To briefly summarise, recently Jed Davis (MJ12 Logic) and Geoff Cruickshank produced some research claiming to have "validated" the authenticity of some questioned documents in the UFO world - two of the so-called MJ-12 documents - by comparing control numbers found on the documents to control numbers found on documents released through the CIA's FOIA portal. I wrote a Reddit post arguing that their proof actually weighed strongly against the legitimacy of the documents in question, and Cruickshank has today released a blog post rebutting my post. I want to look at new evidence uncovered in this investigation as well as respond to the additional evidence Cruickshank provided in his writeup. To be clear; this will not be a debunk, as I am not a debunker, nor is it an attack on Cruickshank. It is a further exploration of new evidence that was raised in part by Cruickshank's response. Here is my original post, for the sake of brevity I will only be rehashing the relevant portions; https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1t2gb3h/recently_posted_proof_of_mj12_docs_is_actually/ TL;DR The topline is this: Further evidence continues to suggest these documents are forgeries. In correcting a mistake I made in my prior post, I have come across further evidence of this as it relates to the numbers on the documents. One- The MJ-12 documents use the wrong stamp for their control numbers. Two - The MJ-12 documents have a new, previously undiscussed, anachronism. Three - The MJ-12 documents duplicate even more control numbers from known documents than previously noted. A REVIEW OF THE CASE For those who missed my first post, the basic gist is this: Davis matched control numbers on the documents which are used to keep records to other legitimate documents obtained via the CIA's FOIA archive. I argued previously that the duplication of these control numbers on the MJ-12 documents strongly suggests they are illegitimate, as control numbers are never duplicated. I also identified one used anachronistically in the supposedly real MJ-12 document. Cruickshank has given a reply to my points. The first claim of Cruickshank states that I mislabel a photo in my prior post, calling an image "page 238" when in reality it is a cut off scan from what is actually page 239. The context missing here is why the page number matters. Davis and Cruickshank's claim is that a questioned MJ-12 document which bears the marking "834021-25X" where X appears to either be an 8 or a 9, is validated because other 834021 files are found in the CIA's FOIA archive. One of a few things I had said in my post was that this "834021-25X" number conflicts with the files found in the archive, since we had both page 238 and 239 available and neither were the MJ-12 document. Mea culpa - Cruickshank is correct that I mislabeled page 238. This actually raises huge new problems for the case of the document’s legitimacy, as I’ve uncovered, but for now we will continue. In the now only possible case for the document being real, it must be page 238, and not page 239. In this version, a tranche of documents about Operation Paperclip skips from biographies of German scientists to a single page Table of Contents for a document that is otherwise excluded and isn't relevant to assessments of Germans not yet working with the US government, then back to biographies of Germans a page later. The more reasonable suggestion, I propose, is that the missing pages are more biographies of Germans which were left out of the version approved for public release in 1985 for reasons of the security around Operation Paperclip, and that there isn't a sudden divergence to UFO conspiracies midway. NEW EVIDENCE THAT DISPROVES DOCS REVEALED BY CRUICKSHANK I am thankful Cruickshank spent a long time dwelling on the actual page 834021-239. Additional close review of the MJ-12 document shows that the 834021 number itself is a different font to the 834021 stamp on the legitimate documents. The MJ-12 834021 stamp versus the legitimate 834021 stamp. This is clearly a different stamp being used. In my view, this is extremely strong evidence this document was prepared by a forger who was unaware of the importance of this control number. Far from evidence for its validity, this is evidence against it. As can be seen, numbers both before and after the questioned document use an identical font - it is only the MJ-12 document that is an outlier. Even more interestingly, the other MJ-12 document that bears the 834021 marking matches the correct font. The comparison to this second MJ-12 document. This is stranger still - until brought into context. This second document is very likely, in my opinion, an authentic letter found in the 834021 documents during their release in 1985, and doctored it to alter the date and add a reference to MJ-12 in the lower left. The forger has introduced an anachronism in this document. A teletyped date at the top of the document says it was written on the 12th April 1949 - already unusual is that this not the same typewriter as the rest of the document. But the body of the document references and describes a memorandum dated 25th May 1949 - over a month after the document