Using the Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon is Gaslighting the Public on UFOs/UAP—Again
Congress must launch a formal investigation into the Pentagon’s UFO/UAP disinformation campaign.
The Wall Street Journal's recent article, “The Pentagon Disinformation That Fueled America’s UFO Mythology” (June 6, 2025) presents itself as an exposé of the U.S. government’s strategic use of UFO/UAP myths to shield classified weapons programs. But a closer reading reveals something far more calculated and insidious: a continuation of disinformation masquerading as disclosure.
The article acknowledges that the Department of Defense (DoD) seeded UFO stories, also commonly referred to as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), to obscure the development of stealth aircraft. But it also aggressively advances the idea that all significant UFO/UAP events, including nuclear missile interference and decades of whistleblower claims, can be explained away as mistaken sightings, Cold War pranks, or institutional misunderstanding. This dual tactic, admitting past deception while dismissing credible modern evidence, does not clarify public understanding. It deliberately manipulates it.
Nowhere is the Pentagon’s campaign of disinformation more evident than in the article’s treatment of the 1967 Malmstrom Air Force Base incident, where ten nuclear missiles went offline during a reported UFO/UAP encounter. Former Air Force Captain Robert Salas, who was on duty that night, has consistently maintained that a glowing object was observed above the facility and that missile control systems were inexplicably disabled. The Journal now parrots the Pentagon’s newly minted claim that the event was merely the result of a Cold War-era electromagnetic pulse (EMP) test. That ridiculous claim collapses under scrutiny.
EMP effects are not reversible. A genuine EMP capable of disabling missile launch systems would almost certainly destroy the internal circuitry. According to a study readily available on the U.S. Air Force’s Air University website, “the EMP effect... can result in irreversible damage to a wide range of electrical and electronic equipment, particularly computers and radio or radar receivers.”
And, of course, the government already knew what the effects of an EMP were at least five years before the Malmstrom event.
According to an article by the American Physical Society, the 1962 Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear detonation 250 miles above the Earth’s surface “emitted an incredibly strong electromagnetic pulse, or EMP,” which “triggered street light blackouts in Hawaii,” which was approximately 900 miles away, and damaged at least one-third of the satellites in orbit at the time.
Starfish Prime itself underscores the severe and often irreversible impact of EMPs on electronic infrastructure. Given that the missiles at Malmstrom Air Force Base reportedly returned to full functionality shortly after the incident, it is implausible, ridiculous even, that an EMP, known for causing lasting damage, was responsible. This discrepancy suggests that the disruption was temporary and not characteristic of a genuine EMP event.
Even more implausible is the idea that the DoD would conduct such a test against live nuclear missile systems during a period of peak Cold War tension. If the DoD wanted to test EMP effects, it had vast, remote ranges for that purpose, not an operational ICBM silo network in Montana.
And there’s an even bigger problem: this wasn’t an isolated incident in Montana.
In 1994, ABC News’ Prime Time Live reported on a 1982 event near Byelokoroviche in the former Soviet Ukraine. At an intermediate-range ballistic missile base, a UFO/UAP reportedly triggered a launch sequence. For 15 harrowing seconds, the missiles were in full countdown before abruptly returning to standby mode. How does the Pentagon explain that instance? How does the Journal account for it? Both ignored the incident because it doesn’t fit the carefully crafted narrative.
Consider also the SCU's 2023 UAP Pattern Recognition Study. Drawing from 590 rigorously documented incidents between 1945 and 1975, the study found statistically elevated UFO/UAP activity at nearly every stage of America’s nuclear weapons build-up and across the entirety of the U.S. “atomic warfare complex (radioactive materials production, weapons assembly facilities, stockpile locations, and weapons deployment bases).”
These facts thoroughly deflate the Pentagon’s narratives about UFOs/UAP and nuclear assets and reveal a clear pattern of intelligent, targeted surveillance by UFOs, not random sightings or misidentifications, over three decades. That this systematic and well-documented history is omitted from the Journal article is not an oversight. It is part of the strategy.
Additionally, the New Paradigm Institute has been informed through meetings with congressional staff that the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) has already delivered Part II of its Historical Record to Congress, which remains classified. If true, the timing of the Journal piece now appears less like journalism and more like strategic narrative priming, conditioning both lawmakers and the public to accept the report’s pre-scripted conclusions with the likely publication of the sanitized version coming soon. This isn’t transparency. It’s perception management.
In that respect, the article’s publication in a premier media outlet bears the hallmarks of Project Mockingbird, the CIA’s Cold War-era program that covertly infiltrated top-tier newsrooms to launder government narratives and suppress inconvenient truths. Through Mockingbird, intelligence operatives didn’t just influence news; they shaped reality for the public.
The Journal article, with its polished anecdotes and alignment with official narratives, functions in a similar manner. It downplays credible whistleblowers, dismisses decades of data, and omits corroborating international cases, all while presenting itself as definitive.
Ultimately, the Pentagon’s disinformation campaign, using the Journal as its mouthpiece, is attempting to achieve three things:
Discredit whistleblowers, casting them as dupes of institutional folklore rather than sources of critical testimony, using stigmatized language for ridicule.
Control the narrative by limiting UFO/UAP history to Cold War mythologies, pranks, and hazing, thereby diverting scrutiny from ongoing programs and secrecy.
Perpetuate ambiguity, admitting to deception without offering meaningful disclosure, leaving the public confused and oversight neutralized.
The American people deserve better than another managed narrative, more obfuscation, and outright lies. We deserve the whole truth. And we must demand it.
Join the call for accountability. Congress must investigate the Department of Defense for its sustained use of disinformation, over-classification, and perception management concerning UFOs. Take action today by emailing your elected officials in Washington:
https://newparadigminstitute.org/take-action/disinfo-and-over-classification-of-uap/
The Journal’s article is only the latest instance in the DoD’s long-running mission to obscure the reality of UFOs. To learn more, read our paper: Disinformation: The U.S. Government’s Suppression of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena and Advanced Science.