The Art of the Psyop

We live in exciting times for ufology. We’re also coming to realise that many of the modern-day myths around visiting spacecraft were in fact planted by our own intelligence services. But how to tell fact from fiction?

Trevor Paglen is an American artist known for investigating the invisible through the visible. His practice has taken him to Afghanistan to uncover “black site” prisons, underwater to photograph the cables that carry the NSA’s data, and to the Californian desert to photograph the 350 unidentified objects currently orbiting Earth.

Richard Hames talks to him about the art of the psychological operation (or psyop), the continuing legacy of MK ULTRA and, of course, aliens.

This episode contains descriptions of torture at CIA black sites in its first half.