Marilyn Monroe: Conspiracy and the World Of Ufology: Part-2

As you'll see, I wrote an article today about UFOs and Marilyn Monroe. It's a saga that has fascinated me for a long time. But, what about my own, personal views on all of this? That's a good question. So, that's what I'm going to do in this second article. And, to share with you one of the most controversial stories of out there: namely, my book on UFOs and Marilyn, Diary of Secrets: UFO Conspiracies & the Mysterious Death of Marilyn Monroe. After all the smoke and mirrors we’ve encountered thus far, should we now be looking at the Marilyn story through the perspectives of distinctly suspiciously-looking eyes? Or, does everything about the Speriglio document tell a true story of murder, power gone wild, and some of the U.S. government’s most guarded secrets? What about the players: Russians, Dan Salter, Lee Israel, Timothy Cooper, and the rest of the gang? Yep, you know what time it is: it’s time for me to come to a conclusion. Answers would be good, too! All those names were a part of the Marilyn mystery.

Having pored over the content of the Marilyn-UFO document on so many occasions, I’ve come to see that reading it is the easiest part of the story. Getting to the truth of the matter is something else entirely. To make the document even more controversial, it’s dated August 3, 1962, as you’ll have noticed. The next day, the 4th, was when voluptuous, vivacious Marilyn became a cold, lifeless corpse. The inference is that Marilyn had to be killed before she had time to head to the press and blow the whistle on the UFO secrecy to which she’d been exposed. Is the document the genuine item? Was it the work of a sad, pathetic, character, living in a grimy basement and with no life? A piece of ingenious Cold War-period disinformation – of the United States or, even, of the Russians? Or something created purely for money? Get ready to deal with all of those questions. Whatever your opinion on the various theories, they need to be addressed and answered. In the meantime, and with you having now read the document, I suggest you emit a loud: “What the hell?” 

Life for Marilyn Monroe began in the Los Angeles County Hospital, California on June 1, 1926 as Norma Jeane Mortenson. Two decades later she married James Edward Dougherty, a police officer. The marriage was over after four years. Marilyn moved on and had an incredible career in modeling and acting. That career lasted for just a little more than a decade-and-a-half. Contracts with Twentieth Century Fox and Columbia Pictures guaranteed dollars upon dollars for Marilyn. Among the many movies she made were Clash by Night, Asphalt Jungle, and Some Like it Hot. Marilyn, with a powerful desire to make it big-time, was certain to move among the famous and powerful. She did. She married New York Yankees’ baseball legend, Joe DiMaggio on January 14, 1954. They didn’t last. The pair was married for only 274 days. Two years later, Marilyn married renowned playwright, Arthur Miller. That marriage was destined not to continue, either. By 1961 Marilyn was single again. Then, there were the Kennedy brothers, John and Robert: The President of the United States and the Attorney General. As for RFK, he’s believed to have first met Marilyn on February 2, 1962. The location was the house of actor Peter Lawford and his wife, Patricia. The connection? Patricia was Robert Kennedy’s sister; the brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Senator Edward Kennedy.

Murders made to look like suicides and accidents. Classified government documents fallen into the wrong hands. Stolen diaries; some of them burned and shredded for fear of what, one day, they might reveal. Powerful people with dangerous agendas. Famous faces. The Feds prowling around. Hollywood conspiracies. CIA agents keeping watch. Frightened people with secrets to hide. Wild sex. Drugs. Crazy parties and flowing booze. And, an incredible story of UFOs, aliens, Roswell, Area 51, Flying Saucers, and the death of a beautiful, but tragically scarred, icon. Her name was Marilyn Monroe. In my mind, there’s zero doubt that the story of Marilyn, the CIA, aliens, the Kennedys, and UFOs is the most complicated and longstanding case I’ve ever investigated. And, that’s over the course of more than twenty-five years, on and off. What began as a study of a one-page document took me down some incredibly weird pathways – and put me in touch with people who ranged from the paranoid to the insightful and from the fascinating to the gullible.

Liars and fantasy-prone types were probably involved, too, but, unfortunately, it’s hard to say who should fall into this or that category. And there were the genuinely intriguing players in the story, and those who did their best to resolve it all, such as Don Burleson. As for the document itself, many might say the most likely scenario is that it was created by someone in the UFO research community; maybe to give the scene a bit of excitement. Or, possibly, that the very same Ufologist planned on jumping out of the shadows while simultaneously shouting “Gotcha!” and rubbing their hands with absolute glee about what a bunch of gullible pricks ufologists are. History, however, has shown that neither of those two scenarios played out in such a fashion. 

