"
> (Marlowe, 1996).
>
> In the view of Robert and Ryan Wood, the document shows many signs of being
> authentic and no signs of obvious fraud. If so, it would certainly be among
> the most important UFO-related documents ever. As its full title implies, SOM
> 1-01 purports to be a manual of official procedures for handling
> extraterrestrial wreckage and bodies, suggesting that such procedures were
> needed and planned for by a super-secret group within the U.S. government.
>
> However, on March 23, 1999, a committee of leading UFO researchers issued a
>
What is so new about any of these dates??
Mark Shippey
> What is so new about any of these dates??
Timely information is not Wholeflaffer's strong point. Some of
his posted information is so old and outdated that even 5 years
ago it was already worn out. Even his friends at Amalgamated Press
have all but stopped with new breaking news. This may be because
UFOlogists have all but used up every wierd and bizarre claim
they can think of and are running out of new material.