Majestic 12, also called Majic-12 or MJ-12, is a group that some people claim existed, but there is no proof it was real. This idea first appeared in fake papers shared by people who study UFOs in 1984. Some UFO conspiracy theories still say the group was created in 1947 by an order from U.S. President Harry S. Truman. It is said to have been a secret group of scientists, military leaders, and government officials who worked to study and recover alien spacecraft. Over time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said the documents were completely fake, and many people who study UFOs believe they were a clever trick. Today, the idea of Majestic 12 is still popular among some UFO believers and has been included in movies, books, games, and other forms of entertainment.
History
On May 31, 1987, it was widely reported that British UFO researcher Timothy Good claimed to have 1950s-era UFO documents. The documents said there was a secret group of 12 people formed in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman, and explained how the 1947 Roswell UFO crash was hidden, how alien technology was used, and how the U.S. should deal with aliens in the future.
According to UFO researcher William L. Moore, his friend Jamie Shandera, a television writer-producer in Los Angeles, received documents that seemed to describe "Operation Majestic-12" in mid-December 1984. The documents were found on an undeveloped roll of 35 mm film inside a brown paper package that was dropped through Shandera’s mail slot. The package had only a New Mexico postmark and no other information.
When the film was developed, it showed a "Top Secret" memo from President Truman to Defense Secretary Forrestal, dated September 24, 1947. This memo authorized Forrestal and Dr. Vannevar Bush to begin Operation Majestic-12. It also included a seven-page "Top Secret/Eyes Only" document titled the Eisenhower Briefing Document, which was used to inform President-Elect Eisenhower about Majestic-12 in November 1952.
The idea of "Majestic 12" became popular in the 1980s when UFO researchers believed the Roswell incident had been covered up. Shandera and his colleagues, Stanton T. Friedman and Bill Moore, later received anonymous messages that led them to find a document called the "Cutler/Twining memo" in 1985 while searching files in the National Archives. This memo, supposedly written by President Eisenhower’s assistant Robert Cutler to General Nathan F. Twining, mentioned Majestic-12. However, many people believe this memo is a fake, likely created as part of a hoax. Historian Robert Goldberg noted that UFO researchers accepted the story even though the documents seemed "obviously planted to support the briefing papers."
A man named Richard Doty, claiming to be connected to the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations, told filmmaker Linda Moulton Howe that the MJ-12 story was true. He showed Howe documents that claimed to prove small, gray humanoid aliens from the Zeta Reticuli star system existed. Doty promised to provide Howe with film of UFOs and an interview with an alien, but no footage was ever shown.
Soon, disagreements arose in the UFO research community about whether the MJ-12 documents were real. Moore was accused of being part of a hoax, while other researchers and critics, like Philip J. Klass, were accused of spreading misleading information.
On June 24, 1987, Friedman appeared on the ABC news program Nightline alongside Klass, where he discussed MJ-12 with anchor Ted Koppel. On October 14, 1988, the TV broadcast UFO Coverup? Live introduced many Americans to the Majestic-12 hoax. It was the first time the public learned that Nevada’s Area 51 was linked to aliens.
Analysis
Klass studied the MJ-12 documents and found that Robert Cutler was not in the United States on the day he supposedly wrote the "Cutler/Twining memo." Klass also discovered that the Truman signature on the document was a copy of a real signature Truman wrote in a letter to Vannevar Bush on October 1, 1947, including small scratches that matched the original. Klass said theories that the documents were part of a false information campaign were "ridiculous," explaining that the documents had many flaws that would not trick Soviet or Chinese intelligence. Other issues Klass noted included a date format used in Moore’s personal letters and a report from Brad Sparks that Moore considered creating fake Top Secret documents to encourage former government officials to share information about a supposed UFO coverup.
As early as the summer of 1987, officials from the White House and National Security Council said there was no organization named Majestic 12, MJ-12, or Majic-12.
On September 15, 1988, a U.S. Air Force investigator contacted the FBI in Dallas after receiving the Majestic 12 document from someone at an unnamed school who said they received it in the mail. The FBI began investigating the document and quickly doubted its authenticity. After learning from the Air Force in November 1988 that no such group had ever been created, the FBI said the document was "completely fake." The FBI director then told the Dallas office to stop its investigation.
Emma Best, a writer for MuckRock, suggested the documents might have been created or allowed by the government because a declassified FBI file on Majestic 12 did not mention any effort to find or punish the person who made the fake documents.
Besides the Roswell incident, the "Eisenhower Briefing Document" also mentioned a second crash in 1950 near El Indio and Guerrero, Mexico, along the U.S.-Mexico border. Tom Deuley looked into the Guerrero claim for MUFON but found no evidence of a UFO crash there.
In 1996, a document called the MJ-12 "Special Operations Manual" was shared among UFO researchers. It is widely believed to be fake and part of the ongoing MJ-12 story.
UFO researchers Linda Moulton Howe and Stanton T. Friedman believed the MJ-12 documents were real. Friedman studied the documents and claimed the U.S. government has hidden knowledge about a crashed alien spacecraft.
The name "Majestic 12" was first used in 1982 when Bill Moore asked a reporter named Bob Pratt to help write a book originally called MAJIK-12, later renamed The Aquarius Project. Because of this, Pratt questioned whether the Majestic 12 documents were real.
Scientific skeptic Brian Dunning studied the history of the MJ-12 topic and shared his findings in a 2016 podcast. He said Bill Moore suspected the documents were not a hoax by UFO researchers but instead part of a U.S. government plan to hide details about secret Air Force projects.
Alleged members
The people listed below were mentioned in the Majestic 12 documents as "official members" of Majestic 12.