The VP Acknowledges UFOs and the New Air Force Undersecretary Believes That the Military is Marxist & Anomalous Orbs are Plasma-Based Beings from Biblical Times. So What?

Scrolling through UFO posts on social media is always a crapshoot. I have long passed the period in which I could take it all in, suspend my disbelief, and ponder the potential wonder of the universe. I continue to attempt to maintain a sense of wonder and have taken to suspending both belief and disbelief. Taking it all in, however, has only gotten more difficult. The wonder is being eroded, seemingly against my will.

Apropos of nothing, sitting U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, a former investor with Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital—always worth mentioning—recently brought up UFOs on the Ruthless podcast. “I’m obsessed with the whole UFO thing,” he said. “What’s actually going on? What were those videos all about? (…) I haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet, but we’re only six months in.”1 While the congressional August recess is typically meant for Washington types to take time away from work or reconnect with constituents, Vance has other plans: “Actually, the August recess is, in part, me going to try to dive to the bottom of the whole UFO thing.”2 While Vance could easily ask Jesse Michels (through mutual friend Thiel) or one of the many members of the UAP caucus to get him up to speed, I’m not sure if he’d actually reach any coherent answers. Maybe he will, that is not really my concern.

The bottom line is that Vance brought up UFOs as a light-hearted topic to cap off a podcast appearance. Nevertheless, many in the UFO/UAP community are fawning over the very possibility of the Vice President looking into the subject. One Twitter account, UAP News, called Vance’s statement “one of the most significant (…) in the UAP arena in years.”3 Upon hearing the news, another individual penned a tweet directed squarely at U.S. Representatives Anna Paulina Luna and Eric Burlson:

Given your leadership of the Declassification of Federal Secrets Task Force, this could be an ideal opportunity to brief (Vance) on the upcoming public UAP hearings, including the involvement of firsthand witnesses. It would also be valuable to inform him of the credible, highly respected, and thoroughly vetted individuals with high-level clearances who have provided testimonial evidence regarding UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering efforts.4

I need to reiterate that Vance’s tone was not serious. The UFO topic was brought up much in the way someone would bring up an internet meme on a late-night talk show. And yet, this slight hint of possible validation leaves the UFO-obsessed unable to control their excitement. Even if he was serious about UFO disclosure, the timing, happening concurrently with the sketchy Epstein business, would leave one with lingering questions. Never mind the fact that people still seem hellbent on relying upon witness accounts—funneled to people with ever more professional titles—as opposed to physical verification or actual study. Is there a general or congressperson in the house? I need them to give me an argument from authority about UFOs!

Hero worship such as this is a recurring problem within ufology, with many participants willing to leave the more material realm of politics unacknowledged. So long as they have an “in” and can validate the UFO reality, with or without evidence, they are accepted as one of the good ones. A prominent example of this phenomenon comes not from the present, but from the past: Lieutenant Colonel Philip J. Corso, author of the book The Day After Roswell which shook up the 1990s with allegations of reverse-engineered extraterrestrial tech. Many in ufology fail to look beyond Corso’s military rank, titles, and sensational claims of extraterrestrial visitation. Corso was also a virulent anticommunist who worked closely with segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond. Noted previously while looking into Cleve Backster, the colonel was involved in a right wing counterintelligence network that sought to blame the Kennedy assassination on the Soviet Union—Oswald as their agent within the Communist-infiltrated CIA.5 At an earlier point in his career he “spent some of his time in the military working in an Operation Gladio-type operation in Germany in the 1950s,” i.e. a right wing stay-behind network.6 Corso was a conspiratorial, America first, disinformation-spouting warhawk aligned to the right of the 1960s CIA who he saw as being too international. And yet, he is still cited as a relevant whistleblower in ufology—even in relatively well-respected (yet undeniably Christian-tinged) works of UFO study. His extremely relevant political motivations are often not mentioned beyond the occasional parapolitics blog.7

