Scale, Viability, and Cost of 'The Conspiracy/Coverup'

[Chief Gleeby]

So this is my first thread on Metabunk, and after doing some searching I couldn't find any similar threads, but as a former believer this is something that's consistently bothered me over the years:

"Just -How- large would a secret UFO/UAP retrieval/reverse-engineering coverup program have to be to work?"

Primarily, the following:

1. How many People would have DIRECT knowledge of what (aliens!) they were dealing with, and still be able to keep it a secret over the course of (let's assume) 80 years?

2. How much the scale of such an operation would cost (Including personnel, places to store/test UAP) on a country by country basis or through any kind of joint effort?

3. Once calculated, how funds for such programs could be diverted from the various factions of the world without arousing suspicion (enough to uncover the secret)?

4. How any one country (or multiple through combined effort) is able to identify a UFO/UAP anywhere in the world, with such ruthlessness and efficiency that it is able to effectively locate and capture it (or any remains), whilst also being able to do so in such a quick and timely manner that the secret does not get out (Assuming that at least one such event -has- happened near a public settlement)?

5. How much of a risk the 'Conspiracy' has had over the last 30 years. Can a secret of this scale and magnitude realistically have remained secret with all the innovations in technology and communication available to an individual?

I'm a layman in all professions related to this topic, specifically though I'm interested in the human cost/factor: How many people would know the secret with absolute certainty? How many people below that would have hunches or ideas that what they were working on/retrieving was something weird, but never allowed access, or -any- opportunity over 80 years to smuggle out irrefutable evidence?

What got me thinking about this topic is when I asked AI to do a deep dive on it, and it linked me to this university of oxford article, specifically about this paper, all about the viability of keeping a secret in a group of people before something gives.

In each case, the number of conspirators and the time before the conspiracy was revealed were over-estimated to ensure that the odds of a leak happening were a 'best case scenario' for the conspirators – around a four in one million chance of deliberate or accidental exposure.

Dr Grimes then looked at four alleged plots, estimating the maximum number of people required to be in on the conspiracy, in order to see how viable these conspiracies could be. These include: the theory that the US moon landings were a hoax (411,000 people); that Climate Change is a fraud (405,000 people); that unsafe vaccinations are being covered up (22,000 people assuming that only the World Health Organisation and the US Centers for Disease Control are conspirators and that others involved in advocating, producing, distributing and using vaccines are dupes. 736,000 people if, as would be more likely, pharmaceutical companies were included); that the cure for Cancer is being suppressed by the world's leading pharmaceutical firms (714,000 people).

Using the equation, Dr Grimes calculated that hoax moon landings would have been revealed in 3 years 8 months, a climate change fraud in 3 years 9 months, a vaccination conspiracy in 3 years 2 months, and a suppressed Cancer cure in 3 years 3 months. In simple terms, any one of the four conspiracies would have been exposed long before now.

He then looked at the maximum number of people who could take part in an intrigue in order to maintain it. For a plot to last five years, the maximum was 2521 people. To keep a scheme operating undetected for more than a decade, fewer than 1000 people can be involved. A century-long deception should ideally include fewer than 125 collaborators. Even a straightforward cover-up of a single event, requiring no more complex machinations than everyone keeping their mouth shut, is likely to be blown if more than 650 people are accomplices.

Which, assuming Grimes' model is accurate, and that we're coming up to 80 years since Roswell... well, it doesn't look too promising does it!

All those years of watching X-Files with all those monsters and cryptids, and it turns out The Smoking Man was the most unrealistic thing!

 

[Ann K]

Just -How- large would a secret UFO/UAP retrieval/reverse-engineering coverup program have to be to work?"

You left one aspect off your list, for a long-running conspiracy. How many of those secret-keepers would have been expected to go senile over the years and blab the whole thing in front of a crowd?

 

[JMartJr]

You left one aspect off your list, for a long-running conspiracy. How many of those secret-keepers would have been expected to go senile over the years and blab the whole thing in front of a crowd?

