In 1983, Bill Moore Reportedly Discussed Possible Use Of Bogus MJ-12 Type Documents To Encourage New Roswell Witnesses To Speak Out

On April 16, 1983--less than two years before William L. Moore and Jaime Shandera claim they received the "Top Secret/Eyes Only" MJ-12 documents from an unknown source--Moore reportedly sought the reaction of his friend Brad Sparks, a respected UFO researcher, to the idea of creating such counterfeit government documents. Sparks strongly recommended against it. Later, when Sparks called Stanton T. Friedman, he was shocked to discover that Friedman defended Moore's idea.

Moore explained to Sparks that his and Friedman's efforts to locate persons who had been involved in (alleged) crashed-saucer recovery operations in New Mexico, and subsequent related events, had run into a dead end. During the April 16, 1983, meeting in Berkeley, Calif., Moore suggested that counterfeit government documents containing crashed-saucer information could be used to induce former military personnel to speak out and ignore their secrecy oaths. Sparks urged Moore not to resort to bogus documents, pointing out that if they contained any factual errors, this would identify the documents as counterfeit to those privy to the true facts. This, Sparks warned, could ruin Moore's reputation.

SUN first learned of Sparks' involvement in mid-1991 but he was reluctant to speak out. Subsequent events have overcome his reluctance. These include limited disclosure of Moore's idea of creating bogus documents by Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt in their 1994 book, "The Truth About The UFO Crash At Roswell." In a brief chapter debunking the MJ-12 papers, the book reports: "According to Friedman, among others, Moore had suggested as early as 1982 that he wanted to create Roswell documents, thinking that it might open doors that were closed."

Moore's idea may have been inspired by Sgt. Richard Doty, then assigned to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) at Kirtland Air Force Base, in Albuquerque, N.M., with whom Moore developed a close friendship in the early 1980s. Doty was "involved" or suspected of being involved in the creation of several counterfeit government documents about bogus UFO incidents, as Moore later admitted in his 1990 report "The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report," co-authored with Shandera. In 1985, Doty was transferred to an AFOSI post in West Germany and assigned to counter-intelligence work. Within two years Doty was dismissed from AFOSI for turning in bogus claims about his activities. He spent the last two years before retirement serving as the manager of the mess hall for noncommissioned officers at Kirtland AFB [SUN #7/Jan. 1991].

BOGUS DOTY TELETYPE INTRODUCES TERM "MJ TWELVE"

So far as is known to SUN, the term "MJ Twelve" first appeared on a one-page "Secret" teletype message involving UFO photos, dated Nov. 17, 1980, which Doty provided to Moore in early 1981. (This was roughly four years before Shandera reportedly received the MJ-12 roll of film in a brown wrapper postmarked "Albuquerque.") Moore showed a copy of this Doty teletype to Sparks and UFOlogist Kal Korff on Jan. 17, 1982. Several months later, after Moore was hired as a consultant for a UFO program for station KPIX-TV in San Francisco, he provided the TV show producer with a copy. [Subsequent investigation by researcher Robert Todd in early 1983 revealed the teletype message that Doty had provided was bogus.]

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During the April 16, 1983, meeting with Sparks, Moore briefly discussed a "Top Secret" Project Aquarius document which was cryptically mentioned in the Doty-provided teletype message. But it was not until their meeting on Oct. 19, 1984, that Moore showed Sparks several pages of a heavily censored Project Aquarius document, dated June 14, 1977, which appeared to be a UFO briefing for the President--then Jimmy Carter. The cover page carried the following notation: "ATTENTION: THIS DOCUMENT WAS PREPARED BY MJ12 [sic]. MJ12 IS SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS SUBJECT MATTER." The second sheet read: "(TS/ORCON) The information contained in this document is classified TOP SECRET with ORCON (Only the originator may release the information). Only MJ12 has access to Project Aquarius. No other government agency, to include the military, has access to the information contained in this briefing. There are only two copies of Project Aquarius and the location is known only to MJ12. This document will be destroyed after the briefing. No notes, photographs or audio recordings may be made of this briefing." [Emphasis added.]