was supposedly written! How was Admiral Hillenkoetter able to read a document that hadn't been written yet? The date certainly appears to be 25 May 1949 - perhaps further examination will reveal an earlier document by this same name? This is evidence that this document is a forgery - an authentic document that has had elements added to it to make it look like proof of MJ-12. Going back to the other document, the MJ-12 Table of Contents, further analysis of this document provides even more disconfirmatory evidence. It features some more, previously undiscussed, duplicated control numbers document control numbers copied directly from the real page 239; S-37582 and AF57963 This 239 page is a “Biography of XXXXX I G Zarben Executives” - Germans being looked at for Operation Paperclip. https://preview.redd.it/oiyfg6yci8zg1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=69bb2bc92d1d0eccb966c3ef4faf759cdeb8a2d7 These numbers, seen on the legitimate page 239. The questioned MJ-12 document, in a block at the top of the document where multiple control numbers are given - including ER-1-2735 and A-7621.1, which I discussed in my prior post - also has very similar control numbers written; S-3758X and AF5796X where X denotes where the scan cuts off. These numbers, seen handwritten on the alleged MJ-12 document. It’s extremely curious that this supposedly real government document, which also bears multiple other highly suspicious control numbers that conflict with known government documents, would have a handwritten note containing the control numbers for page 239. How can this be explained? The writing is different to the other handwriting on the document and has clearly been scanned along with it, before further notes were added on top. Did the archivist of the 834021 file forget the control numbers of the document on the very next page and had to write them out? Are these also one number different, all of them, for the multiple different numbering systems being employed here, coincidentally the number cut off my the scan? Or is it more likely that this document was forged, and the forger copied some official-looking control numbers from page 239 without understanding what they meant, in the same way they copied the CIA/SI 28-55 control number without understanding what it meant, and the same way they created a new stamp to poorly reproduce the 834021 number, without understanding what it meant? Sloppy hoax, or shoddy government recordkeeping? And if the latter, how come it’s the most secret, most classified, most closely monitored document of the lot is the one to which all this shoddy recordkeeping happens? There are now five separate incorrectly marked control numbers on the one document, and the wrong stamp used! I thank Cruickshank for allowing me some further time to examine the questioned MJ-12 document. This type of adversarial research is exactly how I believe we can arrive at a deeper understanding of the UFO topic. This new evidence suggesting the documents are forgeries would likely not have come to light absent his response. CONTINUED ISSUES WITH LEGITIMACY Cruickshank then writes in his reply; "Furthermore, [tsuyurikun] would have you believe that the number “834021” is part of a registry known as the Intelligence Community Staff register. It isn’t…" He says the lack of a hyphen in the number disproves this. "...the absence of the hyphen after the first two digits is clear evidence to anyone with a functioning brain that they are NOT related file numbers. The only hyphen is added by hand to denote page numbers." Cruickshank here suggests that a reconfigurable number stamp (as what stamped 834021 on the documents surely is given the variability in the numbers' positions from each other) would not only have a hyphen, but have a hyphen and then not employ it for the page numbers, necessitating it be added by hand for at least 1941 pages. This is his only statement on this issue, and a reasonable reader may ask why he believes in the existence of this hyphen stamp without any evidence for it - perhaps it is "MAJIC EYES ONLY"? An example of the handwritten hyphen on the control number. Every page bearing the 834021 stamp and a page number also features a handwritten hyphen. Why would we expect a composite number stamp to use a hyphen to denote an obvious separation of year "83" and document number "4021", and then not use it for the page number? What does the "83" prefix stand for, if not the year 1983? What actually is the 834021 number if not a control number as I explain in my last post? To clarify: There is a possibility this 834021 number is a different control number, that isn't from the DCI/ICS. They certainly don't have a monopoly on six digit number formats. However, it is indisputably a control number of some kind, and so should conform to governmental standards for control numbers regardless of which body applied the stamp. Evidence currently suggests it is an ICS number, but future evidence may dispute that. At the very least, it is a reasonable expectation that the same stamp would be used to apply the number throughout. OTHER POINTS FROM MY PRIOR POST Cruickshank then identifies the ER-1-2735 control