The following was written by Stanton Friedman in May 2005. It is part of The Stanton Friedman Collection as archived here on The Black Vault.
Government UFO Lies
by Stanton T. Friedman
ABSTRACT
For almost sixty years the public has been hearing about flying saucers and then UFOs. Press coverage has ebbed and flowed, but polls have always shown a very high awareness score. Motion pictures, tabloids, and TV programs have picked up the slack with a mélange of fiction and some truth. Unfortunately, much of what we have been told by the “powers that be” has been false. Many different government agencies have shared in the misrepresentation and have provided outright LIES as well. These include the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, United States Air Force, etc. The press and certain other academic and supposedly scientific groups, such as SETI (Silly Effort To Investigate) have often blindly accepted and promulgated nonsense without any effort to get at truth. Hopefully, the LIES presented in this paper will help cause these protectors of the public to do their job: seek and present truth.
LIE: An untrue statement made with intent to deceive (Webster’s)
BACKGROUND
For many years much of the focus in serious ufology has been on the government’s cover-up of UFO information. I can guarantee a laugh when at my lectures I show the 1980 NSA 21-page legal-sized TOP SECRET UMBRA justification (a legal affidavit) for withholding 156 UFO documents in response to an FOIA suit by CAUS (Citizens Against UFO Secrecy). Initially it was 75% blacked out. I turned page after page on which one could read nothing. This also went over well on television since one needn’t read anything. I also quote from the November 18, 1980, response by Federal Judge Gerhart A. Gesell, who wasn’t allowed to see any of the disputed documents. His comment in his ruling was that “The public interest in disclosure is far outweighed by the sensitive nature of the materials and the obvious effect on national security their release may well entail.” The Federal Court of Appeals agreed with him and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. In about 1997 the NSA decided that because of the new Executive Order 12958, making it much tougher to continue to keep documents more than twenty-five years old classified, they released a much more lightly censored affidavit with only 20% blacked out. In addition they “released” all 156 UFO documents.
Unfortunately, they used Wite-Out to cover-up all but one or two lines per page. Whited out pages don’t have quite the same impact on television as solid black areas. A number of people in ufology then gave me a hard time saying that now it was clear that there was no cover-up. They reluctantly admitted that one couldn’t read what was under the Wite-Out. Still they insisted, per the NSA, that everything covered up was just about Sources and Methods, which by law could not be released. They also took note of the fact that the lines one could read often said “Probably a Balloon” after the mention of a UFO. This seems highly unlikely considering that NSA’s job is to monitor foreign military communications. Why was the material filed under UFOs, if there was nothing of substance? I should point out that I have very quietly talked to a number of former NSA people who told me they often intercepted UFO reports from foreign pilots.
But if they weren’t part of Project Blue Book, where were the important cases documented? Why haven’t we been told about them? Why does the USAF always respond to queries about UFOs by referring to Blue Book and the fact that it was announced as being closed in December, 1969? I have heard, for example, of flying saucers being observed going right down the runway of a Strategic Air Command base. Unfortunately, my informants don’t provide classified documents. There is testimony, but no proof. I must admit it is also true that people have found plenty of Project Blue Book sightings that were brushed off by Blue Book that, upon much more careful investigation, turned out to be significant cases. Dr. James McDonald in his congressional testimony (Ref. 1) talked about some of these. Brad Sparks and Jan Aldrich of Project 1947 have also been working on these sorts of cases. USAF Pilot manuals still have instructions for reporting UFOs despite the USAF still claiming they now have no interest in UFOs.
In this paper what I intend to do is provide numerous examples of flat out LIES by various government agencies and individuals about UFOs.
