Pentagon Reopens Search for "Yankee Blue" Memo Amidst Hazing Allegations

The Department of War (DoW) has been ordered to conduct a new search for an alleged 2023 memorandum concerning an Air Force hazing ritual known as "Yankee Blue." This directive follows a successful Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeal, which overturned the DoW's initial claim of no responsive records. The alleged memo, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, supposedly ordered an immediate halt to a practice where service members were misled into believing they were reverse-engineering non-human technology.

The Wall Street Journal's June 2023 report described a Secretary of Defense directive to stop this hazing, but the newspaper did not publish the memo itself or provide specific sourcing. Despite the report, no public document surfaced, and no military branch acknowledged the directive's existence. In September 2025, the DoW formally stated it found no such memorandum in response to a FOIA request from The Black Vault. Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough also expressed inability to confirm the memo's existence, suggesting inquiries be directed to the Air Force or other services.

The Black Vault's FOIA request, filed in June 2025, specifically sought any directive from spring 2023 related to halting "Yankee Blue" practices or similar activities involving fabricated claims of non-human technology. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) initially limited its search to the Correspondence Management Division (CMD), finding no records. The subsequent appeal argued this search was inadequate, asserting that a Secretary-level directive could reside in various offices beyond CMD, including policy directorates or the OSD Executive Secretariat, necessitating a broader investigation to comply with FOIA requirements.