Another problem was that the pica typeface seemed wrong. UFO debunker Philip Klass actually challenged Friedman to produce authentic White House letters or memos by Cutler or Lay between 1953 and 1955 which used a typeface identical in size and style to the Cutler-Twining memo. Klass offered Friedman $100 for each verified document, to a maximum of $1,000. Friedman immediately found and mailed twenty, then another fourteen the following month. He received his $1,000.
For most researchers, the clincher was the statement by the Military Archives Division, which issued a ten-point list of problems with the memo in an official letter dated July 22, 1987. Some of these points were closely related, but essentially they were: the document was not correctly filed; no government researcher was able to find any other information on MJ-12; the classification “Top Secret Restricted Information” (marked on the document) did not come into use at the NSC until the Nixon administration; the memo did not bear an official government letterhead or watermark, nor did it match the paper Cutler used at the time; no records were found of an NSC meeting on July 16, 1954; a search of NSC Meeting Minutes from July 1954 did not uncover any mention of MJ-12 or Majestic; another memo was found which indicated that NSC members would be called to a civil defense exercise on July 16, 1954; the Eisenhower Library found no entry in President Eisenhower’s appointment books containing an entry for a special meeting on that date which might have included a briefing on MJ-12.68
Friedman had answers to these, as well. For example, the statement that the memo’s watermark and paper differed from what Cutler used, he argued, was based on a limited sampling. After Friedman pointed out a number of copies done on onionskin paper with differing watermarks, the Division changed its statement. Regarding the assertion that there were no NSC meetings on July 16, 1954, Friedman replied that the memo did not specify that the briefing would take place during an NSC meeting, but an “already scheduled meeting.” And so on.69
Despite the attacks from what might be called “mainstream” ufology, Friedman has retained many loyal defenders. For years, the situation has been reminiscent of a disputed boxing title, with both groups claiming to be the legitimate arbiter of evidence. No definitive resolution appears likely soon, regarding either MJ-12 or the Cutler-Twining memo.
SOVIET OR SOMETHING ELSE?
By late fall of 1947, the question “do UFOs exist?” was not at issue to analysts at ATIC. Nor were they expecting natural phenomena to explain the mystery. It was clear that objects were being seen, that they appeared to be of exceptional technological sophistication, and that their movements indicated intelligent control. The question was, “who do they belong to?”
As if to reinforce the immediacy of the problem, two cigar-shaped UFOs were seen near Dayton, Ohio, on October 20—very close to Wright-Patterson AFB and ATIC, where the air force’s UFO investigation was centered. The air force comments on the sighting were as follows:
Impossible to draw definite conclusions. Extremely unlikely they were fireballs, but if one were to stretch the description to its very limits and make allowances for untrained observers, he could say the cigarlike shape might have been an illusion caused by rapid motion.... This investigator does not prefer that interpretation, and it should be resorted to only if all other possible explanations fail.70
That became the official explanation.
On October 28, Brigadier General Schulgen, chief of the air force’s Air Intelligence Requirements Division wrote a five-page report based on a summary of flying saucer characteristics supplied him by Twining’s letter from the previous month. Schulgen’s report, titled “Draft of Collection Memorandum,” listed what he called the “current intelligence requirements in the field of flying saucer type aircraft.” Taken together with Twining’s letter and the rest of the year’s documentation, it shows that America’s military leaders considered UFOs to be something extraordinary and a matter of great national security.71
The memo revealed many details about UFOs as seen by military personnel. It noted that “flying saucer” type aircraft had been reported “by many observers from widely scattered places, such as the United States, Alaska, Canada, Hungary, the Island of Guam, and Japan. This object has been reported by many competent observers, including USAF rated officers. Sightings have been made from the ground as well as from the air.” The performance characteristics were described much as Twining described them in September, only in much greater detail:
