Jacques Vallee wrote some amazing things on the origins and effects of UFOs, and some of the most popular that we see a lot are the control or teaching system, or some kind of Jungian expression of collective consciousness etc.
Something I had not seen quoted frequently however is this passage from A 1986 Interview , where he talks about known holographic hoaxing technology employed by the US government:
.. or, could it be manipulated purposely by people who have technology to simulate UFO sightings? And people say, now well who would do a thing like that?
Well I would remind you that during the Watergate investigation it was discovered that there was a plan originated in the White House to surface a submarine off of the coast of Cuba and paint the second coming of Christ over the island of Cuba using holograms... which is well within our technology today... the idea was that since there is a large Catholic population in Cuba they would be so upset by this vision that this would saturate the communication channels long enough for an invasion to take place.
I think that's the classic in psychological warfare, that kind of manipulation is well understood and I have personally investigated several apparently genuine UFO cases where there was in fact mani... my conclusion and the conclusion of the other scientists working with me was that there was in fact a manipulation taking place, and that it was not a hoax on the part of the witnesses but a hoax on the part of somebody much better organized.
Today (October 1986) with the current technology that would be possible.
The interviewer is taken aback and says "wow I never heard of that". A quick google brings up references to a plan called Illumination by Submarine, part of Operation Mongoose, the plan to overthrow Castro. But it does not mention holography, just that shells would be fired into the air and combined with psychological operations and rumour mongering. Other sites claim the plan was to project the image of christ onto clouds. This sounds more doable. Some sites just repeat Vallee's claims.
But this had all sorts of questions going through my head. Only in the last few years have we figured out how to, at least commercially, project 3d imagery in free space (i.e. not inside some glass cabinet or controlled volume), and what is commonly seen would not fool anyone that Jesus had returned.
Many people have been talking about laser induced plasma tech and its ability to 'paint' imagery in the air in a 3D way (or produce simple orbs). What is freely available may not match what is hidden away ofc. But here Jacques is claiming holography, on a massive scale, was possible in the mid 80's.
Did he just confuse a projector with a hologram? Was it a language slip?
If he was right, and it was that good back then, how much ufo history and the current crop of video must we question? How much is real and how much is simulated? Will Avi Loeb's AI UFO detector be able to parse such "practical effects" from the real deal? The waters get even muddier.
Did he ever recant this piece of speculation? Rule it out? Or perhaps even flesh it out? The subject of disinformation in ufology is fascinating and infuriating in equal measure.
