Cystic Detective Update #4

The Surveillance State, a Farewell to Programmed to Chill, Falling for Infosec Tests, and Trudging through the Slop Era

(Note: Cystic Detective Updates are usually reserved for paid subscribers, so that those supporting the newsletter get some writing even when I’m chipping away at a larger project. This week, I’m leaving it public because I think there are some eternally relevant, albeit somewhat disorganized, thoughts conveyed here. You can find other Updates in the Table of Discontents.)

“Pierce my eyes with gold ingots, do I see a Cystic Detective floating before me?” Ruby Tuesday warbles. The Detective attempts to avert his gaze, though when swimming through the viscera, he has little control over his vision.

A cat yowls in the distance. To his right, a scaffolding-like structure rises beyond view though it has no building at its center. While Ruby Tuesday is his spirit guide of sorts, he knows that she cannot be trusted. An impish projection of his own psyche, as unreliable as his memory.

A cyst bubbles below his kneecap. In the ever-changing environment around him, he sees an indoor pool form out of nothingness, seemingly filled with sea foam.

---

What have I been reading?

Fresh off writing State of the U(fo)nion II, I’ve found myself thinking about the Thiel wing of ufology further. A recent article by (friend of the newsletter) Boltzmann Booty covers the deep ties between Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the United States’ National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).¹ Booty is an excellent researcher who often looks at the same overlaps in the fringe and security state that I do, we have talked often about this. In reading this new piece, I cannot help but think of Timothy E. Taylor, the mystery man of ufology who told absurd tales to religious academic D.W. Pasulka, immunologist Garry Nolan, and UFO experiencer Chris Bledsoe. Taylor claims ties to both the NRO and SpaceX. Could it be that his stories of NHI contact and UFO spirituality are hoping to conceal or obfuscate the massive explosion in surveillance technologies that Musk and those like him are attempting to implement? Other UFO personalities come from this realm of the DoD as well, with alleged whistleblower David Grusch being former NRO as well as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).² It is not lost on me that the use of the term “biologics” was seen most prominently from Taylor and Grusch. As Musk has dismantled significant portions of the federal government, one wonders if the purpose has been to allow private companies with even less accountability to pick up the military-industrial complex’s slack. These possible connections—woefully unexamined—signify another reason to question the obscure motives of the Disclosure cadre, some of whom have now started their own private intelligence firms.³

What have I been listening to?

I have been putting off the inevitable but have finally decided to settle in and accept reality: The last episode of my good friend Jimmy Falun Gong’s podcast recently hit my RSS feed, signaling the end of an era. Many subscribers are likely aware of Programmed to Chill for my appearances, the episodes uploaded to The Getting Spooked Podcast feed, or the general similarity of the subjects we cover. But Jimmy’s mark on the world of the parapolitical cannot be understated. No other podcast allowed researchers an open platform to discuss their subject for as long as the mics were recording—at least not to the same extent. I always think of Dr. Wendy S. Painting’s discussion on the OKC bombing (and other matters relevant to it) for nearly twelve hours of perfect podcasting. That was Programmed to Chill. There was nothing like it and there never will be a true equivalent again. I was fortunate enough to benefit from this system myself (we talked for nearly 8 hours about the Gulf Breeze Six) and my first appearance came at the exact right time.

I was fresh out of an M.A. program in the middle of the worst segments of the pandemic, scraping by in a service job I was never really all that fond of. English PhD programs started to feel like an impractical impossibility. Work was putting me through the ringer. The book that I published in 2021 never really got the attention I expected while writing it. Through a combination of burnout, depression, and general malaise, I had stopped research and writing. But Jimmy’s invitation to the program helped me to regain my confidence, retaught the value of some of the more unconventional modes of analysis, and I wound up meeting some of my very best friends in the world. With all the research I had at my disposal from my appearances on P2C, I started this very newsletter.

While I have saved his lengthy and excellent series on spooky mercenary Mitch WerBell III for months at this point, I am finally dipping in. The episodes are some of the best explorations he’s ever done, probably the most thorough research that exists on a somewhat notorious figure like WerBell. I would recommend it to anyone curious about intelligence work and covert action. Plus, WerBell is not totally disconnected from the paranormal sphere, allegedly being friends with John B. Alexander’s buddy Gordon Novel and other figures with mysterious intelligence ties. Regardless, the experience of listening to the series has been bittersweet. With each part I listen to, the closer I am to the end. It’s an old, cliched adage but it’s true: The most important part was the friends we made along the way. I give him my best and hope that he’s on to bigger and better things.