This problem, inevitably, continues onward into the present, still with the accursed Marxism as a looming specter. In one of the most shocking displays of ufological acceptance, UFO witness Matthew Lohmeier was recently confirmed as the Undersecretary of the United States Air Force. Lohmeier had been previously fired from a position with the Space Force “due to loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead,” coincidentally not long after he appeared on a podcast and railed against how the United States military is doing Marxist indoctrination. Referring to the New York Times’ 1619 Project, Lohmeier stated: “It teaches intensive teaching (sic) that I heard at my base—that at the time the country ratified the United States Constitution, it codified White supremacy as the law of the land. (…) If you want to disagree with that, then you start (being) labeled all manner of things including racist.”8 Several Republican politicians came to his defense, including Senator Roger Wicker and Representative Matt Gaetz—the latter of whom had ties with the UAP Caucus before his fall from grace following statutory rape and drug use. “Lt. Col. Lohmeier is a Patriot telling the truth about the attempted wokeification of our military,” Gaetz wrote of the demotion.9

To save some pointless debate: Slavery was still legal and utilized extensively in the United States when the constitution was written. Several, but certainly not all, of the founding fathers were slaveholders. Many were white supremacists, and while these were incredibly common beliefs of their time, this commonality is not reason for exoneration or ignorance.10 Many of them were also Deists—at least judging from their philosophical tradition—which one would think would be heretical to Lohmeier, but more on that later.11 In more general terms, basic history is not Critical Race Theory, nor is CRT an inherently Marxist mode of analysis. Indeed, Marxism, as described by conservative pundits, is liable to be an incorrect definition on its own. Besides, if you believe that the U.S. military is now or has ever been Marxist, please send me an email—I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you that’s full of commie pinkos.

Lohmeier, though, certainly believes that Marxist indoctrination is rampant in the military, writing a book while still an active-duty serviceman called Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military. This, too, apparently rubbed his superiors the wrong way.12 I skimmed it for this article and encountered incredible oversimplifications of Marxist analysis, something noted by at least one dissenter in his confirmation hearings.13 The book is also loaded with personal complaints about being misunderstood within academia and the military, expanded into broader systematic issues. The impetus for his belief that the military was falling into the hands of the Communists seems to be instances where people question American exceptionalism or acknowledge the existence of racism. For example, while attending one of the DoD’s universities, he encountered a professor who “seemed to (be) as skeptical of American exceptionalism—perhaps even critical of it—as she was friendly toward Marxism.”14 Lohmeier is quick to add, however, that he “will be the first to admit that she may not characterize her own views in that manner, but this was at least (his) perception based on (his) classes with her.”15 Indeed, it is more likely that this professor (at a Department of Defense university no less) was asking her students to engage in critical thinking and discussion. Lohmeier, however, views this as a negative methodology:

The tenor (…) and mood of the subsequent discussion created an almost apologetic air toward Marxism and communism. It was as if some of the students sensed that Marxism had acquired some semi-protected or sacrosanct status within academia, or that it was intellectually honest to harbor some mildly obligatory skepticism toward America’s narrative of communism, as if we had historically treated communism unfairly. We were learning to be thoughtful—critical—after all.16

To Lohmeier, who believes in American exceptionalism and Judeo-Christian values without question, this analysis of the possible motives of American propaganda goes beyond the pale. He is unable to separate the actual existing philosophy of Marxist analysis from the John Bircher-esque boogeyman utilized by the United States (the military too, can you believe it!) to commit countless coup d’états and atrocities around the globe. Indeed, his view of communism seems to be drawn from another era, a product of an eternal Cold War instilled deep within the American cultural consciousness. To question whether the United States was always acting in good faith is in itself a Marxist trick, geared to make one complacent when the woke dictator takes over. He is similarly pushed to his anti-communist extreme when a professor rejects Jordan Peterson as a scholarly source17 or when he sees a Black Lives Matter bumper sticker in the parking lot, and an Air Force base chaplain wants to conduct “Race in America” lectures.18 Within the context of the Air Force, I would consider these rather minor events blown out to extreme proportions—cultural sensitivity training at the bomb factory.

As per usual with these types, while Lohmeier claims to be free speech, his parameters do not appear to include any questioning of the ultimate authority of American hegemony or resistance to ideologies akin to Christian nationalist. He concludes his book with a rousing call to action: “Never be ashamed to believe in the fundamental goodness of your country and the greatness of its ideals, or to speak in its defense. Never use your position of authority to unduly propound partisan political views. To do so is to undermine good order and discipline.”19 But hey, wait a minute, isn’t Lohmeier using his position of authority to unduly propound partisan political views? Oh wait, I caught myself being critical, a.k.a. brainwashed by the allure of Marxism. That certainly won’t do.