To be fair, people in that sad situation may not be taken seriously, nor their statements disseminated to the public.

 

[jdog]

This does leave out one important factor about blabbing secrets, I forget what it is, though.

 

[NorCal Dave]

4. How any one country (or multiple through combined effort) is able to identify a UFO/UAP anywhere in the world, with such ruthlessness and efficiency that it is able to effectively locate and capture it (or any remains), whilst also being able to do so in such a quick and timely manner that the secret does not get out (Assuming that at least one such event -has- happened near a public settlement)?

This was always a big one for me. The numbers vary by claimant, but people like Hal Puthoff have put the number of captured UFO in US possession around 10-12 IIRC. That's just what the US government and/or its defense contractors have. Nevermind the rest of the world, assuming these things are crashing all over the place. I don't think I can even come up with 10-12 recovered UFO stories in the US.

Recovered UFO claims seem to fit into a few vague categories:

1. Claims with some sort of directly related physical evidence. Roswell is the classic one here. Something seems to have crashed in the desert and was recovered, first by a local rancher and then nearby military personal. The primary statements by the local rancher more or less matched what was seen in photos by the military. Note, there was no report of a UFO or of a crash, just the discovery of debris, later attributed to a UFO.

2. Claims of physical evidence that are NOT directly related to crashed UFOs. This includes bits of junk, industrial waste, slag or other samples that people claim are related to some sort of crashed UFO, but there is no real connection, aside from the stories. The Ubatuba samples fit this. Some samples showed up in the mail anonymously with an unverified story about a UFO crash in Ubatuba.

3. Claims with no physical evidence. This is most crashed recovery claims. They just amount to anecdotal claims that can't be verified. The Trinity UFO crash is a good example as it's just some often conflicting stories from a few people of dubious reliability.

Regardless of what type of recovered story it is, they often rely on the ability of the military and/or the MiBs to instantly swoop in and completely recover the crashed UFO. Again, going back to the claim of 10-12 recovered craft, that seems a bit problematic. How is it they always get there, if not first, soon enough to cover up most of what's going on?

However, never underestimate the ability for conspiracies to adapt and reinvent around what seems like a logical inconsistency. In last years film The Age of Disclosure, director Dan Farah tells us, on Billy Corgan's podcast, that many of these recovered UFOs were left near military bases as "gifts":

39:52 [Farah] Like we talk about there's this crash retrieval program, but some of them were almost like gifts. They were found outside military bases in perfect condition. And you know, when multiple intelligence officials told me about some of these events, it's hard not to get your imagination going on what what the intention could be there.

Presumably, the same aliens were leaving UFO "gifts" for the Soviets, the Chinese and various other current or no longer viable countries.

 

[Mendel]

To be fair, people in that sad situation may not be taken seriously, nor their statements disseminated to the public.

I've heard of too many people who started believing in UFOs after they retired to accept this argument.

 

[John J.]

Presumably, the same aliens were leaving UFO "gifts" for the Soviets, the Chinese...

That's just crazy talk! The ETs know who the goodies are.
Their one concern is there hasn't been enough disclosure, but they understand that free energy and miracle cures might subvert the commercial market and encourage some ridiculous support for "socialistic" distribution of those commodities, so for the time being they're going along with Plan "A", leaving most of their gifted craft in the place where they know they'll be managed the best.

 

[Chief Gleeby]

However, never underestimate the ability for conspiracies to adapt and reinvent around what seems like a logical inconsistency. In last years film The Age of Disclosure, director Dan Farah tells us, on Billy Corgan's podcast, that many of these recovered UFOs were left near military bases as "gifts":

39:52 [Farah] Like we talk about there's this crash retrieval program, but some of them were almost like gifts. They were found outside military bases in perfect condition. And you know, when multiple intelligence officials told me about some of these events, it's hard not to get your imagination going on what what the intention could be there.

Presumably, the same aliens were leaving UFO "gifts" for the Soviets, the Chinese and various other current or no longer viable countries.

This completely missed me when I watched it! It's fascinating watching the conspiracy try to explain away the holes in its own logic.

