Faceless people, fire and ghosts: US Army releases ‘weirdest recruitment ad’ for psychological operations
The man behind the U.S. Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group "unsettling" new recruitment video wanted to create something where the right people to join PSYOPs became "obsessed" with the message on screen, he tells Fox News Digital.
The video, "Ghosts in the Machine 2," dropped earlier this May, and has garnered varied reactions, from one user commenting, "This is seriously f'd up" to another writing, "This was the weirdest recruitment ad I’ve ever seen. I’m in." Loaded with eerie music, historical speeches and cryptic visuals, it was designed to lure recruits into psychological operations.
An Army Major, who is part of the 8th Psychological Operations Group, was the mastermind behind the recruiting tactic.
"The Army is going through this massive recruiting crisis … The thing that I noticed with all of our PSYOP recruiting products is that people are paying attention to the wrong thing … How do I create something where people are not distracted by what they're seeing on screen, but they're obsessed with the message instead," he said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
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According to The Military Times, the U.S. armed forces are nearing the smallest total of service members across all branches prior to WWII in 1940. "Ghosts in the Machine," the first video of the recruiting series that was released in 2022, was viewed 1.7 million times, offering special operations recruiting a unique solution it continues to expand upon with this year's video.
"From a tactical level, the PSYOP mission is extremely hard to show and tell … I think what he does with ‘Ghost in the Machine’ is it tells you what psychological operations is, and shows you it, without telling you in words. You watch the video and you’re like, OK, this is how I’ll influence and change behavior," Commander of the Special Forces Recruiting Battalion, Lt. Col. Steve Crowe, told the Associated Press.
According to the AP, recruiters were brought to the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, on a recent trip to speak to cadets. Executive officer of the Special Forces recruiting battalion, Army Maj. Jim Maicke, told the AP, "We had a very limited amount of time to engage about 450 cadets, and the PSYOP officer chose to give a brief introduction and then immediately turn[ed] on the ‘Ghost in the Machine’ video. He ended with, ‘If anyone has any questions about this, I’m right over here,’ and business was booming."
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"Ghosts in the Machine 2" starts with the crackle and smoke of fire plays in the background with a quote from John Steinbeck’s "The Moon is Down" just before a voiceover of JFK’s Berlin Wall speech begins as a caption fades in, reading, "the most powerful weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
The video’s creator, who asked to remain anonymous due to operational security standards, told Fox News Digital, "When Steinbeck says ‘I'm a little man and this is a little town, but there must be something that can burst into flame,’ he's talking about, you know, this fictional town that he needs to resist these invaders. But in this case, it's, ‘Hey, man, maybe there's something in me that could be better.’"
Reactions to the video have commented on its unnerving nature.
The AP called it "unsettling, with haunting images of faceless people" while Stars and Stripes described the recruitment ad as ‘strange, a little chilling’ and ‘ominous.’
"Only the mentally damaged could watch this and be inspired to enlist," one user wrote.
"As a kid who graduated with degrees in Psychology and Communications a year before 9/11 into a rough job market, if I had seen an ad like this back then…" another commenter added.
Despite mixed sentiments about the recruiting tactic, the composer of the series said the majority of candidates at the PSYOP qualification course two years ago cited his video as a motivator behind their decision to join psychological operations.
"The level of thought and detail that goes into these operations overseas is astounding. Which is why we need thoughtful, creative, smart people that know how to put themselves in the head of somebody else who doesn't speak your language, who doesn't live where you live … and then understanding how to communicate to them effectively, right? All those things are what people look for," the PSYOPS officer told Fox News Digital.
"The thing we teach our students is like, ‘Hey, don't do what’s already been done, think outside the box.’ Divergent thinking, right? That's another quality that we really value. The best snipers are fantastic divergent thinkers, right? They think about things in a different way, that's what we're looking for," the Army Major told Fox News Digital.