Yankee Blue - The Hazing Ritual Responsible for Some Military Belief in UFOs?

[NorCal Dave]

What Mr. Philips told Mick West about Yankee Blue sounds different from that. 1:14:46 In the video:

EDIT: Cross posted with @Mendel above. YouTube offers auto transcripts for most content, so I used that.

Yes. Phillips described Yankee Blue as something that started as a training module or program used to train people on the ins and outs of SAPs and how to administer them:

1:14:51

according to the air force inspector general was actually established as a training tool because you know you have um management of uh department uh special access programs. So add an insulation (at an installation) as you have a need to know you're read into these programs and you're understood the measures protect the programs what you can discuss about the programs and we
1:15:23
read people off. So they needed a tool to train people you know how to minister and how to read people in. Um they had an amazing uh brief about um Yankee Blue and it's some type of anti-gravity motor that was developed and the the image on the brief was your classic 1960s flying
saucer. Um the triraph, the measures, everything about it was correct.

1:15:53

So you had these managers, these clerks, these people, administrative people who worked in the special access program, management offices, um, use this as a training tool.

So, he makes it sound like an SAP training program that used a completely false secret anti-gravity flying saucer as the topic and people learned how to administer an SAP using it. He then says it "went rogue" and was used out of context as a joke or hazing rituals, and AARO reported it up the chain:

1:16:06

However, it went rogue. It got out into the wild and for multiple decades, it was being briefed as a legitimate program of record, an actual SAP.
And we were told um by the Air Force that this was hazing. It was, you know, they just did it as a joke. Yeah. Um, when I briefed it, we became, you know, we were very concerned about incidents of hazing in the DoD and we thought this is something that we had to report and I was the acting director at the time and we did report it to Congress and we did report it to, you know, our command and control both depth and to the uh the DNI about what we had discovered.

But AARO was not the agency to do damage assessment about the hazing:

1:16:52

...the DNI had actually asked a very very good question uh because it was so realistic and she had asked if this could be the basis for this persistent urban myth that the government has recovered and reverse engineered alien technology because it was so well done and we knew had gone wild and had been out um in the services for decades. and she had asked had we completed a damage assessment and how many people you know were exposed to this and we were not the be the office that would do that investigation and come back with an assessment. We did request that it be done.

Philips estimated there COULD be as many as thousands of people that were exposed to this fake program:

1:17:33

However, we assessed just due to the turnover, the typical tour of the service members about 2 to 3 years max that there would be potentially um you know thousands of people who had been read into this program and believe it to be true

I had forgotten about this part of the interview. Philips doesn't give a time frame for any of this, but he says the photo was a "classic '60s flying saucer". IF that indicates the training program was around in the '60s before becoming a hazing topic later, could some of Stringfield's claimed military officers that were supposedly passing him information about a crash retrieval programs been influenced by Yankee Blue? Stringield helped popularize the notion of crashed and retrieved UFOs, but he always claimed he was being told about these programs from military personal.

It's also possible the Yankee Blue training program could have been form the '80s, with the hazing element emerging in the '90s. And like Grusch and others today, Stringfield's sources could have been less than what he claimed. I think Grusch seems to believe what he was told, but it's likely people like Eric Davis were his source, and Davis was never in a position to know about the things he claimed.

The plot thickens!

 

[MapperGuy]

Philips estimated there COULD be as many as thousands of people that were exposed to this fake program:

The 'victims' of the prank would most likely all have been Air Force officers with TS/SCI clearances already read into a genuine SAP program who were then told about "this other" program they might become involved with. That would be a very small number of individuals. People outside of the SAP world would not be given this treatment, only those already inside it.

 

[Hwy666]

I had forgotten about this part of the interview. Philips doesn't give a time frame for any of this, but he says the photo was a "classic '60s flying saucer". IF that indicates the training program was around in the '60s before becoming a hazing topic later, could some of Stringfield's claimed military officers that were supposedly passing him information about a crash retrieval programs been influenced by Yankee Blue? Stringield helped popularize the notion of crashed and retrieved UFOs, but he always claimed he was being told about these programs from military personal.

It's also possible the Yankee Blue training program could have been form the '80s, with the hazing element emerging in the '90s. And like Grusch and others today, Stringfield's sources could have been less than what he claimed. I think Grusch seems to believe what he was told, but it's likely people like Eric Davis were his source, and Davis was never in a position to know about the things he claimed.