On a related note, the world of UFOlogy being so heavily tied to America and its guarding of the secret was another hole that made me doubt the whole thing back in the day. No other country in the world has a reason to reveal the most important information in Human History? Not even one?

 

[JMartJr]

I've heard of too many people who started believing in UFOs after they retired to accept this argument.

Retired /= "gone senile."

 

[Mendel]

Retired /= "gone senile."

Yes. Some people go senile before they retire, but most do it after.
The point is, the fact that these retirees start evangelizing ufology hasn't kept all of them out of the public eye.
If they have "credentials", the UFO community seems to be happy to amplify them.

 

[Harabeck]

Those who believe in such conspiracies would claim that the coverup has failed. They would say that Putoff and others have revealed the truth, and mainstream acceptance of this truth simply hasn't occurred due to ongoing propaganda by the government, and the public's instinctive avoidance of anything that might cause "ontological shock".

In other words, the persistence of these theories is more about standards of evidence, or lack thereof. The UFO community's collaborative storytelling has convinced them that the coverup must be real, more because the story is compelling to them than anything else.

 

[Edward Current]

You left one aspect off your list, for a long-running conspiracy. How many of those secret-keepers would have been expected to go senile over the years and blab the whole thing in front of a crowd?

My go-to questions like that are: So, nobody got drunk and blabbed to a buddy? No one blabbed to a woman they were trying to impress? Nobody made a deathbed confession, with receipts? Also: Nothing ever turned up on Wikileaks?

 

[John J.]

Nobody made a deathbed confession, with receipts?

If this guy had only kept copies of the invoices... (It's an old story, though I hadn't heard it before. no idea why it cropped up again last month)
At least he had photographs:

The Mirror US, Emilia Randall, 06 December 2025 https://www.themirror.com/news/weird-news/area-51-scientists-deathbed-confession-1541081

Boyd Bushman, a Lockheed Martin scientist who worked at Area 51, made explosive claims in a 2014 deathbed video about encountering aliens and reverse engineering UFO technology throughout his career

A distinguished Area 51 scientist sent shockwaves around the world when he made a stunning deathbed confession that he had spent his entire career working alongside aliens.
Boyd B. Bushman, born in Arizona in 1936, passed away at the age of 78 in 2014. Encouraged by his family to pursue a career in science, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Brigham Young University, specializing in mathematics and physics.
Rising through the ranks to become a Senior Scientist and Engineer at the notorious defense contractor Lockheed Martin, Boyd ultimately ended up working at the mysterious Area 51, according to the BBC.
Throughout his impressive 40-year career, he also held positions at Hughes Aircraft, General Dynamics, and Texas Instruments. His contributions included helping to develop the Stinger missile and the F16 fighter jet, reports the Express.

When he stepped away from his career at age 64 in 2000, Bushman had amassed an impressive 28 patents to his name, encompassing a range of classified technologies.
His explosive final revelation hinted that alien spacecraft may have been the source of his remarkable innovations. In a startling video recording, Bushman disclosed that he had come face-to-face with aliens at Area 51 during his time working for the government.
He revealed that numerous scientists and engineers were "working on UFOs 24 hours a day. We were trying to learn what to do," according to Raw Story.

Bushman explained the most crucial aspect of their work involved "reverse engineering" - extracting usable technology from the alien craft they studied. Bushman claimed he worked on anti-gravity technology.

He stated: "Since I am a scientist, I do not believe in theory. [Eh?] I say follow the data... If something cannot be verified by a physical test that something is true, then I do not care to accept it.

"Therefore everything I present here will be data that comes directly from [Area 51] to you... A great deal of information should be lifted up from those dark recesses of Area 51 and moved over so people can see it."

He explained that extra-terrestrials were split into two primary categories, with one group being "like wranglers," while the others are "like rustlers, the ones who are stealers of cattle."
He continued: "The two groups act differently. The ones that are wranglers are much more friendly and have a better relationship with us."

