Roswell briefings in the basement of DOE

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, DOE's director of intelligence from 2005 to 2008, says new political appointees at the Department of Energy were taken to the basement and briefed that Roswell was real, with fake special-access tickets and props including corpses on tables, while the deputy secretary looked on, until someone cracked up. It matches the Air Force 'hazing' the Wall Street Journal reported in 2025, where recruits were told they had joined an alien program. Whether it was a joke, a loyalty test or cover for something real is open; Jesse Michels asks whether John Herrington's 1981 confession to Brent Friedman was a test of the same kind.
Evidence, in date order (1)
- 2025Wall Street Journal (2025)pressa similar Air Force hazing pattern: recruits told they had joined an alien program Disinformation
How plausible · High
A named DOE intelligence director describes staged Roswell briefings, matching the Air Force hazing the WSJ documented independently.
- ●●Access He was DOE's director of intelligence 2005-08.
- ●●No gain sought Nothing to gain.
- ●●Character record Senior CIA and DOE career.
- ●●Independent convergence The WSJ (2025) reported the same pattern in the Air Force, independently.
- ●●Fits secrecy practice Fake SAP tickets and props as a loyalty test.
- ●○Cost of speaking Said publicly about his own department.
Plausibility weighs how well an account fits where secrecy hides the documents by design, so missing records never count against it. Strength measures what is documented. Assessed 2026-10-23.