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.

 

[John J.]

"Yankee Blue" was unofficial, unapproved. Probably

I would hope so.

Oops, my apologies for any confusion, in my post "Probably" was followed by "just" but with a capital "J", making it unclear if "probably" applied to the first sentence or the second. (It's the second, "Yankee Blue" and any similar practices were definitely unofficial and unapproved).

 

[jon_eir]

That's where the contradiction lies

I see no contradiction, . Maybe I'm missing something again? If your originally post was pointing to a contradiction state that and support it evidence, even if you think its obvious others (like myself) may not. Your post may in the future be taken out of context. This leads to my larger point maybe tried to reference more relievable primary sources not circular or dependent ones.

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.

What backs these claims of the Roswell PR debacle and Blue Books doctrine to use anything but flying saucers to explain away or run interference for classified aircraft like the U2 and generic UFO sightings. If you source these in some respect that can be discussed.

I think the thread has discussed lots of the aspects surrounding yankee blue in all sorts of ways with supporting evidence.

 

[NorCal Dave]

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.

That depends on the time frame. One Army media relations guy used the word "flying saucer" in reference to what Brazel had found on his ranch near Roswell. Possibly because the whole notion of flying saucers and the phrase had recently been in the news after the Kenneth Arnold sighting. This was in 1947 and it was quickly retracted. After that, the whole Roswell thing went away.

It was only resurrected 30 years later in 1980 with the publication of a rather fanciful retelling in The Roswell Incidence by William Moore and Charles Berlitz, who popularized The Bermuda Triangle. IF any Air Force or CIA people in the '50s, '60s or '70s allowed sightings of secret aircraft to be reported as UFOs, it's not with some "PR debacle" and "Roswell in the rear-view mirror". Roswell wasn't part of the UFO zeitgeist until the '80s and especially into the '90s. Don't confuse the more modern, and heavily augmented, canonical version of Roswell we all know now with what people thought about it pre-1980. For the most part they didn't think of it at all and few had heard of it.

 

[MonkeeSage]

Hundreds of them in decades? But just 3/4 people talked?

The alleged hazing involved swearing to an NDA, so whether people subjected to it bought into it or not, they may have believed the NDA was real and binding. "These men signed NDAs. They thought it was real." (WSJ article).

If that is true I would expect the leak rate to be low, on par with other leaks of real secrets.

 

[illiniflyer]

The alleged hazing involved swearing to an NDA, so whether people subjected to it bought into it or not, they may have believed the NDA was real and binding. "These men signed NDAs. They thought it was real." (WSJ article).

If that is true I would expect the leak rate to be low, on par with other leaks of real secrets.

I have a very, very dumb question that I should know the answer to: do military members or civilian intelligence officers sign an actual NDA for anything? Doesn't that simply come with the territory when possessing an active security clearance?

 

[MonkeeSage]

I have a very, very dumb question that I should know the answer to: do military members or civilian intelligence officers sign an actual NDA for anything? Doesn't that simply come with the territory when possessing an active security clearance?

Yes, though I am not sure if it's a separate thing or part of the clearance process.

Here's an example from DoD:
https://www.dcsa.mil/Portals/91/Documents/CTP/CUI/DOD-CUI_Non-Disclosure_Agreement.pdf

And here's one from DHS:
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/dhs_form_11000-6.pdf

And an older one from CIA:
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP87B01034R000500040005-2.pdf

In a recent article by Douglas Dean Johnson (@Dean) about alleged threats to UAP whistleblowers (worth a read and touches on Yankee Blue) he includes a PDF of a "security termination briefing" packet from Sandia National Laboratories that has similar language.

Article: https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/sen-rounds-no-to-ufo-assassin-theories/
PDF: https://douglasjohnson.ghost.io/content/files/2026/10/Sandia-DOE-F-472.12-1.pdf

 

[MapperGuy]

I have a very, very dumb question that I should know the answer to: do military members or civilian intelligence officers sign an actual NDA for anything? Doesn't that simply come with the territory when possessing an active security clearance?

Yes, when I retired I had to sign a bunch NDA's. When being briefed into some compartments you have to sign that you have been briefed in, and when you move on to another job you have to sign an acknowledgement that you no longer have access to that particular compartment and won't talk about it. Depends how often you move from one assignment to another.
And on the topic of people not talking about Yankee-Blue.
I have been retired for some years now and not once has anyone from the government contacted me and told me that something I was read into is no longer classified and I am free to talk about it. Even though I am sure that somethings have been declassified, from reading the news. But until I am officially notified of that fact I consider all those NDA's to still be in force, and I suspect most retirees do as well. Secrecy becomes a habit.

 

[jackfrostvc]

I have a very, very dumb question that I should know the answer to: do military members or civilian intelligence officers sign an actual NDA for anything? Doesn't that simply come with the territory when possessing an active security clearance?