Rabbit Hole: What's Behind Corporate Media Silence on the Bombshell UAP / UFO News

"If true, this changes the world," one expert told me. But is it...true?

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It seems like we’ve had a run of news recently related to UFOs (unidentified flying objects), or the new term for it, UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena, or, sometimes unidentified “anomalous” phenomena). Last week NASA’s UAP study team presented its findings publicly, and — as is often the case with these stories — provided little insight and a lot more questions. That said, they did reveal those strange metallic orbs we’ve seen pictures of recently seem to be “flying all over the world,” and remain unexplained.

Then there were the February incidents of at least three UAPs being shot down shortly after the Chinese spy balloon fiasco. As I wrote in Fourth Watch at the time, while two appear to be some sort of balloon, the Alaska object was different. CNN reported pilots said the object “interfered with their sensors,” and “claimed to have seen no identifiable propulsion on the object.” The New York Times reported the object didn’t “act like a balloon,” and instead “broke apart” and fell to the ground. The Biden administration announced it was unable to find any of the wreckage, and everyone moved on.

But this past week has undoubtedly been the most newsworthy for the UAP/UFO story since 2017. On Monday, a massive and shocking report in The Debrief, a small technology and science website, broke news that a longtime intel officer and now whistleblower named David Grusch had come forward with details on a “craft retrieval” program related to “non-human intelligence” or NHI. Grusch later appeared in a NewsNation exclusive interview, and tonight that full hour-long interview aired — in which he noted that this program would sometimes “encounter dead pilots” in these non-human craft. Meanwhile journalist Michael Shellenberger furthered the reporting on his Substack on Thursday with an article citing several military and intel contractors that the U.S. was in possession of at least a dozen “alien spacecraft.” And then for good measure the Daily Mail had an exclusive report yesterday about how individuals who entered these downed crafts experienced “distorted space and time” (like how an object appeared to be 30 feet long from the outside but was as big as a football stadium once it was entered).

I’ve been fascinated by these UFO stories for decades. But my personal fascination aside, the overriding disinterest we’ve seen in the corporate press to this has been notable — and, potentially, very telling. I talked this week to several experts, including one of the reporters on the Debrief story. As one told me, “If true, this changes the world.” Of course — “if true” is the key phrase. So should the media be putting a lot more resources toward telling this story —and what motivations are behind the decision-making in how it’s getting covered, or as we’ve seen this week, mostly not?

We should start with the Debrief article, because it’s the most extensive, and started this whole cascading effect of UAP coverage. The story is written by Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal, veteran reporters who have been covering UAPs among other topics for decades. In fact Kean and Blumenthal broke the story wide open with their December 2017 report in the New York Times which was the first to acknowledge the existence of the task force investigating UAPs, and also showed the actual now-famous videos of a couple of these encounters with military aircraft. (A similar investigation was published the same day in Politico — these stories always seem to have a level of coordination.)

Kean and Blumenthal would go on to publish other pieces in the New York Times about the UAP program and revelations. So why go to TheDebrief this time? Blumenthal told me they did go to the New York Times with this story as well, “early on before we had all the facts we later got. They passed, at that point.”

He and Kean have stated publicly that they rushed the story, which was being considered at The Washington Post, because of threats to Grusch, their main source. “We had to protect him and others sources by getting the story out fast. By that time we had already fully assembled our information,” Blumenthal told me.

The story appears to be impeccably reported, and is well worth the read. But it is missing a key element that made the December 2017 piece, and subsequent reporting, so compelling — photos or videos. Blumenthal told me it wasn’t possible with this report. “We gathered lots of documentation backing up his statements to Congress, the ICIG and us,” he told me. “Some we detailed in the article, some we didn't. Much of the evidence is classified.”

John Greenewald runs The Black Vault, an essential resource that houses government documents he has personally FOIAed, and much of that relates to UFOs and UAPs. I interviewed him last year on The Fourth Watch Podcast about UAPs and extraterrestrial life. Greenewald is a skeptic, which is important on stories like this. He put together a meticulous dissection of the Grusch story on his YouTube channel, which is a good alternate and expert perspective.

Greenewald told me he thinks it would be important to see the actual whistleblower complaint Grusch made, among other evidence that has not been made public. “I hate to sound so doubtful on these types of things, but I'm eager to see that document,” he told me.

Based around his doubts, if he were running a newsroom, would he be paying attention to the story this week? “I would absolutely cover this story,” he told me. “I’d try to cover all the angles of the story and push back on it. If a story is true, no matter what you throw at it, it will stand strong. It will survive any form of scrutiny, or questioning.”

We also talked about the stakes. “If true, this changes the world,” he said. “It changes humanity and our place in it. We’re dealing with something that's absolutely a huge deal. With that said, it deserves pushback.”

But let’s zoom out even more. The timing is always important with big stories, and it seems very instructive that the big New York Times and Politico pieces hit in December 2017, shortly after President Donald Trump took office. As I wrote in my book “Uncovered,” the #MeToo era really kicked off in the wake of Trump’s election, as suddenly there was an interest to expose men like Harvey Weinstein or Jeffrey Epstein. The media floodgates opened, and reporters now felt empowered to tell these stories. Did the UAP timing relate in that same way? The Trump era was defined by chaos, and in chaotic situations, norms can get pushed and tested. Now in the Biden era, are corporate media journalists simply pulling back from pushing the boundaries?

Or is there another reason for the lack of coverage this week — one that’s simpler and more straight-forward: sourcing.