Bro. Bruce Maccabee, Ph.D.
NavIntell's Scholarly Seagull yet
"Unexplainably Naive" Neophyte
 

Noted Ufologist Admits Briefing CIA: It All Began in 1979

1993 by Don Ecker [from UFO Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 5]

"One of the concerns we had with all this was that Maccabee felt more loyalty to the CIA than he did to his friends at the Fund. [FUFOR] ...One of the inferences that you can draw from the situation is that before 1979 Bruce was quite cautious, seemingly afraid that he might lose his government classified research job, and after 1979, when he began meeting with the CIA, he seemed to abandon all these cautions and got involved with a lot of things that *seemingly* (were) going up against the government."
-Todd Zechel, one of the founders of CAUS

When Zechel said he once asked Maccabee directly if he was working for the CIA. According to Zechel, Maccabee stated, "You might say that."

"The CIA is in the business of manipulating the belief systems of entire nations. I doubt they're above working in their own back yard if it suits them."
-Dave Morehouse, DIA Remote Viewer

Veteran UFO researcher and Naval scientist Dr. Bruce Maccabee has admitted to periodically meeting with CIA personnel and secretly briefing them on UFO matters since at least 1979.

In disclosures to UFO Magazine just before press time, researchers familiar with Maccabee's CIA connections unfolded a tale which seems to suggest not an intentional deception on Maccabee's part, but rather an unexplainable naivete, at least in regards to how his actions might appear to his colleagues and to the rest of the UFO community in general

In the third week of July, 1993, UFO Magazine received a written report from an organization calling itself the "Associated Investigators Group" (AIG). There was no return address on the envelope, and the names of members listed on the back were all pseudonyms. Some of these pseudonyms were fairly easy to figure out, some were not.

The report itself was extremely inflammatory. The first paragraph read:

"One of the nation's leading sponsors of UFO research and investigation, the Fund for UFO Research, has had a long-standing secret relationship with the CIA and the U.S. Intelligence community. Dr. Bruce Maccabee, an optics and laser specialist with the Naval Surface Weapons Laboratory near Washington, D.C., one of the Fund's founders and member of the group's Executive Committee, has been secretly meeting with CIA officials since 1979, briefing them about various UFO matters and investigators."

UFO Magazine immediately called Fund for UFO Research Chairman Richard Hall to get the Fund's stance on these allegations. Hall said that he had just spoken with Todd Zechel, one of the primary accusers alleging CIA connections to the Fund and Dr. Maccabee.

Although Zechel, one of the founders of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy and a long-time commentator on governmental aspects of ufology, denies being the sole author of the document, he refused to name the other authors, according to Hall.

Hall told UFO that the Fund knew of contacts that Maccabee had within Central Intelligence, but was not aware of any extensive relationships.

Hall doubts there are any other "moles" in the Fund for UFO Research, and added,

"I think this matter has a potential to be overblown. All we are dealing with here are some fairly major indiscretions by Bruce Maccabee."

When asked if Hall thought Maccabee might have reported back to the Agency on persons in the UFO field, he replied,

"I have no way of knowing, is the honest answer. But I sort of doubt it, because of my reading of his personality and character.

"In 1979, Bruce went to New Zealand for, I think it was NICAP -- it wasn't for the Fund -- and when he came back he told us that he had briefed some people at the CIA on the case. As the years went by, Bruce said he had talked to CIA people and had contacts over (at Langley headquarters). When it became obvious that (the contacts) were ongoing, several members of the board met with Bruce and told him it wasn't right, 'we can't have you going over there and talking privately with those people. We are dedicated to the position of getting information out on this subject and this will look bad -- you can't do it.' We told him this could backfire on the Fund. We had no idea of how deeply involved he was."

According to the "Associated Investigators" (AIG) document, and Richard Hall, the point man at the CIA who communicated with Maccabee was Roland "Ron" Pandolfi, of the Directorate of Science and Technology Hall stated, "Making some inquiries of my own, I found that he (Pandolfi) is notorious for dealing with a whole bunch of people in the (UFO) field. He is probably dealing disinformation in the field."

According to Hall, Maccabee's many favorable statements about the Gulf Breeze case made it difficult for the Fund to offer any balanced presentation of negative information about the case. The Fund had asked several people to report on it, but they refused because of reservations about Maccabee.

Maccabee recently vacated the Chairmanship of the Fund for UFO Research when Richard Hall took over. (Maccabee is still a member of the Board.)

UFO contacted Todd Zechel and asked him what initiated the release of the AIG report. Zechel said the report was created because it was learned that Maccabee reportedly briefed CIA personnel at Langley on May 28th, 1993. This briefing was, according to Zechel, about "residual magnetic effects found in the Gulf Breeze incident."

"I knew Bruce quite well in the '70s," Zechel said. "I got started in the field in 1976, and I always respected and admired him because he seemed to be a very responsible scientist. He was very cautious and not making outrageous pronouncements.

