“It’s only a matter of time,” wrote a former assistant general counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in an email to a colleague, “before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about our work.”
The “we” in that sentence refers to the network of government agencies and nongovernmental organizations that we and others have dubbed the Censorship Industrial Complex. That Complex includes the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public.
Its leader, Kate Starbird, responded to the former CIA official, Susan Spaulding, by saying, “Yes. I agree. We have a couple of pretty obvious vulnerabilities.”
But one day later, Starbird dismissed the notion that she and her colleagues were doing anything wrong. The real problem was, she explained, that “current public discourse (in part a result of information operations) seems to accept malinformation as ‘speech’ and within democratic norms” and that CISA may face “bad faith criticism” for its censorship.
These communications, which surfaced through a series of leaked emails, ignited speculation among conspiracy theorists, setting the stage for a narrative more bizarre than any Hollywood fiction. As they interpreted these cryptic correspondences, a new hypothesis emerged: the Censorship Industrial Complex, an already mysterious entity, was not only suppressing information but also hiding the existence of something—or someone—far beyond our planet.
This theory gained traction when an anonymous user, known only by the handle ‘RedStar69’, posted a declassified document on a conspiracy forum. The document, reportedly part of a discarded CIA file, suggested an unusual mission with a code name ‘Project Red Sand.’ The document bore cryptic lines that read: “Commence phase two. Censor and distract. Starbird and Spaulding approval pending.”
The document, though heavily redacted, contained hints that suggested something more than terrestrial concerns. Phrases like “extra-terrestrial operatives,” “Mars Base,” and “Cold Red” were scattered throughout the pages. The details were scant, but for the conspiracy theorists, it was a goldmine.
More leaks started surfacing. Faded photographs of uniformed individuals, seemingly in a foreign landscape, appeared on obscure blogs. Grainy footage of what looked like a Martian landscape, including suspiciously human-made structures, was uploaded on private video-sharing platforms. Each leak, every image, and video, further added to the narrative - communists were hiding on Mars, and the Censorship Industrial Complex was helping to cover it up.
Critics argued that this theory was implausible, if not outright absurd. They pointed out that any manned Mars mission, let alone a full-blown Martian base, would require resources and technological advancements far beyond current capabilities. Plus, the idea of “communists on Mars” seemed more like a Cold War-era sci-fi fantasy than a modern political reality.
But the conspiracy theorists had an answer for this, too. The Soviets had achieved significant early successes in the Space Race, and who was to say they didn’t continue their space exploration in secret? They believed the Mars mission might have been a top-secret USSR project that survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and continued in secret, sponsored by hidden communist factions. The Censorship Industrial Complex, they claimed, was set up to keep such information under wraps and prevent the public from discovering the truth.
As the conspiracy spread across the internet, it became evident that the mystery surrounding the Censorship Industrial Complex had deepened. One question lingered: could there truly be a hidden communist society on Mars, or was this all just another layer of misinformation? Only time would tell.
Kinda lite on the details
Test :)