The plot thickens!

One of many red flags to me has been the lack of coverage by media outlets outside of the WSJ. The PURSUE Initiative has been widely reported while I haven't been able to find any mention of Yankee Blue by any other major media outlet. Corroboration is important to anyone taking an investigation seriously.

I looked at US military harassment scandals in the 80s and 90s trying to find a reference point and the closest I could find in potential scope was Tailhook '91.

Ultimately

the careers of fourteen admirals and almost

300 naval aviators were scuttled or damaged

by Tailhook. For example Secretary of the Navy

H. Lawrence Garrett III and CNO

Admiral Frank Kelso were both at

Tailhook '91. Garrett ultimately

resigned and Kelso retired early two

years after the convention.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/navy/tailhook/disc.html

 

[JMartJr]

One of many red flags to me has been the lack of coverage by media outlets outside of the WSJ. The PURSUE Initiative has been widely reported while I haven't been able to find any mention of Yankee Blue by any other major media outlet. Corroboration is important to anyone taking an investigation seriously.

I looked at US military harassment scandals in the 80s and 90s trying to find a reference point and the closest I could find in potential scope was Tailhook '91.

It may be that the number of people involved is/was smaller? It can't end or damage the career of 314 0fficers if only, just to pick a number, 100 people were doing the hazing.

I'd also argue that the Tailhook scandal is not comparable at all, and was a lot more serious, involving organized sexual assault by military personnel on civilians and other members of the military:

The Tailhook scandal was a military scandal in which United States Navy and Marine Corps aviation officers were alleged to have assaulted up to eighty-three women and seven men, or otherwise engaged in "improper and indecent" conduct at the Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas, Nevada. The events took place at the 35th Annual Tailhook Association Symposium from September 5 to 8, 1991. The event was subsequently abbreviated as "Tailhook '91" in media accounts.

The alleged sexual assaults mainly occurred in a third-floor hallway in which hospitality suites rented by participating military units for the conference were located. According to witnesses, a "gauntlet" of male military officers in civilian clothes groped, molested, or committed other sexual or physical assaults and harassment on women who walked through the hallway. In addition, military officers were alleged to have engaged in public nudity, excessive heavy drinking, public sexual activity, and other lewd behavior in and around the convention location at the hotel. One of the alleged victims, naval officer Paula Coughlin, initiated an investigation into the incident when she notified her chain of command about what she had experienced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailhook_scandal

There was more coverage of that, perhaps because it is a more serious situation than telling some personnel that UFOs are real.

Finally, we're comparing a scandal that broke in 1991 and has been fully covered and investigated, with one that is more recent and for which an investigation MAY be ongoing and therefore for which coverage MAY be destined to increase as more information comes out. In other words, we're comparing EVERYTHING that was written about Tailhook with what may not yet be everything to be written about Tailhook.

 

[Landru]

One of many red flags to me has been the lack of coverage by media outlets outside of the WSJ. The PURSUE Initiative has been widely reported while I haven't been able to find any mention of Yankee Blue by any other major media outlet. Corroboration is important to anyone taking an investigation seriously.

It is possible that the reason it is not covered by other outlets is that it is not that interesting.

 

[Hwy666]

It is possible that the reason it is not covered by other outlets is that it is not that interesting.

Oh if this turns out to be true I would be very interested in ALL the details.

Put yourself in the victim's shoes.

What if your supervisor had you sign a life-threatening NDA and then showed you a picture of a UFO?

I'd call the police.

 

[Landru]

Oh if this turns out to be true I would be very interested in ALL the details.

Put yourself in the victim's shoes.

What if your supervisor had you sign a life-threatening NDA and then showed you a picture of a UFO?

I'd call the police.

Do you have evidence that this occurred? If not you are speculating which is not in keeping with the Posting Guidelines at Metabunk.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Oh if this turns out to be true I would be very interested in ALL the details.

Put yourself in the victim's shoes.

What if your supervisor had you sign a life-threatening NDA and then showed you a picture of a UFO?

I'd call the police.

It's interesting to us UFO nerds that geek out on this stuff. As I noted, the "crash retrieval/reverse engineering" trope has been around since the late '70s. At least part of that is just pop culture, with The Roswell Incident, published in 1980, bringing the idea of a crashed UFO full of aliens being recovered and covered up by the military into the mainstream. Or at least into something bigger than the back halls of a MUFON conference. This continued and gained a huge amount of traction with the popularity of The X Files through the '90s.

