I’ve been working on analyzing Majestic-12 documents for almost 5 years. I’ve read just about all there is to read about them, I’ve watched every video and ppt I can find. I have not read Ryan Wood’s book simply because I find him to be a sloppy investigator and I refuse to give him any of my money. Hopefully, by the time you finish what I’ve shared below, you’ll feel the same.
Since MJ-12 has been resurfaced lately on this forum, especially the Special Operations Manual (SOM), I thought I’d share the outline of the analysis report I’ve been working on.
About me as a researcher
I’ve been collecting declassified UFO documents for almost 10 years. I’ve read literally thousands of pages of documents from the USAF, CIA, FBI, Army, State Dept, Darpa, etc. I’ve filed FOIA requests and spent hours in archives looking through files. I’m not new to this.
Also, I’ve been a graphic designer for 20 years. I have a BFA in Design and have taught design and typography at several accredited colleges and universities. I’m hoping you’ll trust my assessments regarding the design and typographics of the SOM.
Caveats
PLEASE familiarize yourself with Majestic-12 and the Special Operations Manual before reading my analysis. I’m not going to repeat the whole story which can easily be read at https://www.specialoperationsmanual.com/source/ I’m not including photos or images showing comparisons for any of what I’m sharing below. My final report will have all of that, it’s already in the works. But including it here would be too time-consuming. You’re going to have to trust me, bro. What I’m sharing is actually only a small portion of my research. I’ve got much more on the SOM and more about other MJ-12 documents as well. I edited it down for length. My assessment is that the SOM is undoubtedly fake and deserves to be removed from the UFO document canon. This should not be taken as an indictment of all MJ-12 documents. I can’t speak to all of the documents, because I haven’t researched all of them. Only about a dozen of them. My assessment above does not mean I’m skeptical of the UFO phenomena. I’m not. I believe we are not alone. But I am skeptical of those people that command the spotlight, making claims with little, no, or bad evidence. What’s below is the outline of my analysis. It’s not finalized and certainly not proof-read. So there may be some spelling errors. I’ve tried to include my references as well. Feel free to peruse. I might point out that Richard Dolan had Ryan Wood on his show to discuss MJ-12 and the SOM as recently as 2019.
If anyone has any questions regarding my analysis they can leave a comment or send me a message. I’ll answer thoughtful questions, but I’m not going to google anything for anyone that they can google themselves.
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©2024
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
Wood claims that someone at the EAA Airshow must have sent the film to Berliner?
“The film was mailed from Wisconsin, Quillin’s Pharmacy. Shortly before there was the Oshkosh fly-in. The speculation is that someone flew in, mailed it and flew out. Or not.” R
Robert Wood and Ryan Wood | The Majestic Documents, Dr Michael Salla, Oct 8, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjd6zk7TjX8)
“Further investigation was performed on behalf of Dr. Bob and Ryan Wood by James T. Westwood who visited Quillian Pharmacy headquarters and spoke with Helen the office manger. She arranged for Westwood to see the original manual …”
specialoperationsmanual.com
Analysis
Ryan Wood’s speculation is that someone flew into the EAA fly-in in Oshkosh, Wi, then flew (or drove) across the state to La Crosse, dropped off the film of the SOM at Quillin’s, and left a physical copy of the document with ‘Helen’ the office manager/secretary which James T. Westwood later held in his hands? Possible, but unlikely.
Don Berliner received the roll of film in March of 1994 and assumed that it was one that he had used to photograph the EAA Oshkosh Airshow 7 months prior in August of 1993. If it had been someone from the airshow why did Quillin’s wait 7 months to put it in the mail? Did they forget about it? Possible, but unlikely.
The only real connection between Quillin’s and the EAA airshow is that they’re both in Wisconsin, albeit on opposite sides of the state. That’s it. Berliner may have assumed the film was his from the airshow, but once he processed it he would have known that assumption was incorrect. Any further speculation on the part of Wood is simply sloppy investigating.
Wood claims someone at Quillin’s was involved?
Mr Quillin was interviewed. “He was skittish and wouldn’t tell us everything he knows.”
