Pentagon used UFO conspiracies to hide secret weapon programs: Report
A new report claims that the Pentagon used unidentified flying object (UFO) disinformation to hide secret weapon programs from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The report noted that the disinformation shared by the Pentagon resulted in multiple UFO conspiracy theories.
In a review of a 2024 Pentagon report on UFO sightings, The Wall Street Journal claimed that some of the most common theories regarding UFOs, including reports about aliens being held at Nevada's Area 51, were directly encouraged by the Pentagon to hide details on various secret weapon programs.
According to The Wall Street Journal, evidence based on interviews with roughly two dozen U.S. military contractors, scientists, and officials and thousands of pages of documents, emails, text messages, and recordings reportedly show that the U.S. government engaged in efforts to encourage UFO conspiracies since the 1950s.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon's 2024 report indicated that a Nevada bar owner near Area 51 was given fake photos of flying saucers near Area 51 by an Air Force colonel in the 1980s. The Air Force colonel told the Pentagon's investigators that he was given a mission at the time to share disinformation and protect the true objective of Area 51, which was to test the F-117 Nighthawk stealth airplane.
READ MORE: Video: Pentagon whistleblower says gov't restricting UFO retrieval info
According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. military determined that its secret weapon and technology programs could be hidden from the Soviet Union during the Cold War by encouraging UFO conspiracy theories.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Sean Kirkpatrick, the former director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, found multiple examples of the Pentagon spreading disinformation regarding UFO sightings, including an incident that involved the Air Force hazing multiple military members by introducing them to a fake unit allegedly responsible for investigating alien aircraft. The outlet noted that Kirkpatrick also determined that the government intentionally withheld information from the public regarding documented sightings of secret military projects.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Robert Salas, a former Air Force captain, said, 'This is a gigantic cover-up.'
In a statement obtained by The Wall Street Journal, the Department of Defense said, '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.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Hegseth says troops in LA are lawful. He just can't explain why.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday insisted the Pentagon's deployment of troops to Los Angeles was lawful. He just couldn't cite the law he was following. The Pentagon chief clashed with several lawmakers at a Senate budget hearing as he sought to defend President Donald Trump's decision to send thousands of troops, including 700 active-duty Marines, to California in response to mass deportation protests. But when asked to explain the legal underpinning that justifies the Marine deployment, the Defense secretary blanked. 'I'd have to pull up the specific provision,' he told Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). 'But our Office of General Counsel, alongside our leadership, has reviewed and ensured, in the order that we set out, that it's completely constitutional for the president to use federal troops to defend federal law enforcement.' When Baldwin pushed again, Hegseth said, 'It's in the order, ma'am, but we'll make sure we get it to you as well.' Hegseth, a former Fox News anchor who appears calm in front of the camera, faced a tougher time at Wednesday's Senate defense appropriations subcommittee than he did at a House budget hearing the day before. Democrats peppered him with questions about the domestic deployments, research budget cuts and the impact of tariffs on the defense industrial base. Republicans largely avoided focusing on Los Angeles, although they lashed out at him on Trump's tardy budget and approach to Ukraine. The Defense secretary argued the deployments to Los Angeles and along the southern border, where the military has 13,000 National Guard and active-duty troops, are necessary to protect the country. 'We very much support President Trump's focus on defending [the] homeland on our southern border,' he said, 'as well as supporting law enforcement officials doing their job in ICE in Los Angeles who deserve not to be assaulted, accosted and rioted while rounding up one of the 21 million illegals allowed in as an invasion under the previous administration.' But Democrats questioned whether the moves violated laws that govern the use of the military on U.S. soil. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) pressed Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine about the argument underpinning the orders. 'Is the United States being invaded by a foreign nation?' he asked. 'I don't see any foreign state-sponsored folks invading,' Caine replied. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) raised concerns about Trump politicizing the military, asking Hegseth whether he supported deploying the National Guard to the Capitol in response to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that sought to overturn the election. Hegseth would not say. 'All I know is it's the right decision to be deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles to defend ICE agents,' he said. Murphy called Hegseth's response evidence of a double standard. 'You are not willing to defend against attacks made on our democracy by supporters of the president, but you are willing to deploy the National Guard to protect against protestors who are criticizing the president,' he said. But it was Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the usually restrained Senate Armed Services Committee's ranking member, who was the most forceful in tone. He raised alarms about the Los Angeles deployment, as well as several Homeland Security requests for 20,000 more troops to assist at the border, for 'military forces to detain or arrest American citizens,' and to provide drone surveillance. 'Is it your intent to approve these requests?' Reed asked. 'Are you prepared to authorize DHS to use drones and also to authorize military forces to detain or arrest American citizens?' Hegseth did not respond directly, but defended the administration's actions. 'Every authorization we've provided the National Guard and the Marines in Los Angeles is under the authority of the President of the United States — is lawful and constitutional,' he said. 'They are assisting in defending law enforcement officers … executing their job in the city of Los Angeles.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Murdoch's Paper Unloads on RFK Jr. Over Axing Vaccine Board
