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I saw an interview with this guy just yesterday. He didn't see anything himself. His claim is that some people, and he believes them to be trustworthy, confided

I saw an interview with this guy just yesterday. He didn't see anything himself. His claim is that some people, and he believes them to be trustworthy, confided in him and showed him some documents. So, at best his testimony is hearsay. All of this stuff reeks of some kind of psyop. My belief is that for some reason, the US government used psychology tests to identify a select few people who naturally "want to believe". These individuals would take vague evidence and through their own nature would exaggerate and fill in the blanks. They then nudged those individuals with carefully curated credible fake evidence. Then they just sat back and waited for a few of those guys to "leak" the information.

newZWhoDis 3y ago
If this is a psyop that’s still huge news. These are fantastic claims from a highly ranked and decorated member of the IC, released with official backing/DoD preAuth Someone has some explaining to do
- op00to 3y ago
  What official backing?
  - hugh-avherald 3y ago
    He applied for permission to disclose this to journalists and that application was approved by the Pentagon.
KETpXDDzR 3y ago
Sounds like the plot of the x-files.
fnordsensei 3y ago
To what end?
- hervature 3y ago
  Why would the organization that would be expected to protect our skies want to make people believe there is something to protect our skies?
  - avidphantasm 3y ago
    Why would they want to make people believe there are things they can’t protect us from?
- GartzenDeHaes 3y ago
  Is it conspiracy theory time? "... the conspiracy theory Project Blue Beam, which concerns an alleged plot to facilitate a totalitarian world government by destroying traditional religions and replacing them with a new-age belief system using NASA technology."
  - VincentEvans 3y ago
    Take my money
- TheSpiceIsLife 3y ago
  Demonstration of psyops capabilities; entertainment.
- zoogeny 3y ago
  I have no idea on the specifics for this particular operation, but in the general case [1] The purpose of United States psychological operations is to induce or reinforce behavior perceived to be favorable to U.S. objectives. In the context of UFOs, UAPs or whatever ... some possibilities are to hide advanced defense programs or to confuse potential enemy intelligence efforts. In fact, for an operation like this I would guess there are probably a dozen strategic objectives and not just one. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(Unit...
- typeofhuman 3y ago
bragr 3y ago
Why does it have to be a conspiracy? Some small but significant portion of the population is mentally ill, and it seems likely a few would hear a joke ("we keep the alien space ships through that door, I'd show you but I'd have to kill you"), take it way too literally, and it becomes the focus of their mental illness. That seems not only possible but probable given the size the military industrial complex.
- xref 3y ago
  > likely few would hear a joke… take it way too literally… This is the premise of about half of I Think You Should Leave skits
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    Have you seen the new season? Honestly they're hit or miss.
    - BinaryMachine 3y ago
      55 BURGERS 55 FRIES 55 TACOS
      - wussboy 3y ago
        This has quickly become legend in my house
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago
      All sketch comedy in a nutshell.
- aaron695 3y ago
  [dead]
- zoogeny 3y ago
  > Why does it have to be a conspiracy? Some of his claims, if you believe them, point towards coordinated activities. For example, he claims that an intelligence official, who he had known and worked with for a long time and who he trusted, pulled him aside and confided in him about this project. This intelligence official mentioned a particular project name. He then claims that later a totally different intelligence agent independently confided in him the same details as well as the same project name. He claims that ultimately he was furnished documentation evidence of this project which he refuses to provide to media (due to national security issues) but which he has provided to congress. I'm relating what he said in the interview. He could be making that all up. However, if he is relating actual events then there is a coordinated group of intelligence agents working towards the same goal.
quickthrowman 3y ago
> All of this stuff reeks of some kind pf psyop. In this case, I agree. I usually try to avoid conspiratorial thinking and conspiracy theories, but the DoD and related agencies have been putting out all kinds of information about UFOs in the past few years. My question is: why? The DoD isn’t known for their public relations. My best speculative guess is that they’re claiming they’ve found alien craft and exotic alien materials because the US is testing aircraft that appear alien with exotic materials and don’t want other nation states to assume it is even terrestrial so they don’t attempt to replicate the technology. There must be a reason behind the UFO media blitz that has happened lately, it’s not like they’re releasing the info to keep the public informed. Anyone have other ideas? It could be grifters looking to sell a story, mentally ill people misunderstanding jokes or inventing things out of whole cloth, etc. P.S. I believe intelligent life may exist elsewhere in the universe, but that we’ve never been visited and will never be visited due to the distances involved.
- ausqb 3y ago
  > There must be a reason behind the UFO media blitz They already told us exactly why. Because there are unexplained phenomena which may pose a risk to national security, and they want to know more. Their intent is to reduce the stigma so that pilots and others are less afraid to report unusual sightings for proper investigation. You don't have to believe in aliens to see the sense in this.
- bagels 3y ago
  But who is the messaging intended for? Foreign military intelligence agencies can draw the same conclusions, that this is some kind of misdirection, and that it's more likely a cover for US or Chinese weapons tech, they're not dumb.
  - quickthrowman 3y ago
    You make a very good point, I’m going to stick with the grifter/liar/mentally ill thesis instead.
    - 3y ago
transducers 3y ago
I share the opinion that it is psyop and it is a very long running project. At one level it is a nice psyop platform - like Star Trek for the psychological warfare professionals. Over the years they have influenced American thought about the government to a great degree. X-Files. For example, most Americans, and this “whistleblower” here, now accept that elements in the US government are operating entirely outside of the overview and control of the government, where the executive and legislature do not have “the clearance” to be informed about it. Emotionally it is also slowly preparing humanity for the possibility of a confrontation with a power that we possibly can not resist and must obey. Aliens may turn out to have strong theological and sociological views that they want to share with us. This is more than just slowly boiling the constitutional frog in the cauldron of “national security”. Somewhat /g more far fetched but definitely one reason to have ex intelligence grandees from Mosad and CIA (and now this man) come and tell us all about aliens in our midst.
