Joel Schectman
@joel_schectman
WSJ enterprise reporter - espionage, psyops, cyber and corruption. Ex-Reuters. Tell me your story. [email protected]/ DM me for signal.
NEW: As COVID-19 was rampaging through Southeast Asia the Pentagon ran an anti-vax psyop to scare Filipinos away from taking the China's Sinovac, the only inoculation available at the time. Very proud of this investigation with @Bing_Chris reuters.com/investigates/s…
Really enjoyed this take on our UFO stories by Ross Douthat @aviswanatha nytimes.com/2025/07/01/opi…
Absolutely riveted by @katiekitamura Audition. In the best way possible - a mashup of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and mid-2000’s Murakami.
Very proud to win this award for our project exposing a secret Pentagon disinformation campaign that spread fear of Chinese vaccines at height of the Covid pandemic and endangered countless lives. Miss my ace partner @Bing_Chris reuters.com/investigates/s…
.@Bing_Chris and @joel_schectman of @Reuters have won the 2025 Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. Congratulations, Christopher and Joel! #journalismawards
Part II of our saga in Chinese!
#本周热读 从通灵间谍、瞬间移动到抗重力金属，五角大楼内部的UFO信徒深入探索科学边缘。一场看似源于罗斯威尔坠落金属碎片的调查，牵扯出数十年的外星科技传闻与机密实验真相。buff.ly/T65jqI7
Saw Elio today. Fun to hear AARO referenced in the movie.
How a band of alien believers turned the myth of reverse engineering UFOs at Lockheed into something like reality wsj.com/politics/natio… with @aviswanatha
🚨 Pentagon's fake UFO operations "not isolated" and could still be ongoing. New comments from Sean Kirkpatrick, the former director of AARO below. A bombshell WSJ story this last week revealed that the military at Area 51 created fake UFO images and put them into the public to…
We interviewed a senior Pentagon official who admits the US military created fake UFO evidence and promoted false alien stories to cover up their top secret "Klingon death ships". trib.al/55zWcIS
Tremendous reporting from @joel_schectman and @aviswanatha on how Pentagon pranks, coverups and in some cases deliberate disinformation fed to American citizens fueled interest in UFOs. wsj.com/politics/natio…
We started with a question: why are so many national security officials claiming the Pentagon had a secret program to reverse engineer UFOs, when the Pentagon is denying it? The answer was crazier than we thought. Part 1 of the epic saga, @joel_schectman : wsj.com/politics/natio…
BOMBSHELL: The Pentagon helped spread UFO myths for a generation. When a new DoD investigation dug up the military’s role, the Air Force pushed for a coverup. With the mighty @aviswanatha wsj.com/articles/WP-WS…
Floored to be a finalist w @Bing_Chris in @deadlineclub Daniel Pearl Award for our project on the Pentagon's COVID psyop that used misinfo to stoke fear of China's vaccine during the pandemic. Feels amazing to be in the running with these heavyweights. reuters.com/investigates/s…
New: The CIA's coverup of its secert war against Castro from the Warren Commission, led to the widespread belief that the spy agency was behind JFK's killing. That "benign coverup" birthed today's MAGA "Deep State" narrative. wsj.com/politics/polic…
When I was young my dad took me to see JFK, a few years later, I read @geraldposner masterful “Case Closed”. For decades after I puzzled over those dueling narratives, the fever dream, the nature of truth. Honored to write this for WSJ wsj.com/politics/polic…
Congrats to three longtime journalism pals, @dnvolz @aviswanatha @DrewFitzGerald on the SABEW Award for epic, history making coverage on Salt Typhoon. wsj.com/tech/cybersecu…
