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Subject:
[UFO Bulk] Psychological Warfare and The MAJESTIC Documents
Date:
Thu, 16 Mar 2000 17:03:34 -0800
From:
"Deuce" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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From: "Deuce" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Psychological Warfare and The MAJESTIC Documents: Little Evidence of
Deception
Ryan S. Wood and Dr. Bob Wood
REDWOOD CITY, California, March 15, 2000 - In response to speculation from
an unknown author on www.isso.org about linkage between psychological
warfare and the Majestic documents, Ryan S. Wood has written a paper that
confronts head on the issue of psychological warfare and the role it might
have played in UFO documents. The paper can be downloaded in adobe PDF
format from http://www.majesticdocuments.com/authentication/pdf/psywar.pdf
[Copied from Acrobat below]
"The paper reviews the key definitions of PSYWAR and PSYOP along with the
central discriminates for testing for evidence of psychological warfare and
propaganda. The contents of the documents are reviewed as they pertain to
psywar along with long standing experts in the field military psychological
warfare" said Dr. Robert Wood.
"What is key to remember is that the Majestic documents are beyond the scope
of domestic home grown fakers both in duration, complexity and obscure valid
facts. It is only the resources and expertise of CIA / KGB or equivalent
organizations that have the capability to create such a rouse. Yet when you
examine the documents for signs of such deception there is none to be found.
There are no clear objectives, there is no history of building credibility
with the target, there is a massive attractant provided for foreign
intelligence assets (a bad thing if you want to keep something secret) and
the long standing military experts agree with this conclusion" said Ryan
Wood.
The Majestic documents investigation team encourages you to download the
paper and read the evidence for yourself. The address is
http://www.majesticdocuments.com/authentication/pdf/psywar.pdf
Sincerely,
R Y A N S W O O D & D R. B O B W O O D
Majestic Document Investigators
MajesticDocuments - http://www.majesticdocuments.com
Psychological Warfare & The Majestic Documents:
Little Evidence of Deception
By Ryan S. Wood
AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR has proposed the theory that the professional hands of
psychological warfare and
propaganda experts are or were involved with the Majestic documents on
International Space Sciences
Organization web site (www.isso.org). Be it modern day covert planning and
leaking or old psychological
warfare documents that have leaked out of the garage into mailboxes and via
personal meetings; this paper
seeks to examine these theories and other relevant probabilities along with
expert testimony as they relate to
psychological warfare and propaganda operations. Let�s begin with a couple
of modern definitions of
psychological warfare and psychological operations both from the Joint Chief
�s of Staff Publication 1,
1987.
� PSYWAR: The planned use of propaganda and other psyche logical actions
having the
primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes and
behavior of hostile
foreign groups in such a way as to support achievement of national
objectives.
� PSYOP: Planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to
foreign
audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning and
ultimately the
behavior of foreign government, organizations, groups, and individuals. The
purpose of
psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and
behavior favorable
to the originator�s objectives.
Most experienced corporate citizens will recognize the above basic
principles of marketing, �spin� and
salesmanship. What is different is the focus on national objectives and
foreign audiences. The reader should
feel comfortable that these are not exotic, exclusive, expert-only skills:
it is really just standard marketing
practices, except the stakes may be higher and the tools to deliver the
message may be forged documents
delivered by covert means.
If you give a man the correct information for seven years, he may believe
the incorrect
information on the first day of the eighth year when it is necessary, from
your point of
view, that he should do so. Your first job is to build credibility and the
authenticity of your
propaganda, and persuade the enemy to trust you although you are his enemy.�
�Psychological Warfare Casebook, Operations Research John Hopkins
University,
1958
Do the Majestic documents show any evidence of a history of building
credibility, let alone a long one,
with potential targets of deception, such as the Soviet Union or China?
The goal of this paper is answer these questions and determine the extent to
which there is any real
and hard evidence that covert psychological warfare techniques were used in
conjunction with the Majestic
documents.
It is generally conceded that only a foreign or domestic intelligence agency
has the resources,
intelligence and sophistication to deliver an alleged psychological warfare
deception using the
comprehensive, often-sophisticated, intertwined Majestic documents. Such an
undertaking, if true, would
have started at least as early as 1981 (Air Force Office of Special
Investigations Telex 1) and used six
different sources, psychically planted documents in government archives as
well as mailboxes. They would
have had numerous trained psywar experts thoughtfully creating an expensive,
clever deception targeted at
a foreign power for the past 19 years. Does that sound credible?
