In an earlier time Philip Klass and Stanton Friedman probably would have shot each other by now in a dramatic predawn duel. Earlier still they might have bludgeoned each other with crude wooden clubs. Today’s custom dictates that they meet under less civilized circumstances, such as talk shows.
Until his death in 1986, Hynek was the quintessential ufologist, a respected Northwestern University astronomy professor who coined the phrase “close encounters of the third kind.” Hynek founded CUFOS in 1973, intending it to be a scientific think tank. Instead, scarce funds forced it to become a volunteer organization that collects UFO reports, maintains a vast UFO library, conducts and supports UFO research, and publishes the bimonthly International UFO Reporter–all on a shoestring. CUFOS, based in a nondescript low brick building on West Peterson, has associates rather than members, and they contribute a minimum of $25 for their yearly subscription.
Troops recovered the remaining debris. Marcel took some to Fort Worth to show the Eighth Air Force commander, who issued a statement that the crashed object wasn’t a flying saucer but a common weather balloon–either correcting a very silly misunderstanding or beginning the cover-up.
Phil Klass wrote a series of articles for CSICOP’s Skeptical Inquirer blasting MJ-12 as a fraud. He found that the Truman signature in MJ-12 perfectly matches the signature on a genuine 1947 Truman letter–a virtual impossibility, according to experts. He also pointed out that the Cutler-Twining memo was dated while Cutler was on his way to Europe. “He certainly was,” said Friedman, who insists National Security Council executive secretary James Lay often took care of such details for Cutler. Friedman is a major MJ-12 booster despite his disagreements with Moore about Roswell.
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An almost palpable distrust of the government fuels the belief in the MJ-12 documents. In fact, the most difficult notion for Klass to debunk is that the U.S. government is covering up information on UFOs. That’s because it is. Thousands of UFO files, often laboriously censored, have been extracted from the FBI, the CIA, and other agencies under the Freedom of Information Act. Yet plenty more exist. The National Security Agency alone is withholding more than 100 documents, which federal district court judge Gerhard Gesell has ruled it can legally do. Supposedly, no new government UFO files are being created. The Air Force disbanded the last official government UFO research program, Project Blue Book, in 1969.
Atmospheric physicist Terence Meaden, who lives in Wiltshire and founded the Circles Effect Research Group, formulated the meteorological explanation. Very basically, he theorizes that air vortices form over the fields when early morning winds meet stable air layers in the surrounding hills. When the spinning whirlwind touches the ground, patterns are formed.
