Sludge Report #6: Trump, Strieber, Spielberg, and Area 51 patches

In an interview posted on February 14, 2026, political podcaster Bryan Tyler Cohen asked former President Barack Obama, "Are aliens real?" Obama responded: "They're real, but I haven't seen them, and they're not being kept in Area 51. There's no underground facility, unless there's this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the President of the United States." (https://youtu.be/uI-hgSE5QIw?t=2643) Many people took this to be a thinly veiled admission that the US Government indeed possesses secret evidence for the existence of extraterrestrials, or even that they're hiding the bodies or craft alluded to in so much UFO lore, but Obama was unequivocal that he did not believe this to be the case when he later clarified his position with the following message on Instagram:

I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it's gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there's life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we've been visited by aliens are is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really! (https://youtu.be/U0438rjwS7c?t=66)

Days later, President Donald Trump used Obama's words to accuse him of releasing "classified information" (https://youtu.be/F-OirPpUzuw?si=PXk_qbrGn9DGbeIQ). Shortly afterwards, Trump posted on TruthSocial:

(https://youtu.be/fRpfMOEKf0U?t=60)

This statement has an air of brinkmanship (and jealousy , for Trump has always been jealous of Obama), especially when viewed against the backdrop of Trump's threats of investigating the former President on other matters and even posting an egregiously racist AI-generated video about him and his wife. The UAP statement also dovetailed with popular UFO/alien/government lore, which assumes that the American authorities possess special knowledge of ET visitation, if not their recovered artefacts and bodies. Notably, Nick Pope, a UFO mainstay and former staffer at the UK Ministry of Defence's UFO Desk (though he's likely exaggerated his role there), wrote a piece for Skeptic.com in which he stated that if Disclosure doesn't happen under the maverick presidency of Trump, he will be "99.9% sure that there's nothing to disclose," and that this lack of Disclosure will likely contribute to ufology's decline after its recent ascendancy. (https://www.skeptic.com/article/ufology-from-fringe-to-mainstream-to-fringe/) Pope's broader point is especially well taken: ufology started as a fringe topic, became mainstream and now risks becoming fringe again due to the lack of tangible evidence and the unreliability of some "whistleblowers." This observation could hint at a long-term cycle in which the topic's fortunes wax and wane over decades, synchronized with political developments, especially in American society.

Former Director of AARO, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, also weighed in when asked by New York Post reporter and UFO/UAP topic observer Steven Greenstreet what he thought of Trump's messaging. Kirkpatrick noted that it was essentially much ado about nothing, that AARO had already chased down all the relevant leads it received regarding special knowledge or UAP technology in the hands of the U.S. Government, and that the United States is now "slipping into a dark age and out of enlightenment and our leadership is leading the way." (https://x.com/MiddleOfMayhem/status/2024987837503021203) He also noted that Trump's UAP-themed TruthSocial post was a distraction from the likely impending attack on Iran and "a response to Obama’s public attention on the matter" (presumably referring to the alien topic instead of Iran). Kirkpatrick was perhaps being ceremonious by not broaching the ongoing controversies surrounding the Trump Administration/DoJ's handling of the other files, a saga that has proven disastrous for the orange one's already less than stellar public image and his largely vacuous promises of transparency. Switching the focus may thus serve a similar function to that served on Capital Hill with the UAP hearings: to parlay or launder a brand of transparency through the topic of UFOs while avoiding more pressing issues in which the Trump Administration and the Republican Party have fallen well short of their pledges. I call this the "UFO Transparency Pivot": when someone is doing something grimy that they don't want the public to pay attention to, so they lean into the UFO topic to project an image of transparency and accountability. This is likely why Republicans have been more or less in the lead on the UAP issue on Capitol Hill. I wouldn't trust most of these folks further than I can throw them, but boy do they sound sincere and articulate when they're blathering about UFOs. One could be mistaken for thinking that Matt Gaetz was an elder statesman at times.

Trump's UFO pivot had actually been predicted by some commentators well in advance. Comedian and talk show host Seth Myers predicted it months ago (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/seth-meyers-trump-alien-epstein-files-b2924379.html) And why not? It's a topic that's highly in vogue at the moment and has captured the Zeitgeist. Many people are demanding more openness by the government around it as well. This is low hanging fruit for the embattled Trump (for his part, he's mentioned that he's not really into the topic and doesn't particularly believe that aliens are coming here).