It is certainly not beyond modern intelligence service capabilities to have
fabricated some or all these
documents, and it is not beyond thinking they would mount such an effort for
marginal or even illogical
reasons. Even that a psywar team would intentionally or carelessly include
some anachronistic �ringers� is
believable.
However, there are severe disconnects between the wide scope, possible
purpose(s), presumed
target(s), likely risks, and extended duration of this alleged psywar
operation.
The real question is how do we test for the use of psychological warfare and
propaganda? Ask
yourself the following questions.
Criteria For Determining Psychological Warfare In Documents
1. Is there low risk of attracting foreign intelligence organizations to the
targeted topic? What is the
extent of the risk involved with such a deception? Is it worth the
tradeoffs?
2. Has there been a long multi-year history of credible relationship between
the target of deception
and the authors of the deception?
3. Is the reaction of the target predicable; will they swallow the bait and
move in the desired direction
for some length of time?
4. Is there a specific purpose, goal, objective or intent of the deception;
can it be clearly stated?
5. Does the phrase, sentence or document establish believability in the eye
of the target of deception?
6. Is there any direct evidence that the documents were ever launched at the
target?
7. Are there a credible number of unique language words to draw suspicion
about authorship?
8. Do the historically competent experts in Psychological Warfare agree with
the answers to these
questions?
How Does Reason Stand Up To These Questions?
First, if we are intellectually honest, we cannot discard the possibility
that the documents are genuine
and represent the intent of the authors at the time they were written, even
with their misspellings, currently
unresolved �anachronisms-� and occasional errors. It is important not to
think that discrepancies � such as
the misspelling of �celestial,� (Einstein, Oppenheimer June 1947 2 )or
�several B-36�s on arctic patrol�
(Majestic Annual Report, 1952 3)
instead of the current evidence of �one� on arctic patrol � are not
evidence of psychological warfare. To date there is not a single anachronism
or other error that has been
raised and then thoroughly researched that clearly shows the documents to be
false. An error may be
misleading or it may be incomplete, but the examples are not outside the
scope of reasonable error in
human bureaucracies.
Now who might be the authors and who might be their target? We know, by
analysis yet to be
published that SOM 1-01 is on original 1954 paper and that other documents
are on original paper with
watermarks from the proper period. Thus, if there were a psywar operation,
it could have been created and
launched on its target during the cold war of the 50�s by someone with
access to such materials. Using the
law of Occam�s razor, the simplest source for such materials is the United
States. Targeted against whom?
Naturally, the only believable target is the Soviet Union: they had nuclear
capability and so did we. The
alleged deception foisted on them via the documents could be, �Don�t mess
with the United States � we
have extraterrestrials and their technology and amazing advanced weaponry.�
Is creating an elaborate
series of mutually reinforcing, incredible documents over nearly two decades
necessary to accomplish
credible deterrence? Hardly.
Is North Korea a viable target of deception for the majestic documents dated
before 1951? No, not
really. It defies most military historians to believe that any leaked UFO
document, even something as
intriguing as, �SOM 1-01: Extraterrestrial Entities and Technology Recovery
and Disposal� would have
changed any tactical or strategic objective, troop movement or anti-aircraft
battery. Psywar was certainly
used during the Korean conflict � with typical operations involving dropping
leaflets out of airplanes
urging surrender. �Genuine� UFO reports from soldiers during military action
seemed to have had no
impact on the course of battles.
Again, how do these documents serve a valid, officially authorized Cold War
purpose, assuming they
were U.S.-produced. Would they desensitize Soviet air defenses to the
meaning of sudden unexplained
radar returns? If so, how does that square with the Robertson Panel�s public
report available to the Soviets,
which debunked UFO reports as a valid input to air defense calculations?
Would they conceal experimental
aircraft development � as if anyone would doubt that we are proceeding in
this direction anyway? Would
they mask some other terrestrial but overwhelming American super-technology?
This would stimulate
greater espionage to acquire it, clearly undesirable.
Or do the documents create a �fire break� against learning an even deeper
secret? Suppose that any
one of the explicit and controversial sentences, let alone entire documents,
of the MJ-12 material is genuine
in the sense that it was produced by a real psywar organization. It is
conceivable to concoct a very closely
similar, but intentionally different, project as a smokescreen or firebreak
against a deeper secret. Is the
secret being concealed one of those truths so precious that a �bodyguard of
lies� must protect it? What
would warrant such an effort? Is the current Majestic discussion of crashed
extraterrestrial discs and
technology a smokescreen for live ETs and fully functional lines of
communication and technology
transfer? This argument leads deeper than the debunkers can dare imagine.