At the same time, people like Stringfield, and members of Vallee's Invisible Collage have maintained that they learned of this secret retrieval program from assorted military or defense contractor people. IF some of these stories came from actual military or contractor sources, we know at least some of these may be confused or confabulated. We mentioned up thread the claim from UFOlogist insinuating an anonymous "General" touched an alien craft, and it turned out to be a General Sheehan talking about touching the F117.

We also have what appear to be likely fabrications related to high up military personal regarding UFOs. Besides the MJ12 documents, there was the so-called "Wilson Memo". Found in the papers of the late Edgar Mitchell, it purports to be notes taken by someone, maybe Eric Davis, maybe not, while interviewing Rear Admiral Wilson in a car parked in Las Vegas. Wilson supposedly talks about finding the crash retrieval program and then being threatened. Unfortunately for UFOlogists, Wilson has denied all of it and some of the supposedly official looking documents associated with the event appear to be fake.

So, we can attribute a lot of the claims for a crash retrieval program to popular culture, confabulation and fabrication. But, were there a few actual military personal that might have been exposed to the Yankee Blue and passed that along? It's an interesting possibility, but presents a number of problems. It would suggest some people hazed with the Yankee Blue program took it seriously, but still leaked that information, violating the trust supposedly placed in them. IF they really believed a secret crash retrieval program was something they had been entrusted with, why are they blabbing about it to UFOlogist?

We'll have to wait for whatever agency is conducting an investigation to release their findings, or pass them on to AARO, to get all the details. IF this was an inside hazing prank, the exact details may never come out.

Just speculating: I think Philip's claim of "potentially" thousands of people being exposed to Yankee Blue as a hazing prank is a bit hyperbolic. There's been so little talk of it, I'm inclined to go with MapperGuy's assessment that very few people were ever involved and therefore fewer still took it seriously:

The 'victims' of the prank would most likely all have been Air Force officers with TS/SCI clearances already read into a genuine SAP program who were then told about "this other" program they might become involved with. That would be a very small number of individuals. People outside of the SAP world would not be given this treatment, only those already inside it.

 

[John J.]

I came across this which might reflect Sean Kirkpatrick's views.
Caveat, it's supposedly an e-mail sent by Kirkpatrick to "X" user D. Dean Johnson, whose X profile header info (https://x.com/ddeanjohnson) describes him as an independent journalist and provides a link to his Mirador website (https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/), which gives his name as Douglas Dean Johnson.
The website contains examinations of UFO-related claims and associated US government/ agency activity from a skeptical viewpoint.

@ddeanjohnson on "X",
Source: https://x.com/ddeanjohnson/status/2029718462227251649

[Edited to add, oops, forgot that quoting the "X" URL would bring up the post here. I've kept my transcription, below, to enable easier quoting.]
D. Dean Johnson quoting Sean Kirkpatrick,

SEAN KIRKPATRICK (March 5, 2026, email to @ddeanjohnson):
As I've testified and as I've answered previously, Yankee Blue existed as an internal prank for "hazing" of new security officers. The term "hazing" was used by the whistleblower who brought it forward. I provided this information to the Secretary of the Air Force, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the PDDNI (Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence] and Congress. The SECAF [Secretary of the Air Force] instructed his then IG to investigate further as there were reports of other such similar activities (the initial reason why full findings hadn't at the time been finalized and published). Congressional members demanded the Pentagon investigate the hazing as it was viewed as deliberately harmful to the mental well-being of individuals.

This is just one of the many findings that AARO uncovered that contributed and still contributes to the myth and conspiracy story. To suggest, as [Ross] Garber does, that Yankee Blue is either a program of deliberate disinformation or a real UAP program, gives far too much credit to the people and institution who perpetrated this and related immature and self-inflicted wounds and behaviors. A combination of events, this included, is why we have the conspiracy theories we have today, and those less scrupulous people who want to take advantage of it.

Instead of pushing an obvious desire to find a deeper conspiracy to explain these uncomfortable facts, Garber and others should be hailing the hard work at AARO who did what Congress asked them to do and uncovered a number of key issues such as Yankee Blue, Kona Blue, the links among the alleged whistleblowers, the alleged material that wasn't, and more.