- jasonvorhe 3y ago
  This is my thinking as well. Though the entire Admiral Byrd, Antarctica, supposed Nazi tech and Operation Paperclip, Werner von Braun founding NASA lends some credibility to the idea that there might be a weirder angle the tech aspect at least. Combine "alien tech" with a tumbling empire and this would get ugly. Not a believer myself, but it was an interesting deep dive.
- nprateem 3y ago
  Sorry, how long is this supposed to take? You're saying we're going to be dominated by aliens and must be prepared for that? That's not how conquests normally work is it? There's no consent involved. And you're also saying this 'preparation' has been happening for 70 years? How long have we got before they actually arrive and how much prep do we need? This is all complete bollocks
  - transducers 3y ago
    There is no invasion as there are no aliens. It is psyop. A genre (“platform”) of psyop has been tried out over the years, and a developing thread (based on other propaganda channels, such as fiction, and film) is the coming ‘encounter’. Here “US is urged to reveal UFO evidence” is published by a major Western establishment press, The Guardian, based on 2nd hand information and not on actual personally witnessed evidence. The issue of having “major world religions” that are not in accord (per orthodox understanding of respective faithful) remains an issue for establishment of a uniform social order on the planet. It’s going to be difficult to have a world government without a unified world religion. “Aliens” can help with that. As a thought exercise, imagine aliens have landed. Aliens could inform us that for example ‘angels’ were really the aliens and that we sadly misunderstood their messages. Various syncretic efforts have also been ongoing since at least 19th century (“new age”) so the ground has been well prepared. To conclude the exercise, ask yourself what impact this will have on your belief system.
markus_zhang 3y ago
Wait, that David Grusch guy never saw those stuffa despite that he led the analysis? This is weird. How can you do analysis without seeing the real thing?
heavyset_go 3y ago
> I saw an interview with this guy just yesterday. He didn't see anything himself. His claim is that some people, and he believes them to be trustworthy, confided in him and showed him some documents. So, at best his testimony is hearsay. This is the same MO as Stephen Greer's grift about the same thing. Greer claims that he was given access to classified documents and information that say the government is hiding their knowledge of, and interactions with, aliens and UFOs.
- monetus 3y ago
  I have a family member who won't stop consuming everything about Steven Greer on youtube, and I don't know what to do about it. It is driving me crazy and I just have to tell someone, sorry.
  - JKCalhoun 3y ago
    My sense is that you could remove Steven Greer and it would be something else? Sorry I have a rather pessimistic take.
    - monetus 3y ago
      JFK conspiracy theory content is second to the "antigravity technology stolen from aliens" on her list, so you're not wrong, but Steven Greer has the same reach as those fricken JFK conventions. He'll never go away...
      - sitkack 3y ago
        Replace it with Game of Thrones?
    - varelse 3y ago
      [dead]
  - King-Aaron 3y ago
    Didn't he start seeing ghosts or some such and started a spiritual ritual camp thing in the desert?
blazespin 3y ago
It's hilarious watching how HN upvotes insane theory instead of crazy theory. Wild times! There is a very very simple explanation, which is that everything he says is true. There is a secret program, they did reverse engineer, they did withhold it from congress, and people did tell him that there is alien stuff. Why make up silly make believe? The guy isn't claiming 'oh i saw aliens'. He could simply be telling the absolute truth. Why so many people told him there were aliens, I dunno, but who cares. Those people aren't the ones whistleblowing and so it doesn't really matter, does it? I for one believe the guy, 100% My only complaint is that perhaps he should probably be a bit more circumspect about what actually exists.
- petesergeant 3y ago
  > There is a very very simple explanation I’m not sure an explanation that presupposes FTL travel is very very simple
  - keskival 3y ago
    Why would faster than light travel be presupposed in any way?
    - petesergeant 3y ago
      Where do we think the aliens came from, specifically, without it?
      - dan_mctree 3y ago
        They could be von Neumann probes having travelled for a long time. Even without FTL travel, von Neumann probes could colonize an entire galaxy in reasonable time (a few million years). Even just a single successful civilization somewhere in the milky way or even a neighboring galaxy could've accomplished that
        neuronic 3y ago
neltnerb 3y ago
I'd also assume this is just a psyop, though more in the more general propaganda sense. You want other countries to both overestimate and underestimate you. If other countries think there's a serious possibility that the US has alien technology then they'll be extra cautious. I doubt anyone buys it, personally. But propaganda operations definitely have unintended consequences, I'd personally guess that experiments on the population's willingness to believe the government is at most a side effect. After all, there's wacky stuff like flat earth or refusing to believe in irrational numbers that has no meaningful international relations impact.
- mr_toad 3y ago
  What is it about the US that makes aliens always crash land there? It’s not even the biggest country by land area. And it’s only a small percentage of the total land area of earth. And while we’re at it, why do aliens always crash land where the number of witnesses is close to one? It almost makes you think that all these phenomena are observer dependent.
  - jay_kyburz 3y ago
    Tunguska is not in the US? Roswell was just a badly kept secret. Perhaps other countries are better at keeping secrets.
  - asveikau 3y ago
    That is discussed in TFA. It has a quote that multiple countries probably have evidence.
King-Aaron 3y ago
> I saw an interview with this guy just yesterday. He didn't see anything himself. His claim is that some people, and he believes them to be trustworthy, confided in him and showed him some documents Wasn't he in charge of or in the higher end of the government led agency to investigate these things? He doesn't seem to be a nobody just saying he saw things, it was his job to investigate it for the government? And if the Inspector General is involved, along with the dudes lengthy time in front of congress, surely it's likely that evidence was presented to higher levels of government that the public still can't see legally. I get that this may be a psyop kind of thing, but writing it off as 'he didn't see anything' seems like an incorrect position to hold.
- graderjs 3y ago
  Grusch also brought these people in front of Congressional oversight committees to testify. There should be more info from Grusch dropping soon on NewsNation or the Need to Know podcast. They did a 7 hour interview with him, as they talk about in this behind-the-scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQjbFZT9_EM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQjbFZT9_EM
- jonathanstrange 3y ago
