During the third week of July, 1993 *UFO Magazine received awritten report from an organization calling itself the"ASSOCIATED INVESTIGATORS GROUP". There was no return address onthe envelope, and the members listed on the back were allpseudonyms. Some of the pseudonyms were fairly easy to figureout, some were not. However the report itself was extremelyinflammatory. The first paragraph read; "One of the nation'sleading sponsors of UFO research and investigation, the Fund forUFO Research, has had a long-standing secret relationship withthe CIA and the U.S. Intelligence community. Dr. Bruce Maccabee,an optics and laser specialist with the Naval Surface WeaponsLaboratory near Washington, DC, one of the Fund's founders andmember of the group's Executive Committee, has been secretlymeeting with CIA officials since 1979, briefing them aboutvarious UFO matters and investigators."*UFO Magazine immediately called the Fund for UFO ResearchChairman Richard Hall to get the Funds stance on theseallegations. Hall right off stated that he had just spoken withTodd Zechel, one of the primary accuser's alleging CIAconnections with the Fund and Dr. Maccabee. Zechel denied beingthe sole author of the document, but according to Richard Hall,refused to name the other authors.Hall stated when asked that the Fund was aware of contacts thatMaccabee had within Central Intelligence, but had not been awareof any extensive relationships. When asked by Hall if he feltthere may be other "moles" in the Fund for UFO Research he stated"No I don't and I have to say that I think this has a potentialto be over blown. All we are dealing with here are some fairlymajor indiscretions by Bruce Maccabee." When asked if Hallthought Maccabee would have reported back to the Agency onpersons in the field he said "I have no way of knowing, is thehonest answer, but I sort of doubt it because my reading of hispersonality and character". "In 1979 Bruce went to New Zealandfor, I think it was NICAP, it wasn't for the Fund, and when hecame back he told us that he had briefed some people at CIA onthe case. As the years went by Bruce said he had talked to CIApeople and had contacts over there. When it became obvious thatthey were ongoing things several members of the board met withBruce and told him this wasn't right, we can't have you goingover there and talking privately with those people. We arededicated to the position of getting information out on thissubject and this will look bad, you can't do it. We told him thiscould backfire on the Fund, we had no idea of how deeply involvedhe was."According to the document from the ASSOCIATED INVESTIGATORSreport, and from Richard Hall, the point man at CIA that Maccabeeknew was Roland "Ron" Pandolfi, Directorate of Science andTechnology. Hall stated that "making some inquiries of my own, he(Pandolfi) is notorious for dealing with a whole bunch of peoplein the field. He is probably dealing disinformation in thefield."Hall then stated for the record that because of many ofMaccabee's favorable statements about the Gulf Breeze case, theFund was unable to do any balanced presentation of negativeinformation about the case because the Fund had asked severalpeople to report on it and they refused because of reservationsabout Maccabee.Maccabee recently vacated the Chairmanship of the Fund for UFOResearch when Richard Hall took over. Maccabee is still a memberon the Board.Todd Zechel was next contacted. When asked what initiated therelease of the ASSOCIATED INVESTIGATORS REPORT, Zechel said thereport was done because Maccabee was found to have briefed CIA inLangley on May 28th, 1993. The briefing was, according to Zechelon "residual magnetic effects found in the Gulf Breeze incident."Zechel stated "I knew Bruce quite well in the seventies. I gotstarted in the field in 1976 and I always respected and admiredhim because he seemed to be a very responsible scientist. He wasvery cautious and not making outrageous pronouncements. One ofthe concerns we had with all this is was that Maccabee felt moreloyalty to the CIA than he did to his friends at the Fund."Zechel was then asked why the names listed on the report were allpseudonyms and not the actual persons involved. He said "Thebasic reason is stated in the last page of the report. There areseveral confidential investigation going on, and when they arecompleted the people will then be identified." Zechel then saidthat "I may as well put my name on it since I will be blamed forit anyway.""One of the inferences that you can draw from the situation isthat before 1979 was quite cautious, seemingly afraid that hemight loose his government classified research job, and after1979 when he began meeting with the CIA he seemed to abandon allthose cautions, and got involved with a lot of things thatseemingly going up against the government. Being one of the leadsponsors of the MJ-12 investigation. If MJ-12 was legitimate,which I don't believe it was, then Maccabee was certainly takinga number of risks with his security clearance. The fact thatnothing happened to him obviously indicates