The Moore/Shandera report of 1990, offering their assessment of the authenticity of the MJ-12 papers, gave the following account of how Moore had obtained the Aquarius document: "In early March of 1983, Moore received a telephone call telling him that some information was going to be made available to him but that he would have to go and pick it up. `You will be receiving some instructions,' the caller said. `You must follow them carefully or the deal is off.' After making a cloak-and-dagger trip across the country, Moore ended up in a motel on the edge of a mid-sized city in upstate New York. At precisely 5:00 P.M., according to the arrangement, an individual came to the door of Moore's room bearing a sealed brown manila envelope. `You have exactly 19 minutes,' the person said. `You may do whatever you wish with this material during the time, but at the end of that time, I must have it back. After that, you are free to do whatever you wish.' Inside the envelope were 11 pages of what purported to be a Top Secret/Orcon document entitled `Executive Briefing: Subject: Project Aquarius,' and bearing the date of June 14, 1977. `May I photograph this?' Moore asked: `May I read it into a tape recorder?' The courier, who stood quietly in the corner of the room the entire time, replied: `Both are permitted. You have 17 minutes remaining."

According to Moore, he took photographs of each of the 11 pages, using light from the motel room lamp, and then read the text into his tape recorder "taking care to read in the word `line' at the end of each line, as well as verbally noting punctuation marks, etc. so that a complete reconstruction of the text could be made in the proper format should the photos not turn out. (They did, but all were of low contrast and, although legible, some were moderately out [of] focus as well.) When the time was up, the courier collected the pages, carefully counted them, replaced them in the original manila envelope, and left."

SGT. DOTY SHOWS SAME AQUARIUS DOCUMENT TO ANOTHER RESEARCHER

UFO/Cattle Mutilation researcher Linda Moulton Howe says she saw some of the same Project Aquarius papers several weeks later, on April 9, 1983, during her visit to Albuquerque to meet with Sgt. Doty. According to Ms. Howe, "Agent Doty said I was being shown the briefing paper because the government intended to release to me several thousand feet of color and black-and-white film taken between 1947 and 1964 showing crashed UFO discs and extraterrestrial bodies as historic footage to be included in the Home Box Office documentary [which Howe hoped to produce], supported with official government confirmation." Howe never got the (alleged) films.

When Ms. Howe's account was published in the December 1987 issue of Just Cause newsletter, Doty wrote its editor, Barry Greenwood, to flatly deny her report. Ms. Howe responded by submitting an affidavit attesting to the veracity of her account. Doty refused to do the same. Doty's letter of Mar. 3, 1988, published in the June 1988 issue of Just Cause, concluded: "I know of no secret Government investigation of UFOs. I have never heard of MJ-12 or any secret Government agency that investigates UFO." [Emphasis added.] Although Doty claims he had "never heard of MJ-12," "MJ Twelve" was mentioned in the bogus teletype message he provided to Moore.

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MOORE CLAIMS THAT HIS TOP WASHINGTON-BASED INTELLIGENCE SOURCE, CODE NAME "FALCON," SELECTED SGT. DOTY--BASED IN ALBUQUERQUE--TO SERVE AS HIS LIAISON/COURIER TO TRANSMIT SENSITIVE UFO DOCUMENTS AND INFOR-MATION TO MOORE. (IT IS SURPRISING THAT "FALCON" COULD NOT FIND A COURIER BASED IN WASHINGTON WHICH WOULD BE MUCH MORE CONVENIENT.) IF MOORE'S CLAIM THAT HE, "FALCON" AND DOTY PERIODICALLY MET IN ALBUQUERQUE IS TRUE, THEN DOTY'S STATEMENT THAT HE DID NOT KNOW OF ANY "SECRET GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATION OF UFOs" IS A LIE. IF, HOWEVER, DOTY WAS BEING TRUTHFUL IN HIS LETTER TO GREENWOOD, THEN MOORE'S "FALCON" CLAIM IS A LIE.

(There is good reason to believe that "Falcon"--Moore's highly placed intelligence official--was really Sgt. Doty--although both Moore and Doty deny it.)