In other news, Steven Spielberg's highly anticipated "Disclosure Day" movie, to be released in summer of this year, has caused waves of excitement but also consternation in some quarters. Some Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists have grown concerned about its "Satanic" message (https://youtu.be/xRaM6jKaDq8?si=0xWN-OdP6zZX3bdh), with the ETs in the movie trailer engaging in channeling and possession of people (probably an irresponsible choice on Spielberg's part, as it already paints ETs as an invasive and intrusive force, not to mention that it plays into the fears of End Times believers and the widespread belief in demons in the United States). As if the US isn't groaning under the weight of enough xenophobia and paranoia! Some 80% of white evangelicals reportedly voted for Trump (at least in the 2016 election, though I believe a similar percentage voted for him in 2024), who traffics in racism, fear of migrants and white grievance. ET would be viewed as literally demonic by tens of millions of these Americans in the event of First Contact. I personally know individuals who believe that aliens "can't" be real because "the Bible would have told us about them." Does humanity stand a chance when the most powerful country in the world has multitudes of voters who reject evolution, deny climate change, believe in the Second Coming of Christ and the Rapture, and that US foreign policy in the Middle East should be geared towards fulfilling Biblical prophecy?

Speaking of fear and paranoia, I had occasion to watch an interview with Whitley Strieber on Danny Jones' podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMR7_5SSWsM). I've always found Strieber's story exceedingly unwholesome, but utterly fascinating in its own unfortunate way. I'm no psychologist, but I do think that sexual abuse is a motivator of some of the narrative elements in it, as is Catholicism and a tortured attitude toward sex in general. Some comments and observations:

* his "implant" sounds like a cyst or a random metal fragment that got under his epidermis but that he's making a giant deal about because he's attached some special meaning to it and it's become a fixture in his story. A mix of psychosomatic effects and alien lore.

* his mind becomes "smaller" when the "implant" shuts off. This reminds me of what author Diana Paskulka said about some of her correspondents and some people in the historical space programs of the US and Russia: that they felt like they were receiving information and wisdom from an outside source. Also reminiscent of "download" stories, such as later incarnations of the Rendlesham case.

* the CIA is the "go to agency" on this stuff since 1947. The CIA always seems to be the bogeyman in all of this. I'm not saying that they wouldn't be assigned a special role if this stuff was real, but it just seems incredibly derivative of decades old tropes and sci fi movies/spy thrillers etc. Indeed, of The X Files.

* "my ear gets really hot when I'm working." I've felt this too! It might be a blood circulation issue, but my head can feel quite hot when I'm thinking deeply or concentrating on a stressful or challenging task. Strieber is probably reporting a fairly common physiological problem, not evidence of extraterrestrial technology.

* "I would be killed by a mole if I became a CIA officer because I'm too patriotic." Supposedly this was a warning to him by the infamous James Jesus Angleton (who also supposedly knew his dad). Why does he suddenly know the Who's Who in the intelligence community? Angleton was also, importantly, in charge of or had conceived MKULTRA.

* his dad took him to meet "Visitors" when he was 9 years old and remembers seeing a flashing object go over a barn or something. Also, when he was 11 there was a "man on the roof." The police officer who was called to investigate ran out of the Strieber residence in terror and sped off in his car. This sounds like an episode of Twin Peaks. I don't know if Strieber mentions these incidents in Communion, but if not, why not? He claims in the interview that he's "always had" these memories.

* mentions "witness testimony is not reliable testimony, never has been." Fair enough, and I agree, but why does he always reach for UFO/alien reports that are based on witness testimony to bolster his own narrative about Visitors, otherworldly presences etc.?

* claims he got into an advanced program in his childhood that involved a "Skinner box" but that he doesn't remember much about it. I don't know when he first started making this claim, but it is reminiscent of the Montauk story (which was apparently an inspiration for the Netflix series Stranger Things, about a psychic girl and her misadventures with the government and interdimensional monsters) and UFO charlatan/plagiarist Dan Burisch's claims about being "chosen" as a kid for a special program.

* claims he was treated at a military hospital for immune system complications and that his school report card became filled with medical absence notices. The card was stolen by his sister, who didn't want him to reveal or remember the special teaching program. Again, this sounds like pure fan fiction to me.

