Disclosure in the Age of Prometheus: Stolen Fire

The Age of Prometheus

Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity. — Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer (2023)

One of [Tom DeLonge's] most trusted advisors said, "How much do you know about Greek mythology?" … He was specifically talking about Prometheus. — Peter Levenda, American Alchemy, Nov. 22, 2025¹

Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer opens with the myth. The film details the career of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist credited with being the “father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the Manhattan Project—the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. The relationship between nuclear weapons and the phenomenon has been widely studied and documented. Specifically, I want to turn your attention to the idea that heightened attention from Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) occurred the moment we discovered how to weaponize nuclear fission. Even if, as some have posited, the NHI have always been here, the development and deployment of these weapons for study, testing, and wartime application is a significant step for humanity. If NHI haven’t always been here alongside us, then others posit that the detonation and release of atomic energy may have served as some kind of nuclear doorbell, which served to alert others of our presence. One only need to look at the Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana incident in 1967 to see that, whatever they are, they are interested in, as Lue Elizondo put it, our nuclear equities².

In 2012, Ridley Scott released the science fiction horror film Prometheus. Originally conceived as an untitled prequel to his 1979 Alien, it was reworked into something grander and darker; a standalone story that retained thematic and narrative connections to its parent franchise but reached well past them. Scott’s film remixed the Alien universe with ancient-astronaut themes: Engineers who seeded life on Earth, a biological weapon meant to undo what they’d made, and a crew who discover their makers intended to destroy them. The mythological substrate is thick and deliberate: Scott has described the Engineers as “dark angels,” and the film’s architecture—creators, creation, forbidden knowledge, punishment from above—tracks the Book of Enoch³ more closely than it tracks Alien. The title is on the nose by design. It is also the name of the ship. Whether that reflects something in the cultural water or a director’s magpie instinct for mythic material is a separate question. The film raises more questions than it answers, and its ambitions don’t always pay off, but what it lacks in execution it makes up for in the breadth of ideas it is willing to entertain.

These two films were summer movie events that have etched themselves into the consciousness of the modern era. While Nolan's epic serves to remind us of the clear and present danger that nuclear weapons continue to pose, it also offers a thorough exploration of the Manhattan Project's secrecy—a classification model that, as David Grusch told Joe Rogan in 2024, was deliberately 'overlaid' onto the NHI issue because it had already proven effective: workers assembling components of the atomic bomb didn't necessarily know what they were building, and the same logic, Grusch argues, governs NHI programs today.⁴ Scott's film, meanwhile, takes the older IP and overlays it with NHI creation myths, positing them as ultimately responsible for the creation of life on Earth.

Both Prometheus and Oppenheimer remain ambiguous on how they connect to the themes of the Greek Titan. What they share is the harnessing and release of destructive technologies—the black liquid in Prometheus, atomic energy in Oppenheimer—and it is this thematic connection that matters. Our modern era is a hyper-technological one. In the lead-up to the release of Prometheus, a viral clip⁵ cataloged the advent of fire as our first form of technology (itself stolen from the Gods by the Titan Prometheus) and traced its role in every civilization-transforming technology since. Though both films are works of fiction (one certainly less than the other), that we have come to wield incredible power is without question. As the founder of Weyland Corporation states at the end of that clip, “We… are the Gods now.”

However, the reality of the phenomenon—that something else exists alongside us—is the existential threat to that idea. Through our wielding of immense technology, we have conquered the planet. The apex predator of the 20th century, we have subjugated animal, earth, and brother. Yet with the arrival of the first sightings above the skies of Western Europe during World War II, the strength of the links on that food chain became tenuous, at best. Of the speculative explanations for the origin of NHI, one which has gone unnoticed as of late pertains to militaristic motivations behind the phenomenon. Much of the speculative literature on NHI is difficult to catalog because we are lacking in evidence. This evidence, or data, would allow us to properly synthesize it into a category which would make the phenomenon easier to understand.