A Rupert Murdoch-owned paper ripped into Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday for gutting the nation's top vaccine advisory panel. The Wall Street Journal published a scathing op-ed a day after Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, announced the firing spree at the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in the paper itself. The ACIP reports to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccine efficacy. The Secretary of Health and Human Services said he was 'retiring' all 17 members of the advisory committee on vaccines in a 'bold step' to help restore 'public trust.' The move raised alarm bells at a time when health experts fear vaccine skepticism is fueling the nation's largest measles outbreak in around 25 years. 'Most of ACIP's members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines,' Kennedy wrote, hinting at a plot to push vaccines on Americans. Murdoch's editorial board hit back: 'Mr. Kennedy's beef seems to be that the committee's members know something about vaccines and may have been involved in their research and development.' 'How does he define 'substantial'?' the board asked. The board noted that trial doctors get small payments, typically less than their salaries, from vaccine makers to assist with clinical trials. But 'these trials are double-blinded, meaning doctors don't know which volunteers receive the vaccine or placebo so there's no financial incentive to tilt the data in favor of manufacturers,' the board said. Any conflicts of interest among the committee were also 'honestly handled,' the board said. Kennedy said in a separate announcement that 'a clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science.' 'ACIP new members will prioritize public health and evidence-based medicine. The Committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas,' he added. Since joining the Trump administration in January, Kennedy, who is leading the Trump administration's 'Make America Healthy Again' initiative has doubled down on conspiracy theories around shots, including that the measles jab contain 'aborted fetus debris.' 'The MMR vaccine contains millions of particles that are derived from fetal tissue, millions of fragments of human DNA from aborted fetuses,' Kennedy told NBC News' Tom Llamas last month. Kennedy was referring to the combined Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine. Vaccines do not contain aborted fetuses, fetal cells, fetal DNA, or fetal debris, according to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The rubella component of the vaccine is developed from a fetal cell line known as WI-38 that originally came from the lung tissue of an elective abortion performed more than five decades ago. No new fetal issue has been used since, and cells used today are thousands of times removed from the original source. Health experts are alarmed by Kennedy's suggestions that the measles jab is unsafe, a claim which contradicts decades of research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The World Health Organization declared measles eliminated from the United States in 2000 due to the success of vaccination efforts. International travel and growing vaccine hesitancy are thought to be behind its resurgence. The American Medical Association has said Kennedy's decision to gut ACIP undermines 'trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives.' Kennedy wrote in his op-ed for the Journal that ACIP's new members 'won't directly work for the vaccine industry.' 'They will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry—unafraid to ask hard questions.' ACIP is set to hold its next meeting on June 25 at the CDC's headquarters.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Senate Democrats spar with Hegseth over legality of Los Angeles deployments
Senate Democrats sought to pick apart the Trump administration's legal rationale for sending National Guard troops and active-duty Marines into Los Angeles this week in what they called a wildly out-of-proportion response to sometimes violent protests against President Trump's escalating immigration sweeps. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) berated Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during an Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Pentagon's budget plans, saying the actions were undermining the readiness of America's military. 'You are deploying the American military to police the American people; you are sending the National Guard into California without the governor's request, sending the Marines not after foreign threats, but after American protesters; and now President Trump is promising heavy force against peaceful protesters at his D.C. military parade,' Murray said. 'Those sorts of actions and that sort of rhetoric from a president of the United States should stop every one of us cold,' she continued. 'Threatening to use our own troops on our own citizens at such scale is unprecedented, it is unconstitutional, and it is downright un-American.' Hegseth repeatedly told senators that every move taken by the Pentagon was constitutional, stemming from the president's authority, and that troops were in Los Angeles to protect federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers carrying out their duties in the city. 'It's about maintaining law and order on behalf of law enforcement agents who deserve to do their job without being attacked by mobs of people,' the Defense secretary told Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'And what your military is doing right now is laying concertina wire, guarding buildings, maintaining vehicles for other services,' Reed replied. 'This is not only, I think, illegal, but also a diminution of the readiness and the focus of the military.' Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) tried to drill down on how broadly Trump's orders to mobilize armed forces at anti-ICE protests could be applied across the country, noting that the initial order did not mention California specifically or any particular military units. 'It's just like, I get your justification. We disagree about the circumstances. I'm just trying to figure out, did you just potentially mobilize every guard everywhere, and every service member everywhere? I mean, create the framework for that, I understand you didn't,' Schatz said during the hearing. 'I'm saying, what does the document do, in your opinion?' Hegseth noted that orders had been issued for new batches of troops since that initial order, but he suggested it was meant to describe a nationwide authority. 'So, part of it is getting ahead of a problem,' he told Schatz. 'So that if in other places, if there are other riots, in places where law enforcement officers are threatened, we would have the capability to surge National Guard there, if necessary.' 'And thankfully, in most of those states, you'd have a governor that recognizes the need for it, supports it, and mobilizes it, him or herself,' the Pentagon chief continued. 'In California, unfortunately, the governor wants to play politics with it.' Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) later tried to pin down Hegseth on the precise constitutional statutes Trump was relying on to justify the troop deployments. 'The president made it clear that he relied on Section 12406 of Title 10 with regard to the National Guard troops,' Baldwin said. 'I need to know the authority that he is relying upon in terms of active-duty Marines being deployed to California.' Hegseth cited constitutional powers, which he said were outlined in Trump's order, but said he'd have to follow up with specific statutes. The president has also doubled down on his decision to deploy troops while calling out California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) for not ensuring federal agents were protected. 'The INCOMPETENT Governor of California was unable to provide protection in a timely manner when our Ice Officers, GREAT Patriots they are, were attacked by an out of control mob of agitators, troublemakers, and/or insurrectionists,' Trump wrote on Truth Social early Wednesday. In a subsequent post, the president added, 'If our troops didn't go into Los Angeles, it would be burning to the ground right now, just like so much of their housing burned to the ground. The great people of Los Angeles are very lucky that I made the decision to go in and help!!!' Newsom blasted Trump in a televised address on Tuesday night, warning his overreach would not remain isolated to California. 'This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next,' Newsom said. 'Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
