It must be noted that the GAO did not endorse the conclusion, merely reported on it. It other circumstances, when GAO investigations have corroborated information, they have commented on it positively. In this case, there were no such positive comments.
Another aspect of The Ugly is Operation Majestic-Twelve, or, as it is popularly called, MJ-12. I have made the arguments against MJ-12 for years. There has been nothing to change that. I will go over, briefly, the arguments against MJ-12 which begins, frankly, with the lack of provenance. No one can say, for certain, where these documents originated. The copies we have came from an undeveloped 35 mm roll of film that was allegedly mailed from Albuquerque, New Mexico to UFO researcher Jaime Shandera who lived, at the time in southern California.
I asked Stan Friedman about this point, meaning the lack of provenance. On February 13, 2001, he wrote to me suggesting, “Lack of provenance is bothersome, but understandable. Whoever filmed the EBD [Eisenhower Briefing Document] and/or planted the CT [CutlerTwining Memo] was violating security by the filming and the release. Having a classified document is not against the law. Being an authorized recipient who leaks it to uncleared personnel is very much a violation. One might suggest that the lack of provenance is an indication of genuineness.”
Except in the world around us, the lack of provenance is considered a major stumbling block. The Hitler Diaries, the Jack the Ripper Diaries, and a couple of other hoaxes have been exposed simply because the documents had no provenance. They were found by someone and announced by the finder who couldn’t explain how he had come into possession of the documents. There was no way to trace them from the man who released them to the man who had supposedly written them in the beginning. Lack of provenance does not suggest authenticity of the documents and is not an indication of genuineness.
There might be a way to find out the truth on these first MJ-12 documents, that is, the Eisenhower Briefing Document and the Truman Letter attached to it. Philip Klass, the UFO debunker and opponent of MJ-12 has suggested that he talked to a question document expert who has declared that the documents were faked. At first, Klass only identified the man by his initials, PT, but later, in his skeptical newsletter about UFOs, revealed that it was Peter Tytell. Ironically, Friedman had sent copies of the original MJ-12 documents to Tytell for his analysis. Tytell, then, is an accepted expert by both sides in this debate, but one who is quoted only by the debunkers, and ignored by the proponents.
I had a chance to talk to Tytell and he told me that the typeface used on the Truman memo [meaning the font of the typewriter] was most consistent with a Smith-Corona P102 typewriter, which was used on typewriters made after 1966. If true, this, by itself, means the Truman memo is a fake since it was supposedly created in 1947. Even if we accept the idea that the document dates no earlier than 1952, the date of the Eisenhower Briefing, the date is still too early for this particular typewriter to be used.
Moore and Shandera, the men who had introduced the world to MJ12, in a special report they created, The MJ-12 Documents: An Analytical Report, mentioned a second expert, whom they do not identify, as saying that he thought the typeface was from a Ransmayer & Rodrian 664, but had no dates of manufacture. Still another unidentified expert said the typeface was from an Underwood UP3A, which was manufactured between 1933 and 1946. But they offered no evidence that this was the case and did not supply the names of either expert and did not offer an example of the typeface from that older typewriter.
So, the discussion of typefaces, which could be the critical blow to MJ-12, seems to be a wash, except for a couple of important facts. First, I have no idea who the two "experts" are who identified typewriters with unspecified manufacture dates or dates that precede the creation of the Truman memo. I do, on the other hand, know who the expert is who said that the type is from a machine manufactured after 1966. Tytell told me, "This is the slam dunk." To Tytell, the typewriter problem proved the memo a fake.
In fact, on February 13, 2001, Friedman added to his objections of Tytell’s comments. He wrote, “I am aware of Peter Tytell’s offhand, informal, unwritten comments about the typewriters. However, he has, to the best of my knowledge never provided a formal official written paid for analysis.”
In today’s world, this is known as spin. The conclusions are not what proponents want to hear, so they spin it, calling them informal and unwritten. But we do know why Tytell has not offered an official report. He wants to be paid for his analysis and until someone comes up with his fee, he isn’t going to provide the written document, though he was willing to discuss, with me, his conclusions.
Friedman also wrote, “I had spoken to a QD [questioned documents] man who worked for the USPO [which I assume is the United States Postal Service] who also disagreed with Tytell.”
But this provides no new or important information. Again, there is no name attached to this vague disagreement with Tytell, nor is there any indication of the man’s expertise. Working for the post office certainly doesn’t supply it, though working in some capacities in the post office might.
The second major problem on the Truman memo, again according to Tytell, is Truman's signature. The signature on the executive order matches, exactly, another Truman signature, this one from a letter dated October 1, 1947. The positioning of the signature on the memo also makes it suspect. Truman habitually placed his signature so that the stroke on the "T" touched the bottom of the text. On the disputed document that is not the case.
I asked Tytell specific questions about the Truman signature. To him, this was another "slam dunk." It was a second major problem with the document which shouted fake at him.
Tytell said, "Klass is the one who came up with the prototype signature. And that's an absolute slam dunk. There's no question about it. When you look at the points where it intersects the typing on the original donor memo [that is, the October 1, 1947 letter] for the transplant, you can see that it was retouched on those points on the Majestic-12 memo. So, it's just a perfect fit. The thing was it wasn't photocopied and it wasn't photographed straight on… The guy who did one of the photographic prints had to tilt the base board to try and get the edges to come out square so whoever did the photography of the pieces of paper was not doing this on a properly set up copy stand. It was done, maybe on a tripod, or it was done hand held. However it was done, the documents were not photographed straight on… There's a slight distortion of the signature but it is not enough to make the difference here. Nowadays it you could probably get it to fit properly with computer work but it's not that the signature is an overlay but it's that at those discrete points, and their dumb document examiners talked about the thinning of the stroke at this point. At that particular point, at the exact spot where it touches a typewritten letter and it has to be retouched to get rid of the letter."
The argument about the signature has moved into a new arena. Dr. Robert Wood, and his son Ryan, suggest that the Truman memo signature might be authentic because Truman used an “autopen” to sign some documents. This strange device would sign four documents at once. If true, then the signatures could be exact. To prove their point, they need to find one of the other two, but have been unable to do that.
Of course Tytell’s note that the signature on the Truman memo has been altered would rule out the autopen argument. There would be no reason to alter the signature if Truman had used an autopen, but would be if the signature was lifted, by copying, from one document and then pasted on another.