MOORE USES UFO-RESEARCHER LEE GRAHAM AS HIS "LEAKER-CONDUIT"

In May of 1985--approximately five months after Shandera (allegedly) received the MJ-12 papers on a roll of undeveloped film and nearly two years before they were made public by Moore, Friedman and Shandera--Moore showed the MJ-12 papers to his friend Lee M. Graham, of Monrovia, Calif. Graham, a credulous UFO researcher, held a "Secret" clearance because of his job as a technician with Aerojet's ElectroSystems Div., working on the sensors used for the USAF's satellites designed to detect the launch of enemy ballistic missiles. On June 17, 1985, Graham made a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Dept. of Energy in Washington in which he briefly discussed Majestic 12, cited the (alleged) President Truman letter of Sept. 18, 1947, which created MJ-12, and even listed the names of its 12 members. (Graham erred, the Truman letter was dated Sept. 24, 1947; the Eisenhower briefing document was dated Nov. 18, 1952,)

Graham typically distributes many copies of his many FOIA letters to other UFOlogists, and so rumors began to circulate about new "Top Secret/Eyes Only" MJ-12 papers, which seemingly confirmed the Roswell crashed-saucer incident. These rumors reached Barry Greenwood, editor of the Just Cause UFO newsletter and in mid-October he made contact with Graham. As a result, the December 1985 issue of his newsletter became the first UFO publication to discuss MJ-12 and to list its 12 members, along with a biography for each. (The same issue of Just Cause included a copy of the "Doty teletype message," but Greenwood cautioned readers that its authenticity had not been verified.)

One important document that Moore did not show Graham was a one-page "Top Secret" memo, allegedly written by Robert Cutler, Special Assistant to President Eisenhower, on July 14, 1954, which referred to a "MJ-12 Special Studies Project." Moore and Shandera later claimed they found an unsigned carbon copy of this memo in July of 1985 during a visit to the National Archives in Washington. Allegedly, the White House memo was found in a carton of recently declassified USAF intelligence documents. (Subsequent investigation showed that Cutler was out of the country on the date the memo allegedly was written.)

HOW MOORE ALMOST GOT "SCOOPED" IN RELEASE OF MJ-12 PAPERS

SUN suspects that Moore's strategy for exploiting the MJ-12 papers was the following: he would publish snippets of information from the papers in his newsletter, FOCUS, attributing the information to his alleged high-intelligence sources. Later he would release the MJ-12 papers which seemed to authenticate the information from his (alleged) sources. Then Moore would be free to report any fanciful tale and attribute it to these sources. However, the MJ-12 papers were self-serving because they seemly confirmed the Roswell crashed-saucer scenario in the Berlitz/Moore book, with a few additions such as recovery of four ET bodies. If the MJ-12 papers had (allegedly) been sent only to Moore, via his associate Shandera, this might prompt suspicions that Moore had created them.

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An attracive solution to this problem emerged in late May of 1986--a year before the MJ-12 papers were made public--when Moore was visited by Timothy Good, a British UFOlogist who was in the U.S. to attend a UFO conference in Arizona and to gather material for his book "Above Top Secret," which would be published in July of 1987. If the MJ-12 papers were published in Britain in Good's new book shortly after Moore's release in the U.S., this would help divert suspicion that Moore might be involved in their creation. And the MJ-12 papers would achieve international fame quickly.

In late May of 1986, Lee Graham and his wife were invited to have dinner with Moore and Good at a restaurant in Tujunga, Calif. At dinner, Moore and Good made guarded quips about MJ-12. Later, Good ordered a carafe of wine and proposed a toast--but he did not disclose the reason for the toast and Graham opted not to ask. Later, Graham said he learned that "the toast was for the simultaneous release of the MJ-12 document in England and the U.S." Moore and Friedman were scheduled to be featured speakers at the 24th Annual National UFO Conference, which Moore was sponsoring, to be held in mid-June in Burbank, Calif. Advanced conference publicity said that they "will reveal some very startling material." With Good's book scheduled for publication in July, Moore could be the first to reveal MJ-12 papers in mid-June and Good's book would soon follow to provide independent corroboration. However, Good's publisher decided to hold a press
conference on May 29 and to feature the book's MJ-12 papers. Apparently, Good did not inform Moore of this until a few days before the London conference. Moore was running late in getting out the next issue of FOCUS, dated April 30, 1987, partially due to work associated with his upcoming UFO conference. But he managed to release the MJ-12 papers to the U.S. media on May 28--one day before Good.

