Does veteran status confer authority about alien visitation?

When we ask UFOlogists for their best evidence of alien visitation, they instead give us a red herring: citing leading believers' service backgrounds.

Thanks for reading my newsletter that separates reality from bullshit in pop culture. Today I’m talking about the biggest red herring in UFO culture: using a military background as a substitute for having evidence to support UFO mythology. Don’t buy it! But please do buy a paid subscription to this newsletter so I can keep doing it!

Many of the SMURFs all in one shot: Graves, Grusch, and Fravor; behind them are non-veteran UFOlogists George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell.

UFO filmmaker James Fox is doing yet another redux of his schtick, telling the same old UFO stories using the same old spokespeople. This time it’s called The Program and it promises to misrepresent the UFO hearings/infomercials that certain UFOlogists have persuaded a few Congresspeople to hold as if they represent a consolidated effort by “the government” to get to the bottom of the UFO phenomenon.

Another such hearing is planned for after the elections. This article says Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand will demand an update on the progress of AARO (the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office), which turned in its report in February saying that, as has every UFO office that’s preceded it, there’s simply nothing of interest there. Program director Sean Kirkpatrick, who quit over how stupid the whole thing was, confirmed that all the UFO nonsense “largely originates from the same group of individuals who have ties to AAWSAP/AATIP program” and “worked with each other consistently in various UAP-related efforts”.

These individuals, aka the SMURFs (SMall group of UFO Religious Fanatics) have done it again, getting another hearing to promote their views on alien visitation to the world. As many of them have been aging out, Lue Elizondo has emerged as the new public face of UFOlogy. In the infamous July 2023 UFO hearing, Elizondo hand-selected three longtime UFOlogist friends to serve as the witnesses: “whistleblower” David Grusch, a retired Air Force officer with diverse postings; and two former Navy pilots, David Fravor and Ryan Graves. All three are longtime fixtures on the UFO conference and podcast circuits.

Why them?

Because they are veterans.

Military pilots represent a small fraction of pilots in the air, and thus are a small fraction of pilots who see things that aren’t immediately clear. Indeed, Fravor and Graves’ own experiences are among the least dramatic of any in UFO lore — they lasted mere seconds and were quickly and thoroughly debunked. Grusch knew only two stories he was willing to allude to, also long debunked and having occurred many decades ago: the silly Roswell mythology and the hoaxed Mussolini alien recovery. Despite repeated requests from AARO to give details in a confidential setting, Grusch has consistently refused.

In short, they were terrible witnesses with only debunked stories and no evidence of anything at all.

But they’re veterans, so we should regard their beliefs — no matter how strange — with a sort of reverence for infallible expertise. Elizondo is shrewd, and he understands that having been in the service is an excellent substitute for having evidence, in the eyes of the general public.