How The Pentagon Invented UFO Stories To Hide Top-Secret Weapons

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And that July 2022 congressional hearing wasn't the first time whistleblowers sounded the UAP alarm. In 2022, officials created a new department called the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to address concerns related to all things extraterrestrial.

When the office was founded, the task force had two main jobs. The first was to collect data on UAP sightings, most of which they chalked up to balloons, satellites, and birds. The second was to investigate claims that the Pentagon operated a secret division to harvest alien technology; shockingly, the team found the Pentagon was doing quite the opposite.

AARO discovered that Washington was behind at least one myth about extraterrestrial spacecrafts, according to a bombshell Wall Street Journal report published earlier this month. Some of the fabrications uncovered by Sean Kirkpatrick, the former head of AARO, seem unthinkable. Others align suspiciously well with the alleged experiences of recent whistleblowers—who may have unknowingly perpetuated UFO myths, themselves.

One of the schemes started back in the 1980s just outside what is perhaps the most iconic UFO site in the world: Area 51 . The Pentagon team interviewed a now-retired Air Force colonel who admitted that he fed doctored images of flying saucers to a nearby bar to create a cover for the top-secret site. Unbeknownst to locals, the Air Force was developing advanced stealth fighters to gain a critical post-Cold-War edge on the Soviet Union. Officials felt it was better to let the public think they saw a UAP rather than risk leaking information about U.S. weapons developments to the Soviets.

Kirkpatrick and his team also investigated an incident from 1967 when a group of Airmen saw a glowing orange oval hovering above the front gates of their outpost.

Shortly after, an alarm sounded, telling the Air Force captain, Robert Salas, that their missiles were disabled. According to the Journal , Salas told Kirkpatrick that he was taken back to base and ordered never to discuss the incident. Despite the command, the five witnesses began sharing their experiences with the media several years later.