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Disinformation has a tendency to metastasize. Lies mutate with each retelling until the final product looks nothing like the original source. This phenomenon is particularly striking in the world of UFOs, where decades of institutional secrecy have created fertile ground for speculation to flourish.
Late last week, The Wall Street Journal published a report revealing how various governmental and military agencies have been spreading disinformation about UFOs since at least the 1950s. Based on research conducted by the congressionally mandated All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) that was never made public, the WSJ report sheds light on (or explains away) UFO events as varied as Area 51, the Malmstrom nuclear missile incident, and the Air Force’s “Yankee Blue” program—three events that have shaped public opinion on UFOs for decades, and, according to the report, were themselves shaped by official disinformation. If this report is accurate, much of what people believe about UFOs is wrong because of deliberate lies fed to us by our government.
The mystery of Area 51 solved?
Any UFO buff will tell you that Area 51, part of the Air Force’s Nevada Test and Training Range in Nevada, is where the alien bodies and UFO wreckage are stored. It’s the nexus of countless extraterrestrial conspiracy theories, and, according to the new information, it’s partly due to an ad-hoc Air Force disinformation campaign.
According to the AARO, back in the 1980s, an Air Force colonel visited a bar close to the military testing ground and started spinning a tale of UFOs. He had pictures too, which he dropped off to the bartender, who promptly posted them above the bar. But the pictures were fakes. According to the testimony of the retired Air Force colonel, the idea was to create confusion about sightings of the F-117 Nighthawk. Any reported sighting of a strange craft in the air over Nevada could be lumped in with thousands of other UFO reports instead of taken seriously by the Soviets. Even after the end of the Cold War, countless bar patrons were probably shown the UFO pictures and went home and told their friends, and so the game of UFO telephone continues.
The weird story of “Yankee Blue”
Now we’re moving on from Cold War strategic disinformation to internal military trolling. For decades, it was common for Air Force officers to be briefed on a supposed top-secret project called “Yankee Blue.” They were handed photos of UFO, told about the Air Force’s effort to reverse engineer crashed alien spacecraft, and sworn to secrecy. But there was no “Yankee Blue.” According to the AARO’s research, Yankee Blue was a kind of hazing—a prank, bro. The DOD ordered that people stop pulling this joke in 2023.
I’m sure UFO true believers would say, “Of course they’d say it was a prank. What better way to keep it covered up if anyone talks?” and there’s some logic to that, but on the other hand, making up UFO stories to see if they new guy will believe them seems so relatable, I think Occam’s razor suggests it’s true. It would be funny to see who believed it and who didn’t. Still, there’s no way of knowing how many military official bought it, how many spilled the beans to their buddies after some drinks, and how these stories affected the larger culture’s views about UFOs.
The Malmstrom UFO incident debunked?
It’s not as well-known as Area 51, but the Malmstrom UFO incident has been often repeated in UFO circles. According to UFO lore, a flying saucer showed up and shut down a battery of intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles. According to the AARO’s report, that didn’t happen.
On March 24, 1967, 26-year-old Air Force Lieutenant Robert Salas was deep underground at the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, overseeing 10 Minuteman missiles. The phone rang, and a non-commissioned officer frantically reported seeing an oval-shaped UFO, glowing red and hovering over the front gate of the installation. Then, according to Salas, the missiles’ guidance systems were shut down, preventing them from being launched. The missiles were not damaged and were back online in a day, but Salas was visited by Air Force officials who swore him to secrecy.
But according to the AARO’s report, the missile systems’ malfunction was the result of a secret electromagnetic pulse test to see if the silos could withstand the results of a nuclear attack and remain operational. Judging by the result, the missiles failed the test. Possibly in the interest of limiting how many people would know the silo couldn’t respond to a first strike, the Powers the Be apparently decided to not reveal the test to Salas or anyone else affected.
Salas did keep quiet until the mid 1990s, but then he started recounting the incident publicly. Among other high profile appearances, Salas has testified before congress, written a book about the incident, and testified before the AARO itself, always telling the same story of how the UFOs shut down the missile because, in his view, they don’t approve of nuclear weapons—a story that is (at least according to this report) entirely untrue.
What’s the harm in a little disinformation?
The incidents documented by the Wall Street Journal are only a few of the many instances of UFO disinformation spread by the U.S. government. The CIA and the Air Force routinely lied about UFO sightings throughout the Cold War. The Air Force supposedly had a full-time disinformation guy whose job was to mislead thought leaders in the UFO community. But, like, why? They have to be covering something up, right? Maybe. But maybe they’re just hiding themselves.
Many in the UFO community regard governmental disinformation as an attempt to draw attention away from the real story of the aliens—say, the treaties we’ve signed with the gray aliens. When some researcher stumbles on proof of the grand alien-hiding scheme it’s much more effective for the government to bury it in lies, to make UFO people look like kooks, than to try to suppress it.
But as these three examples indicate, a more likely explanation is that the government is covering up its own dull secrets and embarrassing failures, even from itself: Experimental spy planes need to be hidden from the public and failed nuclear test need to be hidden from others in the military, so they just make shit up and feed it to the right people.
It’s bad enough that a respected military officer like Robert Salas spent his whole life describing a UFO attack that never happened and that Air Force officers kept a deep secret that was actually a joke, but there are broader consequences. People’s lives are wasted researching bogus claims made by cynical officials. Trust in government and institutions becomes laughable. And if there’s any actual truth about UFOs out there, it becomes harder to find. In trying to keep their secrets, the government didn’t just distort our understanding of aliens—they rewrote a corner of our cultural reality, one lie at a time.