  However, one thing that every government employee knows is that they can't arrest you for fictional stories. In contrast, if you're saying the truth, then you're facing decades in prison. So what are you going to do if you need to make some money with books and talks, etc. Tell the truth or lie?
  - StanislavPetrov 3y ago
    >However, one thing that every government employee knows is that they can't arrest you for fictional stories. They certainly can arrest you for fictional stories told under oath and in sworn statements (which is what this whistleblower gave).
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > but writing it off as 'he didn't see anything' seems like an incorrect position to hold. Why incorrect? He specifically says he didn't see anything.
glenstein 3y ago
>All of this stuff reeks of some kind of psyop. Ugh, I was 100% with you until this point. This is speculative, fantastical, and I think serves to discredit the sober and calm pushback of the type exhibited in the first half of your comment. And that is desperately needed in a moment like this.
- anon291 3y ago
  No it's really not fantastical. We have no physical evidence of extraterrestrials but we do have physical evidence that the CIA engages in sometimes ridiculous operations to psychologically manipulate people. I mean if you told someone the CIA did mind control experiments in the 60s they'd think your nuts. But we know today with certainty they did, often with tragic consequence. So, the bayesian priors, given that in the course of humanity or even prehistorically there is no certain evidence of aliens, and plenty of evidence of weirdo government manipulation and innumerable examples of propaganda, should be skewed in the favor of any new fantastical governmental claim to be yet another silly operation by some three letter agency. Until someone procures a body or craft of certain non human origin, this is the only reasonable course of action.
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    > We have no physical evidence of extraterrestrials but we do have physical evidence that the CIA engages in sometimes ridiculous operations to psychologically manipulate people That’s true. And I would even say a CIA psyop is more likely than aliens. But its still purely speculative.
    - glenstein 3y ago
      Right, and evidence free indulgences into fan fiction speculation about the CIA etc etc are unnecessary detours.
  - breck 3y ago
    If you define aliens as a long separated branch on the tree of life with significantly more advanced technology, then alien encounters are more common in history (hawai’i in 1790’s being most recent i can think of). So mathematically its rare, but perhaps an experience of 1% of societies . And perhaps strongly correlated with one branch undergoing a rapid technological advance. i think it’s perfectly rationale and not fantastical, as long as its kept in mind that its a low probability event.
tomphoolery 3y ago
That literally did happen so it's not out of the question to believe such a thing :D
pmarreck 3y ago
Or, they know that you're exactly the person who might have a psychological fracture when actual evidence actually emerges from the cloistered tower.
emmelaich 3y ago
My experience with military people is that they all put in an impressive veneer of seriousness and respectability -- but some of them are just as nutty as anyone.
everybodyknows 3y ago
There's a simple, rational explanation: The man needs to make a living. Lectures, documentaries, a book. > He left the government in April after a 14-year career in US intelligence. A government pension requires 20 years IIRC. Grusch is only 36. The formula: Tell the truth where possible, be vague but suggestive about the rest. And of course there were secret UFO programs -- if something from Baikonur shows up here, wouldn't it be better if the Kremlin thought it might still remain secret? So sensing, reporting, collecting efforts would be classified.
- dmix 3y ago
  My mom would 100% buy anything this guys says. It's a clever business idea. Especially with all of those recent flaky gov videos people are eating up wholesale, without any concept of what it actually means to do interstellar travel while simultaneously having invisible motherships. And the only 'evidence' comes from US pilots in a particular height in the sky, never on the ground or visible in space via telescopes... Curious how that works. Just spacecraft zipping around at 30k feet all day in random directions and never going visibly above or below that. Some guy misinterpreting documents about foreign or unknown materials or objects is probably par for the course here. It's also funny/predictable aliens would be discovered exclusively in the US and withheld from Congress by black suits.
  - Loquebantur 3y ago
    The New York Times is said to have an article in the works for sunday, providing more background presumably. Funny, how HN is/isn't reacting to "US in possession of non-human technology".
    - vaidhy 3y ago
      From the comments, you desperately want to believe in this non-human thing for whatever reasons. No one else believes that is actually true. So far, your arguments are that Grusch is telling the truth and no one is listening to him. You have ignored all the contrary evidence including the fact there is nothing documented, he has repeated what someone has said to him and that our sensors and our senses are not infallible. Why do you think non-human tech exists?
colechristensen 3y ago
Schizophrenia and pranksters both exist. Also people who want to get notoriety by saying anything they can to get attention. Certainly much of the whole present "flat earth" popularity was driven by a bunch of people who thought it'd be funny. I take just as seriously people who insist UFOs are aliens as those who insist the world is flat. I'm sure you can find somebody on youtube who has been "shown some documents" about how the world isn't round.
asveikau 3y ago
> All of this stuff reeks of some kind of psyop Is it me or is the internet really quick to reach this conclusion? It's definitely not the simplest one you can make. "The US government" can hardly pass a budget but is somehow presumed to be super competent at psyops and/or concealing evidence of aliens.
- quinndexter 3y ago
  Absolutely not just you. It's everywhere.
- TechBro8615 3y ago
  You're confusing the legislative branch with the intelligence community and other participants in the military industrial complex. Yes, Congress is full of incompetent elected officials who "can hardly pass a budget." But the MIC is comprised of highly specialized professionals with careers spanning multiple presidential administrations and dozens of congressional sessions. It is a mistake to assume these people are incompetent.
  - asveikau 3y ago
    If the military industrial complex is so competent, how come it failed so hard in Iraq and Afghanistan? Even the "true" conspiracies, like mkultra ... What did all that abuse accomplish? Not much. Unethical? Yes. Murderous? At times. Competent? No. Bumbling fools. The term "military industrial complex" was meant as a warning about corruption, not that they'd manage to be good at it.
    - raizer88 3y ago
      I think from the MIC POV the war in iraq and afghanistan was a incredible success. Why end a war in a year when you can milk the DOD for 20 years?
      - asveikau 3y ago
        Ok, so if they're good at the goal of extracting money, it would appear they're not good at much else.
secondary_op 3y ago