If the Majestic documents are mere fabrications, how far must we go to
rationalize creation of such
documents? Is it credible that a crack psywar disinformation team � whether
operating out of the bowels
of the NSA, the underground Groom Lake mine or elsewhere � would decide to
be �really clever� and try
to hide some super secret, or divert the enemy�s attention by taking an
existing highly secure project
(MJ-12), use its actual name, subject matter, along with identifying scores
of living personnel, then change
presumably key details and reveal this alleged deception to a target, and
potentially the public? As one
fellow researcher said to me, it�s �like doing the dance of the seven veils
with wet Kleenex.�
A logical conclusion might be that one of the most highly protected super
secrets of our time was
intentionally revealed (whether to a wider public, or to foreign
intelligence � it does not matter).
The initial
disclosure would be very risky, as it would draw attention to the general
nature of the UFO and ET matter,
irrespective of clouding the details, and would certainly prompt more
intensive and sophisticated
intelligence targeting by foreign intelligence assets. In short, if it is a
psywar operation, revealing the MJ-12
documents is inept because it will attract � and has attracted � much new
attention. I can say this based
on just looking at where the www.majesticdocuments.com website visitors come
from.
Alternatively, did the Soviets or Chinese create these materials, insert
some in the files of the National
Archives and Records Administration, then release most of them in the 1990s
after the fall of the Berlin
Wall in order to bring the capitalist enemy to its knees? America, your
government is hiding UFOs: throw
off your chains and embrace the glorious socialist future. Judge for
yourself.
>From one Senior Government Official:
My gut says they�re real; contain the usual inconsistencies, mistakes and
anomalies that
derive from government work every day (even at the highest levels,
especially where there
is no effort to make things �credible� for outside view, since they were
never intended for
outside view); and correspond to a set of phenomena that have been too
consistently
reported for too long by too many sane people.� What otherwise do we do with
apparently
authentic letters like that from Sarbacher?
Tools of the same disinformation campaign? Or
if from the Soviets (who else?), is it to promote distrust and cynicism
toward our
�government conspiracy� and foster social unrest? If so, they spent a lot of
time and money
and incredibly detailed research to little effect, since the vast majority
of Americans have
no knowledge of these documents and the few who do are in conflict over
them.
Do the Majestic Documents Specifically Mention Psywar?
What is the internal evidence of the documents themselves? What posture do
they assume? The
19-page White Hot 4 technical report discusses psywar in the following way.
�There is a good chance that the Russians may try to make use of the flying
saucer scare
by public news media and diplomatic means [sic]of a technological
breakthrough in
aircraft and missile development. We feel that such a disclosure would most
certainly
cause great embarrassment to our elected officials and to the military, not
to mention the
panic felt by the citizenry.
To counter such a threat, it is recommended that a
counterintelligence program be drawn up and held in abeyance if at such time
the
situation should present itself. It might be suggested that we should make a
preemptive
use of these objects for the purpose of psychological warfare once the true
nature of
these objects are known and understood. �It would be advisable for the
respective
Secretaries of the Armed Forces to devise a security policy of plausible
denial, if and
when the public becomes aware of the reality of these objects and the
interest of the
military in such incidents.
In conclusion, for reasons of national security and the public well being,
the US must be
perceived as being the top of the heap, and every effort must be made to
insure that there
is [sic], and never has been, a threat to the country.�
So in September of 1947, top military leaders were recommending to the
President that the U.S.
consider using our existing crashed hardware and absolute proof of the
reality of UFOs as a tool to deceive
the Soviets once we figured out the technology. Then if this document is
psywar propaganda, why include
this paragraph? It just attracts attention to the topic and makes alleged
foreign intelligence analysts
analyzing such a document more suspicious.
There is another brief explicit discussion of psychological warfare, from
the �Annual Report� of
Majestic page 3, IV-Discussion, A. Nature of the Investigation, point 5:
�MAJESTIC SS&P are currently focused on Psy-op development for Cold War CI
activities.�
So what does this mean? We know that the National Security Council (NSC)
authorized an
interdisciplinary Special Studies group consisting of Army, Navy, Air Force
and CIA with their May 5,
1948 directive 5
. We also know that Truman made the decision to establish the Psychological
Strategy
Board (PSB) on 4 April 1951. This further relates to UFOs when you consider
who was on the PSB.
