27 Comments
User's avatar
John Bucci's avatar

It's certainly disappointing to see that prominent individuals are sometimes engaged in deception because (I assume) they believe that they are advancing awareness of the subject.

Expand full comment
Jess Hansen's avatar

So, turns out Malmgren was Forrest Gump, Lazar is Coyote and Vallee, an affable dunce.

Has anyone attempted to refute Johnson's refutations? Should we take them at face value?

Or do we just accept ufology is as full of absurdity and tricksters as the phenomenon itself.

Expand full comment
Douglas Dean Johnson's avatar

I thank Billy for this positive presentation on my work, and hope he will not suffer too much abuse because of it.

There is one factual error that I cannot allow to stand. Billy wrote that I had "an abiding interest in UFOs dating back to the 1970s." I was no such Johnny-come-lately. I have in front of me my "Dear New Member" welcome letter from APRO, received by me on July 29, 1968, and my interest in the subject pre-dated that big step ($4 membership fee!).

On a more serious note, it is true that I have "challenged the veracity of...Bob Lazar and David Grusch," but I would hate for anybody to read that as implying that I think those two are at all alike. Lazar is a serial scam artist, scientist-impersonator, one-time bigamist, felon, and pathological prevaricator. Grusch has been demonstrably deficient in candor in some of his public statements, has behaved and spoken immaturely, and seems to me credulous and subjective, but I do not consider him a hoaxer.

Expand full comment
John Bucci's avatar

Thanks for your efforts, Mr. Johnson. In my opinion, only a few cases merit the tag of being genuine, and very high on my short list is the Nimitz encounter. I wonder where you are on that one.

Expand full comment
Jess Hansen's avatar

How has Grusch behaved and spoken immaturely? If he has been "deficient in candor," it might have something to do with his not wanting to compromise national security.

Expand full comment
GORT's avatar

Grandpa Johnson gave Doug the keys to the kingdom ( Skunk Works) on his death bed... That's why he tries to debunk UFO stories of crashed saucers and dead aliens.

Expand full comment
Billy Cox's avatar

Wow! You got the birth certificate -- let's see it!

Expand full comment
Freeman69's avatar

I'm still on the fence, at least a bit.

I listened to the 3 hour interview and Malmgren came across as fully lucid, with a memory for important details and his accounts didn't make him the centre of a conspiracy, just an observer on the periphery who had to push to get answers.

He does appear to have been significantly intelligent, had an exceptional path through the education system and an accelerated career in government. He didn't seem like your average fantasist... I found this interesting piece: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/04/when-exactly-do-everyday-fantasies-go-from-little-white-lies-to-memtal-disorder

I only listened to the interview and haven't compared the exact details to his claims on social media for variations (or compared them against what he is claimed to have claimed).

It's quite possible that DDJ has done everyone a solid, but I have to admit that I'd be very interested if Malmgren's daughter wrote a rebuttal, or if there was just another independent analysis of Malmgren's statements.

There was no apparent motive for Malmgren to provide apparent support for the UFO issue, which seems to leave mental illness. He definitely seemed sufficiently intelligent to be aware of the consequences of his claims including the impact on his family (plus the level of strangeness of his telepathic-material claim which was off the record). So if it was a form of (age related?) mental illness, was he a witting fantasist? Were there any truths unfortunately distorted by subtle mental issues that we don't fully understand?

While I may want Malmgren's claims to be true (because they support an intriguing possibility), I'd rather understand what the truth actually is. For me it's still an open case.

Expand full comment
Jess Hansen's avatar

To be fair to DDJ, it is possible for someone to be intelligent, lucid, and spin tales. People with narcissistic tendencies do it all the time. And it's a condition that doesn't improve with age.

It's really difficult to gauge the truth of so much in an area of study where you're dealing with unknowns in an atmosphere of deception coming from all angles-- where so much happens off the record.

On top of that, to give Johnson credit too, there are so many individuals lost in New Age solipsism, in this arena, it must be annoying to have to deal with.

Expand full comment
Freeman69's avatar

Given human error and other 'lesser' human failings, it's often only possible to make an assessment with a certain degree of confidence; which means one has to keep track of the confidence one has in various claims and individuals. More information is always the way to go.

Expand full comment
Douglas Dean Johnson's avatar

"His accounts didn't make him the centre of a conspiracy, just an observer on the periphery who had to push to get answers."

I beg to differ in part. I would not say that Harald Malmgren placed himself at the center of "a conspiracy." But in all of the made-up stories, Harald is seen by all present as a Very Special Person.