number atop the MJ-12 Annual Report Table of Contents document. This number is extremely curious. In my prior post, I go into detail explaining that the actual ER-1-2735 document was found in the CIA's FOIA archives, and how this contradiction weighs strongly against the validity of the MJ-12 Annual Report Table of Contents. I also discuss a nearly identical issue with an A-1762.1 control number which also appears on this MJ-12 Annual Report Table of Contents, and also is clearly described in the CIA's FOIA archives as being an entirely different document. Coupled with the new control numbers identified in this write up, we have now five control numbers conflicting with known government documents. Cumulatively, this is very strong evidence the documents are forgeries in my view. Cruickshank's full discussion of ER-1-2735 and A-1762.1. Cruickshank skips down, past my discussion on ER-1-2735 and A-1762.1, to the CIA/SI 28-55 control number, from a different questioned MJ-12 letter. He asserts that the 1st Annual Report was actually published in 1956, thus eliminating my concern that a 1955 document is being referenced. He does not provide evidence for this assertion. He is in some contradiction with other MJ-12 researchers here. The majesticdocuments.com website writes; "The absence of a date and the reference to CIA SI 28-55 suggests the possibility of evidence of deliberate altering for some purpose, such as psychological warfare." The authors of that passage are clearly suggesting that the document is altered subsequently to 1955, not that it was written in entirety after 1956. He is also in contradiction with… himself. On Ross Coulthart's podcast discussing MJ-12, Cruickshank states at 1hr3m25s; "So they've said that file [CIA/SI 28-55] is a UFO file and that came out 6 years after this first Majestic annual report came out. So how could someone guess that? It's impossible." He himself stated, only a month ago, that the MJ-12 Annual Report came out six years prior to CIA/SI 28-55. He claims to have now revised his position - and his evidence for why he thinks the MJ-12 document was actually written in 1956 is… that it references a 1955 document! So he claims to have "demonstrated" that the document was written in 1956, and therefore there is no issue with the inclusion of a 1955 report - and yet his "demonstration" is predicated entirely on that issue. I find this uncompelling. Cruickshank's explanation for why he believes the MJ-12 document is not actually the Annual Report for the first year of MJ-12 Even more problematic for Cruickshank's assertion is that there is another MJ-12 Annual Report - this one apparently the 5th, which would by his measure date it squarely in 1961 - but this document contains no date later than 1951. Was MJ-12 sitting on its hands for ten years, producing no research? Was 1951 the latest information the MJ-12 panellists had - did they forget they supposedly had a thorough 1955 report included not five years prior in the inaugural report? Is Cruickshank now saying this fifth annual report is now falsified by this new research? Not at all! In a different blog, Cruickshank states that this report is actually just further pages of the 1956 report! There is a large problem with this theory. This supposed 5th Annual Report of MJ-12 is the document referred to in the MJ-12 Annual Report Table of Contents. That Table of Contents, and the "5th Annual Report" document mention nowhere the CIA/SI 28-55 report. Did the writers simply forget about it, despite including it on the cover page of the report? Was it written too close to the 1956 publication to be materially discussed? In my view, a 1948 date for the one document and a 1952 date for the other two makes just as much, if not more sense, than a 1956 date and I am not persuaded by Cruickshank’s unevidenced assertion of the alternative That concludes my review of the relevant points of Cruickshank's rebuttal of my post. However, it doesn't exhaust all of the evidence from my post. CONCLUSION I find Cruickshank’s new arguments uncompelling. They center only on the 834021 control number, with brief mention of the CIA/SI 28-55 number. Examining the documents more closely reveals the 834021-23X document has even more issues than my last post exposed. It uses a totally different stamp, and copies other control numbers from the known and confirmed 834021-239 page, further pointing towards a forgery. The other control numbers discussed in my previous post, which also weigh towards the forgery explanation, have as yet been unexamined by proponents of the document’s validity. I invite proponents of the authenticity of these documents to explain the multiple duplicated control numbers, the mismatched stamp, the anachronistic dates, and the other issues discussed here. LINKS MY ORIGINAL POST https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1t2gb3h/recently_posted_proof_of_mj12_docs_is_actually/ CRUICKSHANK'S REPLY https://geoffcruickshank.substack.com/p/amateur-hour-at-majestic-document CRUICKSHANK'S OTHER RECENT MJ-12 BLOG https://geoffcruickshank.substack.com/p/the-ufo-turf-war-1947-1956-president submitted by /u/tsuyurikun [link] [comments]