LIES about Roswell
LIES about the recovery of a crashed flying saucer near Roswell, New Mexico, in July, 1947, have gone on for fifty-eight years. Evening newspapers across the USA from Chicago west on July 8, 1947, carried front page headlines stating that the government had recovered a flying saucer on a ranch outside Roswell. That the cover-up went into effect quickly is shown by the full-width front page headlines later that same day in the Los Angeles Herald Express “Army Finds Flying Saucer.” In smaller print on the next line the LIE was in place: “General Believes it is Radar Weather Gadget.” Earlier, newspapers east of California only had the “finds saucer” story. Within just a few hours of the press release from Roswell announcing the find, Brigadier General Roger Ramey, then Commander of the Eighth Air Force based at Ft. Worth Air Field in Texas was LYING to the press and the public that it was just a radar reflector balloon combination. Pictures were taken in his office showing phony wreckage not matching at all the description given by Major Jesse Marcel who had retrieved a small part of the wreckage located by rancher Mack Brazel “last week” according to all the July 8 stories. Ramey really had chutzpah since he was holding a folded piece of paper in his hand with printing on it that Dr. David Rudiak has deciphered including such phrases as “victims of the wreck.”
The Army Air Force solidified the weather balloon radar gadget explanatory LIE with the launching of such a device for the press over at Alamogordo Army Air Field on July 9. The full-width July 10 front page headline of the Alamogordo News, with three related pictures, was “Fantasy of ‘Flying Disc’ Explained Here.” There was a 24-column-inch front page article. It was accepted, though it was perfectly obvious that the weather balloons could not explain all the sightings of high speed objects such as those observed by Kenneth Arnold on June 24.
It took until 1994 for the USAF to make a preemptive strike against the GAO, searching for Roswell information for congressman Steven Schiff, by finally admitting that they had LIED about the weather balloon explanation. They LIED again to do it, now falsely, in a two-inch-thick volume The Roswell Report: Truth vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert (Ref. 2 ) by USAF Colonel Richard Weaver (he provided the fiction). He claimed that the Roswell wreckage had been a super secret Mogul balloon train found on June 14, 1947, by rancher Brazel. In the first place, June 14 is hardly “last week” from July 8. In the second place, the characteristics of the wreckage described by witnesses don’t match Mogul balloons. For the latter the paper-backed foil could easily be torn, the balsa wood sticks were easily broken, cut, and burned. The I-beams described by Jesse Marcel could not be broken, cut or burned. In the third place, it was claimed that the unusual symbols described by people like Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr. were from a toy manufacturer’s tape used to hold the radar targets together. Isn’t it amazing that the Air Force has not been able to show a picture of any such tape nor are such symbols visible in the high-resolution photos taken in Ramey’s office?
In the fourth place, USAF Colonel Richard Weaver, a disinformation specialist, in his huge, grossly misleading report (Ref. 2) carried a LIE by Counter Intelligence officer Colonel Sheridan W. Cavitt claiming “The area of this debris was very small about 20 feet square and the material was spread on the ground, but there was no gouge or crater or other obvious sign of impact. I remember recognizing this material as being consistent with a weather balloon. We gathered up some of this material which would easily fit into one vehicle.” Cavitt also LIED in saying that he had not met the rancher. The only way he and Jesse Marcel could have found the crash site would have been to follow the rancher out. Jesse indicated that Brazel had given them a can of beans and they stayed overnight in their sleeping bags. Considering that a Mogul balloon train consists of 20-25 standard neoprene weather balloons tied with string at twenty-foot intervals, with ballast packs, sonobuoys and radio transmitters, and stretched over 500 feet, it would have been impossible to fit such a pack in one vehicle. If Cavitt’s description had been accurate, there would have been absolutely no reason for Marcel and Cavitt to follow the rancher out, much of the trip cross country at that. The debris would all have fit in Brazel’s pick-up truck and would have all been left in town. The reason Marcel went out to the ranch was because there was nothing conventional in what Brazel brought in and because Brazel had indicated that the wreckage had covered an area hundreds of feet wide and three quarters of a mile long, and his sheep wouldn’t cross the debris field. Remember that Brazel had recovered weather balloons before and also had first heard on July 5 in Corona about flying saucers and a reward for recovery of one. It is interesting indeed that Weaver also quoted heavily from the Roswell Daily Record of July 9 with the new story for Brazel (“Harassed Rancher who Located ‘Saucer’ Sorry He Told About It”), but left out the final comment “I am sure what I found was not any weather observation balloon.”