See my reply, my theory that this is psyop to bury in noise and distract from 10 years anniversary since Edward Snowden revelations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36222610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36222610
- nprateem 3y ago
  It's not the most robust theory given these stories appear each year.
pcarbonn 3y ago
You are missing the complaint he filed because he was a victim of retaliation. This is first hand evidence that the inspector general of the intelligence community found credible and urgent, and the main point of the story.
mrfinn 3y ago
One of the firsts things you learn in the "I want to believe" side is to never trust the government.
- tboyd47 3y ago
  Don't you see? The government is trying to suppress this information. That's why it has to be true! /s
  - mrfinn 3y ago
    Oh the government(s) know a lot about how to handle information. And people through it.
irthomasthomas 3y ago
I'll remember this next time someone shares a Guardian article as evidence of anything.
newswasboring 3y ago
Why would anyone want to do this psyop? Who benefits from this?
hellweaver666 3y ago
Your comment reads like psyops... trying to discredit the leakers.
- ranting-moth 3y ago
  I agree with you both!
rurban 3y ago
Exactly my thoughts also.
qwerty456127 3y ago
Nice point. But why is it even considered probably fake immediately when people speak about probable extraterrestrial intelligence encounters? Isn't this a cognitive bias? I would have little doubt in possiblity of advanced extraterrestrial life if not the hype - the universe is so vast and ancient, the idea Earth and humans are so unique seems much more incredible.
- burnished 3y ago
  The argument isnt that we are unique but that we are far, far away. It is considered fake because the perceived difficulty of space travel combined with the complete lack of direct evidence despite the ongoing search for it.
  - qwerty456127 3y ago
    Why are we so confident in our understanding of reality being so perfect nobody in the whole universe could have found a way to transcend the limitations it imposes? I would totally expect an advanced alien race to consider our physical science ridiculous.
    - burnished 3y ago
      Because of the complete lack of evidence.
      - qwerty456127 3y ago
        It is illogical to build confidence on top of lack of evidence of your wrongness. In a virtually-infinite (relatively to your size and age and the limits of your senses and cognition) universe there always is some evidence you just don't know about. Our science is quite decent from our perspective, doing a great job describing the reality we perceive, but it seems absurdly naïve to consider it the ultimate knowledge. As history shows it changes regularly and will change a lot more someday in future.
        3y ago
scotty79 3y ago
Even if he said that he saw it with his own eyes it's infinitely more probable that's a lie/delusion/a dream he misremembered as reality.
0xEF 3y ago
I'll agree that this smells of psyop, but for what purpose? What is attention being pulled away from? Speculate away, I'm interested in what this community has to say.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
another2another 3y ago
extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Other than working for the US Government, this guy doesn't seem to have brought anything, so I'm amazed this story has gotten the traction it has. It's not like it's been a slow news week or anything.
red-iron-pine 3y ago
The Trump indictments probably have teeth, and getting the I Want To Believe / Dale Gribble / Q-Anon crowd sidetracked is probably the main idea. They've been doing it since the 90s and the Oklahoma City Bombings.
lamontcg 3y ago
> All of this stuff reeks of some kind of psyop. Feels like someone started up the same government UFO psyop program that we had running during the cold war. Maybe they're just trying to redirect all the Qanon crazies onto getting them chasing their tales looking for UFOs instead.
- Loquebantur 3y ago
  The New York Times is said to have an article in the works for sunday, providing more background presumably. If this was some psyop, they certainly go all out. Funny, how HN is/isn't reacting to "US in possession of non-human technology".
belter 3y ago
I am calling it as 90% probability non true based one of the two techniques you can use to validate these type of claims. My claim uses Method B Method A: Extensive analysis if this is a first account of facts or hearsay (here is the latest anyway). Extensive analysis of evidence, specially with metadata correlation between evidence arriving from different sources and timelines. Method B: Analysis of instinctive and immediate body language reactions to focused questions. "How many?" -> . https://twitter.com/i/status/1665832644230402048 https://twitter.com/i/status/1665832644230402048 The instinctive eye reaction to this question gives it away... "How to Tell If Someone Is Lying to You, According to Body Language Experts" - https://time.com/5443204/signs-lying-body-language-experts/ https://time.com/5443204/signs-lying-body-language-experts/
- whamlastxmas 3y ago
  Body language showing lying is debunked and bullshit
  - CoolestCat 3y ago
    Body language cannot be used as evidence in a court of law, but you bet your ass detectives use it effectively as cues all the time during investigations. It’s not debunked, it’s just has to be used as a piece of the puzzle not the whole thing.
  - belter 3y ago
    References? "Nonverbal communication and deception" - https://www.paulekman.com/blog/nonverbal-communication-and-deception/ https://www.paulekman.com/blog/nonverbal-communication-and-d...
    - 93po 3y ago
      https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/02610159810785494/full/html https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/02610159... Body language across a lot of samples and people can show patterns between this body language and lying. A single instance of someone displaying body language in a given context says virtually nothing. "Tells" vary wildly between people for a million different reasons as this study shows, and unless you study a specific individual very carefully in a scientific way, there is nothing you can gather from their body language.
ElMocambo_x4 3y ago
It's funny to see how far into the absurd people are ready to go in order to discard UFO recordings. Sure, live space travel across light-years sounds crazy. But what you are ready to come up with in order to tell us that army radars, USAF pilots, etc, are all delirious, like giant "psyops".... is even crazier.
NemoNobody 3y ago
Haha
mbrochh 3y ago
Just look at his eyes during the interview. The guy is CLEARLY lying and spelling out learned phrases. It's all a big show. There are no UFOs and there never will be.
wolverine876 3y ago
> All of this stuff reeks of some kind of psyop. My belief is that for some reason, the US government used psychology tests to identify a select few people who naturally "want to believe". These individuals would take vague evidence and through their own nature would exaggerate and fill in the blanks. They then nudged those individuals with carefully curated credible fake evidence. Then they just sat back and waited for a few of those guys to "leak" the information. It's ironic to use a baseless conspiracy theory to accuse someone else of a disinformation conspiracy. I feel sad to see that in the top post of an HN discussion.