(a) Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Kenneth Royall
(b) Secretary of War, the Honorable Robert Patterson
(c) Assistant Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Gordon Gray
(d) Chief of Staff & General of the Army, Dwight D. Eisenhower
(e) Lt. General Albert C. Wedemeyer, USA
(f) Brigadier General Robert McClure, USA
(g) Lt. General J. Lawton Collins, USA
(h) Major General Charles Bolte, USA
(i) Undersecretary of War, the Honorable William Draper
(j) Major General Stephen Chamberlain, USA (G-2)
Many of these people are deeply involved with MAJESTIC-12 according to other
documents. Note the
similarity of panel personnel between the November 1952 Eisenhower Briefing
Document and the Majestic
Annual Report; the team distribution has the same interagency structure. Is
this a coincidence, standard
procedure or is it the same MAJESTIC committee just six years later? What is
the mission of �Cold War
CI activities� as it relates to UFOs? Who is the target and what are the
objectives?
The second explicit mention of psychological warfare is from the �Annual
Report� on Majestic, page
10, Annex B, point 10:
�MAJCOM-1 with the assistance of the Panel persuades the President to
establish a
Psychological Strategy Board on 4 April 1951.�6 This is an obscure fact that
the strategy board was authorized on 4 April 1951. To discover this would
take intense digging nowadays and would be known to only a few insiders in
1951. This is powerful
evidence in favor of Majestic document authenticity. However, following
disinformation theory, why attract
attention to the fact (verifiable and known today) that you established a
very secret board with staff, plans,
and very likely operational capabilities to mislead the enemy. Now consider
this, because the sentence does
not deliberately misdirect, as it might if this was a psywar document � by
saying �MAJCOM-1 was
unable to persuade the President to establish any sort of Psychological
Strategy Board.� Here is a
tremendous missed opportunity to spring misdirection on the enemy.
Is it logical to believe that if the Majestic Annual Report document was
part of psywar deception that
it would highlight that fact to the target of such a deception? I don�t
think so. In addition to the examples
above, here is more evidence that such a deception is not a factor. Why
would the following paragraph be
included if the goal were to deceive?
Based on what is known of the technology and intelligence of the visitors,
it is fairly
certain there will be other sightings and encounters of a spectacular
nature.7
Wouldn�t it be more logical to change phrases to leave the impression that
the July �47 events were a
random miracle that will likely never happen again? That way the Soviets
would pay less attention to the
event. Another example is Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft
(NEPA).
Another example is the Majestic mention of Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion
of Aircraft (NEPA).
The highly classified NEPA project, an actual initiative and logical
extension of the Manhattan project, was
to provide the U.S. with an atomic-powered aircraft.
Why specifically mention it in these documents, if
they were designed to be �leaked,� and encourage and accelerate spy
activities and intelligence collection
around atomic airplanes? This could be viewed as a far more important secret
to keep than telling the
Soviets about crashed flying saucers; yet, the statements in the documents
are not deceptive (the NEPA
initiative was real) and would encourage espionage.
Is There Any Evidence Of Official Governmental Falsification In Relation To
UFOs?
Speculation about UFOs could offer a powerful tool to the military and
intelligence communities.
Early on, as evidenced from official declassified documents NASA was ordered
by President Kennedy to
communicate clearly to the Soviets about known and �unknown� (UFO) aircraft
and spacecraft.
Some
have made the obvious suggestion that we could build military or
intelligence craft that �look like� UFOs
and will thus be ignored, since it is understood that modern defense systems
are looking for specific
anticipated targets with established �signatures,� not �erratic� UFOs. There
is a recently declassified top
secret technical report called Snowbird that describes a Mach 3 single seat
UFO that was written in 1955.
It would be logical to assume that other more modern craft have been made.
In relation to documents in ufology, to date, there has not been a single,
clear, classified psywar
product. The Majestic documents fail the basic tests as a psywar activity.
Have The Skeptics Raised Any Valid Objections Or Evidence?
Recently posted to the www.isso.org website is a paper from an anonymous
author with unknown and
unverified credentials titled: Deceptive UFO Documents: Doubt Debate and
Daunting Questions. The
paper states the obvious concerning the polarizing debate in Ufology and
provides no detailed evidence of
deception in the Majestic documents. Take this statement for example,
�Ongoing research indicates that
many, possibly all, of the so called MJ-12 UFO documents were officially
fabricated as instruments of U.S.
covert psychological warfare, perhaps beginning in 1950 during the most
threatening period of the Korean
War.� Whose research? What specifics are being alluded to? Without clear
answers, this statement is
simply an argument-by-assertion and is just pontificating by an unknown
author.