Weaver also left out the comment in the article that the debris covered an area 200 yards in diameter or 1000 times greater than that stated by Cavitt. Nobody mentioned that neoprene balloons left in the hot dry air of New Mexico turn to dust in a couple of weeks. In the fifth place, the many Air Force claims about how classified Mogul was were LIES. Results that showed they had picked up sound waves from a Soviet nuclear explosion with their constant altitude balloon train would indeed have been TOP SECRET. But the equipment was standard conventional balloons, sonobuoys, etc. Some launches were allowed to just come down in the desert, no chase planes, no ground crew following. The guys cleared to work on it were cleared through Confidential according to a June 1946 memo at the National Archives.
Another LIE from Weaver was his absurd statement: “In 1978, an article appeared in a tabloid newspaper the National Inquirer [sic]which reported the former intelligence officer, Marcel, claimed that he had recovered UFO debris near Roswell in l947. Also in 1978, a UFO Researcher Stanton Friedman, met with Marcel and began investigating the claims that the material Marcel handled was from a crashed UFO.”
This neatly tabloidizes the story. After all, how could the Enquirer know about the story unless Marcel had taken it to them? Where else does a UFO researcher (can’t say scientist, after all) get his leads, except from the tabloids? Weaver finishes with another LIE: “Similarly two authors William L. Moore and Charles Berlitz also engaged in research which led them to publish a book The Roswell Incident in 1980.” One would think falsely that there was no connection between me and Berlitz and Moore who must also have gotten their lead from the Enquirer.
The fact of the matter is that the article in the Enquirer by the late Bob Pratt appeared in 1980 not 1978. I gave Jesse’s contact info to Bob because Bill Moore and I had already talked to sixty-two people about Roswell and the first Roswell book The Roswell Incident by Bill and Charles Berlitz, with Bill and I doing more than 90% of the research, was about to come out. I had previously met Bob at MUFON Symposia and had read a number of articles that he had written. He was far more accurate than the UFO articles I have seen in the New York Times and Washington Post. Bob also served as the liaison between the Enquirer and their panel of 5 professionals, including Dr. J. Allan Hynek, Dr. James Harder, Dr. Leo Sprinkle, and aerospace engineer John Schuessler, now MUFON’s international director.
Weaver also LIED when he stated in his Volume that it would be the last official word on Roswell. As a matter of fact on June 24, 1997, his assistant on his volume, Captain James McAndrew, issued Volume 2 The Roswell Report: Case Closed. McAndrew LIED in claiming that the small alien bodies which Roswell witnesses had supposedly seen were, thanks to his “in-depth research,” crash test dummies dropped by the USAF all over New Mexico. He includes a map “Anthropomorphic Dummy Launch and Landing Locations” three times. The map does show the debris field and the Plains of San Agustin crash sites and a host of dummy-drop locations, none of which were near either crash site. Furthermore, Corona isn’t even on the map. A picture in the report shows officer Raymond A. Madson with Sierra Sam, one of the infamous crash test dummies. I managed to locate Madson, who had been in charge of the program. He noted two important facts that rule out the crash test dummies:
1. The dummies had to be six feet tall and weigh 175 pounds for the tests to be meaningful (witnesses all described small skinny guys with big heads and big eyes).
2. No dummies were dropped prior to 1953.
When the announcement had been made at a press conference about the dummies in 1997, the official said — when it was noted that the crash happened in 1947, not 1953 — that peoples’ memories were fallible! This is one of the more bizarre LIES around. Perhaps the USAF had invented time travel for crash test dummies? Another lie was that pilot Joseph Kittinger was responsible for the stories I had heard about a nasty red-haired officer at the Roswell base hospital. He was there in 1959!
