Westwood on MJ-12 disinformation (2001)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Date | 5 May 2001 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Disinformation & hoaxes (topic) |
| People | Jacques Vallée, Jim Westwood, Robert M. Wood, Harold Puthoff, Ryan Wood |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 145 |
| Year | 2001 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2001 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 11 |
On 5 May 2001, retired Navy officer and defence analyst James T. Westwood gave a talk on the future of ufology to the Science Advisory Board of Robert Bigelow's National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) in Las Vegas, in which he dismissed MJ-12 and Roswell as counter-intelligence exercises.[1]
Westwood
Westwood was a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who wrote many Naval War College Review articles on the Soviet navy between 1970 and 1988, and later worked as a defence analyst. Vallée's notes say he had served in a classified unit that analysed Soviet documents and designed fake ones.[1]
Earlier views on MJ-12
According to Jacques Vallée's journals, Hal Puthoff brought Westwood in to help engineer Robert Wood's study of the MJ-12 papers. On 1 January 1999 Vallée recorded that Westwood judged the "Eisenhower briefing document" a disinformation fake intended to fool the KGB. On 5 May 2000 Westwood called the documents a sophisticated "authentic fake", said their authors must have been inside the intelligence structure, and suggested the Roswell crash story may have been invented to flush out Soviet spies.[1]
The 2001 talk
Vallée described the NIDS talk as scholarly but cynical. Westwood linked the field to biological warfare, called MJ-12 and Roswell counter-intelligence exercises, and said much of the Russian UFO material was false and part of U.S. disinformation. Vallée wrote that the audience left with a mix of dread and disgust. In June 2001, when Puthoff wanted to find physical hardware, Westwood reportedly said he knew for a fact that none existed.[1]
Context
The FBI declared the MJ-12 papers bogus, while Robert and Ryan Wood spent years arguing that many were genuine. Westwood's own later claims, including one about a Comptroller General finding a crashed-UFO program, show his views were not consistent over time.[1][2]
People and topics
.jpg)
- Jacques Vallée — Computer scientist and astronomer, author of the Forbidden Science journals and a central figure in UFO research.
- MJ-12 — Disputed documents describing a secret committee managing crashed saucers.
- Disinformation — False information spread deliberately to mislead.
- Jim Westwood — Former CIA consultant who studied the MJ-12 papers.
- Robert M. Wood — McDonnell Douglas engineer who ran an in-house UFO study and later promoted the MJ-12 documents.
- Harold Puthoff — Physicist who co-founded the SRI remote-viewing research and later worked on AAWSAP and To The Stars Academy.
- Ryan Wood — Researcher who published the Majestic documents with his father Robert Wood.
- Federal Bureau of Investigation — The U.S. federal police agency, which helped check flying disc reports from 1947 to 1950.
- Air Force Office of Special Investigations — The Air Force's criminal investigation and counterintelligence agency.
On the Timeline
- Don Phillips testimony (April 2001) — Former contractor Don Phillips claims Lockheed studies extraterrestrial technology.
- Mark McCandlish and the Alien Reproduction Vehicle (9 May 2001) — Illustrator Mark McCandlish says gravity propulsion was reverse-engineered from recovered craft.
See every 2001 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Keith Basterfield, "James (Jim) T. Westwood — some information", UFOs – scientific research (June 2023) · ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com · archived copy
- Majestic 12 — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Forbidden Science — the journals of Jacques Vallée (Anomaly Archives) · anomalyarchives.org · archived copy
- Forbidden Science series — Anomalist Books · anomalistbooks.com · archived copy
- How the FBI debunked the MJ-12 papers — Atlas Obscura · atlasobscura.com · archived copy
- Robert M. Wood on McDonnell Douglas UFO research — Patrick Gross · ufologie.patrickgross.org · archived copy
- MUFON UFO Journal, Oct 2008 (PDF) — The Black Vault · documents.theblackvault.com · archived copy
- More on aerospace companies and UFOs — UFOs Scientific Research · ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com · archived copy
- Review of Forbidden Science 6 — SFCrowsnest · sfcrowsnest.info · archived copy
- Forbidden Science Dispatches — Tanner Boyle (journal summaries) · tannerfboyle.substack.com · archived copy
- amazon.com · amazon.com · archived copy
Further reading
- Roswell incident — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- UFOs and the Air Force: records — National Archives · archives.gov · archived copy
- Majestic 12 file — FBI Vault · vault.fbi.gov · archived copy
- Jacques Vallée — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Harold E. Puthoff — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
No discussion yet.