* he felt that the program's managers might have "wanted me to leave my body" but that this is only a guess and that what the program was doing was "bullshit" (how does he know that if he can hardly remember anything about it? Though he could be simply alluding to the lack of efficacy of Skinner boxes). This is reminiscent of the "containers" trope in much of UFO lore (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92hE44IQSDU) It's repeated later on.

* a "General Exen" was friends with his uncle and they were both at Wright Field when the Roswell "bodies" were brought there. So not only was his dad friends with the chief of CIA counterintelligence, but his uncle was friends with a person who just happened to be involved in the events around Roswell.

* the Roswell crash involved three entities and a device. Exen claimed (according to Strieber) that the being he held was like a "big insect". This could speak to the imago image of an insect undergoing metamorphosis and that provides a warning of the Grey as our future if we're not careful with technology (interestingly, one of the major proponents of this idea is Jason Reza Jorjani, one of the cofounders of the "alt right". In fairness to Strieber, he's a strong supporter of democracy and doesn't go for Trump's fascist push).

* author Annie Jacobsen's story of altered children experimented on by Josef Mengele and sent to the US in a Soviet craft is discussed. Strieber claims that the story "went all over the Air Force" at the time as a sort of cover. I don't think there's any evidence for this at all, let alone the underlying story favored by much of the UFO crowd about recovered alien tech and bodies.

* the "Visitors" manipulate government departments and decide what information is released. The Pentagon is like a dog that has little inkling of what its master (the Visitors) is doing. This sounds like The X Files in a nutshell, where the government conspirators were basically doing the bidding of the aliens.

* claims to have telepathic communication with the beings. It's always telepathy, going back to the Contactees.

* the aliens are wary of revealing themselves because they're interested in humanity for the things that we've discovered and that the aliens haven't. If the Visitors were to reveal themselves, humanity would go over to them and orient society to be more like them (following a pattern throughout human history in which a dominant culture destroyed another culture through its presence and supposed superiority), destroying the unique gift or seed that makes the beings interested in us in the first place. I think Strieber mentions that his point was developed by some scientists studying the Kuiper belt.

* he claims that contacts from the Visitors are initiated between 3 and 4 in the morning. As many observers have noted about the alien abduction saga, this is consistent with insomnia and hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations.

* just because they're more technologically advanced than we are doesn't mean that they're more ethically advanced. Could this speak to a demonic view of them?

* he stayed at his aunt's home and the Visitors were a few feet from him but outside of the house, initiating telepathic contact - and "worked with me on the book"! Is this a shamanic inclination, with Strieber as the link between Earth and celestial beings?

* returning to the point about "they might have wanted me to leave my body": the beings leave their bodies behind but don't really inhabit them. Creatures at Roswell might have been bodies used by and discarded by the beings. Again, this sounds like the "containers" trope. Also seen in the movie Avatar where giant alien humanoids are controlled by computers channeling a person's consciousness (this idea might have been ripped off by director James Cameron from an obscure sci fi novel. I mention this because I don't know when this sort of idea was first mentioned by Strieber in his book series about the Visitors).

* the beings have lied since day one, again speaking to their less than pure nature. Demons? Tricksters? Something from the Greek pantheon? (clues might be found in Keith Thompson's Angels and Aliens, though that book is from 1991, while Communion is from 1987)

* he reports an experience with Jeffrey Kripal at the Eselin Institute. I think David Grusch has also gone to a conference there and participated in an attempt to summon a UFO with telepathy/psionics.

* the Visitors want a sense of the new from us that they can't get because of the way they experience time.

* Phillip Corso is mentioned. Corso was told by the Visitors to turn off his radar for 10 minutes and was offered what the Visitors have: "A new word, if you can take it." This speaks to religious encounters in which the numinous or divine are experienced as overwhelming and terrifying. David Halperin, author of Intimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO talks about this extensively in relation to Ezekiel and other Biblical stories where people come into contact with God or angels. Is Corso's story an example of this yearning for the numinous erupting into the UFO/alien genre? And is Strieber's another example? It would certainly seem to be, though I hasten to add that trauma elements are at the base.

* Strieber sees this whole thing as being fundamentally about time.

* he mentions "cultural colonization". Strieber was chosen instead of a scientist because he is good at writing and telling stories, and there's an element of ambiguity so that people can "take it or leave it." I took this to mean that if the beings had chosen a scientist to convey their presence, the process would be too abrupt, and it wouldn't sink into/propagate through the broader culture in a way that the Visitors want.

