The Pentagon secretly planted Area 51 UFO conspiracy theory to hide secret weapons program
Some of the most prevalent UFO conspiracy theories — including about aliens being housed a Area 51 in Nevada — were fueled by the Pentagon in an attempt to provide cover for secret weapons programs, according to a bombshell report.
A review by the Department of Defense found that in the 1980s, an Air Force colonel visited a Nevada bar near Area 51 and gave the owner fabricated photos of flying saucers near the secret government base, according to a review of the 2024 report by the Wall Street Journal.
The incident renewed local fervor over UFOs, with the now-retired colonel confessing to Pentagon investigators that he was on an official mission to spread disinformation and hide the true purpose of the site, where the government was testing the first-ever stealth warplane, the F-117 Nighthawk.
5 The Pentagon found that at the origin of some of the UFO conspiracy theories came from the Department of Defense itself, the details of which were kept out of last year's transparency report.
AP
5 Several of the theories stemmed from the agency's need to keep its newly developed aircraft and weapons programs concealed near Area 51.
AP
The military reasoned that the best way to keep its new technology hidden from the Soviet Union's prying eye during the Cold War was to bury it amid the trove of conspiracy theories surrounding Area 51, investigators found.
The incident is just one of several where government agencies allegedly played up America's UFO mythology for the purpose of protecting its military assets, according to the 2024 report.
Other military attempts to obscure secret projects with conspiracy theories were not made public.
Sean Kirkpatrick, the first director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), was the man tasked by the government to dissect countless UFO theories in 2022.
As his office probed decades of documents, memos and messages across the Defense Department, he found several conspiracy theories that circled back to the Pentagon itself.
5 The report raises questions about new reports of UFOs released by the Pentagon, including this 2020 footage from Navy pilots.
DoD/AFP via Getty Images
5 The Area 51 conspiracy theory was planted to hide the development of the F-117, the world's first stealth fighter jet.
REUTERS
In one instance, Kirkpatrick's team found that the Air Force hazed members with briefings introducing them to a fake 'Yankee Blue' unit that purported investigated alien aircraft.
The briefings came with a direct order never to mention the details to anyone, with many of the targets of the prank never learning it was all a ruse, according to interviews with Kirkpatrick's team.
The bizarre practice was still taking place during the investigation, with the Pentagon eventually sending an order across the DOD in 2023 to finally put an end to it.
It remains unclear why officials presented subordinates with the fake briefings, with rumors speculating it could have been used as a loyalty test or to spread misinformation.
Kirkpatrick also found that the government deliberately left people in the dark when they witnessed secret military projects, according to the WSJ.
Robert Salas, a former Air Force captain, was one of those people. Salas claims he witnessed a UFO descend over a nuclear missile testing site in Montana in 1967.
During the event, a flashing light was able to disable all 10 nuclear missiles at the bunker, along with all electrical systems.
5 One the rumors stemmed from years of officers hazing subordinates about the existence of a supposed UFO program, a well-known practice the Pentagon put a stop to in 2023.
AP
He was ordered to never discuss what he saw, with Salas maintaining that he witnessed alien visitors chiming in on the Cold War.
Kirkpatrick's team, however, discovered that Salas was never told that what he actually saw was a test of a fledging electromagnetic pulse test to see if American silos could withstand the radiation of atomic weapons and retaliate if the Soviet Union ever attacked first.
With the test failing, officials decided that it was best no one knew the secret of the vulnerability, so Salas and the other witnesses were intentionally left in the dark to make their own conclusions.
The DOD has acknowledged that not everything has been made public about the AARO's discoveries, but the military claims it will be more transparent in its follow up report scheduled for later this year.
