New Menzel / MJ-12 theory

Well, not new exactly... something I noticed about three years ago, that might have a bearing on whether Donald H. Menzel could have been a member of the alleged UFO cover-up group MJ-12, as Stanton Friedman has long maintained was the case.

Check the number of letters in Menzel's full name:

Donald - 6
Howard - 6
Menzel - 6

Donald Howard Menzel = 666!

The number of the beast!! Not only was Menzel a member of MJ-12, he was apparently also the anti-Christ!!

I'm shocked that Friedman missed this. Shocked.

Paul Kimball

The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Fundamentalist Debunkery and Died-in-the-Wool Believerism

The creative scientist, eternally curious, keeps an open mind toward strange phenomena and novel ideas, knowing that we have only begun to understand the universe we live in. He remembers, too, that Biot's discovery that meteorites were "stones from the sky" was at first greeted with disbelief, and he hopes never to be guilty of similar obtuseness. But an open mind does not mean credulity or a suspension of the logical faculties that are man's most valuable asset.

The above is a quote made in reference to science in general, but also the UFO phenomenon in particular, and it is one that I agree with, at least in principle... even though it was written by arch-debunkers Donald H. Menzel and Lyle G. Boyd, in The World of Flying Saucers: A Scientific Examination of a Major Myth of the Space Age, who clearly had no understanding of irony (how can one purport to embark on an objective scientific examination of something when one has already concluded that it is a "myth").

In their book, Menzel and Boyd dismissed the idea that some UFOs might be alien spacecraft. They also scoffed at the notion that there might be a UFO-related conspiracy, despite the fact that in their introduction they wrote that if aliens were ever to visit Earth:

All governments would feel their responsibility to protect the human race if necessary, and to establish diplomatic relations with the alien race if possible. The scientists would want to study, analyze, and try to understand the nature of both the ship and its occupants.

As with the first passage quoted above, this makes perfect sense. But to Menzel and Boyd, this would obviously be done in public-view, after an acknowledgement of our alien visitors by government:

If a spaceship from another planet should ever visit the earth, no one would be more eager to acknowledge it than our government officials and our scientists.

So, as no such acknowledgement has been forthcoming, there are, ergo, no alien visitors. As to a cover-up, the government would never do that, eevn though, as Menzel and Boyd indicate, they would want to study and analyze whatever they might find.

This is either breathtakingly naive, or monumentally stupid, and demonstrates in full measure the intellectual bankruptcy of Menzel and Boyd's debunkery. The government has covered up a great many things, and continues to do so, of far less potential import than alien visitation (or, even more significant perhaps, a recovered alien spacecraft), particularly during the Cold War when Menzel and Boyd were writing, and when the West was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the Soviet empire during which they did many things, more than a few not according to the "rules", in order to protect their citizens.

If the United States, or any other country, had recovered a crashed alien spacecraft (and I am not convinced that they did), I have little doubt that they would have kept it secret, simply because they kept all sorts of other, lesser things secret... and because it's exactly what I would have done. As I've written elsewhere, I would probably still keep it secret, because I don't think humanity is ready for that knowledge - and here I'm talking about all of us, and not just the college-educated minority even within Western countries, who would be better equipped to handle such a revelation.

But fundamentalist debunkers, like died-in-the-wool believers, are never about the truth, which is usually coloured in shades of grey. They live instead in a world of black and whites - either "they" are here, or "they" are not; either the government is covering it up, or it is not. Neither position has anything to offer the free and rational thinker who is interested in facts and evidence, even when all that those facts and evidence leave us with a mystery... as has been the case with UFOs for over sixty years.

Paul Kimball

Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter: Not MJ-12, but not completely honest either

The few remaining proponents of MJ-12 would have you believe that both Vice Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter and Dr. Howard Menzel were members of that supposed super-secret UFO cover-up group.

As I, and many, many others have shown over the years, MJ-12 didn't exist, and the MJ-12 documents are bogus beyond any reasonable doubt (google MJ-12 in this blog's search engine to read past columns on this subject).

But that doesn't mean that Hillenkoetter and Menzel were unacquainted, or that Hillenkoetter wasn't playing games with members of the UFO community.

On 13 December, 1964, Major Donald Keyhoe, of NICAP, sent a letter to his old freind and former Annapolis classmate Hillenkoetter, who was a former member of NICAP's Board of Directors (1957 - 1962). In it, Keyhoe asked about information he had been given that Hillenkoetter, among other things, had discussed NICAP and UFOs with Menzel, and had commented favourably on one of Menzel's anti-UFO books.

Hillenkoetter replied on January 8, 1965, that Keyhoe had been misinformed. Hillenkoetter wrote:

I saw Dr. Menzel at a dinner in December but other than saying 'Good Evening - Merry Christmas' there was no conversation and I have never carried on any conversation with Menzel about NICAP or UFO. He did send me a copy of his book for which I thanked him but took no posiiton on the statements he made. (emphasis added - PK)

This was a lie.

On September 19, 1963, Hillenkoetter had written to Menzel:

Thank you very much for your book. To my mind, it was very well done and I enjoyed it and found it of great interest. I should say that you have effectively put to rest all surmises about flying saucers being from 'outer space'. You have done a thorough and praiseworthy job."

He continued:

As I told you at the last 'Ends of the Earth', I resigned from NICAP about 20 months ago feeling that it had degenerated from an organization honestly trying to find out something definite about possible unknowns, into a body bickering about personalities.

He concluded:

At all events, you have done a fine job and I am very grateful you were so kind as to send me your book Again with thanks and the hope of seeing you at the next 'Ends of the Earth'.

In this letter, Hillenkoetter does indeed discuss UFOs and NICAP with Menzel, and also offers high praise for his anti-UFO work.

One could say that there was a difference between "carrying on a conversation with Menzel", as Hillenkoetter stated in his letter to Keyhoe, and "writing him", but, all things considered, that is a distinction without a meaningful difference in this instance.

So, what can we glean from this?

First and perhaps foremost in the context of MJ-12, Hillenkoetter's letter to Menzel is not the kind of letter that one MJ-12 member would have written to another, as I noted here.

However, it does reveal a fair bit about Hillenkoetter's character, little of it good, and leads one to wonder just how sincere he was about his involvement with NICAP in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

After all, if he would lie to Keyhoe about matters as relatively trivial as this, what else might he have lied to him about?

It's a question worth asking, even without the bogus MJ-12 connection.

Paul Kimball