Too Good to Be True… A Brief Primer on the Art of Intel Laundering
Wherein I go full tinfoil and speculate irresponsibly on the MJ-12 docs, Intel Laundering, and government secrecy
I will begin, as I should probably always begin, with a disclaimer. Nothing I say here is anything more than wild speculation. I offer no facts. I offer no evidence. I offer nothing but a starting point for an interesting conversation. I am in no way privy to any “insider” information. I don’t have any sources. But if you have something and want to send it my way or are just bored and want to screw with me… by all means do so. I am not naive enough to think I’m having original thoughts here. There are certainly books which cover this topic in more detail and I highly recommend you read them if you would like to dig deeper into the specifics. But I’m not here for that. I’m not the “specifics” guy. I’m the wild speculation guy. And I’m cool with that.
Ever since the infamous “Wilson doc” first leaked on reddit, it has been one of the most controversial and divisive topics of discussion on UFOnet (which is the term I’ll use to refer to all UFO related media, online and elsewhere). I don’t wish to cover that again. But there are certainly many resources you can use to learn the known facts. For what it’s worth, I recommend the synopses of Richard Dolan and Joe Murgia. No matter what you think about the authenticity of the document, it makes for a really fun conversation… as long as it’s civil. Unfortunately, as I have discussed previously, it hasn’t been.
My only strength, and it’s a stretch at best, is that I tend to be a divergent thinker. Most people who deal with UFO’s or any archaic subject matter fancy themselves as “free thinkers” who follow the evidence wherever it takes them. But even so, most rely on dualistic thinking to come to their conclusions, myself included. What I mean by dualistic thinking is that we generally only seriously consider two possibilities. It’s either one thing… or it’s the other thing. People who attempt to operate outside of these norms in any field (and especially ours) can expect to either be written off entirely, or heralded as heroes and slotted into the UFO hall of fame (Jacques Vallee anyone?).
The leak, and the inevitable flood of knee-jerk reactions has me thinking a lot lately about how we deal with “too good to be true” documents. In my experience there are generally two camps: those who are predisposed to confirm and those who are predisposed to debunk. I for the record belong more often than not to the former camp. I wish it were possible to belong to the “neutral” group that so many claim. But in my opinion, it doesn’t exist. Humans are never neutral. We’ve evolved to make split decisions for our own survival. I find conversations with those who claim neutrality to be a waste of time. I would rather argue with people who are honest about their biases and try to work around them… another topic for another time.
Much ink has been spilled over alleged classified UFO documents. None have received more attention or passion over the years than the infamous MJ-12 docs. And for good reason: if they’re true it means the government knows much more than they’re saying about UFOs (obvious understatement). The information contained therein would change the world forever. But if you’ve had any extended exposure to UFOnet, you’re already painfully aware they’ve been written off by those who consider themselves serious researchers (obviously there are exceptions, a few of whom I will discuss below).
As the story goes, noted AFOSI disinfo agent Richard Doty approached Bill Moore in 1980 offering “inside information” a full 4 years before his buddy Jaimie Shandera received the first MJ-12 docs on his doorstep. Moore would later admit that Doty manipulated him into reporting back on the activities of prominent UFOlogists and helping to discredit their work. Doty has claimed to not be the source for the docs… but I don’t really buy that. Anyone who has seen Mirage Men knows it’s probably a very good idea to disbelieve every word that comes out of his mouth. It’s obvious he knows things, but it’s also obvious he’s the kind of person who enjoys causing confusion and upheaval… and what’s worse, he’s good at it. Keeping that in mind, I’m going to break a personal rule here by sharing something that Richard Doty told George Knapp in 2019:
GK: … You made a comment in passing earlier today that you think there’s legitimate information in there [MJ-12 docs]…
RD: Yes… I’m 90% sure that there’s legitimate information. Those documents were created based on actual documents. The documents that were released weren’t. And the airforce covered itself — the government covered itself by saying… These aren’t legitimate documents… not that the information contained in them was not.
GK:… Can you make the case of why there need to be secrets on that topic?
RD: …The Russians are still our adversary today. So are the Chinese. So that’s why there’s a program to maybe discredit or disinform people. (emphasis mine)
I actually agree with many skeptics about the MJ-12 docs. Most of them were probably altered in some way and released by AFOSI or some similar group. I’m not sure Doty did them himself, but he probably helped or at the very least knows who did. But — thankfully for my own sanity and yours — the logic of the greater point I’m trying to make doesn’t rely on Doty. He merely made a few convenient suggestions. These documents aren’t completely legitimate nor are they outright hoaxes.