In the absence of such a taxonomy, we must analyze behavior to determine intent.

In analyzing the modern history of the phenomenon, I am left a bit uneasy. Is the phenomenon spiritual? If so, is it benevolent, malevolent, or capable of both? Angels? Demons? Is it here for our improvement? Or is it monitoring us? Is it interested in us? Is it interested in our resources? In short: what does it want? I keep coming back to what I see in the field.

The case history is long and well-documented: from the 1952 Washington radar incidents⁶ and the 1967 Malmstrom missile shutdowns, through the USS Nimitz Tic Tac encounter in 2004 and the congressional testimony of 2023⁷, to the unresolved drone incursions of 2024⁸. The pattern across seven decades is consistent: military operators, military installations, and a phenomenon that behaves as though it understands exactly what it is looking at.

Much of the literature on the topic looks at the phenomenon through a sort of humanistic lens. Since a lot of the data is subjective, combing through it for patterns can be an arduous task. Who is lying? Who is telling the truth? Who is reliable? The data gleaned from experiencers of abduction or high strangeness phenomena is much harder to substantiate, but is no less integral to a comprehensive understanding of what the phenomenon is. For all intents and purposes, any testimony can be rendered unreliable, but for the sake of argument, reliability seems to fall squarely on the experiences of military operators. Why? Military personnel receive training which itself relies on funding that can be quantified in terms of resources and time. They receive specialized training that allows them to credibly discern and report on observations and scenarios. Additionally, much of modern military technology—at least going back 60-70 years—has relied on the development and refinement of sophisticated sensor technology, which has served the proliferation of surveillance systems to levels hitherto unrealized.

One can argue how far back the phenomenon goes in history and David Grusch, along with others, seems to imply that it goes back much further than we are currently comfortable with. However, one can comfortably state that from the post-1930 U.S. case history on UAPs, the primary observers have been, and continue to be, military operators. Why?

In recognizing patterns—and I may be accused of being overconcerned with the scientific here—the quantification of data and reduction to basic, understandable elements is the goal. One thing we can agree on: the phenomenon has been interested in, and often cited by, military targets at military installations all over the world. Now, it could all just be coincidence, and it is possible that our technological developments made it easier for us to spot what:

1. Was already there;

2. Coincided with the presence of something performing reconnaissance-like operations or surveys; or

3. For unknown reasons, began to monitor us.

These are not exhaustive, but they are all possible given the quantity of declassified reports and first-hand accounts from trained, reliable operators. Still, even if one found ways to poke holes in this argument, it doesn’t explain away why the common focus point was, and continues to be, military equities. This is why I am not convinced that a practical, militaristic motivation isn’t the goal here—even if they are from another dimension.

But Raf, that is a very ethnocentric way to look at the phenomenon, surely NHI are not like us? I hear you, but the evidence points to them being a lot more like us than we care to admit. We perform reconnaissance operations and gather intelligence on high-value targets that often take months, if not years, to plan (the operation to capture Osama bin Laden took months of preparation for a raid that lasted forty minutes). Even the not-so-militaristic characteristics of the phenomenon bear resemblance to activities we perform: animal studies, breeding, hybridization, and gene manipulation, just to name a few. The phenomenon isn’t either/or; they can be scientists and hunters in the dark forest of space and time.

I’ve often heard the objection that if NHI were hostile, then surely, given their apparent technology, they could destroy us at any moment. Yet such a statement undermines the resiliency and ingenuity of humanity. If, in short order, we have been able to subjugate the planet to our will, would one not consider that a worthy adversary? How about crash retrievals? If we have been able to reverse-engineer some of that technology, wouldn’t it be worrisome for someone looking in on us at how fast we have been able to develop it? Even if crash retrievals are not occurring, look at the pace of our technological endeavors. Just a century ago we were beginning our forays into broadcasting, robotics, medicine, television, and the first transatlantic phone call. Today, artificial intelligence, drone technology, virtual and augmented reality, blockchain, and quantum computing are the next frontiers. If you do not think that these technologies exist in the military domain, all one has to do is peruse the Technological Directorates of the Air Force Research Laboratory. It doesn’t require stretching the boundaries of one’s imagination to see why NHI may not be in a hurry to act. And if one were still in doubt, the nuclear weapon capabilities of the U.S. alone should be enough to give one pause.