newZWhoDis 3y ago

If this is a psyop that’s still huge news. These are fantastic claims from a highly ranked and decorated member of the IC, released with official backing/DoD preAuth Someone has some explaining to do

op00to 3y ago
What official backing?
- hugh-avherald 3y ago
  He applied for permission to disclose this to journalists and that application was approved by the Pentagon.

KETpXDDzR 3y ago

Sounds like the plot of the x-files.

fnordsensei 3y ago

To what end?

hervature 3y ago
Why would the organization that would be expected to protect our skies want to make people believe there is something to protect our skies?
- avidphantasm 3y ago
  Why would they want to make people believe there are things they can’t protect us from?
GartzenDeHaes 3y ago
Is it conspiracy theory time? "... the conspiracy theory Project Blue Beam, which concerns an alleged plot to facilitate a totalitarian world government by destroying traditional religions and replacing them with a new-age belief system using NASA technology."
- VincentEvans 3y ago
  Take my money
TheSpiceIsLife 3y ago
Demonstration of psyops capabilities; entertainment.
zoogeny 3y ago
I have no idea on the specifics for this particular operation, but in the general case [1] The purpose of United States psychological operations is to induce or reinforce behavior perceived to be favorable to U.S. objectives. In the context of UFOs, UAPs or whatever ... some possibilities are to hide advanced defense programs or to confuse potential enemy intelligence efforts. In fact, for an operation like this I would guess there are probably a dozen strategic objectives and not just one. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations_(Unit...
typeofhuman 3y ago

bragr 3y ago

Why does it have to be a conspiracy? Some small but significant portion of the population is mentally ill, and it seems likely a few would hear a joke ("we keep the alien space ships through that door, I'd show you but I'd have to kill you"), take it way too literally, and it becomes the focus of their mental illness. That seems not only possible but probable given the size the military industrial complex.

xref 3y ago
> likely few would hear a joke… take it way too literally… This is the premise of about half of I Think You Should Leave skits
- satvikpendem 3y ago
  Have you seen the new season? Honestly they're hit or miss.
  - BinaryMachine 3y ago
    55 BURGERS 55 FRIES 55 TACOS
    - wussboy 3y ago
      This has quickly become legend in my house
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    All sketch comedy in a nutshell.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
zoogeny 3y ago
> Why does it have to be a conspiracy? Some of his claims, if you believe them, point towards coordinated activities. For example, he claims that an intelligence official, who he had known and worked with for a long time and who he trusted, pulled him aside and confided in him about this project. This intelligence official mentioned a particular project name. He then claims that later a totally different intelligence agent independently confided in him the same details as well as the same project name. He claims that ultimately he was furnished documentation evidence of this project which he refuses to provide to media (due to national security issues) but which he has provided to congress. I'm relating what he said in the interview. He could be making that all up. However, if he is relating actual events then there is a coordinated group of intelligence agents working towards the same goal.

quickthrowman 3y ago

> All of this stuff reeks of some kind pf psyop. In this case, I agree. I usually try to avoid conspiratorial thinking and conspiracy theories, but the DoD and related agencies have been putting out all kinds of information about UFOs in the past few years. My question is: why? The DoD isn’t known for their public relations. My best speculative guess is that they’re claiming they’ve found alien craft and exotic alien materials because the US is testing aircraft that appear alien with exotic materials and don’t want other nation states to assume it is even terrestrial so they don’t attempt to replicate the technology. There must be a reason behind the UFO media blitz that has happened lately, it’s not like they’re releasing the info to keep the public informed. Anyone have other ideas? It could be grifters looking to sell a story, mentally ill people misunderstanding jokes or inventing things out of whole cloth, etc. P.S. I believe intelligent life may exist elsewhere in the universe, but that we’ve never been visited and will never be visited due to the distances involved.

ausqb 3y ago
> There must be a reason behind the UFO media blitz They already told us exactly why. Because there are unexplained phenomena which may pose a risk to national security, and they want to know more. Their intent is to reduce the stigma so that pilots and others are less afraid to report unusual sightings for proper investigation. You don't have to believe in aliens to see the sense in this.
bagels 3y ago
But who is the messaging intended for? Foreign military intelligence agencies can draw the same conclusions, that this is some kind of misdirection, and that it's more likely a cover for US or Chinese weapons tech, they're not dumb.
- quickthrowman 3y ago
  You make a very good point, I’m going to stick with the grifter/liar/mentally ill thesis instead.
  - 3y ago

transducers 3y ago

I share the opinion that it is psyop and it is a very long running project. At one level it is a nice psyop platform - like Star Trek for the psychological warfare professionals. Over the years they have influenced American thought about the government to a great degree. X-Files. For example, most Americans, and this “whistleblower” here, now accept that elements in the US government are operating entirely outside of the overview and control of the government, where the executive and legislature do not have “the clearance” to be informed about it. Emotionally it is also slowly preparing humanity for the possibility of a confrontation with a power that we possibly can not resist and must obey. Aliens may turn out to have strong theological and sociological views that they want to share with us. This is more than just slowly boiling the constitutional frog in the cauldron of “national security”. Somewhat /g more far fetched but definitely one reason to have ex intelligence grandees from Mosad and CIA (and now this man) come and tell us all about aliens in our midst.