The MJ-12 papers received widespread media coverage, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. They were featured on ABC-TV's popular "Nightline" program, with host Ted Koppel interviewing Stanton Friedman and SUN's editor.

Evidence that the timing of Good's press conference came as a surprise to Moore is found in the contents of the April 30 issue of FOCUS. It opened with an article in which Moore claimed he had "succeeded in establishing a cooperative relationship with a number of well-placed contacts within the American intelligence community....The information contained in the following pages corroborates information provided us verbally during meetings with these contacts. Assurances have been given that additional information can be made available to us over the next several months. This information is being shared with the UFO community, and through them, ultimately with the public at large...in the hope it will assist in setting the stage for additional information to come." This was followed by three very heavily censored pages from the Eisenhower briefing with all mention of MJ-12 blacked out.

The fact that Moore released complete, unexpurgated MJ-12 papers only a day or two after FOCUS went into the mail indicates that he was surprised by the timing of the press conference for Good's book. The next issue of FOCUS, dated Sept. 1, was largely devoted to MJ-12, but there was no mention of Good's new book.

GOOD CREDITS AN AMERICAN WITH GOOD INTELLIGENCE CONTACTS

At Good's press conference, when asked how he had obtained the MJ-12 papers, he replied that he had obtained them "from a reliable American source who has close connections with the intelligence community," according to a front page story in the May 31 edition of the London Observer. Later, both Good and Moore would deny that Moore was that American source.

Moore's one-page press release of May 28 which accompanied the MJ-12 papers, including the Cutler memo, had the following disclaimer: "Although we are not in a position to endorse its authenticity at this time, it is our considered opinion, based on research and interviews conducted thus far, that the document and its contents appear to be genuine." [Emphasis in original.]

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Although Moore had not been scheduled to speak at the annual MUFON conference, held in Washington in late June, he was a last-minute addition and delivered a lengthy report on the MJ-12 papers at the conference banquet. Moore concluded his talk with the following: "Now that it [MJ-12] is in the papers, if there is anything to it, others will come forward and say: `Well, now that it has been published in The New York Times, now we can talk.' We'll see. There have been a couple hints so far that maybe somebody will say something." Little more than four years earlier, Moore had suggested to Brad Sparks that this objective could be achieved by releasing bogus government documents.

[A subsequent issue of SUN will offer more evidence to identify the likely architect of the MJ-12 papers. Candidates include: Dolly Parton, Sgt. Richard Doty, Richard Nixon, Bill Moore, Pope John Paul, Jaime Shandera, Boris Yeltsin, Stanton Friedman and Sir Edmund Hillary.]

Counterfeit Version Of Authentic USAF Document Discovered

Extremely painstaking analysis by UFO-researcher Robert G. Todd has revealed one of the cleverest counterfeit Roswell-related documents ever discovered: a bogus version of a real "Secret" USAF document which was "doctored" so that it seems to suggest that a crashed saucer was recovered near Roswell. The doctored document is a counterfeit version of a draft Collection Memorandum prepared in late October of 1947 by the office of Brig. Gen. George F. Schulgen, Chief of the Air Intelligence Requirements Div. The Schulgen Collection Memorandum, prompted by the hundreds of UFO reports in the summer of 1947 which followed the initial June 24 report by pilot Kenneth Arnold, was intended to solicit data from overseas military attaches to determine if UFOs might be Soviet craft.