Malmgren's stories are replete with high-level people (MIT Corporation President Karl Compton, famed economist John Hicks, Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, storied CIA/IDA leader Richard Bissell, trade representative Christian Herter, and many others) expressing their amazement at Harald's extraordinary attributes. Compton is astonished at Malmgren's command of esoteric concepts of physics at age 13 ("you see beyond the biggest minds") and tries to persuade him to immediately accept a free ride all the way through graduate school at MIT (Malmgren declines). (No evidence for any of that.) Hicks decides Malmgren is an original thinker of the caliber that "only comes along every 30 or 40 years." (No evidence.) Cornell University wins a bidding war among major universities by making Malmgren a full professor instantly after receiving his doctorate. (Proven fiction.) Dobrynin arranges to sit next to Malmgren at a 1963 banquet, referring to the "heady levels of decision making" in which Malmgren is participating. ("He [Dobrynin] was interested in what was my way of thinking during this crisis," Malmgren said in one interview, referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis.) (No evidence and implausible in the extreme.) Bissell tells Malmgren "you were the star" of the McNamara "whiz kids." (Malmgren was not a McNamara whiz kid, and his association with Bissell seems to have been peripheral and brief.) The all-knowing supra-governmental MJ-12 had watched over Malmgren from the start. "They tracked him from a young age, he [Malmgren] says," according to Jesse Michels. "You were chosen," Christian Herter assures Malmgren. And on and on. All of this according to a single source: Harald Malmgren.

Expand full comment
Freeman69's avatar

I see where you're coming from, but these are still individuals who it would be plausible for Malmgren to have interacted with and some people do have more interesting opportunities through their lives than others. What you interpret as made-up stories could be the highlights of an interesting life and career. A relatively few really good days over a lifetime.

Not all relationships (professional or personal) are known to everyone else and while bureaucracy tends to operate like a clockwork mechanism, the executive levels are far more political and not everything is recorded.

His daughter didn't hear the UFO side until recently. If she was used to hearing implausible tales from her dad over her lifetime, one would think that she wouldn't have been supporting a fantasy so publicly and exposing her dad to ridicule at age 89. (Unlike the Trinity guy's son who you show calling his dad a pathological liar.)

Expand full comment
Douglas Dean Johnson's avatar

He did interact with some of them. Then long after they were dead, he made them into characters in his comic-book world. It is reprehensible.

Leave UFOs out of it for the moment. Look at claim no. 1 in my May 20 article. Explain Malmgren claiming that major universities had a bidding war to get him, which Cornell won by making him an instant full professor. Talk about implausible-- and of course, the records from Cornell -- and Malmgren's own signed and certified job applications and security clearances applications-- prove it is a lie. Better yet, explain Malmgren taking the century-old Galen Stone chair in international trade from Harvard and (in his fictional account) placing it at Cornell, and these placing himself in it. These are not memory errors. These are fabrications and they are all of a kind.

Having read Pippa's two-part essay "JFK, LeMay, Mary, and That Fateful Day," published on her Substack on March 18, 2025, I would say that Pippa would be a poor candidate to detect "implausible tales." Her essay starts out with some basically evidence-free conspiracy theories (e.g., Curtis LeMay helping assassinate JFK), and then degenerates into utterly batshit incoherence. By the end she has JFK dropping acid with some woman "about the same time as the Cuban Missile Crisis was ending. Kennedy was transformed. He started writing to Khrushchev." But hey, it COULD have happened, right?

Expand full comment
Freeman69's avatar

Having just read Jess Hansen's comment, I would have to agree with her that you aren't doing yourself any favours.

I found a copy of Pippa's essay and it's an interesting read which includes speculation in places which she states quite clearly, as well as many references to the work of others. I would say that it indirectly highlights how complex people and situations are, which opens both to different interpretations.

I would recommend that people who read your assessment should also listen to Malmgren's interview.

Expand full comment
Douglas Dean Johnson's avatar

I agree that anyone interested in the Harald Malmgren claims should watch the entire Jesse Michels video, all 3.8 hours, all the way to the parts where Michels is on the speakerphone lapping up the last rasping fantasies from Harald on his deathbed. I included as much primary material from that interview as I could in my article in the form of video clips and verbatim transcripts of key portions.

As for Pippa's essay titled "JFK, LeMay, Mary, and that Fateful Day," to say that it "includes speculation in places" as like saying there is some stonework in the Great Pyramid of Giza. I am not sure that essay contains any single paragraph that does not include at least one historically demonstrably false statement, but to be fair, Pippa does write long paragraphs.

Expand full comment
Jess Hansen's avatar

It's possible Malmgren filled out an application for Cornell, to fulfill bureaucratic requirement.

Also possible he was promoted shortly after he began teaching as an assistant professor.

Your writing is colorful but you should refrain from disreputable remarks about your subjects. It takes away from your own credibility.

