Trust no one: The Pentagon needs to come clean about UFO lies
Paging Fox Mulder: In a scene right out of 'The X-Files,' the Department of Defense has uncovered evidence that the Pentagon was behind one of the most notorious conspiracy theories about little green men.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, a tiny DOD crew tasked with investigating UFO sightings, found that the Pentagon itself planted the rumor that Area 51 was swarming with aliens.
In the 1980s, an Air Force colonel (no word if he was perpetually shrouded in cigarette smoke) gave fake photos of flying saucers near the base to a local bar owner: The idea was to cover for the development of the F-117 Nighthawk; any locals who caught a glimpse of the stealth fighter on a test flight would be predisposed to think it was extraterrestrial tech — and so get laughed off.
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In another episode of disinfo-spreading linked to the DOD, in 1996 a radio host received a piece of metal with a note claiming it came off an alien spaceship.
This wasn't wartime deception aimed at America's enemies, but peacetime disinformation fed to US citizens: Not what your taxes are supposed to pay for.
Nor were civilians the only victims of out-of-this-world military tall tales.
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The AARO also discovered a longstanding Air Force practice in which hundreds of new commanders of highly classified programs were reportedly given photos of a 'flying saucer,' told that they would be working on reverse-engineering the tech and sworn to secrecy.
Many of these men were never clued into the ruse, and so lived their lives with the belief that aliens were real, the government knew about it, and they could never tell anyone — not even their spouses.
That practice continued all the way up until 2023, and AARO investigators still don't know why the Air Force was psychologically tormenting its own officers. (One theory is that it was some idiot's idea of loyalty test.)
And these lies were far from harmless: As the Journal notes, the 'paranoid mythology the U.S. military helped spread now has a hold over a growing number of its own senior officials who count themselves as believers.'
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As well as the likes of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who forced the Defense Department to burn millions on ghost hunters and psychics seeking to contact the little green men.
And the Pentagon was still being shady last year, when it reported that the AARO's exhaustive search of the records had never found a shred of evidence of space aliens visiting earth . . . but omitted any mention of the military's own role in pushing disinformation.
Even now, the Defense Department owes the public a lot more: Come clean on every lie told in these deceptions, with the names of who made the calls to give Americans sham 'information.'
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Was this the work of a few rogue officers? Or a strategy approved by top brass over the decades?
However this got started, the Pentagon's duty now is to ensure that the full truth gets . . . out there.
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By insisting that Trump's troop deployment is unnecessary and provocative, Newsom and Bass are under more pressure to make sure that their forces, not Trump's, can keep a lid on the anger. Their officers have fired tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and a kind of less-than-lethal projectile known as a sponge grenade that leaves bruises and welts. One Australian television reporter was hit while doing a live report; many others have been shot at point-blank range. Over more than three days of street confrontations, there have been no deaths or reports of serious injuries. Some protesters gathered up the spent sponge munitions as souvenirs. With a hard foam nose and a thick plastic base, they resemble Nerf darts from hell. I met one protester, carrying a camera, who wore a bandage around his forearm where he'd been struck minutes earlier. Castro—he wouldn't give me his first name—told me that he was a 39-year-old security guard whose parents are from El Salvador. He likened the pain to a sprained ankle. 'I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I support, I love, I stand for America. I love the USA,' he told me. 'I'm here today to support our people of Los Angeles. That's it.' Some Democrats outside the state have chafed at the sight of protesters waving Mexican flags and those of other nations, which Trump officials have seized upon as evidence of anti-Americanism. Protesters told me the flags of their or their parents' home countries are not intended as a sign of loyalty to another nation. Quite a few protesters waved the Stars and Stripes too, or a hybrid of the American flag and their home country's. Hailey, a 23-year-old welder carrying a Guatemalan flag, told me she wanted to display her heritage at a protest that brought together people from all over. That was part of belonging to California, she said: 'I was born on American soil, but I just think it's appropriate to celebrate where my family is from. 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Newsom and Bass seem keen to avoid the price they would pay politically if that were to occur here, but for now they are caught between the need to suppress the violent elements of the protests and their desire to blame the White House for fanning the flames. [Anne Applebaum: This is what Trump does when his revolution sputters] Trump officials say they have delighted in the imagery of L.A. mayhem and foreign-flag waving, but they face a threat, too, if protests spread beyond blue California and become a nationwide movement. That would take pressure off Newsom and Bass. Doe Hain, a retired teacher I met in Pasadena this week holding a Save Democracy sign for passing motorists, told me that the ICE push into California symbolizes the worst fears of an authoritarian takeover by a president unfazed by the idea of turning troops against Americans. 'I don't really think I can protest the existence of ICE as a federal agency, but we can protest the way that they're doing things,' Hain said. 'They're bypassing people's rights and the laws, and that's not right.' Few people I spoke with said they thought the protests in Los Angeles would diminish, even if more troops arrive in the city. There have been fewer reports of ICE raids since the protests erupted, and one Home Depot I visited on Monday—south of Los Angeles, in Huntington Park—had had only a handful of arrests that day, bystanders told me. ICE teams had moved to other locations in Southern California and the Central Valley. They will surely be back. At a minimum, Miller and other Trump officials have come away from this round of confrontations with the imagery they wanted. Today, DHS released a none-too-subtle social-media ad with a dark, ominous filter, featuring the flaming Waymos, Mexican flags, looters, and rock throwers. 'RESTORE LAW AND ORDER NOW!' it said, with the number for an ICE tip line. It fades out on an image of a burning American flag. Article originally published at The Atlantic