Todd's comparison of the authentic Schulgen Collection Memorandum (SCM) with the bogus version revealed that the counterfeiter had ADDED words to imply that as of the fall of 1947, top USAF officials knew that some UFOs were extraterrestrial craft, and DELETED a few words that indicated that they suspected that UFOs might be Soviet craft. For example:

• Authentic SCM: "For the purpose of analysis and evaluation of the so-called `flying saucer' phenomenon, the object sighted is being assumed to be a manned aircraft, of Russian origin, and based on the perspective thinking and actual accomplishments of the Germans."
  
  
• Bogus SCM: [Counterfeiter's additions are underlined.] "For the purpose of analysis and evaluation of these so-called `flying saucers,' the object sighted is being assumed to be a manned craft of unknown origin. While there remains the possibility of Russian manufacture, based on the perspective thinking and actual accomplishments of the Germans, it is the considered opinion of some elements that the object may in fact represent an interplanetary craft of some kind."

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Short Shrift:

• Although one chapter in Kevin Randle's new book, "The Randle Report," disavows some of his former key "Roswell witnesses," including mortician Glenn Dennis and his nurse/autopsy tale, the same chapter says: "There is no doubt in my mind, based on the evidence I have seen, that there was an alien spacecraft that crashed outside of Roswell." Publication date is this May.
  
• Another, But Different, British Scam: A British company which sells insurance policies to those who fear UFO-abduction was reported in late December to have paid one of its clients one million English pounds ($1.6 million), according to an article released by the British Press Association. The "abductee," Joe Carpenter, reportedly provided the company with a "trans-parent webbed claw" to substantiate his claim and the insurance company's managing director--Simon Burgess--thoughtfully delivered the check on Christmas Eve. In mid-January, London's Sunday Times revealed that Carpenter was really Joe Tagliarini, "an unemployed City of London courier, who dreamt up the idea of selling American-style alien abduction insurance in Britain." Further, that Burgess--who was Tagliarini's business partner--was a no-longer-licensed insurance broker who specialized in offering unusual insurance policies. The article quoted Burgess as saying he had already sold 1,100 UFO-abduction policies, each costing 100 pounds ($160), and had received many hundreds of inquiries since the payoff article had appeared several weeks earlier.
  
• National Institute for Discovery Science Buys "UFO Ranch" in Utah: A 480-acre ranch, whose former owner--Terry Sherman--claimed he frequently saw UFOs which left behind mutilated cattle and crude crop circles, has been bought for $200,000 by the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS). Sherman, who first reported the UFO activity around the time that the "Independence Day" movie was released, claims he saw a 7-foot-tall, heavyset ET emerge from a UFO. NIDS was created last fall by Robert T. Bigelow, a wealthy Las Vegas businessman with a long-standing interest in claims of the paranormal. Bigelow funded The Roper Organization survey on UFO abductions in 1991 for Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs and Ron Westrum [SUN #16/July 1992] and briefly provided funds for research to major UFO organizations. NIDS has constructed an observation facility on the ranch which is to be manned around the clock by scientists with recording equipment, according to John B. Alexander, a NIDS scientist. He said the results of the investigation will be published in scientific journals and on the Institute's Web page.
  
• SUN Predicts That NIDS Will Be Disappointed: We predict that the UFOs--knowing that NIDS is seeking credible scientific evidence--will shun Sherman's old ranch and will visit him at his new ranch, about 15 miles away. This prediction is based on the experience of Ed Walters, of Gulf Breeze, Fla. During the late 1980s, according to photos taken by Walters with his old Polaroid camera (which is ideal for making hoax double-exposure photographs), giant UFOs would frequently hover in front of his house or over his back yard. After Walters signed contracts to write a book and for TV rights, he built a new house and sold his old home to Mr./Mrs. Robert Menzer. The super-smart UFOs learned that Walters had moved out and stopped visiting his old home, according to the Menzers. However, Walters periodically sees and photographs UFOs from his latest new home. If NIDS should decide to buy Ed Walters' new home, SUN recommends that it require Walters to continue to live there.
  
• The rumor that SUN's editor is writing a book on the "Roswell Incident" is true. The book is to be published late this year by Prometheus Books, Buffalo, N.Y. Its "working title," likely to change, is: "ROSWELL: THE CRASHED SAUCER THAT DIDN'T."