Pentagon UFO disinformation revealed
In June 2025 the Wall Street Journal reported AARO findings that the military itself had planted UFO myths, including fake saucer photos near Area 51.
2025 CE · 37.24, -115.79 · status: official
The account
According to the report, a retired Air Force colonel admitted to AARO investigators in 2023 that in the 1980s he gave doctored flying-saucer photos to a bar owner near Area 51, on orders, to divert attention from the secret F-117 stealth jet. It also described a hazing ritual in which at least a dozen personnel were introduced to a fictional alien-investigation programme called 'Yankee Blue'. The Pentagon said a follow-up to its Historical Record Report would cover such disinformation and hazing. The Wall Street Journal report by Joel Schectman and Aruna Viswanatha appeared on 6 June 2025. Its opening says AARO's congressionally ordered probe found that at least one UFO conspiracy theory had been fed by the Pentagon itself, starting with an Air Force colonel who gave saucer photos to a bar owner near Area 51 in the 1980s.
The sceptical view
Disclosure advocates say real programmes could hide behind fake ones; Eric Weinstein, for instance, argues that faked UFOs cover real aerospace work. Sceptics see the story as explaining a large part of the modern UFO mythology.
Connections in the atlas
- Eric Weinstein on UFOs and hidden physics
- Area 51 (Groom Lake)
- AARO Historical Record Report, Vol. 1
- AARO established