McAndrew also LIED when he stated that Don Berliner and I had bad-mouthed balloon experts Duke Gildenberg and Charles Moore when we interviewed them separately in Socorro during a research trip. That is a bald faced LIE. Don and I did agree after the meetings that neither seemed to know anything about Roswell other than what was in the July 9 Roswell Daily Record article. We were courteous and friendly to both of them.
Weaver also LIED when he stated in a letter to researcher Nick Redfern, then living in England, on April 11, 1994, “I can state that the Air Force considers the ‘MJ-12’ (both the group and the purported documents) to be bogus.” In reply to FOIA requests from both Nick and myself for any memos, letters, documents, etc. on which this conclusion was based “We have nothing in response to your request.” I appealed this and was told again they have nothing. So there was a grandiose claim (LIE) backed by nothing. Unfortunately, the FBI accepted the LIE and even reprinted on their website the identical set of Weaver MJ-12 documents with the hand printed BOGUS on each page.
Weaver, who seemed to be quite willing to LIE at any opportunity, was not the only one who LIED about the MJ-12 Documents. Probably more innocently, the National Archives issued a letter on May 9, 1988, stating: “The Acting Director of the FOI Office at the National Security Council informed us that TOP SECRET RESTRICTED is a marking that did not come into use at the NSC until the Nixon (1969-1974) administration. The Eisenhower Presidential Library also confirms that this particular marking was not used during the Eisenhower Administration.” Both statements are false. TSR is used on the Cutler-Twining memo. Here is a quote from the large volume published by the General Accounting Office reviewing all their efforts to find Roswell related documents for NM Congressman Steven Schiff: “December 7, 1994 … reviewed records pertaining to the air Force’s atomic energy and certain mission and weapons requirements. These files are classified up to and including TOP SECRET … period covered by these records was from 1948-1956. There was no mention of the Roswell Incident … [I]n several instances we noted the classification Top Secret Restricted used on several documents. This is mentioned because in the past references to this classification (Majestic 12) we were told that it was not used during this period.”
The Eisenhower Presidential Library had also LIED (again innocently) when they had claimed that all onionskin carbon copies of Robert Cutler’s memos were done on onionskin with an Eagle Watermark. This statement was changed after I had pointed out to an archivist a number of carbons done on other onion skin paper. The Cutler-Twining memo of July 14, 1954 was done on Dictation Onionskin, manufactured only in bid lots between the early 1950s and the early 1970s. I have discussed the MJ-12 research in Refs. 3 and 4.
BLUE BOOK LIES
Much less innocent was the LIE told by Secretary of the US Air Force, Donald Quarles, on October 25, 1955, as quoted in an official press release about a large study concerning UFOs. “On the basis of this study, we believe that no objects such as those popularly described as flying saucers have overflown the United States. I feel certain that even the Unknown 3% could have been explained as conventional phenomena or illusions if more complete observational data had been obtained.” That the two supposedly factual statements (3% Unknowns, incomplete observation data), are bald faced LIES is easily demonstrated by this table where the data are compiled from “the study” whose title was NOT given in the press release (“Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14,” Ref. 5) and which was not distributed, though the press release got very wide coverage.
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Note that the UNKNOWNS, rather than making up 3% of the 3201 sightings investigated, comprised 21.5% and that there was a completely separate category “INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION.” The definitions are as follows:
UNKNOWN — This designation in the identification code was assigned to those reports of sightings wherein the description of the object and its maneuvers could not be fitted to the pattern of any known object or phenomenon.
INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION — The identification category was assigned to a report when upon final consideration there was some essential item of information missing…. It is emphasized that this category was not used as a convenient way to dispose of what might be called poor unknowns.”
Here is the quality distribution of the same 3201 sightings. Note especially that the better the quality of the sighting the MORE likely to be listed as an UNKNOWN. A statistical comparison between UNKNOWNS and KNOWNS showed that the probability that the UNKNOWNS were just missed KNOWNS was less than 1%.