Unsurprisingly, this heavily evangelical interpretation of how the world should be run makes it over into Lohmeier’s views of the UFO phenomenon. In a podcast interview, he notes that “much of what people are seeing is likely government programs acknowledged or unacknowledged or tricks of cameras,” but he also believes that there are other, more anomalous sightings.20 After viewing James Fox’s 2020 film The Phenomenon, Lohmeier suddenly recalled that he had his own sighting as a teenager of a big ball of light that moved erratically in the sky, seemingly in defiance of the laws of physics. He admits a fascination with Robert Temple’s recent book, A New Science of Heaven, which postulates that “plasma cosmology, plasma physics, (and) plasmoids” are responsible for sightings of anomalous objects. Using Temple’s lead, he takes it a step further: Lohmeier thinks that plasmic forms are spirit bodies or angels—even possibly the “resurrected body of the Lord” which “is described as being capable of” moving according to plasma-based physics.21 Elsewhere, he has spoke on his experiences conducting an exorcism while on Mormon mission in Taiwan, illustrating that his belief in the paranormal is not solely limited to plasma orb biblical beings.22

Even if it is true that certain religious experiences are analogous to what we would now call UFO events, it is doubtful that Lohmeier would expand his horizons beyond the idea that UFOs are part of a Christian framework. This is another constantly recurring notion within the evangelical side of ufology, seen with figures like Tucker Carlson and Shawn Ryan, that UFOs are angels and demons. To my mind, such an interpretation a needlessly limited view, presupposing the literal authority of the Bible, while ignoring any example to the contrary. It is akin to reading Jacques Vallée’s Passport to Magonia and coming out Catholic, not recognizing that UFO-type experiences can be assigned to virtually any world religion and folklore. Yet, if you were to suggest that UFOs are proof of Islam’s veracity, individuals like Lohmeier would call you a subversive. He represents a worrying trend in ufology, allowing the phenomena to be proof of other belief systems, all while ufology lacks the requisite evidence to establish its own existence as anything more than anomalies we cannot explain. It is a trend that somehow simultaneously understates the magic of the phenomena and brings broader spiritualism down to the same level as a hostile, techno-militaristic earth.

However, Lohmeier’s new position of authority lends some credence to the UFO world, so all the extraneous nonsense about Marxism and woke can be safely tucked away. Numerous UAP-oriented social media accounts pondered about Lohmeier’s appointment and its possible implications for disclosure. An X account going by the username “UAP Reporting Center,” for instance, reposted clips of Lohmeier recounting fiery orbs while breathlessly noting that “this man oversees Air Force operations”—without mentioning his more fringe beliefs.23 Baptiste Friscourt of Sentinel News wrote somewhat optimistically of the confirmation: “One can only hope that such an open-minded approach to the topic of unidentified anomalous phenomena, specifically close encounters, will encourage the Air Force to be more forthcoming on the subject, given its historically taciturn stance.”24 I would question this attitude, as well as the assumption that Lohmeier is somehow open-minded. He is not open-minded, he already believes he has the UFO phenomena solved: It’s proof positive of angels and other religious phenomena. Even if he were to somehow bring government disclosure of flying saucers and the like, would it be a narrative that could be trusted? Would it already be colored by his belief system? Is a false stance more acceptable than a taciturn one? And, perhaps most importantly, why do you need the Air Force to verify that UFOs exist? Why can one not go about legitimately attempting to solve the mystery themselves? UFO researchers are rightfully suspicious of government narratives surrounding the subject matter, but this attitude should not change simply because a believer is in a position of authority at the Air Force.

My recommendation to ufologists would be to tune up one’s critical thinking capacity and stop looking for a hero to bring about disclosure. Ufology has become an endless search for a guru or figurehead when this is antithetical to the study of the unknown. Individuals like Vance, Lohmeier, and even Corso have a hell of a lot of baggage, and one does not have to accept them within ufology simply because they bring up the topic or think they have it resolved. UFOs, the tools of the eternal Cold War, do not always need to come up in these contexts. One should have reservations about military involvement in the subject at all, let alone fanatical anticommunists and evangelicals who see red lurking behind every corner. Given this tendency, I leave you with food for thought: Lohmeier’s main goal post-confirmation is to modernize the nuclear arsenal—a worrying objective for someone who seems to think that America is infallible and divinely guided. One hopes that a divinely guided missile is not on its way.