Some of the most prevalent UFO conspiracy theories — including about aliens being housed at 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.
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.
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.
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.
