Review of Ancient Aliens S21E05: “The Top Ten Secret Projects”

​It’s been a slow year for UFO news, with very little action on Capitol Hill thanks to the chaos of Donald Trump. The military is currently more focused on purging photos of Black and gay people from its archives than with strange objects in the sky. (Hey, ufologists: If you want to get the government to hunt down UFOs again, tell Sec. Pete Hegseth that the aliens are diverse and queer.) Congress’s top ufologists are busy doing other things. Rep. Luna is seeking out superannuated JFK assassination witnesses. Rep. Burchett was in the Oval Office laying on hands to cast out demons. Sen. Gillibrand is still looking for the moral courage to say Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment was bad. Even the History Channel’s parent company, A+E Networks, rebranded this week as A+E Global Media and announced a pivot away from cable TV toward prioritizing short-form internet videos. 

​And what better way to capture the zeitgeist than with another Ancient Aliens clip show, destined to be stripped for parts to fill A+E Global Media’s TikTok channel?
 
Here are this week’s supposed top ten secret projects:
 
10. The Roswell Cover-Up. I didn’t bother recording whatever episode this brief bit on the so-called “Guy Hottel memo” came from, but I discussed the memo in 2022. The segment discussing Roswell is so generic I can’t place which of the dozen or more episodes about Roswell it was extracted from.
9. The Majestic 12. I’d guess this came from the 2017 episode devoted the subject, or else the 2018 episode that previously recycled it.
8. The Men in Black. From a 2020 episode devoted to the Men in Black.
7. Rudloe Manor. From a 2017 episode devoted to Rudloe Manor, previously excerpted in a 2021 clip show on alien cover-ups.
6. The Calvine Cover-Up. From last year’s episode on Scotland.
5. Project Jackknife. From last year’s episode on stargates, though I did not list this CIA project by name when summarizing segment 4, where this supposed CIA project to create a star gate in Area 51 appeared.
4. Area 51. Too common a subject for me to identify, but it seems to be from one of the many recent episodes covering Area 51 and Bob Lazar. (See here, here, and here, e.g., among many others.)
3. The Secret Space Program. The fifth segment of a 2023 episode on close encounters.
2. A.A.T.I.P. Probably from a 2018 episode on UFO conspiracies, but so frequently discussed on Ancient Aliens that I can’t be sure.
1. The UAP Recovery Program. This was the opening segment from last year’s episode on so-called UFO whistleblowers.