Or the critical assertion is made: �Document examination and authentication
is a science of expert
opinion, and are, as other sciences, generally probabilistic; however, it is
an empirical and not a statistical
science.� To the contrary: document examination and authentication is not a
matter of expert opinion
according to Dr. James Black, 30-year practitioner in document forensics and
past president of the
questioned documents professional organization but is a matter of applying
key straightforward tests and
presenting a logical set of evidence.
Or the critical assertion is made: �If one notices and accepts
irregularities and alterations of all the
MJ-12 documents as indicative of covert psychological warfare operation,
then the deception cannot be
adjusted, explained away, trivialized, excused or denied�.� This concept is
very weak and
unsubstantiated, just because there are irregularities does not mean they
are psywar. Furthermore, if a
crack psywar team had created these documents, would there not be far fewer
mistakes? Don�t we want the
enemy to believe these documents? What�s the objective? Why attract
attention? The psywar theory fails
before it even gets to the starting gate. Don�t take my opinion about it;
see what an identified, accountable
expert has to say.
What Does a Real Psychological Operations Officer Say About The Majestic
Documents?
Dr. Michael Aquino (Colonel, U.S. Army � Ret.), who spent his entire 24-year
career both creating
and managing enemy deception in psychological operations and propaganda, had
this to say after studying
SOM 1-01 and the Majestic documents:
I don�t see the MJ-12 documents as comprising an effective psyop campaign of
any sort.
What would be the purpose?
If MJ-12 existed and the docs were supposed to be believable, they would
just draw more
attention to the Majestic program that the government wanted under wraps. If
the docs�
occasional format errors were supposed to be deliberate, what would be the
point of
creating & disseminating such docs? All they would do would be to attract
presumably
unwanted amateur interest in MJ-12, which again the government would
presumably not
want.
PSYOP, despite the �ooga-booga� mythology around it, is not a very
complicated process.
A target audience is thinking about a subject one way, and you want to get
them to think
about it another way. So an audience analysis is performed to find out how
to talk to them,
how to gain credibility with them, and how to appeal to their needs and
interests. Then
phrase your objective accordingly and communicate it. If you do all this
correctly, their
minds change and they think/act the way you want them to. That�s it.
If MJ-12 were in fact a real, top-secret government operation, which the
government
intended to keep secret, then anything using its name or orbiting around its
business (such
as the MJ-12 docs or SOM1-01 manual) would not be remotely appropriate for
any
advertisement or publicity whatever.
The only situation in which I could see PSYOP resources playing a part would
be one in
which the cat were out of the bag about MJ-12�s existence, and the
government then acted
to trivialize or minimize it. When I saw Dark Skies on television, it
occurred to me that this
could be one way of turning the entire topic into a �science fiction cartoon
�, in much the
same way that the movie Philadelphia Experiment and its even zanier sequel
did for that
topic.�
Dr. Aquino further added in a conversation that he would be very surprised
if there was not a blue ribbon
panel such as the membership of MJ-12 to investigate UFOs. After all there
are high-ranking panels on all
sorts of threats to national security, such as domestic biological weapons
and terrorism.
Summary: Top Reasons Why PSYWAR Theory Is Not Credibly
Is it a stretch to believe that a program of systematic desensitization of
the world public through a
variety of media outlets, with movies such as Independence Day, TV programs,
print articles and adverts
all lead to the inescapable conclusion � psywar and propaganda are at play
in the public�s mind. Yet,
clear evidence of document operations are lacking.
Evidence of Psywar and the Majestic documents does not exist according to
expert opinions.
Moreover, fundamentally the basic discriminates for determining the chance
of an official government
psywar and propaganda all fail. Is credibility established (no, to many
errors in documents); is there a low
risk of attracting foreign intelligence assets (no, documents are rich in
detail); is there a clear deception
objective (no, content to varied a multitude objectives present); is there a
reasonable timetable (no, duration
currently 19 years).
1 Air Force Office of Special Investigations, 17, Nov. 1980, Secret �
www.majesticdocuments.com
2 Relationships with Inhabitants of Celestial Bodies, Top Secret, June 1947,
3 Majestic Twelve Project, Annual Report, page 14, item 5, Top Secret
4 Majestic Documents � Top Secret White Hot, page 20-21
5 NARA � Record Group 273, NSC 10/2 � Top Secret - declassified
6 Ibid. page 10, Annex A item 10 - declassified
7 Top Secret Majestic Operation Annual Report, page 6 item K � Intelligence
Gathering and Analysis �
www.majesticdoucments.com
8 NARA - National Security Action Memorandum 271, 12 Nov. 1963,
Confidential - declassified
9 Top Secret Memo to Director CIA and James Webb, NASA , 12 Nov 1963, signed
by JFK
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