The pitch that powerful people would stage a fake alien invasion rests on one idea: elites need a story that makes the public fall in line, and the current stories are failing.

• Every ruling class needs a way to get people to obey, either by pointing to a great enemy or by promising paradise.
• China is being sold as the big enemy, but Americans are not buying it because China feels far away and does not scare people the way communism, the Nazis, or Islamic terrorism did.
• AGI is being sold as the promise of paradise, but that is not working either because people hate data centers and distrust Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk.
• With the enemy story and the salvation story both flopping, aliens would be the next fallback, and any alien invasion should be assumed fake.

Outlook: Expect more attempts to rally the public around a unifying threat or promise, and skepticism toward whichever one comes next.