He Pentagon It would have deliberately promoted stories about unidentified flying objects (UFOs) as part of a strategy to divert public attention with secret weapons, according to an investigation published by The Wall Street Journal.
The practice dates back, according to the newspaper, to the 50s, in full cold war, when the United States government intensified its efforts to develop advanced military technologies against Soviet threat. The authorities, instead of denying sightings of inexplicable phenomena, would have chosen to encourage theories about extraterrestrial life as cover to hide tests of military prototypes.
One of the most striking episodes took place in the 1980s, when a colonel retired from the American Air Force visited a bar close to the mysterious Area 51in Nevada, and gave the owner some supposedly authentic photographs of alien ships. The images ended up hung on the walls of the premises and fed for years theories about the existence of extraterrestrial technology hidden by the government.
However, as the officer himself recognized, the photos were manipulated and everything was part of a misinformation operation. The objective was to protect the confidentiality of the trials with aircraft such as the F-117 Nighthawk, a poaching plane that was later used in the Gulf War
Revelation is part of the findings of the Office of Resolution of Anomalies of all domains (AARO), An agency of the Defense Department recently created to investigate anomalous air sightings and conspiracy theories about UFOs. In 2024, this office published a 63 -page report that concluded that there was no evidence of extraterrestrial life, although it did not approach in depth the possible implication of the Pentagon itself in the creation of these narratives.
Now, the journalistic work of The Wall Street Journal, Based on dozens of interviews with former officials, scientists and military contractors, as well as in the review of thousands of documents, it reveals that it was the Department of Defense itself who, for decades, actively encouraged stories about abductions, time trips and alien visits. All with the aim of keeping ultra -secreta arms development programs.
This episode reopens the debate on government transparency in relation to unidentified aerial phenomena and manipulation of public information for strategic purposes.