As far as possible motivations are concerned, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe it’s resources, maybe it’s something more esoteric or spiritually inclined, or maybe it’s a bit of both as Tom DeLonge and others have suggested (given the amount of strife and war in this world rooted in religious and territorial grievances, I can’t help but want to ascribe the motivations of “the Others” to such horrific events).

Peter Levenda has recounted that one of DeLonge’s most trusted advisors—a figure Levenda has declined to name—pointed them explicitly toward Prometheus as an encrypted account of an actual contact event: a moment when something was given to humanity that wasn’t meant to be given, and when something, or someone, paid for it. "Prometheus suddenly became the thing," Levenda has said.

Maybe they underestimated us, and despite their best efforts to not lose their technology during reconnaissance missions (we often do, too), they have. Which has resulted in our crash-retrieval operations, turning us into a modern Prometheus, stealing the technological fire from the gods. We “stole” their technology, and now they want it back.

The evidence permits other readings.

Yet I am unsure as to what it will take for all of the truth behind the phenomenon to reveal itself. I agree with the take that disclosure is a process—one which I believe has been rolling out slowly for years now. The language in the UAP Disclosure Act of 2023 was the best shot at a controlled disclosure. While my impatience would want the proverbial Band-Aid to just be ripped off, I do not think that most people would be able to tolerate the ontological shock were the truth something insidious… and in fundamental ways, I do believe the phenomenon is, whether or not its intentions are.

Occam’s Razor tells us that the simplest explanation is often the best one. I have spent quite a bit of time outdoors, learning about plants. One thing that is evident even in that world is that organisms compete with one another for resources in order to survive. Vines will strangle nearby cenizo bushes on their ascent toward sunlight, often pulling the branches of the cenizo down with them. Invasive plant species can subjugate native ones wholesale, with significant ecological consequences. This struggle is witnessed in even larger biological systems. In this way, evolution strives forward in ways that may only be witnessed from a 30,000-foot view. The sudden disclosure of the phenomenon may be the equivalent of compressing a geologic timescale to the magnitude of a day.

In the end, it may still simply be a matter of evolution, whether we like it or not.

1. American Alchemy, “CIA Historian: “Aliens Are Controlling Human Timelines!” (ft. Peter Levenda),” Nov. 22, 2025. https://youtu.be/Y7PLeu5rTv4?si=f4msXL4t3KUF1Bwt.

2. Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal, “Lue Elizondo and Sean Cahill: Why the Pentagon Can’t Talk About UFOs,” March 22, 2022. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4cpI2tltYgmQLUj8oYCcRL?si=2924348743e04c02.

3. Nickelsburg, G. W. E., & VanderKam, J. C. (2004). 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia translation. Fortress Press.

4. Joe Rogan Experience #2065, "David Grusch," June 27, 2024. youtube.com/watch?v=R8TqBrrqL4U.

5. Alien Anthology. (2012, February 28). Prometheus | Young Peter Weyland TED talk | ALIEN ANTHOLOGY [Video]. https://youtu.be/a1E_mxgqngI

6. Villarroel, B., et al. “Correlations between transient stellar objects and nuclear weapons tests.” Scientific Reports, October 2025. https://www.sci.news/astronomy/cold-war-transients-14688.html

7. CBS News. (2023, July 26). House holds hearing on UFOs, government transparency | full video [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgoul4vyDM

8. Altman, H. (2026, March 12). What cops saw chasing down New Jersey drones detailed in new documents. The War Zone. https://www.twz.com/air/what-cops-saw-chasing-down-jersey-drones-detailed-in-new-documents