WASHINGTON DC – A recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggests that the Pentagon itself fueled much of the “mythology” surrounding UFO stories. Citing current and former government sources, reporters Joel Schectman and Aruna Viswanatha write that a decades-long hazing ritual left “hundreds and hundreds” of Air Force personnel convinced that the Pentagon harbored a “secret alien project.”

The report also alleges that an Air Force colonel intentionally stoked UFO speculation at a Nevada bar in the 1980s as cover for the development of the first stealth fighter. Similarly, their sources claim that there is a “terrestrial explanation” for a prominent incident involving UFOs and nuclear weapons.

While each of these points merits close attention, the Journal’s reporting must also be scrutinized for what it omits.

Schectman and Viswanatha suggest that “MAGA skepticism about the ‘deep state’” is motivating Republican members of Congress to investigate government involvement with UFOs. Yet they make no mention of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Mike Rounds’s (R-S.D.) bipartisan 64-page UAP Disclosure Act, which alleges that a secret government “legacy program” has recovered UFOs and “biological evidence of non-human intelligence.”

In a recent interview on NewsNation, Rounds confirmed that he and Schumer will reintroduce the legislation in the coming weeks. Schumer alleged on the Senate floor in December 2023 that the federal government has “gathered a great deal of information about [UFOs] over many decades but has refused to share it with the American people” — and, per “multiple credible sources,” with Congress as well.

Moreover, the authors omit eyebrow-raising comments from lawmakers and officials describing individuals alleging “firsthand” knowledge of unreported UFO retrieval and reverse-engineering programs. This includes comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), current director of the Pentagon UFO stories analysis office Jon Kosloski, veteran congressional staffer Kirk McConnell and former intelligence official David Grusch.

The fact that multiple high-ranking officials have claimed firsthand knowledge of secret UFO programs does not square easily with a “bizarre hazing ritual” involving bogus “alien projects.”

According to the Journal, Sean Kirkpatrick, the former director of the Pentagon’s UFO stories analysis office, uncovered broad hazing practices in which “thousands” of Air Force officers were briefed on secret “alien” activities over several decades. The prank apparently included requiring personnel to sign non-disclosure agreements that carried the threat of jail or execution, leaving officers “scared to death” if they revealed the nonexistent program.

But no evidence of such systemic, widespread hazing about extraterrestrials has yet emerged. Nor can Kirkpatrick and his former office keep their stories straight. A year after supposedly discovering such extensive hazing activity, Kirkpatrick and the Pentagon claimed that longstanding allegations of secret UFO retrieval and reverse-engineering programs are the product of “circular reporting” from a “small group” of alien believers. Yet now, supposedly, “thousands” of personnel were led to believe that such programs exist. Which one is it?

Kirk McConnell recently retired after serving 37 years on the congressional Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, where he held the highest, most compartmented security clearances. He was also one of the Senate’s lead staffers on UFOs.

McConnell told us that he is “confident” that he “was never told by Kirkpatrick or anyone else from [the Pentagon’s UFO office] or the Department of Defense that the Department had uncovered and documented a significant number of instances where Department of Defense officials actively and knowingly spread misinformation about UAP in order to provide cover for special access programs or to play jokes on their colleagues.”

Source: The Hill