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It should further be noted that the press release not only didn’t mention the title (surely some reporter would have asked what happened to the other thirteen reports) but did not mention who did the work, namely Battelle Memorial Institute (a very highly respected Research and Development Organization) in Columbus, Ohio. Apparently the press never asked about either the title or the organization. Amazingly, the three-page summary that was released with the press release gave none of the information in the more than 240 charts, tables, graphs and maps that are in the report. Here was a Cosmic Watergate totally ignored by the media.
Another typical Government UFO LIE was uttered by Dr. Donald Menzel, a professor of Astronomy at Harvard. However, I had discovered in his papers at the Harvard Archives after receiving the required permission from three different people to view them, that he had a TOP SECRET Ultra clearance with the CIA and a very long history of work for the National Security Agency, the CIA, and many other companies. He said in Physics Today “All the non-explained sightings are from poor observers.” Menzel was earning his pay as a member of Majestic 12.
I should also point out that subsequent annual USAF Project Blue Book Press releases consistently LIED by using a sneaky tactic of not including those cases still under investigation at the end of the year in their annual tabulation and by suddenly deciding that any one-witness UNKNOWN would have to be dumped in the Insufficient Information category, no matter how competent the witness. Obviously sightings that are still under investigation at the end of the year are more likely to be Unexplainable than those quickly identified. Testimony from one witness has been used to provide the death penalty for a convicted murderer. When the numbers are put back in the tabulations, again the percentage of UNKNOWNS was around 20%. Anybody searching for a cancer cure would be delighted if 20% of the drugs being tested actually did much more good than harm. Anybody with cancer would probably be satisfied if one drug worked.
Note especially General Bolender’s comment above about sightings which could effect National Security, not being a part of the Blue Book system.
MORE AIR FORCE UFO LIES
Here are three claims from an August 25, 1993 letter from USAF Lt. Colonel Thomas W. Shubert, Congressional Inquiry Division, Office of Legislative Liaison, to Senator Patty Murray (of Washington State) who had asked about UFOs and Roswell for a constituent. The entire letter and my five-page rebuttal are in TOP SECRET MAJIC (Ref. 6). The same language (and misleading LIES) has been used since 1969.
LIE 1. “No UFO reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security.”
Again note Bolender’s claims about sightings which could effect national security. Furthermore note that if any of the three noted functions was performed by somebody else … CIA, DIA, NSA, NRO, MAJESTIC 12, etc., THE STATEMENT WOULD BE TRUE AND TOTALLY MEANINGLESS. Some recently obtained newspaper clippings from 1952 also clearly indicate that UFOs were considered a threat to national security. Frank Feschino Jr. (author of The Braxton County Monster: Coverup of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed for which I wrote the foreword and epilog — Ref. 7, 2004) and I had been searching through volumes of old sources such as The UFO Evidence, books by Donald Keyhoe and H. Wilkins, the Blue Book unknowns, and clipping collections of such outstanding researchers as Dr. David Rudiak and Barry Greenwood. We turned up such headlines as “Air Force Orders Jet Pilots to Shoot Down Flying Saucers if They Refuse to Land.” Lt. Col Moncel Monte, an Air Force Information officer, is quoted: “The jet pilots are and have been under orders to investigate unidentified objects and to shoot them down if they can’t talk them down,” [Seattle Post Intelligencer, July 29, 1952 page 1]. Here is another: “Jets told to Shoot Down Flying Discs,” [Fall River, Massachusetts, Herald News, July 29, 1952]…. “Jet pilots are operating under 24 hour alert to challenge the mysterious objects and to ‘shoot them down’ if they ignore orders to land.” I was particularly interested in a clipping from the Louisville Courier, July 30, 1952, in which Major General Roger Ramey (same man connected with Roswell), now Deputy Chief of Staff of the Air Force Staff for operations, “told the news conference that interceptor planes have raced aloft several hundred times as a result of reported sightings of unidentified objects. He said that was just standard procedure.”
