There have been leftist currents in ufology for decades upon decades. Eleven years after Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 sighting kicked off modern ufology, UFO groups were being investigated by the FBI as possible communist fronts.

Cold War hysteria fueled investigations like these into perceived socialist and communist activity, and demonized the topics at large. Discussing them or being critical of the preferred economic system, capitalism, became largely taboo.

One of the consequences of leftist ideology being squashed during that time is that it’s left most people today without the tools to describe and confront the issues in their lives adequately, as Richard Wolff writes in his book “Understanding Capitalism”:

“One tragic result of the Cold War taboo is that today, when very serious problems confront and threaten capitalism and also socialism, most people lack the theory, concepts and facts needed to discuss, understand, and solve those problems. Had we had public discussion without mutually hostile taboos, we would be in a far better place to solve social problems now.”

However, that absence of discourse didn’t end the desire for systemic change — it moved elsewhere. Instead, today people ask questions like: “When disclosure finally takes place, what will be your choice of career or life path?”

That question is the title of a Reddit thread on r/UFObelievers with over 270 comments.

The poster writes: “When we finally learn we are not alone — and that there is more to living than just retiring of [sic] getting to the ‘afterlife’ — what will we do? What jobs do you think will become far more necessary and common? I can’t wait to see people take up careers not based in profiteering but instead ~hopefully~ turn towards mass charitable work.”

Responses to the post echo the original poster’s sentiment. The top upvoted response reads:

“Jobs involving caring for those less fortunate. Jobs growing healthier food. Jobs helping each other connect. In short helping each other to understand our similarities. Mr. Rogers said to be a restorer of creation. That is my goal.”

Other examples of responses include:

• “Same thing I’m doing now. I was never a capitalist, and have always been focused on the future of our species and those we share the planet with.”
• “I do infrastructure so I would expect to stay busy. Hopefully working on fixing this mess instead of making contractors richer.”
• “Some type of mutual aid. I just want everyone to have their basic needs met.”

Show any of these comments to a 1950s FBI agent and they’d start foaming at the mouth. What these people want isn’t so much alien disclosure, but a revolution.

The narrative that after disclosure takes place, there will be an ascendance to a utopian society is so prevalent in the Reddit UFO and UAP communities that it’s become both a serious topic of discussion and a meme.

And the notion isn’t just found on Reddit. Watch disclosure-focused content on TikTok and you’ll find similar ideas in the videos and comments.

For many, disclosure is being conflated with a society where people don’t have to worry about their bills, healthcare and aren’t forced to work jobs they hate.

Disclosure culture is functioning as a surrogate political language, expressing socialist desires without naming them.

Where did they get these ideas?

It’s Free Energy

In 2017, the same year as the New York Times article that started the UAP movement, Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge formed To The Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences Inc. — which has since been rebranded to simply To The Stars Inc.

DeLonge was joined in the formation of the company by Hal Puthoff, an electrical engineer known for his ideas around zero-point energy.

What is zero-point energy?

Zero-point energy is supposedly the ability to harness limitless energy from empty space — or so that’s what disclosure advocates would have you believe. In reality, this notion of zero-point energy is science fiction. Puthoff has been labeled a pseudoscientist for promoting it.

However, disclosure advocates believe UAPs are powered by zero-point energy technology, and once disclosure takes place, the world will have to admit it’s real alongside the aliens.

This fantasy of limitless energy is the heart of disclosure’s utopic narrative — and you can find it spoken about in different shades from the movement’s prominent figures.

Peddling Hope

Disclosure advocates differ on how they utilize the promise of zero-point energy in their rhetoric. Some outright name it, while others prefer to make vague allusions.

Taking the latter approach, DeLonge told The Independent in 2023: “We have a really a really great future, once we all start realizing that our ideas of what we are, what history is, and what the universe is, once we learn that those things don’t work anymore, I think it’s going to be a really interesting time for us.”

DeLonge’s way of speaking is the more common approach to utilizing the narrative, not mentioning zero-point energy while still conveying the idea that disclosure will create an improved society.  

Others in the field take a less tactful approach, unafraid to deal directly with the pseudoscientific promises of zero-point energy, such as in the below clip of long-time disclosure advocate Steven Greer:

However, no one in the current disclosure movement has threaded the needle as well as Luis Elizondo.

Elizondo has been arguably the most prominent figure of the post-2017 disclosure movement and cloaks his UAP rhetoric in the language of military threat analysis. Early in his disclosure career, he utilized the utopic UAP technology narrative openly.

“Declassifying certain information about UAP and sharing it with the public could lead to new technological discoveries, new forms of medical research, and a broader view of how humanity understands reality,” Elizondo wrote in 2018.

And while he’s shifted away from using the narrative outright, he still gives it enough air to fuel the implications. For example, Elizondo said this in his opening statement during the 2024 House Oversight Committee’s “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth” hearing:

“Let me be clear, UAP are real. Advanced technologies not made by our government or any other government are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries.”

The U.S. and other countries have advanced alien technology they’ve been keeping secret from the public? That’s almost exactly what Greer said.

The difference is that Greer sells zero-point energy like snake oil, whereas Elizondo leaks the idea like a whistleblower. But in substance, the promise — a world transformed by hidden alien tech — is nearly identical.

You Say You Want a Revolution

It’s impossible to say how sincere anyone in the UAP disclosure movement is in their beliefs.

Puthoff had been hocking his zero-point energy ideas for years before the formation of To The Stars. Likewise, Greer and many others’ “activism” predate UAP disclosure and go so far back into the annals of various UFO movements that it’s hard not to call what they do a grift.

It’s undeniably a con to peddle fantasies of an alien tech utopia to people desperate for real societal change but who lack the knowledge to accurately describe or enact these changes in real life for themselves.

While no longer taboo, socialism is still a dirty word today for many. Yet, what people in the disclosure movement actually want is a more socialist society. They’re asking for affordable lives, accessible healthcare and decreasing the gap between the wealthy and poor. They want a revolution — and they’re being told it’ll come via disclosure.

How exactly? Nobody ever quite says. Instead, they weave in terms like “oligarch” — a word more often heard coming from the mouths of leftist critics ­— thus creating the subconscious connection while leaving the exact details up to their followers’ imaginations.

That disclosure advocates of today deal in the ideological promises of socialism while using it to line their own pockets is a bitter irony.

Elizondo’s 2024 book “Imminent” touts itself as an instant New York Times, USA Today and Sunday Times best seller. It’s done quite well by all accounts — and on the heels of the book’s success, Elizondo opened a bar this summer.

To The Stars has followed a similar trajectory. Its website has become a front for selling hoodies, hot sauces and books. It’s a far cry from the scientific presentation the site had when it first launched, with the essays and papers put out by the group now buried behind popups for “Tom Was Right” t-shirts.

The real gains of the disclosure movement haven’t been societal — they’ve been commercial.

The silver lining of the disclosure movement rests with the 99% who compose it, those found in forum posts and TikToks. Their hearts are in the right place and guided by instincts, correctly identifying what needs to be changed in their worlds. All that’s stopping them is a lack of knowing how to actualize those impulses in tangible reality, which can be learned.

Fortunately for them — and all of us — building a better world is far more achievable than waiting for aliens to land on the White House lawn with a donation of zero-point energy.