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I'll admit that this thought has occurred to me. But given everything we know about human nature, do you think anyone could keep something of this magnitude under wraps?
The criminal mastermind always longs to confess his crimes so we can marvel at how clever he is.
Probably not indefinitely, but it is at least possible to keep something of that magnitude under wraps for a long time and effectively enough that the few occasional whistleblowers get dismissed as cranks or ignored until finally one day something comes out that is too big to be swept under the rug. Take the NSA domestic surveillance program, for example. It was successfully kept secret from the public for many years.
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