Normally aircraft don’t get scrambled to chase and shoot down unknowns in the sky unless the unknowns are considered a threat to our national security. Some people had doubted that there were dogfights between UFOs and our interceptors as Frank had suggested in the book. We found many examples of just that. I have over the years heard six accounts of more fighter planes going after a UFO than coming back from the chase. I believe we will find many more such accounts especially after noting how many military aircraft “accidents” there were in the 1951-1954 time frame and how many aircraft either crashed or disappeared on “routine training” missions. Some of the pilots had flown more than a hundred combat missions in Korea or during WW 2. It might be useful to point out that, while the penguins in Antarctica are definitely not a threat to the security of the United States, they are certainly real.
2. Colonel Shubert’s second claim, another LIE, was “There has been no evidence submitted to, or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as “UNIDENTIFIED” represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present day scientific knowledge.” In other words, we can imagine all sorts of technology such as the ability to use a silent round magnetoaerodynamic device to make right angle turns, move at very high speed horizontally and to hover. We just haven’t done it yet. And what if the evidence was submitted to Majestic 12 or the CIA, DIA, NRO, NSA instead of the Air Force? Furthermore, the use of fusion rockets for deep space travel is not beyond the range of present scientific knowledge. I worked on fusion rockets at Aerojet General Nucleonics in the early 1960s. To the best of my knowledge, we haven’t built any full size systems yet. We have operated a number of nuclear fission rockets on the ground similar, for example, to the NRX A-6 nuclear rocket engine built by Westinghouse Astronuclear Lab in 1968 and on which I worked. I don’t think we have operated any in space. Of course this also ignores the very special characteristics of the wreckage found at the Roswell crash site … extraordinarily light weight and strong metal, foil that could be folded over many times and would open on its own and could not be torn….
3. Colonel Shubert’s third LIE to Senator Murray: “There has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as unidentified are extraterrestrial vehicles.” Really? So manufactured objects flying under intelligent control performing extraordinary maneuvers as observed all over the world both in the air and, as noted by researcher Ted Phillips, on the ground (more than 3000 Physical Trace cases in 90 countries) are not of ET origin? What if they are categorized as Interstellar Alien Craft? What can be said about the wreckage and bodies recovered in New Mexico in July, 1947 as described in Crash at Corona (Ref.8 )? Could we Earthlings in 1947 really make wreckage with the unusual characteristics described by rancher Brazel and the intelligence officer for the only atomic bombing group in the world?
Another false statement from Colonel Shubert to Senator Murray (I would call it either a LIE or an admission of total ignorance): “We are not aware that any other government department or agency other than the National Archives possesses any records pertaining to UFOs.” I guess he is claiming that no navy sailors or marines or army, navy, marine pilots have seen or chased UFOs and that the NSA, CIA, FBI, etc, etc, have no UFO files. I guess ignorance is bliss. John Greenewald’s “Black Vault” web site contains many thousands of documents from agencies other than the USAF such as the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, Department of State etc….
FBI LIES
Here is a statement (February 22, 1972) from J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime head of the FBI: “The investigation of UFOs is not and never has been a matter within the investigative jurisdiction of the FBI.” As noted in my movie UFOS ARE Real and in the book UFO-FBI Connection (Ref. 9) by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, Hoover was able to obtain more than 1600 pages of FBI files about UFOs back in the late 1970s. Nick Redfern in his book The F.B.I. Files: The FBI’s UFO TOP SECRETS EXPOSED (Ref.10.) also notes FBI involvement in detail. Even Colonel Weaver quoted from an FBI memo about Roswell though in a grossly misleading fashion. How about the CIA? Is Colonel Shubert really unaware that a suit brought against the CIA by Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (back in the 1970s) brought forth 900 pages of UFO material (after LIES that they had nothing) and a list of 57 documents from several other agencies including the State Department and the Defense Intelligence Agency? Eighteen of the documents listed were from the National Security Agency, which after considerable prodding from the courts as described above “released” 160 of its own UFO documents. They were almost entirely whited out.
