The Shulgen Memo Hoax

Logically, the person who claims to have "found" the documents at the National Archives is the chief suspect. But who was that?

Apparently FUFOR has been selling the fakes to an unsuspecting public only since June of 1987, when Dr. Maccabee used them in his compilation. But, just about a year before, Bill Moore, head of the Roswell/MJ-12 Dream Team, wrote an article, "Phil Klass and the Roswell incident: the skeptics deceived," which appeared in the July/August 1986 issue of the International UFO Reporter (IUR), in which he quoted extensively from the fake documents. The "New Listings for Spring 1987" mailed by William L. Moore Publications & Research, a copy of which I received in May of 1987, lists a paper entitled "Phil Klass & The Roswell Incident: The Skeptics Deceived," by Bill Moore. The listing indicates that this was the first time Moore offered the paper for sale, although it gives the date of the paper as July 1986. Presumably the paper Moore offered for sale contained the same information as his IUR article. As far as I can determine, Moore's IUR article was the first public mention of the fake documents. The declassification notice on the fake Schulgen cover letter indicates that, if the document were genuine, it would have been copied at the Archives on January 29, 1985. But it's not genuine, so we don't know exactly when it surfaced, or who "found" or manufactured it. All we do know is that, based on Bill Moore's listing, the fakes had to be created sometime prior to July of 1986.

I wrote to Richard Hall, Chairman of FUFOR, asking where they got their copies of the Schulgen letter and its two enclosures, but I have yet to receive a response. Whatever their source for the fake documents, we are left to assume they merely accepted them as genuine on good faith alone.

In his IUR article. Moore writes as though he was the person who "found" the fake cover letter and its fake enclosures. According to Moore:

"The document is a five-page draft (not a final version) of a Secret data collection memorandum on flying discs, intended, once finalized. for distribution to Air Force military attaches in Europe and Asia. Apparently the text of this draft met with someone's disapproval because the final version -- a copy of which was found in a different file -- had been somewhat reworked before being approved for distribution."

It seems clear that Bill Moore was the first person to write about the fake documents, and he wrote about them in such a way as to suggest that he, personally, "found" them. Although the declassification notice says the cover letter was copied on January 29, 1985, none of the publications produced by Moore during 1985 of which I am aware made any mention of the draft memo, although they did mention the approximately 2,000 pages of flying disc records I uncovered. As noted above, a declassification slug from one of the batches of those 2,000 pages of records sent to me was cut from one of the documents and pasted on the fake cover letter. Neither the Schulgen letter nor the draft memo was in that batch of records sent to me, and the declassification slug was specific to that batch of records. That particular batch of records covered the 1950-53 period, not the late 1940s. The same batch of records copied for somebody else on a different date would show the different date on the declassification slug.

Exactly when and where did Bill Moore "find" the fake cover letter and its fake enclosures?

As noted earlier. the typewriter typestyle used on all three of the fake documents matches the typestyle on one of at least three typewriters Bill Moore has used in the past, but doesn't match either of the two typestyles used to produce the genuine documents. And as noted previously, Bill Moore uses a do it yourself rubber stamp kit, like the one apparently used to fake the "OCT" portion of the date stamped on the fake cover letter, and the typestyle of the impression appears to match one Moore uses.

In his IUR article Moore claims the draft collection memo is dated October 28, 1947, yet neither the fake version nor the genuine version bears any date. Schulgen's cover letter bears two dates, one typewritten ("28 Oct 47"), and the other ("30 OCT 1947") applied with a rubber stamp dater. The typewritten date, "28 Oct 47," was the date Schulgen's cover letter was written, and the stamped date, "30 OCT 1947," was the date the letter was signed and presumably dispatched. The actual dates when the two enclosures to the cover letter were prepared cannot be determined from the documents themselves.

Moore leaves himself some wiggle room in his IUR article when he alleges that he found the draft version of the collection memo in one file, and a "final," "reworked" version in another file. It isn't known if the "final," "reworked" version to which Moore referred was the final, published Intelligence Collection Memorandum No. 7, or the version I refer to as the genuine draft collection memo.

