FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 26, 2008, Boulder, CO - At least two documents from a large trove of leaked UFO materials have appeared in original ink and paper with contents showing extensive official security concerns about Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO), according to Dr. Robert M. Wood speaking during and after the annual meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE).
"Forensic testing equivalent to what a judge could order in a court case indicates that these two documents have paper, ink, watermark, handwriting and other indications consistent with their claimed dates and contents," reported Dr. Wood. The tests were conducted by Speckin Forensic Labratories. Wood, a retired aerospace physicist with 43 years as a research executive at McDonnell Douglas Corporation, joins acclaimed astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, physicist Dr. Peter Sturrock of Stanford University and other respected scientists who have called for serious public study of UFOs despite chronic official denials of their importance.
"We stand on the shoulders of earlier scientists with the courage and credentials to address this issue," noted Wood. "Men like the late NASA scientist Dr. Paul Hill, the late atmospheric physicist Dr. James McDonald, and the former Air Force consultant Dr. J. Allen Hynek who came to believe so-called Project Blue Book led the public astray." Speaking at the Society's annual meeting in Boulder, CO, to an audience whose principal members possess doctoral degrees, Wood discussed in detail the "Bowen manuscript," an authentic draft of a book entitled "An Encyclopedia of Flying Saucers," which the author Vernon Bowen submitted to the Air Force for pre-publication review.
According to handwritten annotations on the manuscript, it was "submitted to Project Blue Book in 1961" and subsequently passed to those who stamped some pages in red ink - tested to be of appropriate age and kind - with the classification "TOP SECRET/MAJIC" and "FOR US 'EYES ONLY'." "Bowen's extensive public research may have put the pieces of the jigsaw together and come too close for comfort," said Dr. Wood. "The draft manuscript never did find its way to publication but was leaked to researchers among other UFO documents in 1999. Those who leaked these materials clearly had access to a document that had been in custody of an admitted Air Force UFO project."
Dr. Wood discussed a second document - known as the "burned memo" - delivered in the original and now subjected to forensic testing without public fanfare in order to ensure careful analysis.
"Forensic dating and analysis of paper, ink, watermarks, annotations and other details all comport with the source's statement that this document was one of the those meant to be burned from the private safe of CIA counterintelligence director James Jesus Angleton, who died in 1987, but snatched from destruction at the last minute,"stated Wood. "This remarkable document with scorch marks on paper of the period is stamped in red ink with the classification 'TOP SECRET/MJ-12,' " said Wood. "It is a carbon draft from the Director of Central Intelligence referred to as 'MJ-1.' The memo and its attachments, whose paper and ink have been validated by forensic testing, lay out extreme concern to keep UFO matters even from President Kennedy, referred to as 'Lancer,' his then-classified Secret Service codename."
Attachments to the memo discuss keeping UFO data largely outside normal defense channels; using the Air Force's admitted Blue Book UFO project for counterintelligence; and purging files prior to responding to freedom of information requests, a well known concept even before the Freedom of Information Act was passed a few years later. "We know this original document was leaked from a source who mailed it along with a cover note and copies of other UFO files in an envelope stamped with a postage meter traced to CIA Headquarters," stated Wood.
"The attachments describe extreme security measures," he noted, "including authorization to 'detain and interrogate any and all targets.' It cites biological warfare, or contamination concerns, to be met by 'HOUSE CLEANING operations in major population centers,' along with potential use of MK-ULTRA and ARTICHOKE, notorious human control projects that surfaced in Church Committee hearings about the CIA before the Senate in 1975." Perhaps most intriguing, Wood reported, is the final attachment. It states that if "Washington" is "non-conducive" to these activities and "cannot be influenced any further" (would this mean 'Lancer,' mentioned earlier, or other uncooperative officials?), the environment should be made "wet." Unknown until years later - except to intelligence insiders - "wet affairs" was intelligence jargon for assassination.
"It will be extremely difficult or perhaps impossible to find archival files to corroborate this memo fully," said Wood. "By the source's own account, it was uniquely snatched from destruction at the last moment. But forensic tests validate the physical document. There are little-known citations in the content that we have verified by research. And, again, our investigations reveal documents were mailed from CIA Headquarters." "It is certainly possible someone with access to CIA Headquarters has the counterfeiting expertise to forge documents with decades-old paper, ink and authentic watermarks; make complex, insider references to classified activities; and also possess a manuscript submitted to the Air Force's former UFO project."
"It is also possible these documents - not copies but originals - pose very serious questions about how far some would go to hide UFO information," said Wood. "Citizens deserve to know where these documents came from, who produced them or marked them classified, and why." The "Bowen manuscript" in part and the entire "burned memo" are available online at the web address:
www.majesticdocuments.com. High-resolution scans of the "burned memo" are available to researchers. A recording of Dr. Wood's formal presentation can be obtained from the Society for Scientific Exploration (
www.scientificexploration.org).