Ryan Wood UPARS LA 10-19-06 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5QSWd5eQ5k&t=3469s
“Quillin and Quillin’s secretary were clearly involved.”
Ryan Wood, Big Proof: Examination of Crash Retrieval Cases & Mufon Symposium Denver 2006. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYv6TFuB0A4
Analysis
This interview with Mr. Quillin and his secretary is apparently the extent of Wood’s investigation into Quillin’s. There’s no mention of attempting to find a connection between Quillin’s and the EAA airshow, Kirtland Air Base or any other military connections, Albuquerque, New Mexico or any other part of the SOM story. The line of investigation simply ends.
Additionally, Ryan Wood offered publicly to sell-out Mr Quillin and ‘Helen’ the secretary/office manager to the FBI. Which seems like poor treatment of a valuable lead/source of information.
“If there’s any FBI agents in the audience … I’m happy to guide them to the people and have them get after this.”
Ryan Wood, MUFON UPARS LA 10-19-06
Wood claims he tracked down the Quillin’s Pharmacy location by using the postal meter serial number found on the postmark of the box the film was sent in. (Robert M Wood presentation at the November 16, 2003 Crash Retrieval Conference)
Analysis
I’ve spoken with several postal employees and they have been adamant that the USPS doesn’t not keep a directory of postal meter serial numbers. That information is held by the meter manufacturer.
Additionally, Wood misidentified the manufacturer of the postal meter used to send the SOM film. He states that it was a Postalia meter, when in fact it was a Frieden Alcatel Type KF1.1 “9232”. Even if he could track the meter serial number via the manufacturer, he had identified the wrong manufacturer to begin with.
Wood claims that it would be too hard to create the SOM as a hoax
Creating the SOM as a hoax would be, “beyond the scope of reasonableness for someone in the (UFO) community. But not beyond the scope of the KGB, MI6, or CIA.”
Ryan Wood, Big Proof: Examination of Crash Retrieval Cases. Mufon Symposium Denver 2006
“The high quality of the manual is also consistent with production by the USGPO or CIA print shop equivalent.”
Ryan Wood, Validating the New Majestic Documents, MUFON Symposium Proceedings
Response
Simply not true. Graphic Design students in 1994 surely would have been able to create a mock-up on a computer with QuarkXpress and a black and white printer that would have met the same quality of reproduction as what’s shown in the photos. I first became a design student in 1999, and the college computer labs, and senior students were already more than capable of producing this document.
Wood claims that QuarkXpress could not have been used to create the SOM in 1994 because the software would not have been sophisticated enough.
“The allegation that this could have been done with modern QuarkXpress-like software does not work for a host of reasons: custom spacing algorithms, type variability, and resulting lack of type similarity available in 1993.”
Ryan Wood. Validating the New Majestic Documents, MUFON Symposium Proceedings
Response
This is simply not true. QuarkXpress was the cutting edge of digital page layout software in 1993. By today’s standards it’s a very rudimentary system, but that’s an unfair comparison. I’m not sure what “custom spacing algorithms, type variability, and lack of type similarity” actually means. It has the ring of ‘truthiness’ from someone who doesn’t understand what they’re talking about.
“You couldn’t use modern computers at all because QuarkXpress didn’t have support for ligatures or the ability to raise ‘z’s.”
Ryan Wood, Richard Dolan Show, June 10, 2019
QuarkXpress most certainly did have the ability to baseline shift (raise letters above the baseline) in 1993/4. And it did support ligatures. This is verified by QuarkXpress manuals from 1993, which I still possess.
MATERIAL EVIDENCE
Area 51
Area 51 wasn’t created until 1955 as a secret location for testing the U-2 spy plane. (CIA Overhead Reconnaissance, CIA Historical Division, 2013). The fact that the SOM references it in 1954 (allegedly) is cause for dismissal of authentication.
Area 51’s creation date and initial use wasn’t publicly acknowledged by the CIA until 2013, in a newly declassified version of CIA Overhead Reconnaissance, almost 20 years after SOM came to light.