"One of the concerns we had with all this was that Maccabee felt more loyalty to the CIA than he did to his friends at the Fund." Zechel claims the report listed only pseudonyms because "There are several confidential investigations going on, and when they are completed the people will then be identified ...I may as well put my name on it, since I will be blamed for it anyway."

Zechel continued,

"One of the inferences that you can draw from the situation is that before 1979 Bruce was quite cautious, seemingly afraid that he might lose his government classified research job, and after 1979, when he began meeting with the CIA, he seemed to abandon all these cautions and got involved with a lot of things that seemingly (were) going up against the government.

"Being one of the lead sponsors of the MJ-12 investigation -- if MJ-12 was legitimate, which I don't believe it was -- then Maccabee was certainly taking a number of risks with his security clearance."

It is Zechel's opinion that since nothing happened to Maccabee, his military employer wasn't displeased with what he was doing.

One of the main points Zechel presented concerned the aftermath of Maccabee's New Zealand trip, and his subsequent briefing at the CIA. According to Zechel, Maccabee told him, on the record, of having met the CIA's custodian of the UFO files. Zechel claims he has an audiotape of Maccabee stating that this unnamed CIA officer said that the Agency had over 15,000 UFO documents.

"This was a critical point," Zechel said, "because we were in the middle of litigation with the CIA and we were trying to prove the CIA had lied to the court and lied about their search (for records). Obviously this was a major crime, if they have filed all sorts of affidavits in the U.S. District Court swearing that their total files consisted of only about 1,000 documents."

Maccabee's contact at the CIA who had purportedly told him about the 15,000 documents was Dr. Christopher C. "Kit" Green. Green is now reportedly chief of Biomedical Sciences Dept. at General Motors; his replacement at the CIA is supposedly Pandolfi.

Zechel said he once asked Maccabee directly if he was working for the CIA. According to Zechel, Maccabee stated, "You might say that."

Zechel was asked about the allegation in the AIG report that Maccabee was identified as "Seagull," a member of researcher William Moore's infamous "Aviary," an alleged group of UFO-oriented covert operatives whom Moore has given bird code names. Zechel stated, "It was verified through him (Maccabee) to me within the last month. (July 1993). He talked about receiving a form message from (Moore) in which Moore had sent a memo out to the 'Aviary' that U.K. researcher Armen Victorian was doing an investigation on the 'birds.' The memo stated to not worry about it, no one was worried about being exposed.

"Maccabee told me that it was funny that Moore said no one was afraid of being exposed, no one asked him; and he was afraid of being exposed!"

Then, of course, there's always this humorous bittie from a 06/26/95 interview of Saucer Smear's Supreme Commander James Mosely by The Devil's Advocate:

D.A. = Devil's Advocate
J.M. = Jim Moseley of Saucer Smear [P.O. Box 1709, Key West, FL 33041]

D.A.: Now the "big question". Do you think the government has any proof of what's going on? That they know?

J.M.: I honestly don't think so. You know, it's very easy to think so. Like when you hear of Bob Lazar, or somebody like that seems to have some knowledge of what he himself experienced and so forth.

I can't explain all of what's going on, but there must be a lot of disinformation. Again to be brief, if the government is screwing around at all, it is just the opposite of what the saucer people think. I should say more about it. I think they're encouraging us to believe crackpot stuff in order to cover up something worse, and I have no idea what could be worse. That I could almost believe. But no, I don't think there are any alien bodies or craft sitting anywhere.

D.A.: Do you think they are just as puzzled as we are then?

J.M.: Well, they have more knowledge about a lot of things than we do. But then again "they". It's so compartmentalized that no one person knows everything.

Let me put it this way, just a few months ago, I mentioned it briefly in Smear, the president's science advisor, whose name I don't know offhand [Jack Gibbons -B:.B:.], wanted, on behalf of the president of the country, to have an informed opinion about UFOs. So he went to the CIA, for the best that they knew. I forget the name, also, of the key man there, but he was a mutual friend of the science advisor, and of Dr. Bruce Maccabee. [Dr. Ron Pandolfi -B:.B:.] So the science advisor went to this middle man, so to speak, and that guy didn't know much about UFOs, so he went to Dr. Bruce Maccabee and said "hey, will you write this paper?", and Dr. Bruce Maccabee did. I happen to have a copy of it here somewhere. I mean after that, you know, he was ready to send it to anybody. And Dr. Bruce Maccabee is a nice guy and he's one of the most gullible people I've ever known, especially when you consider that he has a Ph.D. and works for the Navy.

And so, here is the poor president, ill-informed though he may be on many subjects, and if he wants to know the truth about saucers, he will go to his science advisor and say "Oh, did you ever get that report back?", and he'll be reading a thing by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, and it's frightening. He might as well read Saucer Smear. I mean it's just that bad. I really think they're screwed up.