Majestic 12 (MJ-12) Group

The MJ-12 documents are an eight-page memo dated November 18, 1952, outlining the establishment of a secret group by outgoing President Harry Truman. The memo was prepared for President-elect Dwight Eisenhower.

The document simply describes the fact that the U.S. government recovered a crashed alien spacecraft and bodies in 1947 outside of Roswell, New Mexico. It also states that another crash occurred in Texas near the Mexican border in 1950. At that time Truman established a group known as Majestic-12, sometimes referred to as MJ-12. The purpose of the group was to determine how to handle the implications of the Roswell incident and the existence of extraterrestrial beings. The original members of the group were the very top people in government and science. Since they have all died and the names may not be familiar to you, a list of who they were and what positions they held is included.

They are the most dramatic UFO documents ever leaked to the public!

Where Did the Documents Come From? 
The MJ-12 documents were received on a roll of undeveloped 35mm film by UFO researcher Jaime Shandera in 1984. Shandera had earlier worked with a group of military intelligence personnel who referred to themselves as the "Insiders," who had expressed a desire to have the true facts about flying saucers released to the public.

The documents are the first to uncover the true facts of the dramatic UFO/alien body crash recovery that occurred at Roswell. The story of the investigation of the MJ-12 documents alone could fill a book, and did (see below).

Alien crash at Roswell, NM in 1947

The Controversy 
The MJ-12 documents have undergone intense scrutiny both by people who claim they are genuine and by those who claim they are fake. Complicating matters is the fact that the actual paper documents have never been available for examination. Instead, there are only photos of the documents which Shandera received on a roll of film.

Clearing the Smoke
After clearing the smoke, here is what remains: 
The preponderance of evidence leans heavily towards those who think the documents are genuine. The research on the "real" side is more thorough.

The side arguing that the documents are fake have made several lightweight claims, most of which were easily refuted by research. In fact, the "fake" side, led by known UFO debunker Philip Klass, had to pay off a $1,000 bet when Klass'claims that certain parts of the document were fake were disproved. The check was written out to Stanton Friedman. Friedman has kept copies of the cancelled check, and made them available for all to see.

 
Here is the key point: Even if the documents had been faked the research into confirming their authenticity led to finding 160 eyewitnesses who saw or handled wreckage or bodies from the crashed flying saucer! Many of these eyewitnesses have signed sworn affidavits. Others have given what amounts to dying declarations, both allowable as evidence in any court of law in the United States. In addition, all their stories fit together like the workings of a fine watch. Their time frames all line up, as do their descriptions. The evidence that the crash at Roswell really did occur is now so overwhelming that the MJ-12 documents are just a confirmation of the event.

The Double Reverse 
In another effort to authenticate the MJ-12 papers, one researcher used a unique but effective approach. Lee Graham, an aerospace worker, realized that anything stamped "Top Secret" (like the MJ-12 papers) fell under government security regulations; specifically, Department of Defense regulation 5200.1-R, which requires government employees or government-contracted workers to report any leak or breach of security with Top Secret documents. The forging or faking of Top Secret documents is also a violation of this statute.

The FBI Checks Them Out 
Graham reported the MJ-12 documents as being either stolen or forged. The FBI spent over one year investigating whether these documents were forged or not. The FBI concluded two things:

First, if the MJ-12 papers were forged, it was an incredible forgery, unlike any they had ever seen in the past. The details of the people and events from fifty years ago were absolutely accurate and coincided with their internal documents.

And second, if the documents were real, they could not get any part of the U.S. government to acknowledge that they had lost them.

So, here for your review are the MJ-12 documents. For a complete history of the MJ-12 documents, get Stanton T. Friedman's Final Report on Operation Majestic 12. To see a complete set of the MJ-12 documents, go to the 'Documents' section of this website

The Original Members of Majestic-12

Dr. Lloyd V. Berkener 
Explorer and scientist, he headed a group that later became the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group. He was also a member of a CIA panel that determined that UFOs did not constitute a threat to U.S. national security. Berkener was the executive director at Carnegie Institute, and was a member of the Joint Research and Development Board in 1946.

Dr. Lloyd Berkener

Dr. Detlev Bronk 
Physiologist, aviation expert, and prominent member of the National Academy of Science, he served as president of both Johns Hopkins and Rockefeller Universities. He was chairman of the Nuclear Research Committee and the medical advisor for the Atomic Energy Commission. Bronk also served on the Scientific Advisory Committee of Brookhaven National Laboratory where he worked with Dr. Edward Condon (who completed a major UFO study for the Air Force).

Dr. Detlev Bronk

Dr. Vannevar Bush  
A leader in research and development at MIT and Carnegie Institute, he was at one time the head of each of the following: Office of Scientific Research and Development, the Joint Research and Development Board, and the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics. The Office of Scientific Research and Development was responsible for the development of the atomic bomb. Bush also put together the National Defense Research Council in 1941.

Dr. Vannevar Bush

James Forrestal  
Forrestal was under secretary of the Navy, then secretary of the Navy. He became the first secretary of Defense in 1947, during the time of the Roswell crash. In 1949 he committed a very mysterious suicide. There was talk that he didn't want to hide the truth about flying saucers from the public. His suicide was considered to be just as weird in his day as the Vince Foster suicide was during the Clinton administration.

James Forrestal

Gordon Gray 
Secretary of the Army, he later held several high security positions under Presidents Truman and Eisenhower. He was also a consultant on UFOs and reported directly to CIA Director Walter B. Smith.

Gordon Gray

Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter  
He was the first director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Later he became a member of NICAP, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. He publicly stated that "UFOs are real É through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense."

Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter

Dr. Jerome Hunsaker  
Head of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics; chairman of the Departments of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at MIT.

Dr. Jerome Hunsaker

Dr. Donald Menzel 
Director of the Harvard College Observatory and an expert in cryptoanalysis, the science of breaking codes and deciphering unknown languages and symbols. Menzel was involved in very high-level intelligence operations during and after World War II.

Dr. Donald Menzel

General Robert M. Montegue 
Head of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Center, he was also an Army general at Fort Bliss and as such had control over the White Sands Nuclear Research facility and the Sandia Atomic Energy Commission facility at Albuquerque, New Mexico during the time of the saucer crash at Roswell.

General Robert Montegue

Admiral Sidney Souers 
Souers was the first director of Central Intelligence, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. He was also a member of the National Security Council and a special consultant for military intelligence operations.

Admiral Sidney Souers

General Nathan Twining 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, Twining was also the commander of the Air Materiel Command based at Wright-Patterson Air base, where the debris and bodies from the Roswell crash were taken. Twining was known to have cancelled a scheduled trip on July 8, 1947, just days after the crash at Roswell and the same day Roswell Army Air Base sent out a press release stating that a flying saucer had been recovered. In a now-famous memo, Twining stated that UFOs were very real.

General Nathan Twining

General Hoyt Vandenburg 
Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force and former director of Central Intelligence, he was allegedly in charge of security for the MJ-12 group.
Vandenburg Air Force base in California, where the space shuttle often lands, is named after him.

General Hoyt Vandenburg