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

[Hwy666]

From 1955 onwards, the CIA's highly classified U-2 aircraft flew at altitudes far above ordinary commercial air traffic.

Pilots and observers reported unusual objects, particularly when sunlight illuminated the aircraft at dawn or dusk.

Air Force Project Blue Book investigators could sometimes identify the objects as U-2 aircraft through classified channels.

Rather than reveal the secret aircraft, investigators sometimes supplied alternative explanations involving atmospheric effects.

That's where the contradiction lies.

After the Roswell PR debacle, Blue Book's doctrine was to use literally anything but flying saucers to explain away or run interference for classified aircraft like the U2 and generic UFO sightings.

Even an explanation as dubious as marsh gas was better than saying it was a flying saucer.

Until that evidence is available, the claim remains an unverified allegation, not an established historical fact. You're criticising the logic of an operation whose existence hasn't yet been independently demonstrated. Unless I stated in my opening I have your point

It's both the lack of evidence and methodology that makes me question Yankee Blue. With Roswell in the rearview mirror, I have a really hard time believing anyone in the military especially would use something as inflammatory as alien flying saucers as a cover story for anything.

It reminds me of a quote from a pretty good movie:

"Martin, it's all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, 'Huh? What?' You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July."
Mayor Larry Vaughn, Jaws.

 

[John J.]

...I have a really hard time believing anyone in the military especially would use something as inflammatory as alien flying saucers as a cover story for anything.

"Yankee Blue" was unofficial, unapproved. Probably Just some old hands having a laugh at the newcomer's expense.
I guess it's possible (conjecture) there were similar pranks that were not part of an organised or coordinated "campaign" of any sort, e.g. maybe not all used the phrase Yankee Blue. People, including generally responsible people, sometimes do silly things. Others sometimes believe tall tales that most don't fall for.

Whether the subject of flying saucers/ UFOs is inflammatory is perhaps subjective; if they exist as (e.g.) alien spacecraft might be a matter of debate for some, but there are many real-world subjects of undoubted seriousness that might have served as the basis for irresponsible pranking of military/ defense staff- perhaps more believable narratives with potentially more serious consequences if believed. If those perpetrating a Yankee Blue-type prank didn't take UFOs seriously themselves, they might not have considered it inflammatory. Maybe they half-expected that the newcomer wouldn't really take it seriously, or would be put right by their colleagues in short order, just like most guys sent to get the tartan paint know it's a gag (and maybe their boss knows that they know, but the mark has to go along with it).

 

[Hwy666]

"Yankee Blue" was unofficial, unapproved. Probably

I would hope so.

Otherwise that would be like taking the ship used in Project Azorian, renaming it to NESSIE HUNTER and telling the port authority that it was going to be fishing for plesiosaurs in the ocean.

Even normal people would click on that story.

 

[Mendel]

The DoD banned hazing and all other forms of harassment in 2018. The UAPTF wasn't formed until 2020.

https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/102003p.PDF?vext

I did find this, which I find ridiculous:

"One such incident, first uncovered by the Wall Street Journal, involves an Air Force colonel who, in the 1980s, handed fake photos of flying saucers to a bar owner near the top-secret Area 51 base in Nevada. The colonel, now retired, later admitted to investigators that he was acting under official orders to deflect attention away from the then-classified F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter."
https://www.ktvu.com/news/ufo-disinfo-cold-war-stealth-coverup

Seriously? That's like loading a fire extinguisher with napalm.

I mean, you could've "found this" by scrolling up:

The "photos in the pub" item is the least fleshed out in the whole article, though on the surface it seems to most fit the headline:

The congressionally ordered probe took investigators back to the 1980s, when an Air Force colonel visited a bar near Area 51, a top-secret site in the Nevada desert. He gave the owner photos of what might be flying saucers. The photos went up on the walls, and into the local lore went the idea that the U.S. military was secretly testing recovered alien technology.

We don't know which photos are involved. They're public, so why not? Were they existing hoaxed UFO photos already part of the UFO lore? We don't know what the colonel represented them to be, either.

The fact that we don't even know which photos these are indicates to me that the impact of this event was not very high.