* he mentions a study done by Kenneth Ring, author of The Omega Project (1992), which incidentally has a foreword by Strieber, that found that many abductees had experienced trauma in their childhoods. This suggests to that the alien abduction narrative may be a manifestation of abuse or fear, and that Strieber himself was subjected to this and is processing his emotions through an alien/UFO lens. This is explored in a book I haven't read but definitely mean to read titled Prisoner of Infinity, which Strieber reportedly didn't want to collaborate on.

* he claims that the IC puts out "baloney" about how lie detectors and hypnotic regression don't work/aren't reliable. (my assumption was the opposite, since the IC sometimes uses lie detectors, albeit largely as an intimidation tool) Claims that they do work in the hands of professionals (e.g. doctors) with "no idea of any of this" (the UFO/alien genre) so that they don't contaminate the testimony of the subjects/witnesses. However, it's probably almost impossible to ensure this, since pretty much everyone knows at least some alien lore through cultural osmosis and sci fi tropes. Allan Hendry talks about this very issue in his UFO Handbook from 1979.

* the host had asked Kripal about consistencies among people who have had the sorts of experiences talking about by Strieber, and Kripal, lo and behold, mentioned trauma. Yeah, no shit!

* when asked about his Monterrey, Mexico childhood experiences, Strieber said "I don't want to talk about it" yet proceeds to talk at length about it. This seems like a classic pump and dump routine that many people in the UFO circuit engage: hype the excitement about something and then string the audience along with a vague story. He did mention that "It was awful" (suggestive of more abuse/trauma? In my view, this is highly likely). When asked what the point of the story was "if it's real", he replied that it was "to traumatize children to crack the cosmic egg" (this, again, is reminiscent of the Montauk story). The "egg" reference is perhaps illustrative, as it's a powerful alchemical symbol (English professor and poet Bryan Sentes' phrase) and appears in many UFO stories, such as the (discredited, though the symbolism could still be relevant) Trinity story pushed by Jacques Vallee and Paula Harris.

* "Anyone who says they can remember things like that clearly cannot be telling the truth." Except when he's adamant that it's a "fixed memory"? Seems to go against his earlier description of memory as a "liquid" that is "highly malleable.""

* Jorjani apparently had previously told the host about the Monterrey story. That's fine, but I am wary of the Fortean/Discordian exertions by far-right ("alt right") personalities in this space, who might be using the genre as a gateway drug for political extremism or to undermine scientific reality. Jorjani has woven (largely through stitching together bits and pieces of UFO lore) a grand narrative and cosmic opera relating to Nordic aliens, ancient Martian civilizations, time travel, Greys, etc etc. Where does verifiable evidence hand off to fluorescent tales in these throughlines? Where in that continuity do these podcasters and influencers who interview these UFO people provide genuine pushback or demands for quality control?

* Jorjani is mentioned as having been deep into Strieber's stuff for years, for whatever that's worth or isn't worth.

* Strieber mentions the possibility of "strategic deception" and "implanted memories", and that he's reluctant to talk about some things in too much detail in case he's being used.

* he links the Ariel case in Zimbabwe to death and the connection to local customs of communicating with the dead. The "Greys are connected to our dead." This is a point that Halperin makes, though in a different way (that the inky black eyes of these creatures are soulless and represent the ultimate alienness of death).

* "I had blanked out most of the really terrible things that had happened in childhood." More tells about sexual abuse? It seems to be stacking up.

* "Whitley, how old are you?" "12." Correspondence during a hypnosis session. He mentions that abuse victims often return to traumatic memories when under hypnosis.

* "I think that the Air Force has shot at them." "They're [Visitors[ are going to shoot back." The beings as not necessarily benevolent.

* cites a case of a USAF pilot who had orders to shoot at them. Brain scan images of the pilot were available for a short time on the Internet and showed that his symptoms were "very much like Havanna Syndrome."

* claims that white matter is more dense in the brains of psychics and people involved in close encounters. A CIA man who studied his brain said that the arrangement of his white matter was "absolutely unique" and that it allows him to "do what I do" (write books, tell these stories, communicate with the beings).

* his purpose in life is to help the "critical parts of the [our] culture resist cultural colonization".

* credits the alien/human hybrid idea.