Ryan Wood’s assertion that newspaper articles exist from 1951 point to the construction of Area 51 in the Nevada desert are misidentified. The newspaper article he cites from January 5, 1951 titled, “Indian Springs Project Keyed to Defense Plans” is most certainly referencing Indian Springs Air Force Base (now designated Creech Air Force Base). The news article even directly states construction is related to housing at the Indian Springs base.
Helvetica
Helvetica wasn’t released until 1957, although it is used throughout the SOM. It appears on the cover and as chapter and paragraph headers in the interior of the document. Ryan Wood has claimed that the typeface is actually Franklin Gothic (Validating the New Majestic Documents, MUFON Symposium Proceedings, Author Ryan M Wood, PHD). Helvetica and Franklin Gothic vary greatly in design characteristics. Helvetica is a Neo-Grotesque sans serif typeface, Franklin Gothic is a Grotesque sans-serif, according to the Vox-ATypI classification system. The two typefaces were released 55 years apart from one another and are easily distinguishable from one another.
A close examination of the lower case ‘g’s will show that the document uses the ‘single-story’ ‘g’ found in Helvetica, as opposed to the ‘double-story’ ‘g’ used in Franklin Gothic. The typeface is without a doubt Helvetica and not Franklin Gothic.
Bookman
The typeface Bookman is used in all caps on the cover for manual title, “EXTRATERRESTRIAL ENTITIES AND TECHNOLOGY RECOVERY AND DISPOSAL.” Most likely at 14 pt. (Size determined by referencing the relative size of the metal two-hole strap binding. ACCO makes it available in 2.75”, 4.25” and 8.5” widths. Fastener used in the photos are most likely 4.25”.)
This typeface exists in the GPO typeface specimens 1959 only as a Monotype typeface. However, the ‘E’s used on the cover of the manual differ from this 1959 monotype version. The middle ‘arm’ of the E is too short to be the 1959 version. However, it does match later, redrawn digital versions of Bookman released by the International Typeface Corporation.
Bookman was also inconsistent with titling for Army manuals in the 1950s. Caslon, a similar serif typeface, would have been used more commonly. (Alternate Gothic was also used as a condensed sans serif typeface.)
Schoolbook
The body text of the manual uses a typeface called Schoolbook. This typeface is found in the 1959, but close inspection of the italicized ‘4’ in the body text will show that the version used in the manual differs from the GPO 1959 version in that it does not use a lining figure. Ryan Wood claims that the body text uses Monotype Modern, which differs in many characters, and these differences are most easily seen in the lowercase italic characters. This claim is certainly false.
A version of Century Schoolbook matching what’s used in the Manual can be found in the GPO 1959 typeface manual, but it is for the Intertype Fotosetter composing machine, which would have been used with offset lithographic printing methods, which would not have been suitable for this manual. The number of copies required to be printed using offset lithography (thousands) is most likely much too high for a manual containing such sensitive information.
Times Roman/New Roman
Page 11 of the manual features numerals running down the left-hand column of a list. These numerals are Times Roman Bold (or possibly Times New Roman Bold, the quality of photograph and reproduction makes it impossible to tell which). Times Roman bold is included in the GPO 1959 typeface manual, but only in the Linotype section and only at 8pt.
Typefaces Conclusion
The SOM uses typefaces that are inconsistent with Army manuals of the time period. The Manual’s use of Helvetica should be a significant ‘smoking gun’ pointing to hoax and falsification, since it wasn’t released until 5 years after the SOM was supposedly printed. Additionally, the SOM utilizes typefaces that required multiple and very different typesetting and composition technologies shown in the GPO Typeface manual: Linotype, Monotype, and Intertype Fotosetting; and even these typefaces in the GPO typeface manual have subtle differences to those used in the SOM. Page 11 is especially telling since its use of both Lintoype and Intertype Fotosetter technologies would require two entirely different printing methods for this one page; hot lead printing and offset lithography. This would be a highly unlikely, and very expensive combination of printing methods even by today’s standards.
Ryan Wood has also misidentified the two primary typefaces used in the SOM as typefaces that can be found in the GPO 1959 Typeface manual. Close inspection will confirm this misidentification.
There is simply too much evidence that the SOM is a hoax, and little to no evidence to the contrary.
©2024
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