Conspiracy accounts reinterpret real programs as cover for alien-oriented weapons.

Evidence

Their technology turned out to be only partially usable, they were abducting far more Americans than they had agreed to, and they were mistreating them. Faced with this situation, MJ-12 supposedly decided it was foolhardy to attempt immediate resistance and instead opted to develop weapons that might permit effective resistance at some later time. This weaponsdevelopment program was the Strategic Defense Initiative, disguised as a Cold War project. — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 448

Categorization

• SEED: This ‘the real enemy behind the named enemy’ structure — where the official threat is a disguise of the true one — could seed an essay on how conspiracy narratives recycle official policy into cover stories.
• XREF: connects to: New conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory in kind — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 185

Broader Connections

• New conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory in kind #complicates (0.72) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 185