jasonvorhe 3y ago
This is my thinking as well. Though the entire Admiral Byrd, Antarctica, supposed Nazi tech and Operation Paperclip, Werner von Braun founding NASA lends some credibility to the idea that there might be a weirder angle the tech aspect at least. Combine "alien tech" with a tumbling empire and this would get ugly. Not a believer myself, but it was an interesting deep dive.
nprateem 3y ago
Sorry, how long is this supposed to take? You're saying we're going to be dominated by aliens and must be prepared for that? That's not how conquests normally work is it? There's no consent involved. And you're also saying this 'preparation' has been happening for 70 years? How long have we got before they actually arrive and how much prep do we need? This is all complete bollocks
- transducers 3y ago
  There is no invasion as there are no aliens. It is psyop. A genre (“platform”) of psyop has been tried out over the years, and a developing thread (based on other propaganda channels, such as fiction, and film) is the coming ‘encounter’. Here “US is urged to reveal UFO evidence” is published by a major Western establishment press, The Guardian, based on 2nd hand information and not on actual personally witnessed evidence. The issue of having “major world religions” that are not in accord (per orthodox understanding of respective faithful) remains an issue for establishment of a uniform social order on the planet. It’s going to be difficult to have a world government without a unified world religion. “Aliens” can help with that. As a thought exercise, imagine aliens have landed. Aliens could inform us that for example ‘angels’ were really the aliens and that we sadly misunderstood their messages. Various syncretic efforts have also been ongoing since at least 19th century (“new age”) so the ground has been well prepared. To conclude the exercise, ask yourself what impact this will have on your belief system.

markus_zhang 3y ago

Wait, that David Grusch guy never saw those stuffa despite that he led the analysis? This is weird. How can you do analysis without seeing the real thing?

heavyset_go 3y ago

> I saw an interview with this guy just yesterday. He didn't see anything himself. His claim is that some people, and he believes them to be trustworthy, confided in him and showed him some documents. So, at best his testimony is hearsay. This is the same MO as Stephen Greer's grift about the same thing. Greer claims that he was given access to classified documents and information that say the government is hiding their knowledge of, and interactions with, aliens and UFOs.

monetus 3y ago
I have a family member who won't stop consuming everything about Steven Greer on youtube, and I don't know what to do about it. It is driving me crazy and I just have to tell someone, sorry.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  My sense is that you could remove Steven Greer and it would be something else? Sorry I have a rather pessimistic take.
  - monetus 3y ago
    JFK conspiracy theory content is second to the "antigravity technology stolen from aliens" on her list, so you're not wrong, but Steven Greer has the same reach as those fricken JFK conventions. He'll never go away...
    - sitkack 3y ago
      Replace it with Game of Thrones?
  - varelse 3y ago
    [dead]
- King-Aaron 3y ago
  Didn't he start seeing ghosts or some such and started a spiritual ritual camp thing in the desert?

blazespin 3y ago

It's hilarious watching how HN upvotes insane theory instead of crazy theory. Wild times! There is a very very simple explanation, which is that everything he says is true. There is a secret program, they did reverse engineer, they did withhold it from congress, and people did tell him that there is alien stuff. Why make up silly make believe? The guy isn't claiming 'oh i saw aliens'. He could simply be telling the absolute truth. Why so many people told him there were aliens, I dunno, but who cares. Those people aren't the ones whistleblowing and so it doesn't really matter, does it? I for one believe the guy, 100% My only complaint is that perhaps he should probably be a bit more circumspect about what actually exists.

petesergeant 3y ago
> There is a very very simple explanation I’m not sure an explanation that presupposes FTL travel is very very simple
- keskival 3y ago
  Why would faster than light travel be presupposed in any way?
  - petesergeant 3y ago
    Where do we think the aliens came from, specifically, without it?
    - dan_mctree 3y ago
      They could be von Neumann probes having travelled for a long time. Even without FTL travel, von Neumann probes could colonize an entire galaxy in reasonable time (a few million years). Even just a single successful civilization somewhere in the milky way or even a neighboring galaxy could've accomplished that
      - neuronic 3y ago

neltnerb 3y ago

I'd also assume this is just a psyop, though more in the more general propaganda sense. You want other countries to both overestimate and underestimate you. If other countries think there's a serious possibility that the US has alien technology then they'll be extra cautious. I doubt anyone buys it, personally. But propaganda operations definitely have unintended consequences, I'd personally guess that experiments on the population's willingness to believe the government is at most a side effect. After all, there's wacky stuff like flat earth or refusing to believe in irrational numbers that has no meaningful international relations impact.

mr_toad 3y ago
What is it about the US that makes aliens always crash land there? It’s not even the biggest country by land area. And it’s only a small percentage of the total land area of earth. And while we’re at it, why do aliens always crash land where the number of witnesses is close to one? It almost makes you think that all these phenomena are observer dependent.
- jay_kyburz 3y ago
  Tunguska is not in the US? Roswell was just a badly kept secret. Perhaps other countries are better at keeping secrets.
- asveikau 3y ago
  That is discussed in TFA. It has a quote that multiple countries probably have evidence.

King-Aaron 3y ago

> I saw an interview with this guy just yesterday. He didn't see anything himself. His claim is that some people, and he believes them to be trustworthy, confided in him and showed him some documents Wasn't he in charge of or in the higher end of the government led agency to investigate these things? He doesn't seem to be a nobody just saying he saw things, it was his job to investigate it for the government? And if the Inspector General is involved, along with the dudes lengthy time in front of congress, surely it's likely that evidence was presented to higher levels of government that the public still can't see legally. I get that this may be a psyop kind of thing, but writing it off as 'he didn't see anything' seems like an incorrect position to hold.

graderjs 3y ago
Grusch also brought these people in front of Congressional oversight committees to testify. There should be more info from Grusch dropping soon on NewsNation or the Need to Know podcast. They did a 7 hour interview with him, as they talk about in this behind-the-scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQjbFZT9_EM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQjbFZT9_EM
jonathanstrange 3y ago
However, one thing that every government employee knows is that they can't arrest you for fictional stories. In contrast, if you're saying the truth, then you're facing decades in prison. So what are you going to do if you need to make some money with books and talks, etc. Tell the truth or lie?
- StanislavPetrov 3y ago
  >However, one thing that every government employee knows is that they can't arrest you for fictional stories. They certainly can arrest you for fictional stories told under oath and in sworn statements (which is what this whistleblower gave).
denton-scratch 3y ago
> but writing it off as 'he didn't see anything' seems like an incorrect position to hold. Why incorrect? He specifically says he didn't see anything.