They’re altered documents, meant to discredit the people who investigate them publicly AND render the sensitive information therein inert.
Let’s first assume (and it is a giant assumption) these documents are broadly accurate. It would be a pretty huge deal. I won’t go so far as to post the Smith memo here because that’s too meta, even for me. But it’s pretty clear to any reasonable person that a UFO crash retrieval is not something you would want public, especially during the cold war. It would absolutely be the most highly classified subject within the US military industrial complex. If you had possession of alien technology, you would go to extreme lengths to keep it from your adversaries. Imagine the Soviet Union — or even modern day Russia or China — acquiring and reverse-engineering alien technology. I don’t think it requires a belief in American exceptionalism (not one I subscribe to, by the way) to understand allowing Russia or China to leapfrog the US with this kind of technology might constitute the end of the world as we know it.
Mutually assured destruction doesn’t work if only one side has the big guns.
Extreme secrecy isn’t a new concept. The Bennewitz affair is proof of just how far the government would go to hide terrestrial technology (if you accept that’s what the purpose was). Imagine what kind of resources they would pour into keeping otherworldly technology secret? You can be sure the people in charge of keeping the secret would be sophisticated, and would spare no expense in accomplishing their task. They would have thought of everything. Secrecy in many ways would become even more important than the progress of the project itself. Keeping the secret would be absolutely everything.
At the same time, people have to communicate. Putting things down on paper is inevitable, especially if you’re working for the US government in the 1940’s and 50’s. So you have to put measures in place to protect the information disclosed in those documents. Of course, the first and most obvious measure is to threaten people. When someone joins the program, you make them sign their life away. These are official threats put down in writing about their career, their pension, and their rights as a US citizen.
Then there would be the implied threats… the kind you don’t have to talk about out loud because it’s obvious. If they have to say it, then you’ve really fucked up: “People have accidents all the time. People disappear all the time. You see that desert over there… pretty big isn’t it?”. The reason the threats are so effective is because they’re not joking. They’ll do it. The secret is that important. And once you see the tech, you’ll understand.
But what if threats aren’t enough? People are fairly predictable. But sometimes they’re not. What do you do if someone gets a wild hair and decides to leak these documents? What if they fall into the wrong hands? There has to be a plan B. There has to be a way to ensure a mere leak doesn’t put the program and possibly the health and well-being of millions at risk. The answer is surprisingly simple:
Give them what they want. But don’t let them use it.
If you were to put me in charge of keeping the secret (and you wouldn’t), I would take each and every sensitive document and alter it in ways which would discredit it with anyone who looks into the details. You could leak even the most important secrets and rest easy; knowing you had done just enough to launder the contents and render them effectively useless. The op would be easy. You wouldn’t even have to lie. You would simply take the documents and recreate them with some obvious and not-so-obvious errors. Your adversaries would look at the details and know instantly they weren’t right. Hardcore UFOlogists would eventually find and discredit them too, but if you really wanted to speed up the laundering process you could just… I don’t know… send it to them. Hiding your secrets in plain sight isn’t a new concept, but consider how effective it’s been:
The MJ-12 documents will never be useful to journalists because they’re contested by the very groups who would be the most predisposed to believe them.
If you want to find out for yourself, just mention MJ-12 anywhere on UFOnet and set your stopwatch. If a book or publication mentions MJ-12… discredited. If a prominent researcher entertains the authenticity of an MJ-12 document… discredited. I am now, as of this moment, being discredited. But the joke’s on you… I never had any credit to begin with. Even if some idiot screws up and sends real copies of MJ-12 docs to someone through FOIA… it wouldn’t matter. Why?
Because they’re MJ-12 documents. They’re bullshit. Everyone knows that. This is how it was designed to work.
In his interview with Richard Dolan in June of 2019, Ryan Wood stated there are over 3,700 pages of MJ-12 documents. Even if these didn’t all come from the same person… who puts that much effort into fucking with UFO people? I can wrap my head around the idea of getting a laugh from fooling the true believers. But this is a serial-killer level of sadism. There are many researchers who have confidently declared these documents fake… the work of amateurs.
But what if that’s precisely the point? This is a different kind of disinformation… one that preys on our confidence and attention to detail. It doesn’t weaponize the passion of the true believer. It’s not meant to fool people like me. It’s meant to fool our adversaries and the people who know enough about what these docs are supposed to look like to be dangerous.