He claimed all extra-terrestrials possess elongated fingers and webbed feet, communicate through telepathy and originate from a planet called Quintumnia, displaying photographs of aliens and UFOs.

Boyd Bushman's claims were discussed on Snopes, 31 October 2014, David Mikkelson, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/boyd-bushman-aliens/,
"Did Boyd Bushman Provide Evidence of Alien Contact?"

Apparently Boyd went into greater detail about the alien's anatomy, and had photographs to prove his account.
Unfortunately, they're no longer viewable on Snopes' webpage, but I found this:

(from "travelandlook" blog, 20 December 2022, https://travelandlook.blogspot.com/2022/12/video-ufos-with-boyd-bushman-and-his.html)

The Snopes article mentions a slight issue with Boyd's evidence; the alien bore a significant resemblance to a toy/model alien. Again, not viewable at Snopes, but found this online (the linked-to website was down),

 

[NorCal Dave]

My go-to questions like that are: So, nobody got drunk and blabbed to a buddy? No one blabbed to a woman they were trying to impress? Nobody made a deathbed confession, with receipts? Also: Nothing ever turned up on Wikileaks?

Well nothing is going to turn up on WikiLeaks, as it's too secret. The UFO legacy program is hidden from Congress and the President, so surely there would be nothing about it in something as paltry as Snowden's releases. He never would have had access to something so super duper secret. Sure, people in UFO circles know all about this secret program, but that's different.

As for the blabbing, it's happened, but it never seems to hold up to scrutiny. Here is a thread about Sgt. Brown blabbing about bodies at Roswell, but it didn't really pan out:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/roswell-ufo-witness-sgt-melvin-e-brown.12162/

 

[kotare]

hi hope this is relevant to the original question, it's something i've pondered for a while but not been bold enough to start a thread,
I wonder if comparison to an actual conspiracy, a genuine government(s) doing evil stuff then lying about it, would shed any light on the likely logistics and realities of a ufo type conspiracy?
obviously finding that conspiracy is the difficult part, and I guess I'm really asking in the hope that debunkers will suggest some better examples?
I would suggest the "ustica massacre" which I encountered in an appendix of a book on mh370

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itavia_Flight_870
or a longer read
https://www.athensjournals.gr/mediterranean/2024-10-3-2-Merlati.pdf

basically in 1980 a plane tragically crashed in Italy, killing all 81 on board, gradually it emerged the plane MAY have been accidentally shot down as the result of a bungled French air force attempt to shoot down a plane carrying Libya's leader Gaddafi
IF true (i am not certain, but New Zealanders of my vintage well remember some french agents blowing up the greenpeace ship rainbow warrior in one of our sleepy lil ports a little later so maybe im not entirely unbiased...) this very small sample may suggest the military is actually pretty good at keeping secrets ( must have been pilots, armourers, radar people, people giving orders?)
politicians, not so much....

and because i claimed it happened:

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

 

[Mendel]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itavia_Flight_870
or a longer read
https://www.athensjournals.gr/mediterranean/2024-10-3-2-Merlati.pdf

basically in 1980 a plane tragically crashed in Italy, killing all 81 on board, gradually it emerged the plane MAY have been accidentally shot down as the result of a bungled French air force attempt to shoot down a plane carrying Libya's leader Gaddafi
IF true (i am not certain, but New Zealanders of my vintage well remember some french agents blowing up the greenpeace ship rainbow warrior in one of our sleepy lil ports a little later so maybe im not entirely unbiased...) this very small sample may suggest the military is actually pretty good at keeping secrets ( must have been pilots, armourers, radar people, people giving orders?)
politicians, not so much....

it's a secret that wasn't kept

from Wikipedia:

Known in Italy as the Ustica massacre ("strage di Ustica"), the disaster led to numerous investigations, as well as legal actions and accusations; it continues to be a source of controversy, including claims of conspiracy by the Government of Italy and others. Francesco Cossiga, the Prime Minister of Italy at the time, attributed the crash to the shooting down by a French missile during a dogfight between Libyan and French fighter jets. In September 2023, former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato declared that the crash was "part of a plan to shoot down the airplane of Gaddafi".

