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It could be about hiding the program in plain sight.
If you’re testing something in the real world, given the ubiquitous cell phones with video capabilities and instant connection to the internet, it’s pretty much a given that such video would be online within fifteen minutes. Having such individuals believing it’s aliens means that it’s going to be tagged UAP/UFO not aircraft. Which in most social media and on YouTube is going to sort it into a large bucket of useless fake and blurry videos (and the new on is likely blurry as well) making it much more difficult for China to tell for sure which of these grainy blurry videos have intelligence and which ones are fake. They all look similar, especially if you don’t know what the craft looks like.
Just make some fake videos, put them online, and get some celebrities to retweet them. Don't drag Congress into it by having a patsy go there and accuse you of misappropriating funds.
The congressional theater helps to give it the veneer of credibility. When congress is involved in the the matter this isn’t just something retweeted, it becomes an official thing. Then those looking will at least know this story is what the Americans want the world to think.
Who cares? All you're trying to do is fill the infosphere surrounding the subject with bullshit. If you could somehow create a program where taking pictures of random airborne objects and posting them online earned people free tacos, that would pretty much do the trick.
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