(Note: Many episodes have been taken down, but a proper archive of the show is in the works. I will try to update this post with links to it when it arrives.)

What’s in the news?

Much as in one of my previous updates, there is a senselessness to the UFO community that hits me right in the gut. I worry about this topic, one very near to my heart. I worry that it’s sinking further into the realm of contradictory politics—a venue where it already had a summer home, so to speak.

A much-anticipated SCIF meeting was cancelled, one where purported whistleblower David Grusch and others were supposed to be able to lay it all on the table to various members of congress. The reasons for this were conflicting: Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who has been active in some of the more fringe congressional ventures, (UFOs, JFK, Epstein, etc.,) said it was because Grusch was not able to attend, and they did not want to do it without him.⁴ An additional alleged whistleblower, Lue Elizondo, remarked on Twitter that the delay “was due to some non-related House matters concerning budgets, not UAP.”⁵ Grusch never showed, but some form of congressional action took place the following day with Elizondo, Chris Mellon, and others connected to the UAP Disclosure Fund urged the need for UAP transparency and study. The highlight: A stunning picture presented by Elizondo of “a massive, 1,000-foot-wide UFO flying over the American Southwest” was near immediately debunked as an irrigation circle.⁶ I’m continually shocked at what reaches the halls of congress these days, but it is clearly convincing to some congresspeople. Again, as always, little information reaches the public beyond lurid claims sans physical evidence. Nevertheless, the hand speaks—the hand of a government man—and everyone is required to listen, proof or no.

The aforementioned David Grusch, who has expressed concerns about his well-being due to blowing the whistle, had another member join the club: Matthew Brown was identified as the author of the Immaculate Constellation report submitted to congress, alleging a program with “the ultimate goal of (…) global surveillance of all UAPs worldwide.”⁷ Why it would be necessary to have a separate program when global aerial surveillance is already well underway strikes me as odd. Brown too now fears for his life, but I question why anyone would target an individual making groundbreaking unverified claims without evidence. If anything, his descriptions give me the impression of someone who fell for an information security test. Brown noted that his chancing into the top-secret files was “100 percent accidental,” stating: “The first (…) exposure to Immaculate Constellation, happened on a shared server that was shared by all the offices in OSD. (…) I was opening files that were clearly misfiled.”⁸

The descriptions give me flashbacks to the case of Gary McKinnon, who I suspect fell for purposefully planted disinformation to distract from more sensitive secret data or to more immediately track data breaches. McKinnon was a Scottish hacker who “between February 2001 and March 2002, (…) broke into almost a hundred PCs within the Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA, and the Department of Defense.”⁹ His reason for doing so? Searching for anti-gravity tech and UFO secrets. That “his intrusion was detected” precisely at the time “he was downloading a photo from NASA’s Johnson Space Center of what he believed to be a UFO” is not, in my opinion, a coincidence.¹⁰ There is a strong possibility that these are shiny objects placed in front of individuals who are under scrutiny for data leaks or hacks. Brown and McKinnon—conceivably even Grusch if one could ever get a more straightforward story from him—are coming from different areas, one a hacker, one an intelligence specialist. But both of these positions would be tested in this way.

The UFO community has long had unique characteristics that make it perfect for information security testing at multiple levels—internal, external, or even just dry runs. One could conceivably track bits and pieces leaked to individuals within the subculture much like a tracer fluid is ingested to diagnose an illness. That so many whistleblowers come forward with this information while having very little to show for it, avoiding SCIFs or other more level-headed verification processes, indicates to me that what is being released is not sensitive. It has the illusion of sensitivity—to the extent that those who encounter the info, photos, videos, etc. feel as though their life is now in imminent danger. But we would not be hearing from them at a congressional level, they would not get through the various national security filters put into place if the info posed any significant threat to the DoD status quo. I know that it can be rough to accept that one has fallen for a ruse, but the possibility must be considered. It is common infosec practice to dangle lures like this.