On 23 January 2013, the Civil Cassation Court ruled that there was "abundantly" clear evidence that the flight was brought down by a stray missile, confirming the lower court's order that the Italian government must pay compensation.

Several conspiracy theories explaining the disaster persist.[31] For example, the vessel that carried out the search for debris on the ocean floor was French, but only US officials had access to the aircraft parts they found.[citation needed] Several radar reports were erased and several Italian generals were indicted 20 years later for obstruction of justice. The difficulty the investigators and the victims' relatives had in receiving complete, reliable information on the Ustica disaster has been popularly described as un muro di gomma ("a rubber wall"),[32] because investigations just seemed to "bounce back".

as such, it fits the pattern in the OP, where there's a number of people who know and a number of years it takes for the leak to occur

a strong factor seems to be who has access to evidence, and the number of people who do is small in this case

 

[LilWabbit]

All those years of watching X-Files with all those monsters and cryptids, and it turns out The Smoking Man was the most unrealistic thing!

This! Conspiracy theories often stumble upon what could be called (1) the omnipotence and (2) cost-effectiveness fallacy.

Firstly, the 'they' in conspiracy theories is always far more sinister, capable, resourceful, tightly guarded and powerful than is realistically possible for any human collaboration/conspiracy amongst the people and institutions claimed by the conspiracy theorists to form the conspiracy. Secondly, the claimed advantage that is gained by the conspiracy is underwhelming to warrant the costs of the conspiracy of such scale and capability.

 

[FatPhil]

This! Conspiracy theories often stumble upon what could be called (1) the omnipotence and (2) cost-effectiveness fallacy.

Firstly, the 'they' in conspiracy theories is always far more sinister, capable, resourceful, tightly guarded and powerful than is realistically possible for any human collaboration/conspiracy amongst the people and institutions claimed by the conspiracy theorists to form the conspiracy. Secondly, the claimed advantage that is gained by the conspiracy is underwhelming to warrant the costs of the conspiracy of such scale and capability.

Rewording your second point: the capabilies that are claimed (near omnipotence, as you say) are laughably underused - so much more could be done, and yet isn't. For no apparent reason. Another 'just so' story.

 

[Scaramanga]

UFOs are clearly real. I mean look at this amazing photo I took. Best ever UFO photo !

Oh...wait, I simply typed 'best ever UFO photo' into an AI prompt. It is getting increasingly hard to tell the 'real' stuff from the fakes....

 

[JMartJr]

I looked at that and saw "Best Picture of a Water Droplet on a Camera Lens Smearing a Bright Light Source." And then it ain't even that!

 

[NorCal Dave]

I wonder if comparison to an actual conspiracy, a genuine government(s) doing evil stuff then lying about it, would shed any light on the likely logistics and realities of a ufo type conspiracy?
obviously finding that conspiracy is the difficult part, and I guess I'm really asking in the hope that debunkers will suggest some better examples?

I think one of the problems in the UFO world is the conflating of various types of conspiracies with the idea of known secret programs. There are events that you described as "governments doing evil stuff then lying about it". This might include the Tuskegee experiments or MK Ultra. But note, we know about these, they weren't kept secret forever.

Then there are secret programs that eventually came out, particularity when that secret program created something that was eventually deployed. Think stuff like the Manhattan Project, the U2, Stealth aircraft. There are lot's of people involved, though often in siloed capacities, that keep the secret for a necessary length of time.

The UFO recovery and reverse engineering conspiracy reminds me more of Project Azorian/Jennifer rather than the development of an aircraft.
Azorian attempted to raise a sunken Soviet sub with a specialty built ship and recovery system. There were lots of contractors making various parts and systems for this project, much of which was out in the open. It's difficult to hide a 610' secret ship at a Philadelphia ship yard, so cover stories involving Howard Hughes were employed. The recovery attempt was made in July 1974 and by 1975 various leaks had led assorted journalist to the story and it became public. Certain videos and things are still classified by the CIA, but within 6 months or so of the operation, the cat was out of the bag.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian

Similar to hiding multiple large crashed UFOs all around the world with huge teams of various contractors and recovery personal, it just seems to large and long going of an operation to remain so secret.

