A Cold War-era effort by the U.S. military to protect national security has been linked to the origin of widespread UFO conspiracy theories surrounding Area 51, according to a newly surfaced government report.
The findings suggest the Pentagon orchestrated deliberate hoaxes to divert attention from classified weapons testing.
The report, issued by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), details how fake materials were used to mislead the public and even members of the military.
AARO is a congressional task force created to investigate persistent claims involving government programs allegedly tied to extraterrestrial technology.
During the 1980s, a U.S. Air Force colonel reportedly distributed manipulated images of flying saucers to civilians at a bar near the classified facility.
The doctored photographs, presented as authentic sightings, were displayed publicly, stoking rumors that alien spacecraft were being stored or examined at the site.
These staged encounters were allegedly part of a broader campaign designed to shield highly classified military development, the Daily Mail reports.
Officials pointed to stealth aircraft, such as the U-2 spy plane and A-12 reconnaissance jet, as projects that were kept secret under the cover of alien speculation.
A 2013 CIA document previously confirmed that the Nevada facility was used for such testing.
Another section of the report revealed that new Air Force commanders were hazed with fabricated intelligence briefings about a fictitious program named “Yankee Blue.”
According to AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick, the program was entirely false but was presented to recruits as a highly sensitive project involving anti-gravity vehicles and extraterrestrial technology.
The briefings included staged photographs and warnings that disclosure could result in imprisonment or even death.
Many of the service members exposed to the hoax signed non-disclosure agreements and believed the information was authentic for decades.
“Ma’am, we know it went on for decades. We are talking about hundreds and hundreds of people. These men signed NDAs. They thought it was real,” an unnamed official told former Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, after she pressed for answers on how the hoax persisted.
The Department of Defense (DoD) only moved to end the practice in 2023, when the secretary’s office issued a memo halting the use of false extraterrestrial briefings.
Kirkpatrick had already been appointed as AARO’s first director in 2022, tasked with reviewing decades of UFO-related claims and military records.
Area 51, which was formally established in 1955, did not enter public awareness in a significant way until 1989.
That year, former government contractor Robert Lazar claimed on television that he had worked at a hidden facility called “S-4,” located near the base.
Lazar stated that the government was reverse-engineering alien spacecraft, which further entrenched the base’s connection to extraterrestrial theories, according to the Daily Mail.
DoD spokeswoman Sue Gough confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that the AARO team had found “fabricated materials falsely presented as part of classified programs involving extraterrestrials.”
She added that both lawmakers and intelligence officials had been formally briefed on the matter.
While UFO narratives have remained a cultural fascination for decades, the Pentagon’s internal review points to a deliberate strategy—one rooted in misdirection to conceal weapons testing vital to national defense.