* has met his "child", who is a rejected hybrid who frequents the woods and chain smokes. Smoking could be linked to the role that hallucinogens play in many cultures to see into another world, or a way to dull the pain of the experience. Again, some shamanic overtones, but also abuse tells.

* had sexual intercourse with one of the beings, who was somewhat human. An IC man was standing there and watching.

* claims to have been recruited in England by the CIA and "did a few things" for them; mentions that this isn't really extraordinary information he's withheld because "it happened all the time" with journalists back then and that his family's entanglement with the IC makes such things entirely natural.

* there are many elements of sexual repression in his story. His chastity is emphasized. His fling with a mysterious woman in Rome was "close to" sexual but not quite. She turned out to be a "nun" with a crushed owl in her suitcase. Owls are mentioned in Communion (both the book and the movie starring Christoper Walken) and incidentally played a big role in the series Twin Peaks ("The owls are not what they seem"). That show also had some ufological overlaps, such as mentions of Blue Book, and also shamanic and magical themes involving other realms and evil forces.

* he was raised Catholic. Make of that what you will, but I think it's telling and ties into the sexual repression and nun thing.

* he became "heavily involved with the Shroud of Turin" and "knew" that the Oxford team that studied it wouldn't get to the "truth". This ties in with his recent focus on the teachings of Christ. Is he trying to return to Christianity but in a roundabout way through the alien genre? Perhaps precisely because it is alien instead of the more familiar things that his mind wants to escape from that he suffered during childhood?

* "I don't speculate." Yeah, ok.

I think that his story is the result of a ratcheting process in which he couldn't jump off the bandwagon he created, especially after the mockery he received for the anal probe aspect (he might even have felt an odd type of moral commitment to the narrative by then, perhaps even a sense of martyrdom, itself reflective of a Catholic fixation on pain, sacrifice and repentance). How much he really believes what he's saying is open to interpretation, but I tend to think that he at least believes the core of Communion. I don't really credit all his family ties to the IC and Roswell, though, but of course it's possible, but for more it just seems like too much of a fluke. Some of these people tend to want to be close to the fire, after all, a tendency that should never be underestimated in UFO grand tales. Strieber's story might represent the "perfect storm" where all these elements come together and reinforce one another, and through a sort of mental and emotional process, they transmute into something more bizarre than any of them could produce on their own. Does the time aspect also play into this? Does he want, in a sense, to escape time itself and to be with God? The death of his wife might have pushed him over the edge as well. Maybe he wants to be with her for eternity, hence seeing the aliens as timeless beings? These are all speculations, but they're far more prosaic and likely to be on the mark than chain smoking hybrid children. It probably also doesn't help that he is close friends with Hal Puthoff of Stargate and TTSA fame.

It is completely implausible that an advanced ETI that had all the wherewithal to get here across untold light years would someone not know how to conduct a simple medical exam without causing rectal damage. Strieber claims in the interview that his injuries from the alien ordeal took many years to heal. This is an insane claim. Even if the ETI didn't have the technology themselves, which is laughable, they could simply copy a human instrument, since humans have known how to do such procedures for decades without causing damage to the person. The idea that they would do something that would cause so much damage that it took two decades, or whatever he said, to heal, is absurd. It's also a very sad claim, because I don't get the sense per se that he is lying.

This all raises the question: why blame it on aliens if it was a human who was abusing him? One needs to open the door to the possibility that a lot of different things are going on with Strieber at the same time, which is why he is so confused himself, and why the account itself is so confused. This might be summarized along the lines of something like: 1) he is the victim of some horrific sexual abuse, perhaps over a period of time; 2) he did have some level of authentic encounter experience of something he couldn't explain (a compelling part of the film was with the lights at the cabin in New York, after which the friends demand to be taken back to Manhattan); 3) his Catholicism gets all mixed up in all sorts of aspects of his psyche, making his recall and interpretations problematic (the entire thing with the young woman with the nun's habit and the supposed crushed owl could be partly true in that there may have been a woman, but also completely untrue, with the idea that she had a habit or the owl in her suitcase probably being factually false); 4) his friendship over at least half his life with Puthoff has really screwed with his thinking, and it probably also accounts for his dystopian interpretation of everything ETI related.

Like I said: unwholesome.