There is also a funny story about the FBI and UFOs. I had written back in 1988 to both the CIA and FBI, under Freedom of Information and the Privacy Act, for any and all files they had on me. I provided my full name, Stanton Terry Friedman, date and place of birth, the fact that I had a Q security clearance from 1956 until 1970, etc. I know from talking to friends that had been interrogated by the FBI for my initial clearance and renewals five and ten years later, that the FBI had conducted the investigations. However, the FBI wrote saying they had no file on me. A LIE. Then the CIA responded that all they had on me was a negative name check request from the FBI and gave the file number. I sent a copy of the small CIA response to the FBI and asked that they recheck their files. They responded that indeed they did have a file, but it was classified. I asked how big the file was and at what level it was classified (I doubt if it was TOP SECRET RESTRICTED like the Cutler-Twining memo). They responded saying that both the size and level of classification of my file were classified. Eventually Larry Bryant, with my permission, was able to get a small portion of my file. The passport records were noted. At one point it appears as though they thought Stanton was Terry’s brother! It is hard to believe that they are totally incompetent … just arrogant in thinking they can get away with LYING.
CIA UFO LIES
The CIA, not surprisingly, has also LIED. When they were first approached by CAUS for UFO documents, they claimed their only involvement with UFOs had been in the Robertson Panel of 1953 and that they had no other UFO documents. Their 900 pages of released UFO documents (none of it classified higher than secret) proved that was a LIE. When the NSA finally did a court-ordered search, not only did they find their own 160 old UFO documents, but they also found 23 more from the CIA, which somehow hadn’t found them in its court-ordered search. In other words the CIA LIED to a federal court judge. It took me two years to get nine of those (they’re supposed to provide FOIA responses in ten working days). They were unclassified English translations of Eastern European newspaper articles about UFOs. It took another three years in response to my appeal to get four more very heavily censored CIA TOP SECRET Code word UFO documents. On two, one could read only eight words that weren’t blacked out. One said “DENY in TOTO!” I am convinced that the CIA also LIED when they claimed they had nothing in response to an FOIA request from me for any information related to four national security briefings provided to President Elect Dwight Eisenhower by DCI Walter B. Smith between November 4, 1952, and January 9, 1953. I had given the CIA dates and times of two of the briefings and a copy of the letter from Smith to President Truman describing that he had kept Ike abreast of national security matters. The CIA in response to my appeal said they still had nothing. It is impossible for me to believe there was no record of four such high level briefings which we know took place according to a letter found at the Truman Library. They LIED.
There were also a number of LIES in a paper by CIA Historian Gerald Haines in 1997, “CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs.” For example, it was stated that the U-2 and Oxcart (Spy Plane) projects were responsible for over half of the UFO sightings from the late 1950s and 1960s. Dr. Bruce Maccabee has checked the statistics and there was no increase when they started flying. Surely these high altitude aircraft were never observed to appear to be round, able to hover, to move straight up and down, to make right angle turns all without noise or visible external engines or wings or to land and take off vertically as so many UFOs can. Haines said the first wave of UFO sightings was in 1947. Sweden had a huge wave in 1946. Haines says there are no original MJ-12 documents. He LIED. The Cutler Twining memo is at the National Archives. It is stated that 57 UFO documents were withheld because of national security and sources and methods. LIE. They were withheld because they originated from other agencies. Haines states “most scientists dismissed flying saucers as a quaint part of the 1950s and 1960s….” He provides no data. Polls taken for more than 30 years have shown that the greater the education the MORE likely to accept UFO reality. Two polls of engineers and scientists involved in research and development activities showed that more than 60% of those who expressed an opinion said they were likely real.
The NAVY has LIED in claiming they have no information on UFOs, even after I sent a formerly TOP SECRET UFO report by the Navy and the Air Force. They found it interesting, but they still had nothing!
An interesting LIE illustrates the need for cover up of TOP SECRET data in documents having a lower classification. USAAF General Nathan F. Twining was commanding officer of the Air Materiel Command in July, 1947. According to his flight log, which I found in his papers at the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, as confirmed by the flight log of his pilot, which I was allowed to copy, he spent the week of July 7-11, 1947 in New Mexico and had obviously been tasked to look into UFOs. In his famous letter of September 23, 1947, to the Commanding General of Army Air Forces, he stated “Due consideration must be given to the following: … (2) The lack of physical evidence in the shape of crash recovered exhibits which would undeniably prove the existence of these objects.”