Unfortunately, to explain away the fakes, all Bill Moore need do is say the fakes were in a file when he visited the Archives, and cite the file number and title. If the fakes are in the file, we should be able to determine whether or not they are authentic, based on the points raised above. If the documents are not in the file, however, all Bill Moore need do is assert that they were there when he examined the file, and he doesn't know what happened to them after that. Then another charter member of the Roswell/MJ-12 Dream Team, backward engineer Stan Friedman, who, either wittingly or unwittingly, has spent considerable time running interference for the con man (or men) who manufactured the fake MJ-12 documents, can concoct another asinine reason why we should accept the fake documents as genuine anyway. Perhaps he'll suggest that the MJ-12 group -- who Friedman apparently believes think the "research" he and Bill Moore perform is so important that they keep tabs on them -- read that Bill Moore found the draft memo, so they went to the files and removed it to preserve the security of Friedman's beloved "Cosmic Watergate." And, once again, the "absence of evidence" will be turned into evidence of a conspiracy.

Friedman is an integral part of the team of Roswell/MJ-12 scammers. The function he performs, which essentially is that of a shill in a con game, is critical if the scam has any chances of working. The only question remaining is whether Friedman is a knowing, willing participant in the scam, or merely a buffoonish dupe -- a useful idiot in the eyes of the con men who run the Roswell/MJ-12 scam. Frankly, in my opinion, Friedman isn't clever enough to be anything but a buffoonish dupe. The Roswell/MJ-12 con men know a useful idiot when they see one, and are able to manipulate Friedman's obsession with Roswell to achieve their ends -- all without Friedman even being aware he's being used as their front man -- the visible, vulnerable (albeit unwitting) member of the team.

Bill Moore should identify the record group, entry or series, box number, and specific decimal file in which he allegedly "found" what he identifies as the "draft" version of the memo (the one containing the references to "interplanetary craft" and "metallic foils"), and he should identify the record group, entry or series, box number, and specific decimal file in which he allegedly "found" the "final," "reworked" version he claims was "found in a different file."

While it's true that the text of the genuine Schulgen cover letter was reproduced faithfully in the fake version, the fake cover letter unquestionably is a fake. Why go to the trouble of producing a fake when the real thing already exists? The only reasonable explanation is that the forger thought it would tend to "validate" the fake enclosures if they were typed on the same typewriter, and displayed the same classification markings as the cover letter. Otherwise, why not use the genuine cover letter which the evidence shows conclusively had to be available to the forger? But then, the genuine cover letter also displays the handwritten designation of the file where the genuine documents can be found, the disclosure of which might result in the forgery -- and the forger -- being unmasked.

Except for Peter Gersten's suspicions almost ten years ago, the "documents" Bill Moore apparently "found" at the National Archives have gone unchallenged until now. In this instance, however, without the genuine documents, fakery was extremely difficult to detect. Even so, the monumental illogic embodied in the fake documents should have told us something was terribly wrong.

Presumably, Bill Moore furnished FUFOR with copies of the fake documents. and Dr. Maccabee and FUFOR distributed them to the public and Congress on a good-faith basis. However, at best, FUFOR acted as unwitting accomplices in the forger's clever scheme to have the documents accepted as authentic. Indeed, FUFOR's circulation of the documents, through sales to the general public and through freebies to Congress, in and of itself, tended to lend authenticity to the documents. As a result, FUFOR now has a duty to correct the situation by informing the congresspeople that the documents they were sent previously are fakes.

Once again, fake documents have been linked to Bill Moore, one of the authors of the Roswell myth. And, as in the case of the Cutler-Twining memo (supposedly "found" by Dream Team members Jaime Shandera and Bill Moore), once again, the possibility rears its ugly head that fake documents have been planted among genuine records housed at the National Archives, in an other, bold attempt literally to rewrite history.

If Bill Moore really did locate a second draft of the collection memo, he should be able to tell us exactly where he found it, so we can try and determine whether it is genuine, or just another fake planted among genuine records.

The fake Schulgen letter, its fake attachments, and the growing number of fake MJ-12 "documents," should be of grave concern to everybody with an interest in the truth. If we can no longer rely on the authenticity of documents housed at National Archives facilities because the files have been contaminated by con men and zealots, then the subject of UFOs is in critical condition. if it isn't already dead.


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