that no one wasdispleased with what he was doing."One of the main points Zechel presented concerned the aftermathof Maccabee's New Zealand trip, and his briefing at CIA. Maccabeetold Zechel on the record that he had met the CIA's custodian ofthe UFO files. Zechel states he has Maccabee telling him on audiotape that this unnamed CIA officer had told him (Maccabee) thatthe Agency had over 15,000 UFO documents. Zechel had brought thispoint up twice as he told *UFO "This was a critical point becausewe were in the middle of litigation with the CIA and we weretrying to prove the CIA had lied to the court, and lied abouttheir search (for records). Obviously this was a major crime ifthey have filed all sorts of affidavits to the U.S. DistrictCourt swearing that their total files consisted on only about1,000 documents."The contact at CIA that Maccabee had that purportedly told himabout the 15,000 documents was Dr. Christopher C. "Kit" Green.Green is now reportedly chief of Biomedical Sciences Dept. atGeneral Motors. His replacement at CIA is now Roland "Ron"Pandolfi in the Directorate of Science & Technology.Later Zechel said that while speaking to Maccabee he asked him ifhe were working for the CIA. According to Zechel Maccabee stated"You might say that." Zechel said that with Maccabee's backgroundhe was recruited by the CIA to work on classified nationaldefense work involving "Star Wars". This in would fit into normalgovernmental contract work given Maccabee's background in opticalphysics and his expertise.Zechel was asked about the allegation in the AIG report thatMaccabee was identified as a member of the infamous "Aviary" (SeaGull) of UFO researcher William Moore. When asked how this wasverified Zechel stated "It was verified through him (Maccabee) tome within the last month. (July 1993) He talked about receiving aform message from Bill (Moore) in which Moore had sent a memo outto the Aviary that U.K. researcher Armen Victorian was doing aninvestigation on the "birds", and the memo stated to not worryabout it, no one was worried about being exposed. Maccabee toldme that it was funny that Moore said no one was afraid of beingexposed, no one asked him, and he was afraid of being exposed!"*UFO then called Dr. Maccabee. Maccabee was told that *UFO hadcalled Richard Hall at the Fund, and that Hall had verified thatthe Fund was aware of his involvement with the CIA since 1979,and that Hall had told Maccabee that they were afraid that ifthis was publicly known it could reflect back on the Fund.Maccabee stated that "I have a professional relationship in thesense of what I do, and in particular I was working on lasers,and I became of interest to them in 1984. This UFO stuff came upas topics of mutual interest. This paper (AIG) misrepresentsthings and that is one of many things." Maccabee was asked if hedid contact CIA in 1979. Maccabee stated he did brief CIA on hisNew Zealand investigation. However Maccabee stated that thereport was wrong about him contacting CIA. "Coming back from NewZealand, I had looked for help in my analysis, or for people toreview what I had done in terms of the radar aspects of the NewZealand case. I had told Jack Acuff of NICAP I would beinterested in technical experts in radar. I learned from Jackthere was a scientist with major credentials with a corporation.He had become aware of NICAP because of sonic booms, like skyquakes, which were taking place at the time (in the lateseventies, after the Concord starting flying.) People werephoning in reports about these booms, and were seeing lights inthe sky. The scientific community got interested, and the guy Iended up talking to, Gordon MacDonald, decided to do aninvestigation with the Naval Research Laboratory, and they foundto their dismay that most of the information that is available isin the files of UFO groups. So they contacted NICAP among othersfor information, so that is how MacDonald got in touch with NICAPand Jack Acuff. When the New Zealand case came along, I was giventhis guy MacDonald. I met with him and he agreed with some of myconclusions and offered a couple of suggestions. About a week orso later, he called and asked if I would like to brief somepeople at the CIA where they had other radar experts. I said ok,and then a guy from the CIA called up and invited me to comeover. Apparently MacDonald had contacted the CIA on his own. So,here on this report (AIG) is a paragraph which is written in aslanted and fabricated manner."Maccabee was asked if it were true that after the New Zealandbriefing he was taken aside by a CIA official and reveled to himthat this man was custodian of UFO files, and that these filesconsisted of close to 15,000 documents, and then later on at somepoint he (Maccabee) later retreated from that statement. He said"Yes there is" and then he was asked if it were Dr. "Kit" Green,Maccabee said yes but he never mentioned the name. "Zechel foundthat out on his own.""After the briefing, this Green asked me if I would come back andwe can talk about the UFO situation in general. I was interestedknowing that the government