In the UFO world the secret programs has been going on for 75 to 100s of years depending on the source so surely something would have been revealed by now. As it hasn't, it must mean a more nefarious conspiracy is in operation. The MiBs, secret treaties with the aliens, threats and assassinations, all of these elements are added to help explain why something so large, vast, and long lasting is still secret.

Of course the irony is that, just like Project Azorian, we know all about the secret UFO cover up. It's been part of the culture for at least 75 years with books, publications, movies, documentaries, whistle-blowers, leaks and congressional hearings. The difference is with Project Azorian there was an actual physical ship as evidence of the program. There are no UFOs.

 

[MapperGuy]

In the UFO world the secret programs has been going on for 75 to 100s of years depending on the source so surely something would have been revealed by now.

The increasing length of time over which it is claimed the conspiracy has been going on is actually hurting their story, it does is allow them to include older and older claims, but it also makes it less and less plausible that the conspiracy has been successfully maintained.

Any conspiracy that stretches back before 1945 could only have been maintained by the US and Great Britain. Any conspiracy involving Germany or Japan would have been revealed when they were conquered and occupied in 1945, one in France would have been discovered by the Germans when they occupied France in 1940, Poland in 1939, etc.. A Chinese conspiracy would have been found by Japan, which occupied much of it in the 1930's, and the Chinese were themselves divided into waring Nationalist and Communist factions who would have fought over control of any crashed UFO's. Only a conspiracy limited to the US and/or GB is plausible before 1945, and they would have had little or no control over fellow conspiracy members in those other countries during the war, when so many countries were scrambling for any possible technological breakthrough to save themselves.

Rewording your second point: the capabilies that are claimed (near omnipotence, as you say) are laughably underused - so much more could be done, and yet isn't.

Near omnipotence and yet so many familiar names in the UFO world have been active for decades, without dying of 'natural causes' or accident or any one of many things that could have silenced their voices. Yet these people never shut up or are removed from the scene. Now that is implausible.

 

[kotare]

I think one of the problems in the UFO world is the conflating of various types of conspiracies with the idea of known secret programs. There are events that you described as "governments doing evil stuff then lying about it". This might include the Tuskegee experiments or MK Ultra. But note, we know about these, they weren't kept secret forever.

hi, agree entirely, i stress Im no kind of expert on any of this, but recently read "The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and cold war secret intelligence" by Richard J. Aldrich, which i would recommend to anyone interested.
The final chapter focused on the destruction of evidence:
"The Automatic Waste Collection System processed 35 tons of classified paper every 24 hours and, during the first half decade, was fed a long list of unclassified but mysterious items, including a pair of ski boots, a washing machine motor, a pair of man's pants, a lady's bra and slip, a pencil sharpener and some .22 caliber bullets" NSA internal history, september 1986
I quote from pg637"The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and cold war secret intelligence" by Richard J. Aldrich
he quotes from: "On Watch: Profiles from the National Security Agency's Past 40 Years',91, declassified by NSA under FOIA

so my (longwinded) point would be if the physical evidence is completely destroyed all that we are left with is testimony, inferences, stories etc, just people talking (breathing together!). conspiracy is what happens when there is no actual evidence? and probably never will be.
which means my Ustica massacre example wasnt a great example at all. (81 corpses and crashed fighter jets are evidence)

which really just reinforces the careful examination of any purported evidence offered, like you all do here
but i think you all knew that already...

 

[Ann K]

The increasing length of time over which it is claimed the conspiracy has been going on is actually hurting their story, it does is allow them to include older and older claims, but it also makes it less and less plausible that the conspiracy has been successfully maintained.

That's what made The DaVinci Code so laughable, and so much a waste of time.

 

[Gary C]

The increasing length of time over which it is claimed the conspiracy has been going on is actually hurting their story, it does is allow them to include older and older claims, but it also makes it less and less plausible that the conspiracy has been successfully maintained.