Expand full comment
Douglas Dean Johnson's avatar

Regarding Cornell, it is obvious that you have not read my article nor examined the numerous embedded documents, or you would not be making indefensible statements as to what you imagine is "possible." I made no reference to any "application for Cornell." I relied on the records provided by Cornell for both the academic year Malmgren worked there, and for the second year that he could have worked there if he had not left for greener pastures; there was no "promotion." I relied also on Malmgren's own applications for FEDERAL jobs in 1963, 1964, and 1967, and on the FBI investigations that I got declassified (1970-71), all of which contained documents signed and certified (under penalties of law) by Malmgren himself, all reporting his single academic year at Cornell as an assistant professor. All of those documents are embedded as PDFs in my May 20, 2025 article.

Frankly, my articles are not written for people like you, who are too lazy to carefully read primary documents and draw logical conclusions, preferring to simply make stuff up ("it's possible") to defend their heroes and the exciting tales their heroes tell. My articles are written for the people who value actual evidence, and who can compare one thing to another and draw logical conclusions.

I notice that you did not address how Malmgren, in his 2024-2025 interviews, placed himself in the Galen Stone endowed chair in economics, which does exist and is very prestigious in Malmgren's real-life field of international trade, but in the real world is at Harvard, where Malmgren never taught.

As for Lazar, I do not know what article you might be referring to. Perhaps it was the 2023 tweet-string that I will attempt to link below. Nobody has yet discovered any factual errors in that thread. Nevertheless, I suspect that you may be able to construct imagination-based excuses for Lazar's innumerable documented lies, scams, and crimes. But in the long run, facts are stubborn things.

https://x.com/ddeanjohnson/status/1633576455002025985

Expand full comment
Jess Hansen's avatar

"Frankly, my articles are not written for people like you, who are too lazy to carefully read primary documents and draw logical conclusions, preferring to simply make stuff up ("it's possible") to defend their heroes and the exciting tales their heroes tell. My articles are written for the people who value actual evidence, and who can compare one thing to another and draw logical conclusions."

Malmgren was never a hero of mine. And yes, I do have to rely on researchers like you. Not only have you dragged people through the mud (and tbf, maybe that's all they deserve) but you've reserved some slime for me, which is self defeating.

Again, I'll ask you about Grusch. Where has he behaved in an immature way, and not been entirely open?

Expand full comment
Billy Cox's avatar

The ball is obviously in Pippa's court now.

Expand full comment
Ropr's avatar

"I’d be delighted to discover there’s a captured alien craft at the end of the rainbow. But I also think there’s value in clearing out some of the garbage, the overgrowth, the grifters and the hoaxers and getting all of that out of the way."

Boy, ain't that the truth. This is one garden in need of pruning with machetes.

BC, I saw your post on Curt Collins' Facebook group questioning the WSJ article about the Gov using UFOs as cover for their own projects, as you point out a virtually meaningless story without verification. Touche, sir.

Expand full comment
Brian ally's avatar

The Bluegill Triple Prime story seemed dubious from the beginning. However, when Malmgren piped up online about it i took notice. But his remarks were cryptic, to say the least. His comments didn't rise to the level of corroboration, as Geoff Cruickshank and others had it, but i was willing to hear him out. After all, i had no reason to disbelieve that he was who he said he was.

Immediately after the interview with Jesse Michels was posted the Wikipedia page for Malmgren was essentially targeted for assassination. Having watched less than a third of the video at that time i was one of those who complained about the tactics these so-called 'guerilla skeptics'. But after watching the est of the interview, and more importantly, reading Douglas Johnson's investigation into Malmgren, i'm firmly satisfied that the guy was a fabulist.

His various flourishes and aggrandizement were frankly ridiculous. But, given what has transpired in the US over the past several years i am no longer astounded by what some people will fall for.

As for Bluegill, i am also firmly satisfied that my first take was the correct one. Johnson has very well demolished that fairy tale, in my view. I'm also not shy about saying that Cruickshank's rebuttal of Johnson is a hot mess. It's rife with errors, red herrings, cherry-picking, and mean-girl innuendo.

(When last i spoke with Johnson he hadn't yet read it.)

> Johnson also combed through the deck logs of recovery vessels,

> searching unsuccessfully for descriptions of “anomalous”

> objects retrieved from the splashdown zone.

Both Johnson and I independently pored over those logs in search of that word -- "anomalous" -- because Cruickshank claimed that it was in there. He later removed the quotes, but gets up to the same thing in his rebuttal.

Expand full comment
Brian ally's avatar

[continuing]

I may not share the same political views as Johnson but i appreciate anyone who's both interested in this subject AND committed to filtering out the dross. But, while there are plenty of grifters in this field, i recognise that there are even more people who, though genuinely seeking the truth may stray from time to time, certainty getting the better of critical thinking. (And who doesn't occasionally in this game?) I disagree vehemently with Cruickshank and others on this story but i'm confident that they want to know the truth.

In which case, i hope that they'll take a step back to reassess. Because it simply ain't so.

Expand full comment
The Observer's avatar

That “bumper sticker” 😂

Expand full comment
Billy Cox's avatar

Six-year-old war wound from the Storm Area 51 assault.

Expand full comment