After smooth jazz, lite beer, and stock photography, one of the greatest evils in the human universe is disinformation – a way of manipulating people (or even entire fields of inquiry) using information crated in fact and mixed with subtle untruths that comport with the target’s expectations. The payload for disinformation can poison the well for an entire area of inquiry, as well as discrediting individuals. It is also a kind of unethical social experiment, to see how the public and media react. As we have also seen recently, it can be used to influence the low information demographic for political gain or to stir up unrest. A skilled disinformer can play his marks like a banjo, and inject well engineered falsehoods into the mythosphere that may take decades to expunge.

No one wants to be played, and in the current environment in which bogus information is pushed our way from many directions, we need to have our defenses up and be vigilant. We need to be especially alert when the news is what we want to hear.

One well documented case of disinformation took place in the 1980s, with the disinforming and gaslighting of New Mexico businessman Paul Bennewitz by people working out of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), ultimately leading to Bennewitz’s mental breakdown. Other people were disinformed at about the same time, and the famous MJ 12 documents were probably the pinnacle of this campaign.

One of the interesting features of the Bennewitz story, as documented by Greg Bishop in his book Project Beta, is that Bennewitz could source much of his information – he got it straight from people at AFOSI at Kirtland AFB. Why would he doubt it? He simply had no idea whom to distrust, and we can hardly blame him for that. In addition, AFOSI recruited UFO researcher Bill Moore to assist them in disinforming Bennewitz. Moore would later be useful in the MJ 12 caper as well, and in 1989 he publicly confessed his complicity and left the field.

I won’t recount the whole AATIP story for you, as I’m sure you’ve seen it all many times by now – the 2017 article in the New York Times co-written by Leslie Kean, the 2004 Tic-Tac video ostensibly taken by fighter aircraft operating from the USS Nimitz, the Gimbal and go-fast videos, the announcement by Tom DeLonge, the interviews with former Nevada Senator Harry Reid and a Navy pilot from the Nimitz, and so on. This is big. If true, it not only means that US government (contrary to public statements) investigated UFOs since the demise of Project Blue Book, but that it has meaningful findings that point to the existence of real anomalies.

It really does seem true that Harry Reid earmarked some federal money for his Nevada crony Robert Bigelow to study military UFO reports over a period of several years, and that some – or maybe most – of that money went to Bigelow’s own company in a program managed out of the Defense intelligence Agency (DIA). That funding has long since run out, and as far as we know the program is dormant or non-existent, with it’s former director Luis Elizondo now retired from the Pentagon and working for Tom DeLonge’s organization, To the Stars Academy (TTSA). That much really does seem solid, and is acknowledged by the Pentagon.

When Luis Elizondo and Nimitz pilot David Fravor speak, they seem like straight up guys, and we want to believe them. The videos look real, and taken at face value, have not been debunked – some lame attempts notwithstanding. However, it is difficult at present to avoid a least a sneaking suspicion that we have been cruelly teased. While it is premature to say we have been disinformed, it’s not too early to look for the warning signs.

We are told that the chain of custody for the videos exists, but we don’t have it. No one currently in the government will confirm that the videos are authentic or came from the Navy, and without this the evidential strength of the videos is diminished to almost nothing. “Trust me” statements do nothing to help. We should note that many of the MJ 12 documents looked at least superficially authentic, but could not be trusted. Videos can also be faked or doctored, and there is no way to assure that this did not happen.

The DIA acknowledges that the AATIP program existed, but has little information available about the program to those researchers filing FOIA requests. We are told there were 38 reference documents created, but we only have three of them, and none have a direct bearing on the major questions at hand. We don’t know exactly how much money went to Robert Bigelow’s BAASS operation, or how it was spent. There are sly hints that Bigelow has physical evidence, but nothing approaching confirmation has been released. Most crucially, there are no detailed official reports available about the findings of a single investigation. One unofficial, untraceable report – probably from BAASS – recounts the Nimitz story, but provides no critical analysis.

My biggest concern is that there really is something to all this, and probably nearly all of it is true – and there might be in it the seeds of a real breakthrough, but all that is needed is one clearly exposed falsehood and none of it will be taken seriously. You don’t really even need a falsehood – just an evidence trail that goes cold. Just as stunts like UFO Cover Up Live brought the laughter curtain down around the UFO topic in the 1980s, this could do the same in the present time.

So, let’s be tough but fair. We should neither sneer at, nor wholeheartedly embrace what has been presented to date. We’ll wait, but we must make it clear that almost none of the popular narrative has been established as fact. No FOIA requests should be necessary (although they should continue) – we just need people to stop jealously guarding their secrets, accept a common sense standard of evidence, and show us what they really have. No one should buy into the claims of TTSA until that is done. I hope that it will be done.