At the time of my retirement [December 1, 2023], the plan was for a volume 2 [AARO historical report] to be published with the additional findings, editing corrections from volume 1, and details of work I couldn't compete before the publishing deadline as dictated by Congress. As for why there is a delay in putting out the second volume report on this and other subjects, I can only speculate and would rather you direct that inquire to AARO.

Put yourself in the victim's shoes.
What if your supervisor had you sign a life-threatening NDA and then showed you a picture of a UFO?
I'd call the police.

I would strongly agree with subjects of malicious, degrading, injurious or dangerous hazing practices and initiation rituals reporting them to higher authorities / levels of management, and if necessary the police (or service police if appropriate). This might also apply to (arguably) less egregious practices that are nonetheless contrary to the organisation's ethos, which might impede its functioning, compromise discipline or the wellbeing or legitimate work of its members.
But as far as we know (at present, this might change) no-one has done this regarding Yankee Blue, even though it has been exposed and received some publicity.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Off-topic, Douglas Dean Johnson's Mirador site has an article that seriously challenges the claims of Jose Padilla (and Jacques Vallee's use/ promulgation of those claims) regarding the metal part Padilla claims to have retrieved from a crashed UFO in New Mexico in 1945.
@NorCal Dave has written about the part in question, and has pointed out its strong resemblance to parts used in windmills, e.g. in the thread Meta Materials From UFOs.

Other mainly biographical claims made by Padilla are also examined, casting doubt on his reliability as a witness:
"Crash Story File: "Witness" credibility implodes for Jacques Vallee's Trinity UFO crash tale", 25 January 2024, Douglas Dean Johnson https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/witness-credibility-shredded-for-vallee-trinity-tale/

 

[Mendel]

Oh if this turns out to be true I would be very interested in ALL the details.

Put yourself in the victim's shoes.

What if your supervisor had you sign a life-threatening NDA and then showed you a picture of a UFO?

I'd call the police.

The problem is that you have to be a UFO believer to be in mental anguish over this.

These "life-threatening NDAs" are, by all accounts, the regular NDAs that apply to any subject someone has been read into.
We're talking here about people with a clearance, who have been read into top secret projects, and who have signed NDAs about them; and these people have also been shown pictures of UFOs and asked to keep them secret.

So. Most of them would have figured out these weren't real, not least because they were shown these without having a 'need to know'; and of course because UFOs being real is something most people joke about.

Then, you'd not "call the police", but notify the inspector general for your branch, but what would your complaint be? What do you propose is the harm these people suffered?
Remember, it's not the NDA; these NDAs get signed for the actual secrets anyway.

 

[JMartJr]

and of course because UFOs being real is something most people joke about.

OK, here's me, all set to say this is wrong, and going to get polling data -- and finding that MY memory s wrong. Again. As happens to humans everywhere...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — About half of Americans, 49%, think all UFO sightings can be explained by human activity on Earth or natural phenomena, while 37% believe at least some UFOs have been alien spacecraft visiting Earth from other planets or galaxies. Another 13% do not have an opinion. These findings come as the Pentagon continues to release previously classified UFO files under President Donald Trump's executive order.

Americans were also more inclined to associate UFOs with earthly than supernatural causes the two prior times Gallup measured this, although the alien-skeptical share was higher in 2019 (60%) than in 2021 (50%) and today. Meanwhile, rather than become increasingly convinced that some sightings have been alien spacecraft, the percentage of Americans who are unsure has grown, from 7% in 2019 to 13% in 2026.

Source: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ya...for-some-military-belief-in-ufos.14260/page-5

Now, with 49% thinking essentially there is nothing extraterrestrial or anomalous to the topic, we're not quite at "most." But darned close, and there are substantially more that disbelieve than believe. If only a few of the undecideds join in the scoffing, you'd be there, so in my opinion you are essentially correct.

(Interestingly, after a bit of a bump in UFO belief between 2019 ans 2021, since then it looks like both sides have lost a tiny bit of ground, while undecided has grown. However, that is likely within the margin of error of the polling so may not mean much of anything. A trend to watch going forward. But so far, this polling does not show a meaningful growth in UFO belief due to the recent tranches of videos and the flood of AI and other fake images and video being dumped into social media by content farms.)