Even more recently, calling back to my previous frustrations with Ross Coulthart, yet another whistleblower alleges incredible anomalous phenomenon. This time it is Bob Thompson, a former Customs and Border Protection agent, who talked with NewsNation about studying strange events such as drones, portals, and other aerial anomalies at the U.S. border.¹¹ Putting aside the obvious (at this point rote) national security concerns these allegations draw up, the timing is again curious: As the border, CBP, and DHS have become remarkably sensitive topics nationwide, what good does bringing UFOs into the conversation do? It dredges up paranoia, obfuscates the day-to-day material concerns that remain unaddressed, and leaves only science-fictional thrills in a newsroom that certainly has better things to do. As time passes, I am left feeling that Coulthart is the most opportunistic ghoul in a subject matter overrun with opportunism.

What else have I been reading?

I’ve been perusing a whole bunch of pieces from the relatively new publication, 404 Media. I had come across a few articles previously, but my conversation with Reid and Bradley pushed me into becoming a full-fledged subscriber. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to stay up to date on continual unsettling developments in the tech world, AI overreach, and the surveillance state. The article that has stuck with me, specifically as I continue to peruse social media spaces despite my better judgement, was Emanuel Maiberg’s “Microsoft Study Finds AI Makes Human Cognition ‘Atrophied and Unprepared’”—title says it all unfortunately. As we continue to trudge through the slop era, I would recommend going outside daily first and foremost, but never forget to stay informed.

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My thanks to The Anomalist for posting links to a few different previous articles/podcast episodes and to Daily Grail for linking to my chat with Mark Pilkington. Email me at gettingspooked@protonmail.com with any questions, comments, recommendations, leads, or paranormal stories. You can find me on Twitter at @TannerFBoyle1, on Bluesky at @tannerfboyle.bsky.social, or on Instagram at @gettingspooked. Until next time, stay spooked.

1. Boltzmann Booty. “Elon Musk Is Helping U.S. Intelligence Turn Thousands of Satellites into a Planet-Wide Brain to Spy on Everything All the Time.” Nuts & Boltzmann. 16 February 2025. Link.

2. Mizokami, Kyle. “Everything You Need to Know About the Bizarre Congressional Hearing on UFOs.” Popular Mechanics. 3 August 2023. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a44703252/uap-congressional-hearing/.

3. Sharp, Christopher. “Pentagon Confirms Investigation into UFO Whistleblower Jake Barber’s Allegations.” Liberation Times. 22 February 2025. https://www.liberationtimes.com/home/pentagon-confirms-investigation-into-ufo-whistleblower-jake-barbers-allegations.

4. Laslo, Matt. “New details on canceled UAP SCIF briefing: ‘Grusch could not make it.’” Ask a Pol. 29 April 2025. Link.

5. Elizondo, Lue [@LueElizondo]. “Folks, unfortunately our friends in the House of Representatives had to postpone one of our the classified meetings until later this month. This last minute (literally) schedule change was due to some non-related House matters concerning budgets, not UAP. As such, we are still on track for our discussions on the Senate side later this week and other important matters. We will continue to keep you all posted with new developments. This week should be interesting and informative so stay tuned!” Twitter, 29 April 2025, https://x.com/LueElizondo/status/1917171325950738580.

6. Williams, Ben. “Shocking '1000-ft UFO' photo has been shared by a Pilot.” Yahoo! News. 2 May 2025. https://uk.news.yahoo.com/shocking-1000-ft-ufo-photo-144711676.html.

7. Cimino, Alexa and Chris Melore. “Pentagon whistleblower fears execution after revealing bombshell UFO program secretly studying alien tech.” Daily Mail. 29 April 2025. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14659731/Identity-whistleblower-exposed-secret-Pentagon-UFO-program-revealed-says-fears-life.html.

8. Ibid.

9. Kushner, David. “The Autistic Hacker: Gary McKinnon hacked thousands of government computers.” IEEE Spectrum. 3 July 2024. https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-autistic-hacker.

10. Ibid.

11. “UFOs at the border: Whistleblower's new video | Reality Check.” YouTube, uploaded by NewsNation, 10 May 2025. Link.