'The department is committed to releasing a second volume of its Historical Record Report, to include AARO's findings on reports of potential pranks and inauthentic materials,' the DOD said in a statement.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
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Hegseth brings warfighter mentality to media relations
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Chief Pentagon spokesperson and senior adviser Sean Parnell has briefed the press on camera once since taking on the role in February, and Hegseth has yet to address reporters in the department's briefing room. When Hegseth does address the media, it's mostly from the White House alongside President Trump or while he is traveling. But he has shaped how he is covered on those trips by limiting the number of reporters that come with him — on some trips handpicking those from more right-leaning outlets that skew toward favorable coverage of the department. When Hegseth traveled to Guantánamo Bay in late February, he took just one reporter, his former colleague, Fox News host Laura Ingraham. Hegseth and Parnell have instead put out near-weekly 'situation reports,' video updates from the Pentagon that espouse positive headlines and commitments to 'transparency.' The DOD Rapid Response X account both plays up positive news about Hegseth and denigrates news stories and reporters that show him in a negative light. Alex Wagner, a former Pentagon official-turned-public affairs professor at Syracuse University, said the channeling of all communication into 'easily retweeted videos that are highly scripted without any chance for questions' undermines service members and confidence that defense leaders have their best interests at heart. 'It's absolutely critical that the people who are serving and sacrificing and their families understand not only what is happening to service members and their dependents, but also why it's happening,' Wagner told The Hill. 'I'm just surprised President Trump and his team are allowing it, given their repeated affirmations that they are running the most transparent administration in history,' he added, pointing to the contrast with the White House and State Department, where officials regularly brief the media. Things are only getting worse for the Pentagon press corps. Just working in the building has become arduous for many outlets after Hegseth's office in early February took away the desks of eight legacy media outlets: NBC News, The New York Times, NPR, Politico, CNN, The Washington Post, The Hill and The War Zone. The reporters had to vacate their spaces for outlets more sympathetic to the Trump administration, including One America News Network, the New York Post, Breitbart News, Newsmax, the Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller and The Free Press. The department called the shifts a 'media rotation program,' but the move was bashed by the Pentagon Press Association, which called it 'unreasonable.' Later that same month, the Pentagon banned reporters from the press briefing room unless officials were holding a briefing — which has only happened once in more than five months. This barred media from one of the few places in the building that had access to Wi-Fi to file stories. 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CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
I hope the U.S.-China trade talks go well. But I worry we don't have the cards
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Shouldn't our top priority be the production of things like rare earths, which are essential inputs into the products we're pushing companies to make here, like smartphones? On that note, how is it possible that the U.S. government let the Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California amass such a troubled history, beginning with the production suspension in 2002? MP Materials now owns it and is reviving it, part of its plan to be a fully integrated producer of rare earth permanent magnets in the U.S. However, the previous company that owned the mine with the goal of resurrecting it, Molycorp, ended up filing for bankruptcy . MP Materials went public in November 2020 through a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. That was all the rage back then, and so many of those SPAC deals were busts. Now here we are at a fraught geopolitical moment, and a former SPAC — admittedly a good one, at least — has control of Mountain Pass. 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I don't think slow-walking liquified natural gas exports to China, as vital as they can be, is enough to offset China's leverage on rare earths. The recent decision to restrain U.S. companies from shipping ethane to China is not going to counterbalance the rare earth dominance. Could we really be that bush league? Now it all comes down to something we have — less-powerful version of Club name Nvidia's artificial intelligence processors — to trade for access to rare earth minerals, a deal that can only work if we start a rare earth Manhattan Project to extricate from our ridiculous dependence. A dual-track Nvidia deal and a Molybdenum Manhattan Project might work. 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He wants to punish China for everything it has done and punish every American company for doing what it was supposed to do for the last 30 years, which is to open plants in China, and for the last five years, which is to move those plants to Vietnam. But these are small-time measures compared with getting us off the rare earth addiction, something so strategically important. As investors, we want these talks to go well. As it is, everything seems like a sideshow to our China showdown. And without a Supreme Court ruling saying Trump really does have a right to implement these broad-based tariffs, if I were the leader of any country, I might just want to play a wait-and-see game betting that Trump would obey the Supreme Court. So, let's hope something's accomplished in London between the two sides. But until I hear that Nvidia chief Jensen Huang has been told to divert from the company's Paris GTC being held this week, I sense that there's a nothing-done situation brewing. That could be disappointing for those who are still playing the "no more tariffs, let's buy stocks" game. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long NVDA. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
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