Stanton Friedman -- Majestic 12: Operation Majic and the Secret Committee

Stanton Friedman -- Majestic 12: Operation Majic and the Secret Committee

What Majestic 12 Is

Majestic 12 (also MJ-12, MAJIC 12, or Operation Majic) is the name given to an alleged secret committee established by President Harry S. Truman on September 24, 1947 -- approximately two months after the Roswell Incident -- to manage the United States government's response to extraterrestrial contact and technology. According to documents that surfaced beginning in 1984, MJ-12 consisted of twelve of the most powerful scientific, military, and intelligence figures in the United States.

The Alleged MJ-12 Members

Name	Position
Fleet Adm. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter	First Director of the CIA
Dr. Vannevar Bush	Head of wartime scientific research; OSRD director; MIT president
Secretary James Forrestal	First Secretary of Defense
Gen. Nathan F. Twining	Commanding General, Air Materiel Command
Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg	Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force
Dr. Detlev Bronk	Chairman, National Research Council; aviation physiologist
Dr. Jerome Hunsaker	Chairman, National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA)
Rear Adm. Sidney W. Souers	First Director, Central Intelligence Group
Gordon Gray	Presidential adviser; later National Security Advisor
Dr. Donald Menzel	Harvard astronomer (also known as a UFO skeptic -- his alleged inclusion was controversial)
Gen. Robert M. Montague	Commanding General, Fort Bliss; Sandia Base
Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner	Executive Secretary, Research and Development Board

How the Documents Surfaced

The MJ-12 documents emerged beginning in December 1984, when film researcher Jaime Shandera received an anonymous package containing a roll of undeveloped film. Developed, the film revealed what appeared to be a briefing document for President-elect Eisenhower dated November 18, 1952, describing the MJ-12 group and its findings from the Roswell recovery. Shandera shared this with Friedman and William Moore.

Friedman immediately began authenticating the documents. He and Moore confirmed that all twelve individuals named on the documents were real people who had held the positions described, and that many of the contextual details in the documents were consistent with classified programs of the era. Friedman's initial assessment was that the documents could be genuine.

Friedman's Position: Measured Support

Friedman's position on MJ-12 was more nuanced than his popular reputation suggests:

• He consistently argued there were "no substantive grounds for dismissing the authenticity" of the core documents -- a careful double-negative that stopped well short of claiming they were definitely real
• He acknowledged that some documents presented as MJ-12 were clearly fabricated -- he was himself the first to demonstrate this for several suspect documents
• He spent years researching the provenance, content, and context of the documents
• He published "Top Secret/Majic" (1996) -- his comprehensive treatment of MJ-12

The Scientific and Skeptical Response

Most document experts and historians who have examined the MJ-12 documents have concluded they are elaborate forgeries:

• Typographic analysis has identified anachronistic typeface characteristics
• Dating conventions in the documents do not match the period
• Some references in the documents to other classified programs contain factual errors that a genuine classified document would not
• No corroborating documentation from the period has been found in any archive

Philip Klass, Don Berliner's co-author turned MJ-12 critic, and other skeptics argued that the documents were almost certainly fabricated -- possibly by William Moore himself, possibly by others -- to advance the Roswell narrative.

The MJ-12 controversy became one of the most divisive issues in Roswell research, with serious researchers taking positions across the full spectrum.