Claim origin · GN-11

Counter-thesis: at least some of the accounts about retrieval programs originate from fake internal Air Force briefings (“Yankee Blue”) and from Pentagon disinformation.

First attestation

Jun 6, 2025 · Wall Street Journal (Joel Schectman and Aruna Viswanatha), Article “The Pentagon Disinformation That Fueled America's UFO Mythology”. Reports findings of the Kirkpatrick-era AARO: for decades some new commanders of classified Air Force programs received a photo of a flying saucer and were told of a fake reverse-engineering program, “Yankee Blue,” with an order not to talk about it; in the 1980s a colonel gave fake photos to a bartender near Area 51 to cover for secret projects. The practice was reportedly stopped by a 2023 memorandum. The sources are unnamed officials and unpublished AARO investigations.

Who picked it up

1. Jun 2025 · Susan Gough: Acknowledges the “pranks” described by AARO, explains that they were not in the 2024 report because the investigation was not concluded, and announces that the second volume of the historical report will contain the findings. Based on documents (source given: AARO's investigation, unpublished)
2. Jun 2025 · Luis Elizondo: On a podcast he calls the article absurd and in bad faith and attributes it to the usual circles in the DoD; a few days earlier he had acknowledged on NewsNation that the government has sometimes used false UFO stories to cover experimental technologies. Opinion or hypothesis (source given: None)
3. Jun 21, 2025 · Joel Schectman: The second article, “Was It Scrap Metal or an Alien Spacecraft?”, reports among other things that the FBI, after Elizondo had told AARO that he had left evidence of a secret program in a drawer of his former office, searched the office without finding anything of the kind. Hearsay (source given: Officials and unpublished investigations)
4. Sep 16, 2025 · Office of the Secretary of Defense (FOIA response): On the 2023 memorandum it replies that “no records of the kind you described could be identified”; AFOSI also finds no documents on “Yankee Blue” and the request on the briefings to DNI Haines is under appeal. Based on documents (source given: Archive searches; the result neither confirms nor refutes the practice)
5. Sep 17, 2026 · Christopher Mellon: On behalf of the Disclosure Foundation he calls the two WSJ articles biased and full of errors and asks the National Press Club to revoke the award given to the first. Opinion or hypothesis (source given: Errors reported to the editors, not listed in the source consulted)

Analysis

Applying the same criterion used for the witnesses' theses, the counter-thesis too rests on a single original source: the AARO investigation of the Kirkpatrick era, reported by the WSJ with unnamed officials and acknowledged by the DoD spokesperson, that is, by the same institution (edges joel-schectman → sean-kirkpatrick “media”); “circular” here means that the confirmations are not independent, not that the counter-thesis is false. No primary document is public: the second volume of the historical report, announced for the end of 2025, does not appear to have been published and the FOIA requests did not find the 2023 memorandum or any AFOSI documents. The objections come mostly from the pro-disclosure network (christopher-mellon → joel-schectman, ross-coulthart → joel-schectman, anna-paulina-luna → joel-schectman “criticism”) and in the sources consulted do not point to specific contrary evidence. The counter-thesis offers a plausible and officially acknowledged mechanism for the spread of reverse-engineering stories among military personnel, but alone it does not explain the individual claims of Grusch, Elizondo or Stratton. The AARO second volume, the 2023 memorandum or identified testimonies from officers who received those briefings would be needed.

Sources

1. Wikipedia, “Yankee Blue” (other)
2. Gizmodo, summary of the Wall Street Journal investigation (June 11, 2025) (press)
3. Straight Arrow News, the Pentagon and UFO disinformation according to the WSJ (June 9, 2025) (press)
4. Jason Colavito, Elizondo's reaction to the WSJ article (June 2025) (analysis, skeptical)
5. Wikipedia, “Luis Elizondo” (other)
6. UFO Feed, the Disclosure Foundation's letter to the Wall Street Journal (September 17, 2026) (other, pro-disclosure)
7. Final FOIA response 25-F-3514 of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (September 2025) (primary source)
8. The Black Vault, the Pentagon cannot find the memo on “Yankee Blue” (September 16, 2025) (analysis)

On this site

People 4

• Susan Gough
• Luis Elizondo
• Joel Schectman
• Christopher Mellon

Claims 2

• Luis Elizondo: Calls the Wall Street Journal investigation of June 6, 2025 into Pentagon disinformation and the false… Unverifiable
• Luis Elizondo: According to the Wall Street Journal, he told AARO that he had once possessed documents proving the… Contradicted

Official positions 2

• Pentagon (Department of Defense) (2025): The Pentagon acknowledged the “pranks” described by AARO (the Yankee Blue case)…
• Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and AFOSI – FOIA responses (2025): Responding to FOIA requests, the OSD stated that it was not possible to locate documents…

Documents 1

• FOIA: the Pentagon cannot find the 2023 memo that allegedly stopped the fake “Yankee Blue” briefings Original available

Timeline 4

• Jun 21, 2025: WSJ, part two: the “Roswell” metal bought by TTSA was terrestrial
• Sep 16, 2025: FOIA: the Pentagon cannot find the 2023 memo that reportedly stopped “Yankee Blue”
• Sep 17, 2026: Mellon asks the WSJ to correct the articles on “Yankee Blue”
• Jun 6, 2025: WSJ: the Pentagon fueled the UFO myth for decades, the “Yankee Blue” case

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UAPgrade's entries are compiled with artificial intelligence (three verifiers with opposing roles) and checked against the sources listed above: how we work. Have a document that changes this entry? Bring it to the Investigations Unit.