The Micah Hanks Program

Following a recent "bombshell" report by the Wall Street Journal revealing the Pentagon's secretive disinformation efforts involving UFOs since the Cold War, controversy has erupted over the extent of the long-running deception, whether the new "revelations" are actually just more disinfo, and what this means in terms of investigation of "real" UAP incidents. 

This week on The Micah Hanks Program, we wade into the controversy, alon...

Throughout the Cold War, the Pentagon secretly produced fake images, documents, and other materials related to alleged UFO programs, which were leaked through covert placement in public areas, dissemination through the UFO community, and even shown during fake briefings provided to members of the U.S. military. Today, the full extent of the secretive disinformation campaign remains unknown, and questions linger over why it was carr...

Between 2008 and 2010, a secretive program within the Defense Intelligence Agency investigated several high-profile UAP incidents, exploring their national defense implications and the possibility of whether new technologies could be derived from their study. Known as the Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Application Program (AAWSAP), the program was the catalyst behind a resurgence in interest in mysterious aerial phenomena that ...

A mysterious metallic sphere allegedly discovered near Buga, Columbia, has recently made headlines, after viral videos appeared online which claim to show the object in flight prior crashing into the ground. While some mainstream outlets have picked up the story, what are the actual details about this purported "mystery sphere"? 

Recently on Capitol Hill, lawmakers were provided a classified briefing on UAP by the FBI, and now several U.S. Representatives are saying the Bureau needs to be more involved in the Pentagon's investigations into anomalous phenomena. We take a look at what members of Congress have had to say about the FBI's briefing, and where things may go from here. 

In recent days, a bombshell NewsNation’s special, "Hunting UFOs: The Desert Sky Mystery," hosted by Ross Coulthart, told the story of Border Patrol agent Bob Thompson and his claims of anomalous aerial sightings along the U.S.-Mexico border. However, while the program presented the story as being "the first time" Thompson had come forward, that's not quite the c...

In 2023, a massive Chinese spy balloon drifted through U.S. airspace before being shot down off the South Carolina coast. Since that time, much has been learned about the notorious incident, which prompted some to consider whether a majority of the unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) observed by military personnel could be similar, relatively simple technologies used for surveillance of our warfighters. But is that really the ca...

Recent advances in genetics and paleoanthropology are revealing a complex world where multiple hominin species coexisted, interbred, and left behind their DNA in modern populations. Fossils like the Denisovan jawbone Penghu-1 found in Taiwan and enigmatic remains from Red Deer Cave suggest that some archaic humans may have survived into the Holocene, much later than previously thought. Meanwhile, studies of modern genomes have unco...

This week, the potential discovery of signs of biosignatures in the atmosphere of a distant planet has aliens on the minds of many scholars. Meanwhile, a recently published study, “Exploring expert figures in alien-related UFO conspiracy theories” investigates how “expert figures”—including scientists, self-proclaimed researchers, and UFO witnesses—are used to legitimize alien-related conspiracy theories online. But what do these f...

In 2004, an incident involving an unidentified aerospace vehicle encountered by personnel serving aboard the USS Nimitz carrier strike group off the Baja California coast gave rise to one of the most widely-discussed UAP incidents in modern history. Now, new information has come to light about a similar 2023 incident, reported by personnel aboard the USS Jackson who say they observed—and filmed—four similar objects, one of which wa...

In what is likely to be one of the major science stories of the year, Texas-based Colossal Biosciences has brought the dire wolf—or at least something very close to this ice age canine—back from extinction, with the help of genetic engineering. The remarkable achievement has been met with awe, praise, and also controversy, as experts debate the exact nature of the "dire wolves" the company has created, as well as the implications o...

For many decades, agencies within the United States government have collected information on a range of different unexplained phenomena. From military encounters involving UFOs, to possible evidence of ancient mysteries collected during reconnaissance missions by spy planes, several examples of the U.S. government's "anomaly files" have been made public through inquiries under the Freedom of Information Act. 

On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, became the victim of an assassin's bullet during a motorcade visit through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Although the Warren Commission later concluded Kennedy's assassination had been the work of one man, Lee Harvey Oswald, questions have remained about what other information might remain in holdings of the intelligence community. 

It is one of the greatest questions humankind has ever faced: are we alone in the cosmos? If alien life on other worlds exists, are there intelligent forms that may be capable of communication? Or is it even possible that some form of non-human intelligence might already be present closer to Earth than we realize?

Are we entering a "Dark Age of Science?" Recent controversies involving phenomena in our universe that include the ongoing debate over dark matter and dark energy, as well as the existence of what some astronomers call "dark comets", have led to controversy about our perspectives on the cosmos... but to what end? Further, are recent cultural and societal events in the world spelling doom for science, including efforts to determine ...

In late 2019, residents of Colorado and Nebraska were perplexed by a sudden wave of mystery drone sightings that, to date, remain unexplained. The bizarre incidents led to widespread concern among locals in many rural midwestern communities, which bore an undeniable similarity to recent sightings of mystery drones in the skies over New Jersey that captivated the nation.

Few have worked longer and with more passion toward understanding the unexplained than astronomer, computer scientist, and internet pioneer Jacques Vallée, who for most of his life has pursued the "forbidden science" of unidentified aerial phenomena. A scientist, researcher, and author of an impressive number of non-fiction and fiction offerings, Vallée's latest work, Forbidden Science 6: Scattered Castles, represents the most rece...

For decades, belief in unidentified aerial phenomena has found its way into the ideas espoused by a number of religious and political groups, as well as other organizations with unusual backgrounds. In his landmark analysis of this aspect of modern UFO-related beliefs, computer scientist Jacques Vallee argued in his 1979 book Messengers of Deception that such beliefs could play a key role in understanding both the phenomenon itself...

On Tuesday, Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna announced the formation of a new government task force that aims to investigate and declassify U.S. government information on some of America's most perplexing secrets. Dubbed the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, the new effort will examine the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, as well as questions involving UAP an...