But how and why did the FBI become embroiled in the MJ12 affair? Howard
Blum is an award-winning author and former New York Times journalist, twice
nominated by the editors of that newspaper for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative
Reporting. In 1990, Blum’s book Out There (Simon & Schuster, 1990) was released, and
detailed his investigation of U.S. military and governmental involvement in the UFO
subject. According to Blum, on 4 June 1987, the UFO skeptic, Philip J. Klass, wrote to
William Baker, Assistant Director at the Office of Congressional and Public Affairs. “I
am enclosing what purport to be Top Secret/Eyes Only documents, which have not been
properly declassified, now being circulated by William L. Moore, Burbank, California,
91505…” The Bureau swung into action.   Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Jacques Vallee—the UFO author, investigator, and former principal investigator
on Department of Defense computer networking projects—stated in his book Revelations
(Ballantine, 1991) that the FBI turned away from the MJ12 documents in “disgust” and
professed no interest in the matter. Papers and comments made to me by the FBI and the
Air Force Office of Special Investigations, however, reflect a totally different scenario.
Furthermore, there are indications that the FBI launched (or were at least involved in)
several MJ12-linked investigations during the late 1980s.
Of those investigations, one definitely began in the latter part of 1988. Howard
Blum has stated that of those approached by the FBI “in the fall of 1988,” one was a
“Working Group” established under the auspices of the Defense Intelligence Agency
tasked with looking at the UFO problem. In 1990, Blum was interviewed by UFO
Magazine (Vol. 5, No. 5), and was asked if the Working Group could have been a “front”
for another even more covert investigative body within the U.S. government. Blum’s
response aptly sums up one of the major problems faced by both those inside and outside
of government when trying to determine exactly who knows what.
“Interestingly,” said Blum, “members of [the Working Group] aired that
possibility themselves. When looking into the MJ12 papers, some members of the group
said—and not in jest—‘Perhaps we’re just a front organization for some sort of MJ12.
Suppose, in effect, we conclude the MJ12 papers are phony, are counterfeit. Then we’ve
solved the entire mystery for the government, relieving them of the burden in dealing
with it, and at the same time, we allow the real secret to remain held by a higher source.’
An FBI agent told me there are so many secret levels within the government that even the
government isn’t aware of it!”
We also know that what was possibly a separate fall 1988 investigation was
conducted by the FBI’s Foreign Counter-Intelligence division (which I have been advised
operated out of Washington and New York). Some input into the investigation also came
from the FBI office in Dallas, Texas (the involvement of the latter confirmed to me by
Oliver B. Revell, Special Agent in Charge at Dallas FBI).
On September 15, 1988, an agent of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations
contacted Dallas FBI and supplied the Bureau with another copy of the MJ12 papers.