Many have claimed that this statement proves that no alien craft wreckage had been found in New Mexico in July. They ignore the fact that this letter had been only classified SECRET. Clearly crash wreckage would have been TOP SECRET Code word (note the NSA and CIA TS Code word UFO documents and an FBI memo claiming that the Air Force and Navy considered the subject of UFOs TOP SECRET). TOP SECRET material cannot be referenced in SECRET documents. Twining went on to be Chief of Staff of the USAF and then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He certainly deserved his spot on Operation Majestic 12.
I by no means intend to imply that only government officials or employees lie about UFOs. Debunkers have often made false claims. A number of so called whistleblowers have lied repeatedly about their backgrounds. These include Robert Scott Lazar, who is not a scientist, did not get degrees from MIT or Caltech, did not work for Los Alamos (he worked for a subcontractor), did not figure out how saucers work, did not steal any element 114 or 115. Frank Kaufmann was not a Roswell witness. Guy Kirkwood, a.k.a. Mel Noel, was not an Air Force pilot who took pictures of UFOs from the air. Michael Wolf Kruvant had none of the six degrees he claimed, was not a colonel/pilot in the Air Force or a consultant to MJ-12. Lt. Colonel Philip Corso was not a member of the National Security Council, etc. etc.
One can understand lying to really protect national security such as was done after the successful Atomic Bomb test in New Mexico July 16, 1945, with a story that an ammunition dump had blown up and nobody was injured. But with all the (False) claims that UFOs are no threat to the security of the USA, how can they continue to lie? If they are a threat, don’t we as citizens of a democracy have the right to know? I, for one, don’t want technical data — such as could be used by Osama Ben Laden, or Iran, or North Korea for military purposes — to be put out on the table. I do think it is of extraordinary importance for the future of this planet that we recognize we are NOT alone. We all on this planet do have something in common much as we hate to admit it. We all are Earthlings. It is time we started acting like it.
REFERENCES
1. McDonald, Dr. James E. “Statement on UFOs” Presented to Congressional Hearings, July 29, 1968, 71 pp., 41 cases. Available from UFORI, PO Box 958, Houlton, ME 04730-0958. $10.00 Includes S&H.;
2. Weaver, Colonel Richard “The Roswell Report: Truth vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert” USAF, US Government Printing Office. 1994.
3. Friedman, Stanton T. “Majestic 12 Documents Update,” April 2004, 26 pp., $4.00 from UFORI.
4. Friedman, Stanton T. “Review of ‘Case MJ-12’ by Kevin Randle,” 28 pp., $4.00 from UFORI.
5. Blue Book Special Report No. 14 by Battelle Mem. Inst. 1955, 260 pp., $25.00 from UFORI. Includes S&H.;
6. Friedman, Stanton T. TOP SECRET/MAJIC Marlowe & Co., 1997, 271 + xiv pp. New Edition 9/05 with additional chapter. See http://www.stantonfriedman.com. $17.00 Includes S&H.; Foreword by W. Strieber.
7. Feschino, Frank Jr. The Braxton County Monster: Cover-up of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed. 2004, 351 pp., over 70 Illustrations. Hardcover available from UFORI. $33.45 Includes S&H.; Foreword and Epilogue by Stanton T. Friedman.
8. Friedman, Stanton T. and Berliner, Don Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident 2nd. Ed., Marlowe & Company, New York, 1997, 227 pp. $15.00 from UFORI. Includes S&H.;
9. Maccabee, Dr. Bruce UFO-FBI Connection: The Secret History of the Government’s Cover-Up& Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, MN 2000, 311 + xv pp. Foreword by Stanton T. Friedman.
10. Redfern, Nicholas The F.B.I. Files: The FBI’s UFO TOP SECRETS EXPOSED Simon & Schuster, 1998, 354 pp. Hardcover.
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