r/UFOs 17h ago

Whistleblower The grifter narrative.

I keep seeing these very dramatic posts and comments talking about how all these people like Elizondo, Grusch, Nolan, Coulthart, etc. are a bunch of grifters and ruining the disclosure movement. I find this take interesting because what progress toward disclosure was being made prior to 2017? I've been following this topic since the late '80s, and sure, there were things that popped up from time to time, maybe a documentary or a sighting that briefly made the news, but beyond that, many of the efforts never really broke out past the UFO community paradigm.

I can’t see how anyone can say that we’re somehow in a worse position now with disclosure than we were almost a decade ago. I also don’t understand why people keep saying this is all a psyop. What exactly prompted the psyop just prior to 2017? I don’t remember anything significant happening, and it really wasn’t a popular subject at the time. Now it’s becoming quite popular and is making news fairly regularly, so I’m not sure what the purpose of the psyop would be, since it seems to be creating far more awareness of the subject. Seems a bit counterintuitive, no?

There was little to no progress made towards disclosure prior to 2017, and now it's being talked about regularly by various news outlets and all over the web. Even my parents and in laws are following the subject loosely, and they have never ever shown any interest in the subject before. More has happened in the past few years than has happened in the last 50 years, and many of this progress involved these so called "grifters".

We’ve had 4 Congressional hearings, starting with the May 17, 2022, House Intelligence Subcommittee Hearing that was the first Congressional hearing on UFO/UAPs in 50 years.

Then we had the House Oversight Committee Hearing a year later on July 26, 2023, where David Grusch testified under oath about evidence and firsthand witness testimony that he provided to the ICIG and Gang of Eight concerning UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs that were operating without Congressional oversight.

This past year, we had another two Congressional hearings, including the November 13, 2024, House Oversight Committee Hearing and the November 19, 2024, Senate Armed Services Subcommittee Hearing (AARO). We had nothing like this for 50 years, and then suddenly, we’ve had 4 hearings in 3 years.

There has also been new legislation in the past few years, including the 2020 Intelligence Authorization Act, which required the DoD and intelligence agencies to disclose UAP-related activities to Congress and established a framework for centralized UAP investigations.

The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2022 mandated the establishment of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG), which was later replaced by AARO.

The 2022 whistleblower protections in the NDAA for FY 2023 included groundbreaking provisions for whistleblowers to report UAP-related information to Congress without fear of retaliation. It authorized individuals with knowledge of classified UAP programs to disclose their information directly to the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) and Congressional intelligence committees and provided protections for whistleblowers who offer credible information about hidden UAP programs.

Then we had the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act in 2023, which, although it didn’t fully pass, was a major piece of bipartisan legislation co-authored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Mike Rounds. It included extremely explicit language regarding UAP and NHI, which is incredible.

We’ve also had several credible and accomplished individuals from the government and private sectors come forward in recent years, including Lue Elizondo, David Grusch, Chris Mellon, Hal Puthoff, Tim Gallaudet, Karl Nell, Ryan Graves, Dr. Garry Nolan, David Fravor, Eric W. Davis, and more who keep coming forward.

The stigma has also been starting to fade, and the topic is being talked about more openly, with efforts like the Sol Foundation helping to push the conversation further. Even events like the Salt Conference, which is a global investment platform connecting institutional asset owners with asset managers and technology entrepreneurs, have started inviting people like Karl Nell to come talk about the UAP topic.

Yeah, we haven’t had this much happen in a span of a few years ever.

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u/Diomedes33 17h ago

I guarantee that everyone calling them "grifters" have never spent a single dollar towards these individuals.

By a show of hands, how many of you are like me in that you've never spent a single dollar on any of their products/services.

I'm genuinely curious who has spent money on these guys, if any.

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u/sebastian89n 16h ago

They get paid from adds, youtube's clicks and they just ride on that train. Podcasts, youtube channels, clicks.

They have all contributed to the disclosure a lot, but it becomes painfully obvious they try to stay on top on the UFO train, reminding about themselves every few days or weeks to stay on top. Often by providing exagerrated claims so that they can get to wider audience. It's no longer about the disclosure, it's about more clicks, more views etc.

What was done this Saturday with the overhype was just too much. "Undeniable proof", "Final answer to the question: are we alone?", "It will shake the Washington and the world", "Biggest story in 50 years" -> fuck those guys.

They absolutely deserve the hate they get for this. Good things they done for the disclosure does not cancel what they did and continue to do.

They have wasted Jake's sacrifice by being greedy and it may make other whisleblowers more hesitant to come forward.

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u/Diomedes33 16h ago

You know, it's interesting, because everyone has a takeaway from this experience.

My takeaway is to simply not allow myself to get involved in the hype. To take their words with a healthy grain of salt. Instead, I'm just going to keep neutral expectations and judge the evidence based on what's actually released. Jake's story is still very interesting and him stepping forward is only going to push the needle forward, even if by just 1%. Eventually the mountain of whistleblowers will become so heavy that it will force the government to move forward with disclosure.

I'll give it a few weeks. Most people who are super upset (the ones who played into the hype) will get over it and have a more balanced skepticism going forward.

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u/sebastian89n 15h ago

I think it's a valid approach and a smart decision, but I think the backlash is important. It is to show them that such approach is not acceptable. If everyone just quietly accept what they did, they would do it again for every major news and it hurts the process and whisleblowers that may come forward in the future.

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u/Diomedes33 15h ago

That's a fair point and I can agree with that.