Before this book you’re reading right now, only one other person has written a book on the Speriglio document, the aforementioned Don Burleson. Paul Davids’ documentary, Marilyn Monroe Declassified, only included a small amount of material on the document and its contents – and near the very end of it. Here and there, you can find references to the document online. A number of articles have been written about it all; some online and others in magazines. A few people have lectured on the story. Beyond that? To be honest, not much at all. Ryan and Bob Wood addressed the case now and again. Bob’s book, Alien Viruses runs to 311 pages. There are, though, only twelve lines in the book on the Marilyn document. As for Ryan Wood, in Majic Eyes Only, he doesn’t make a nod to the document in the slightest. Both, though, were very intrigued by it. Milo Speriglio never made a single move to get a book deal out of the “UFOs and Marilyn” mystery. Now, let’s look at another theory, that of the Russians being at the helm.

The idea that the Soviets, in the 1980s, quietly and carefully fed American ufologists – who also happened to work in sensitive arms of the U.S. government – bogus stories and faked documents concerning UFOs, in return for real, highly-classified American secrets, is fascinating. CIA documentation revealed by Gerald K. Haines – in his position as the historian of the National Reconnaissance Office – shows that such a scenario really did play out. There’s also the important factor of the FBI’s 1987-1988 investigation of the Majestic 12 documents being titled “Espionage.” The word alone itself tells us a lot. Perhaps, the Speriglio document was the work of Russian intelligence, part of an operation that was aborted and found its way – somehow – to Timothy Cooper in 1995. Or, perhaps, the situation was the polar opposite; that we fed the Speriglio document to the Russians, who may not have fallen for whatever the ruse might have been and kicked it all the way back to Washington, D.C. 

What about those “constructs” that Thomas Cantwheel claimed were circulated to prevent American citizens from getting arrested for having classified material in their hands? Well, the problem here is we can’t even prove there ever was a Cantwheel. Cooper said he met him once and that was it. Maybe, he was really Albert Collins. Or, some other, old, wizened guy, ordered by his employers in the CIA – or some other agency - to perform one last operation before retirement or old age took him. Let’s now have a look at Lee Israel. She certainly fitted the picture. She was a skilled forger of documents, someone who had correspondence with the CIA, and someone who had written about Dorothy Kilgallen, Howard Rothberg, and the Kennedys, all of whom are mentioned in the Speriglio document. 

There is, also, the most incredible scenario of all; that the Speriglio document is the real thing. That Marilyn really was killed because she knew the truth about UFOs. Jose Bolaños told Anthony Summers that, in relation to Marilyn, something would “one day shock the whole world.” Even though I had my suspicions about Daniel Salter’s words to me on Marilyn, he certainly knew something, particularly so in relation to Kenneth Battelle and his friendship with Marilyn. How about the CIA file on Milo Speriglio I acquired? The man was definitely being watched for his writing and research concerning Marilyn. Also, there was “James” who worked out at Area 51. He provided fascinating information on how the document had a connection to the 1962 novel, Seven Days in May – and how the movie version of the book played a nod in the direction of Roswell, New Mexico.

All of that makes for head-spinning situations.I thought about ending this Conclusions section with the words of the late sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke. Of another famous mystery, that of the loch Ness Monster, Clarke said: “If you want my personal opinion, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I believe in Nessie.” To a degree, that’s how I feel about the Speriglio document. Maybe, it’s genuine. Perhaps, it isn’t. That’s not a cop-out or an example of sitting on the fence. All I can say for sure is that my investigation is not at its end. As long as new leads and threads keep coming along, I’ll still be looking for the answers to the most important question in this story: was Marilyn Monroe killed because of aliens? It's hard to figure out that question. Chiefly, because the whole thing is both bizarre and unlikely. Yet, when you dig deep into the story and the document combined, it all suggests that a new and a careful approach is wanted. By that, I mean the document is a very well put together piece of paper. And, it's clear that the names of the people in the document were deliberately used. Not because to make people open their eyes. But, to show that a lot of work had gone into the document.

So, these are all my very own, personal views on the UFO-Marilyn document. In one sense the document can be seen as an enigma. Or  a hoax. Or, the real thing. And the fact that a one-page document has been talked about since 1994 also shows something: namely, that people sat up and read it. They still do. I know that because I get a great deal of feedback from people who read my book on Marilyn. I will, however, say one more thing. And it's an intriguing thing: namely, that the story is not yet finished. There is something else. And that same "something else" is tied to the Marilyn document. I say it will provoke others who are already fascinated about the 1994 document. And, mainly, because one document is now four. I don't have the papers myself; not even a copy. But, I have been allowed to see it and read it, and I am allowed to say that the new document follows on from the 1994 revelation. I hope the document will surface soon. Chiefly because it will provoke more material and more sources. So, now that I've said that, keep a look out. The Marilyn-UFO story will definitely be resurrected, and with certain names and certain places involved. I won't be the one to reveal the document, though. When they surface, though, I'll let you know.