It’s not their gullibility that ensures the secret is safe. It’s their expertise.
I don’t want to overstate the point. Not every prominent researcher is convinced the documents are completely fake. Stanton Friedman (RIP) famously stuck to his guns on the documents. Robert and Ryan Wood, the father and son duo who have probably put the most effort into authenticating the docs, still believe some are legitimate. Richard Dolan also hasn’t completely written off the documents. There is even some forensic evidence to suggest they are authentic. They were allegedly able to trace some of the documents to specific printers in use at the time they were allegedly created in the Pentagon. They were also able to date the age of the ink and paper on handwritten notes sometimes found in the margins to the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.
Stanton Friedman, in his 2005 book Top Secret/Majic: Operation Majestic-12 and the United States Government’s UFO Cover-up covers the forensic evidence in detail, but admits it isn’t enough to prove authenticity. He claims that any professional disinformation agent would have access to the old paper, ink, and typewriters to produce convincing fakes. He goes on to explain the process by which he was able to verify each date listed in the “Eisenhower Briefing Document” by seeking out the personal papers of the alleged members of MJ-12. Whoever created that specific document was either extremely well-researched or extremely lucky. There were even some docs which were verified as having come from the proper sources according to PhD linguistics experts. There is much more evidence on the “authentic” side of the ledger than some skeptics would have you believe.
Bill Moore and Jaimie Shandera discovered (albeit via anonymous tip) a document mentioning MJ-12 in the national archives in 1985. The document doesn’t specify what exactly MJ-12’s purpose was, but apparently Eisenhower had an interest. Was this document placed there to push them over the edge to go public? Some researchers think so… but we really have no idea. Dolan notes in his interview with Wood that he finds it difficult to believe these documents would be part of a straight disinformation campaign. He claims the Russians, Chinese and other adversaries would likely already know the broad truths (or untruths) behind the UFO phenomenon. So it seems rather heavy-handed to try to use this kind of disinformation campaign on them. It just wouldn’t work.
It would make complete sense however, if our adversaries knew the phenomenon was real and thought the US may have reverse-engineered technology hidden away in their arsenal. Releasing these docs — with the various flaws and errors that can be found in them — would at the very least make them question the validity of whatever intel they had. At best, it would create a sort of fruit of the poisonous tree scenario (much as it has within the UFO community) where anything tangentially related to the MJ-12 hoax, must be a part of the MJ-12 hoax. It’s honestly brilliant. Even if Doty says they’re real… we won’t believe him because he’s Richard Doty… and honestly no one should trust Richard Doty (not sarcasm).
Friedman was a smart guy. But he was also a guy who by all accounts thought quite highly of himself (And for the record, I would too if I were Stanton Friedman). The Bill Moore/Richard Doty scandal was publicly known well before Stanton Friedman wrote his most popular book espousing the provenance of the documents. If he was simply ignoring the facts to save face, he did it for a very long time. If you think he was in on the elaborate hoax from the very beginning, you’ll need to prove it unless you want an internet fight on your hands.
I am not merely making an appeal to authority here. I’m making an appeal to Stanton T. Friedman’s authority. Don’t take my word for it. Buy his book and see the evidence for yourself. The admissions of Moore, Doty, Cooper and others are enough for me to doubt the docs are plainly and completely authentic. But that doesn’t mean they are complete fabrications. And, as I have speculated, it makes sense to leak these altered documents to UFOlogists if your true purpose was to discredit the content inside. This was no work of amateurs. This was an op — not to disinform — but to discredit.
In conclusion, I don’t think we should expect the MJ-12 docs — or any leaked UFO docs for that matter — to look and act like other classified docs.
I think the “real thing” if there even is a real thing, would never be allowed to leak without minor (or possibly major) issues that would discredit them with the people who could actually use them to expose (and exploit) sensitive information. I think we should expect these docs, and probably the programs they come from, to not follow precedent or adhere to commonly accepted norms. This would protect the secrets contained therein from UFOlogists, foreign adversaries, AND the prying eyes of high-ranking officials who aren’t read-in (and who may be the biggest threat of them all). So maybe we shouldn’t completely write off these docs just yet, even if they are “too good to be true”.
This entire blog post is essentially one long “That’s what they WANT you to think!”. It’s a conspiracy theory, and not even a new one. But I want to hear from you, because I know you have strong opinions about this. Let’s lift the moratorium on MJ-12 related topics so we can discuss them without fear of ridicule. There are good reasons to think some of the information is accurate, but also some good reasons to doubt. What do you think?