glenstein 3y ago

>All of this stuff reeks of some kind of psyop. Ugh, I was 100% with you until this point. This is speculative, fantastical, and I think serves to discredit the sober and calm pushback of the type exhibited in the first half of your comment. And that is desperately needed in a moment like this.

anon291 3y ago
No it's really not fantastical. We have no physical evidence of extraterrestrials but we do have physical evidence that the CIA engages in sometimes ridiculous operations to psychologically manipulate people. I mean if you told someone the CIA did mind control experiments in the 60s they'd think your nuts. But we know today with certainty they did, often with tragic consequence. So, the bayesian priors, given that in the course of humanity or even prehistorically there is no certain evidence of aliens, and plenty of evidence of weirdo government manipulation and innumerable examples of propaganda, should be skewed in the favor of any new fantastical governmental claim to be yet another silly operation by some three letter agency. Until someone procures a body or craft of certain non human origin, this is the only reasonable course of action.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  > We have no physical evidence of extraterrestrials but we do have physical evidence that the CIA engages in sometimes ridiculous operations to psychologically manipulate people That’s true. And I would even say a CIA psyop is more likely than aliens. But its still purely speculative.
  - glenstein 3y ago
    Right, and evidence free indulgences into fan fiction speculation about the CIA etc etc are unnecessary detours.
- breck 3y ago
  If you define aliens as a long separated branch on the tree of life with significantly more advanced technology, then alien encounters are more common in history (hawai’i in 1790’s being most recent i can think of). So mathematically its rare, but perhaps an experience of 1% of societies . And perhaps strongly correlated with one branch undergoing a rapid technological advance. i think it’s perfectly rationale and not fantastical, as long as its kept in mind that its a low probability event.

tomphoolery 3y ago

That literally did happen so it's not out of the question to believe such a thing :D

pmarreck 3y ago

Or, they know that you're exactly the person who might have a psychological fracture when actual evidence actually emerges from the cloistered tower.

emmelaich 3y ago

My experience with military people is that they all put in an impressive veneer of seriousness and respectability -- but some of them are just as nutty as anyone.

everybodyknows 3y ago

There's a simple, rational explanation: The man needs to make a living. Lectures, documentaries, a book. > He left the government in April after a 14-year career in US intelligence. A government pension requires 20 years IIRC. Grusch is only 36. The formula: Tell the truth where possible, be vague but suggestive about the rest. And of course there were secret UFO programs -- if something from Baikonur shows up here, wouldn't it be better if the Kremlin thought it might still remain secret? So sensing, reporting, collecting efforts would be classified.

dmix 3y ago
My mom would 100% buy anything this guys says. It's a clever business idea. Especially with all of those recent flaky gov videos people are eating up wholesale, without any concept of what it actually means to do interstellar travel while simultaneously having invisible motherships. And the only 'evidence' comes from US pilots in a particular height in the sky, never on the ground or visible in space via telescopes... Curious how that works. Just spacecraft zipping around at 30k feet all day in random directions and never going visibly above or below that. Some guy misinterpreting documents about foreign or unknown materials or objects is probably par for the course here. It's also funny/predictable aliens would be discovered exclusively in the US and withheld from Congress by black suits.
- Loquebantur 3y ago
  The New York Times is said to have an article in the works for sunday, providing more background presumably. Funny, how HN is/isn't reacting to "US in possession of non-human technology".
  - vaidhy 3y ago
    From the comments, you desperately want to believe in this non-human thing for whatever reasons. No one else believes that is actually true. So far, your arguments are that Grusch is telling the truth and no one is listening to him. You have ignored all the contrary evidence including the fact there is nothing documented, he has repeated what someone has said to him and that our sensors and our senses are not infallible. Why do you think non-human tech exists?

colechristensen 3y ago

Schizophrenia and pranksters both exist. Also people who want to get notoriety by saying anything they can to get attention. Certainly much of the whole present "flat earth" popularity was driven by a bunch of people who thought it'd be funny. I take just as seriously people who insist UFOs are aliens as those who insist the world is flat. I'm sure you can find somebody on youtube who has been "shown some documents" about how the world isn't round.

asveikau 3y ago

> All of this stuff reeks of some kind of psyop Is it me or is the internet really quick to reach this conclusion? It's definitely not the simplest one you can make. "The US government" can hardly pass a budget but is somehow presumed to be super competent at psyops and/or concealing evidence of aliens.

quinndexter 3y ago
Absolutely not just you. It's everywhere.
TechBro8615 3y ago
You're confusing the legislative branch with the intelligence community and other participants in the military industrial complex. Yes, Congress is full of incompetent elected officials who "can hardly pass a budget." But the MIC is comprised of highly specialized professionals with careers spanning multiple presidential administrations and dozens of congressional sessions. It is a mistake to assume these people are incompetent.
- asveikau 3y ago
  If the military industrial complex is so competent, how come it failed so hard in Iraq and Afghanistan? Even the "true" conspiracies, like mkultra ... What did all that abuse accomplish? Not much. Unethical? Yes. Murderous? At times. Competent? No. Bumbling fools. The term "military industrial complex" was meant as a warning about corruption, not that they'd manage to be good at it.
  - raizer88 3y ago
    I think from the MIC POV the war in iraq and afghanistan was a incredible success. Why end a war in a year when you can milk the DOD for 20 years?
    - asveikau 3y ago
      Ok, so if they're good at the goal of extracting money, it would appear they're not good at much else.

secondary_op 3y ago

See my reply, my theory that this is psyop to bury in noise and distract from 10 years anniversary since Edward Snowden revelations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36222610 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36222610

nprateem 3y ago
It's not the most robust theory given these stories appear each year.