Any conspiracy that stretches back before 1945 could only have been maintained by the US and Great Britain. Any conspiracy involving Germany or Japan would have been revealed when they were conquered and occupied in 1945, one in France would have been discovered by the Germans when they occupied France in 1940, Poland in 1939, etc.. A Chinese conspiracy would have been found by Japan, which occupied much of it in the 1930's, and the Chinese were themselves divided into waring Nationalist and Communist factions who would have fought over control of any crashed UFO's. Only a conspiracy limited to the US and/or GB is plausible before 1945, and they would have had little or no control over fellow conspiracy members in those other countries during the war, when so many countries were scrambling for any possible technological breakthrough to save themselves.



Near omnipotence and yet so many familiar names in the UFO world have been active for decades, without dying of 'natural causes' or accident or any one of many things that could have silenced their voices. Yet these people never shut up or are removed from the scene. Now that is implausible.

My Bold for emphasis.

@MapperGuy has a really good point here. The actual secrets of WWII German 'Wonder Weapons" have been grist for popular technology books and articles since the 1960's at the very least. There was initially massive secrecy surrounding the data recovered from the various Nazi aircraft and missile programs and later classified US/UK programs which exploited that data to produce the next generation of combat aircraft, etc. So from the end of WWII to the mid `60s puts disclosure for these real world examples in the range of barely 20 years.

While you can quibble as to whether Operation Paperclip qualifies as a conspiracy, it was nevertheless highly classified at the time which relates directly back to the OP's question, how long can you keep a big program secret.

With the advent of cable TV channels such as The History Channel, we now have dozens of documentaries [sic] in successively decreasing quality as the material gets rehashed for audiences generations removed from WWII, the Cold War, and the context they provided. AI generated YouTube content channels are continuing the downward trend in quality. The business model is converging toward the same low standard as Ancient Aliens. Take a few facts out of context and add whatever narrative spin hasn't been done recently to generate content marketable to the next generation audience. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Chief Gleeby]

With the advent of cable TV channels such as The History Channel, we now have dozens of documentaries [sic] in successively decreasing quality as the material gets rehashed for audiences generations removed from WWII, the Cold War, and the context they provided. AI generated YouTube content channels are continuing the downward trend in quality. The business model is converging toward the same low standard as Ancient Aliens. Take a few facts out of context and add whatever narrative spin hasn't been done recently to generate content marketable to the next generation audience. Rinse and repeat.

That's one of the more fascinating aspects of way the story's being/been spun, and one that was impossible to put back in the bottle once I pulled the wool from my eyes.

Another thing I'd add to that, which I didn't notice back in the day but seems obvious now, is just how much the -lack- of information, whether deliberately withheld or not, is crucial in aiding to the 'viability' of a case/sighting.

I'm almost shocked it took me -this- long to find that paper I posted at the top of the thread. It's got me thinking a lot about the nature of human psychology, how people can ignore or refuse certain information they're presented with, consciously or not (Or never question their beliefs in such a way that would seriously threaten them).

 

[Jay Y]

If purported events are orders of magnitude more complex than that of which we are capable, we must conclude counter factuality. To put it bluntly,
'we simply do/did not have the technology'.

The Apollo 11 moon landing's chance of success was 'limited' at best and yet, the counter factual 'version' of events with which we are all familiar remains implausible for the reasons outlined [and any number more] in the original post because
'we simply did not have the technology'.

The moon landing is a useful example because there are many questions about it to which we have all the answers.

I think the corollary is, as this post and the linked piece on synchronicity expounds, that conspiracy thrives where probability hides.

 

[Jay Y]

Please do let me know if further/explicit citations/references should be included in future posting.

 

[John J.]

Hi Jay Y,

Direct quotes (using the clicky, not the

, took me ages to understand that), checkable references and links to sources are always useful.

"Posting Guidelines" https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/
If providing a link, include a brief description of what you're linking to (and identify where quotes are from).