and CIA had just coughed up a bunchof documents, and he may have wanted to talk about the subjectfor his own reasons whatever they were. I went back again andsometime in the conversation we got into the documents. From whatI recall and I do not recall it specifically, Green probably saidthere were many more documents, maybe as many as 15,000documents. At any rate what is left out of this (AIG report) iswhat happened afterwards. I told Zechel about that because I knewhe was dealing with that lawsuit. I thought he should know theremight be more documents. I did not know of Zechel's independentinformation. Zechel had a covert source of his own. Plus, Gersten(Zechels attorney) had been led to believe by the CIA attorneythere might be 10,000 pages." Maccabee stated then that inconversations with Green, Green told him that he personally onlypersonally had approx. 1,000 documents.Maccabee's denial to Robert Hastings occurred in 1979 as opposedto the AIG report which states 1990. Maccabee stated "As far as adenial to Hastings, he had no need to know what I was doing 7 or8 years beforehand. I was not about to spread it around, and itis very possible I denied it, I do not remember."When asked how with his job and security level, and with hispublic and private UFO interest, how could he continue with hisUFO investigations and not be censored and not suffer theconsequences that others in government service have suffered witha public UFO interest. Larry Bryant was one example offered.Maccabee said "I just played it cool, Larry did not play it ascool. He started sending around paid advertisements to armedservice newspapers, and when some of them wouldn't publish hisstuff he got mad and sued them and stirred up a big stink. Inever knowingly passed any disinformation, nor was I given anyinformation or disinformation to pass."Maccabee was then asked if it were true that as late as May 28th,1993 if he had once again briefed interested parties at CIA onthe magnetic effects of the Gulf Breeze case and he answered"yes". Maccabee was asked if he had passed on information to CIAon any cases or personalities in the research community. "What Ihave done is talk to people that are interested in the subject onmaterial that they could get elsewhere. At one time they wereinterested in tracking what was on bulletin boards (computer),with Lear and Cooper (Milton) and all that. I did not tell themanything that was not in the open literature. The Gulf Breezebriefing is a case in point, it was a lunch time talk, anyonecould come to it,secretaries, street sweepers or the heads of covert departments,whatever. I did not know who showed up. CIA invites lots ofpeople on lots of subjects and they will talk to people that areinterested in those subjects. I been there a couple of times justlike it said in this paper."Maccabee then stated that another misrepresentation in the AIGdocument concerned the years from 1979 to 1983. The paper statesthat Maccabee had a continuous and ongoing relationship with CIA."FALSE" he stated. After the spring of 1979 I did not have ANYdealings with CIA until after 1983. In 1984 I was contacted byPandolfi in regards to my work. I was asked to come over and givea briefing on my work which I did. Nothing about UFOs. I do nottalk about UFOs unless the person I am talking to is amenable toit." After Maccabee gave the presentation on his work, he saidthat Pandolfi asked him about his 1979 presentation on NewZealand. "I couldn't deny it" Maccabee said, and "after that wegot into conversations on the subject"."The implication of this document" said Maccabee, "is that I hadcontinuous and ongoing relations with the CIA all the way throughand that I was supplying information to the CIA on UFO stuff foryears and years. This is not true."The one area where Maccabee was not open concerned the questionabout his being SEA GULL in William Moores aviary. Maccabeeclaimed he did not know if he were SEA GULL. When asked if he hadreceived any documents addressed to SEA GULL he maintained he didnot know.After conducting a number of interviews, I do not think there wasany malicious intent on Maccabees part, but without a doubt somepoor judgment. Walt Andrus was contacted to see if MUFON had anyposition on this. Andrus said that MUFONs position was "It is nota crime to talk to the CIA, after all they are a part of Americato." Without a doubt they are, however after almost 50 years oflies and deceit where the UFO subject comes in, and consideringhistorical events like the Robertson Panel, it is time for thegovernment to come clean with the information on hand. There is aphenomenon, it has apparently interacted with human-kind foryears. Agencies like CIA have hidden behind national securitywith information on UFOs, while claiming that UFOs do notthreaten national security. You can't have it both ways andundoubtedly Maccabee will be another casualty in the long line ofpeople who tried to have it both ways. Somehow only thephenomenon and the intelligence services seem to win this one.
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