pcarbonn 3y ago

You are missing the complaint he filed because he was a victim of retaliation. This is first hand evidence that the inspector general of the intelligence community found credible and urgent, and the main point of the story.

mrfinn 3y ago

One of the firsts things you learn in the "I want to believe" side is to never trust the government.

tboyd47 3y ago
Don't you see? The government is trying to suppress this information. That's why it has to be true! /s
- mrfinn 3y ago
  Oh the government(s) know a lot about how to handle information. And people through it.

irthomasthomas 3y ago

I'll remember this next time someone shares a Guardian article as evidence of anything.

newswasboring 3y ago

Why would anyone want to do this psyop? Who benefits from this?

hellweaver666 3y ago

Your comment reads like psyops... trying to discredit the leakers.

ranting-moth 3y ago
I agree with you both!

rurban 3y ago

Exactly my thoughts also.

qwerty456127 3y ago

Nice point. But why is it even considered probably fake immediately when people speak about probable extraterrestrial intelligence encounters? Isn't this a cognitive bias? I would have little doubt in possiblity of advanced extraterrestrial life if not the hype - the universe is so vast and ancient, the idea Earth and humans are so unique seems much more incredible.

burnished 3y ago
The argument isnt that we are unique but that we are far, far away. It is considered fake because the perceived difficulty of space travel combined with the complete lack of direct evidence despite the ongoing search for it.
- qwerty456127 3y ago
  Why are we so confident in our understanding of reality being so perfect nobody in the whole universe could have found a way to transcend the limitations it imposes? I would totally expect an advanced alien race to consider our physical science ridiculous.
  - burnished 3y ago
    Because of the complete lack of evidence.
    - qwerty456127 3y ago
      It is illogical to build confidence on top of lack of evidence of your wrongness. In a virtually-infinite (relatively to your size and age and the limits of your senses and cognition) universe there always is some evidence you just don't know about. Our science is quite decent from our perspective, doing a great job describing the reality we perceive, but it seems absurdly naïve to consider it the ultimate knowledge. As history shows it changes regularly and will change a lot more someday in future.
      - 3y ago

scotty79 3y ago

Even if he said that he saw it with his own eyes it's infinitely more probable that's a lie/delusion/a dream he misremembered as reality.

0xEF 3y ago

I'll agree that this smells of psyop, but for what purpose? What is attention being pulled away from? Speculate away, I'm interested in what this community has to say.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

another2another 3y ago

extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Other than working for the US Government, this guy doesn't seem to have brought anything, so I'm amazed this story has gotten the traction it has. It's not like it's been a slow news week or anything.

red-iron-pine 3y ago

The Trump indictments probably have teeth, and getting the I Want To Believe / Dale Gribble / Q-Anon crowd sidetracked is probably the main idea. They've been doing it since the 90s and the Oklahoma City Bombings.

lamontcg 3y ago

> All of this stuff reeks of some kind of psyop. Feels like someone started up the same government UFO psyop program that we had running during the cold war. Maybe they're just trying to redirect all the Qanon crazies onto getting them chasing their tales looking for UFOs instead.

Loquebantur 3y ago
The New York Times is said to have an article in the works for sunday, providing more background presumably. If this was some psyop, they certainly go all out. Funny, how HN is/isn't reacting to "US in possession of non-human technology".

belter 3y ago

I am calling it as 90% probability non true based one of the two techniques you can use to validate these type of claims. My claim uses Method B Method A: Extensive analysis if this is a first account of facts or hearsay (here is the latest anyway). Extensive analysis of evidence, specially with metadata correlation between evidence arriving from different sources and timelines. Method B: Analysis of instinctive and immediate body language reactions to focused questions. "How many?" -> . https://twitter.com/i/status/1665832644230402048 https://twitter.com/i/status/1665832644230402048 The instinctive eye reaction to this question gives it away... "How to Tell If Someone Is Lying to You, According to Body Language Experts" - https://time.com/5443204/signs-lying-body-language-experts/ https://time.com/5443204/signs-lying-body-language-experts/

whamlastxmas 3y ago
Body language showing lying is debunked and bullshit
- CoolestCat 3y ago
  Body language cannot be used as evidence in a court of law, but you bet your ass detectives use it effectively as cues all the time during investigations. It’s not debunked, it’s just has to be used as a piece of the puzzle not the whole thing.
- belter 3y ago
  References? "Nonverbal communication and deception" - https://www.paulekman.com/blog/nonverbal-communication-and-deception/ https://www.paulekman.com/blog/nonverbal-communication-and-d...
  - 93po 3y ago
    https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/02610159810785494/full/html https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/02610159... Body language across a lot of samples and people can show patterns between this body language and lying. A single instance of someone displaying body language in a given context says virtually nothing. "Tells" vary wildly between people for a million different reasons as this study shows, and unless you study a specific individual very carefully in a scientific way, there is nothing you can gather from their body language.

ElMocambo_x4 3y ago

It's funny to see how far into the absurd people are ready to go in order to discard UFO recordings. Sure, live space travel across light-years sounds crazy. But what you are ready to come up with in order to tell us that army radars, USAF pilots, etc, are all delirious, like giant "psyops".... is even crazier.

NemoNobody 3y ago

Haha

mbrochh 3y ago

Just look at his eyes during the interview. The guy is CLEARLY lying and spelling out learned phrases. It's all a big show. There are no UFOs and there never will be.

wolverine876 3y ago

> All of this stuff reeks of some kind of psyop. My belief is that for some reason, the US government used psychology tests to identify a select few people who naturally "want to believe". These individuals would take vague evidence and through their own nature would exaggerate and fill in the blanks. They then nudged those individuals with carefully curated credible fake evidence. Then they just sat back and waited for a few of those guys to "leak" the information. It's ironic to use a baseless conspiracy theory to accuse someone else of a disinformation conspiracy. I feel sad to see that in the top post of an HN discussion.