General Nathan Twining, head of the AF Material Command, said in late 1947 that the UFO “phenomena is something real and not visionary or fictitious.” He was referring specifically to the abilities of the craft: “extreme rates of climb, maneuverability (particularly in roll), and motion….” The subsequent Project Blue Book left about 10% of cases unexplained.

Three quarters of a century later AATIP brought major attention back to UFOs, or UAPs, with reports telling us the same thing we read about in the 1940s. The most recent 2023 report from the Director of National Intelligence found that most cases were explainable but some were not. The cases remaining unexplained were due to objects that “demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities.”

With such powerful influence coming from the Internet in general there is now serious consideration for the idea that the concept of UFOs as a threat could be used by governments to consolidate power. And there doesn’t have to be a threat or even a craft. A story will suffice. Consider the recent UFOs shot down over Alaska, Canada, and Lake Huron. Investigations lasted officially a few days and then the stories dropped off. No body or wreckage was put on display. In fact, just like with disease the public can be made to do anything with simply the idea that there is a threat.

And the way believers in UFOs, by whatever definition, can shift trust in what government tells them is disturbing. Apparently the ‘government’ is lying unless it echos back what are largely faith-based beliefs. Just like charlatans online distorting reality for clicks, clout, power, influence, and money, government and media do the same.

In 2013 NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden talked about how the PRISM program was mining, among everything else, UFO data. This could theoretically allow powerful agencies to craft narratives around the subject in the same way that real child trafficking and real political corruption was washed clean with nonsensical conspiracies about pizza and some mysterious figure called Q. It surely is no coincidence that former CIA director David Petraeus said at the In-Q-Tel event in 2012 that computers this century were “learning to perceive - to actually sense and respond.” This means that data gathered online could be used to create and direct conspiratorial movements for any purpose. Using data the computers and their programmers could thus predict and create behavior. Basically, computers feeding users what they want to hear about conspiracies, diseases, or UFOs, which become like transparent objects reflecting the very real into a rainbow of delusion.