A US Army influence-warfare unit has dropped a chilling new recruitment video — a cryptic, symbol loaded reel designed to lure in minds sharp enough to weaponize words and subvert enemy perception.
In a scene that feels straight out of a psychological thriller, a US Army influence-warfare unit has dropped a chilling new recruitment video — a cryptic, symbol-laden reel designed to lure in minds sharp enough to weaponize words and subvert enemy perception.
The 4th Psychological Operations Group-Airborne (4th PSYOP), headquartered at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, specialises in crafting persuasive campaigns engineered to manipulate how adversaries think, react, and communicate.
The video begins with a tableau: A blazing 1980s CRT television suddenly sparking to life. The warped screen flickers with the haunting ghost character from Fleischer Studios’ 1930 cartoon Swing You Sinners!. Within moments, the scene snaps into a dark, spectral forest where paper leaflets drift from above, soldiers stand cloaked among civilians, and the blunt phrase, “We are everywhere” flashes across the frame.
Suddenly, the footage rewinds, hurling viewers into a WWII bombing mission as an aircraft rains pamphlets over unsuspecting crowds.
“There’s another force applied in combat that we generally don’t think of as a weapon of war. That weapon is words.” Warning echoes again, “We are everywhere. Words are our weapon.”
The reel concludes with the unit’s lightning-bolt insignia and a pulsing QR code that redirects viewers to goarmy.com/PSYOP.
Scroll to load tweet…
A grainy opening shot of an old Zenith TV in a void sets the tone, VHS static dancing as a ghostly version of Koko the Clown flickers across its burning edges, backed by eerie 1930s jazz interwoven with a modern beat.
From there, the tempo accelerates. Arabic leaflets tumble from an aircraft. A soldier roars through terrain atop a tank wired with a massive loudspeaker blasting distorted messages. An animated quill morphs into a dagger – a visual metaphor for psychological warfare.
Inside a dimly lit command tent, PSYOP operatives monitor multilingual dashboards tracking sentiment, morale, and emotional shifts across populations.
Ominous Video Packed With Hidden Symbols
The reel is peppered with conspiracy theory nods, a salute to the WWII “Ghost Army,” and even a brief appearance of Pepe the Frog in a clown costume – a meme often linked to alt-right hate symbolism.
The legendary Ghost Army, formally known as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, was a secret WWII deception unit that deployed inflatable tanks, fake artillery, simulated radio chatter, booming audio illusions and staged headquarters to mislead German forces. Their trickery diverted enemy troops and saved thousands of Allied lives, though the unit’s exploits remained classified for decades.
Today’s 4th PSYOP inherits that legacy. The unit openly states that its mission is to “conduct influence activities to target psychological vulnerabilities and create or intensify fissures, confusion, and doubt in adversary organizations.”
As its official website explains, “We use all available means of dissemination from sensitive and high tech to low-tech, to no-tech, and methods from overt, to clandestine, to deception.”