Metaphor could also be playing a key role. What if the suitcase is a metaphor for his own psyche? In other words, in unzipping the suitcase and looking inside, he is really looking into his own subconscious? What does he find? A juxtaposition of only two things - a crushed owl and a nun's habit. It lends credence to the idea that the purported sexual abuse may have occurred within the context of the Catholic Church. The owl is a mask for the aliens - yet, it is a mask. So, one would interpret that to mean that at least subconsciously, he is aware that he's using a mask for aliens, not aliens themselves. The nun's habit speaks for itself. In other words, his subconscious is suggesting to him that he has linked an owl as a mask representing aliens to mask in his own mind the idea that the real locus of abuse was the Catholic Church. It's a form of symbolic logic. But unzipping the suitcase is a metaphoric way of describing looking into the hidden aspects of his own mind.

Also, just purely logically, the suitcase incident would surely seem implausible to many women, who know that they need to travel with many more items than this woman supposedly made do with. A hairbrush, toothbrush, skin care items, pajamas, a second pair of shoes, etc. etc. are the normal order of business for women.

My aim is to not contribute to the giggle factor that has accompanied Strieber's story. I find this entirely unfortunate and unconscionable. I wish to counter it with a firm affirmation that Strieber deserves sympathy and respect for whatever he may or may not have suffered, and we should regard his story with a view to gaining into helping people recover from their trauma.

Author and pseudoarcheology/Ancient Aliens debunker Jason Colavito, in a 2014 piece, offers a compelling perspective on where the anal probe trope in alien lore originates, which I recommend that people read in full despite the article's rather snickering tone. He notes:

It is interesting to note that anal probing enters ufology as a form of (primarily) male rape, and that this occurs in the late 1980s at the height of the AIDS crisis when penetrative male on male sexuality was heavily stigmatized as a carrier of disease and therefore something to dread. Notice that Strieber described his probing as essentially a rape and that the penile device was thrusting within him as though it were a living phallus. I’m not the only one to make this connection; several books from the 1990s drew a parallel between alien anal probes and AIDS fears.

Similarly, stories of anal probing don’t seem to become common before the invention of colonoscopies in June 1969. The procedure gradually expanded in use in the 1970s, though generally only after a colon cancer diagnosis, so it was still largely unfamiliar to most Americans of the era. It did not become a procedure widely used for the general public as a preventative measure until after—wait for it—January 1987, when Ronald Reagan famously underwent the procedure to remove polyps from his colon. Shortly after colonoscopies had their moment in the sun, aliens seem to have decided to make use of the same technology. It doesn’t seem like this gives enough time for Strieber to be influenced by it, given the long lead time on books, but it must have helped make it one of the key details from his book that subsequent abductees seized upon.

Combined with Strieber's strict Catholic upbringing, the male gay sex angle and the stigma around it at the time could well be an additional factor at play. Incidentally, Colavito does not delve into the possible role of childhood sexual abuse in Strieber's story.

Finally, I was watching a fascinating interview with aviation expert and historian Peter W. Merlin talking about his book Dreamland: The Secret History of Area 51 (2023), which is surely the definitive publication on the history of the secretive facility. He mentioned that over the years, personnel working at the place jokingly adopted the alien lore surrounding it and that many ET-themed patches were issued, some of which he's collected:

(https://youtu.be/JZpLjCuRv4A?list=PLJ5K7GKdko2cHdkt4e2sLAG5U0FQFOElN&t=875)

This is an interesting tidbit because it might just partly explain some of the stories related by former members of the military and IC about secret programs involving alien technology and the like. Could some of these veterans have been influenced by these items or had a joke played on them by their comrades in which these patches were part of the gag? Might these stories have morphed and become further embellished and confabulated over time, congealing into a shared "ground truth"? I'm also reminded of the "Martian" crews ("MARS" standing for "material application and repair specialists": https://theaviationgeekclub.com/ufos-bandits-and-martians-remembering-the-f-117-nighthawk-retirement/) who maintained the stealthy coatings on the F117 aircraft at Tonopah Test Range in the late 1980s. Could names with celestial connotations, along with patches showing Greys, have fed into a broader collective dream, "remembered" by people who worked at these facilities, all part of active (but perhaps largely unconscious) process of narrative creation, the vagaries of memory, the distorting effects of covert settings, cultural osmosis and yearning for cosmic meaning? The UFO story provided the latter in, and Area 51 and its environs provided the venue. The human propensity to believe and to weave tales and artistry largely did the rest.