Virtually everyone in America is familiar with theories about UFOs, or “flying saucers” as they were often called then, but even this name dates back only to 1947. Before that time, they were called “ghost rockets” or “ghost airplanes” or “ghost airships.” Before the age of flight, the flying objects were called various things such as “flying chariots.” No matter what terminology is used, every generation has clearly had its own belief that mankind is not alone.

For example, few things in American history are as controversial as the Roswell Crash. The one undeniable fact is that something happened near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, but beyond that, the facts become unclear as memories and evidence lose their luster over the years. That said, the impact of an unidentified object continues to mystify residents, visitors and the curious, and it has not only put Roswell on the map but has kept it there for thousands of tourists. At the same time, skepticism about the official version of the incident prevails, and a countless number of people continue to believe the American government covered up a crash landing by aliens. As John B. Alexander, Ph. D., a former project manager at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and consultant to the CIA, put it, “Attempting to come to any complete resolution of the incident is a fool’s errand, as whatever the truth may have been has become so distorted over time that facts have merged inextricably with fiction.”

Some of the American investigations of UFOs from the 1940s and 1950s were documented, but nothing exemplifies the debate between those who believe that extraterrestrials visit the Earth and skeptics than the top secret papers that emerged in the 1980s and seemed to prove the existence of a shadowy secret organization known as MJ-12 or Majestic 12. To believers, these papers proved beyond a doubt not only that UFOs were real and of extraterrestrial origin, but also that the federal government had been aware of this since the 1940s and had even managed to recover one or more crashed alien spacecrafts. To skeptics, this notion simply proved how gullible UFO believers were. There was no middle ground - people either believed in the MJ-12 papers completely or laughed at them.

Decades later, it’s finally possible to take a more balanced view of the history of the MJ-12 papers, including where these documents originated from and who created them. It now seems virtually certain that there never was an organization called Majestic 12 and that the papers describing it were faked, but what makes the story truly fascinating is that it now also appears likely that these papers were faked by people actually working within the Air Force or another government agency.

Of course, if it is true that UFOs are nothing more than figments of the imagination of a few credulous people, it begs the question of why people in the government would sanction such an odd deception. The discovery that the MJ-12 papers were probably fake seriously undermined belief in extraterrestrial visits, even amongst the most ardent believers, but there is also good evidence that this was precisely what this bizarre secret project was intended to achieve. Ironically, the real story behind Majestic 12 may not have included the recovery of crashed alien craft or autopsies on dead aliens, but while some conspiracy theories can be dismissed, the history does reveal a very real government conspiracy, compelling many to wonder why the government would seek to suppress the belief in UFO sightings over the past century.