'Did I just watch a trailer for WW3?' Fort Liberty unit releases new psychological video
Fort Liberty’s 4th Psychological Operations Group is back with another YouTube video that is gaining social media attention.
The Associated Press first reported that the group released its “Ghosts in the Machine 2” video on Thursday, which reached 67,000 views as of Friday.
As the video progresses, images are spliced over excerpts of President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 speech in Berlin, Germany.
The group’s original “Ghosts in the Machine” recruiting video was released in May 2022 and garnered more than 1.6 million views.
The new video flashes words or quotes over a black screen or images, starting with a John Steinbeck quote that reads, “I am a little man and this little town, but there must be a spark in little men than can burst into flame,” while a sound or rain and thunder plays.
It later incorporates eerie whistling and a ghost image that were heard and seen in the 2022 video.
The ghost image is a nod to the Ghost army that was under the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops during World War II.
The unit created fake unit patches and fake blow-up Sherman tanks and military vehicles made of rubber to fool enemy Nazi forces.
“Babe wake up, new PSYWAR propaganda just dropped,” one commenter wrote.
Another said “Psyop group be doing psyop things,” wrote another.
Images flash across the screen, including a static TV, a blank mannequin face amid dozens of human-like faces and a knight chess piece on a watch that says “PSYWAR” to mean psychological warfare, before a narrator ends the video saying, “as modern warfare, our military leaders are finding that words and ideas are highly effective weapons.”
Other commenters complimented the video as a recruiting ad.
“This is more interesting than any of the day to day distractions from MSM (main stream media),” one commenter wrote.
Another called the video art.
“It was very soothing almost,” they wrote.
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Other viewers found the video more unsettling.
“Why does this seem like something Batman would receive from a super villain,” one asked, while another asked, “Did I just watch a trailer for WW3?”
Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Will Fort Liberty psychological unit's new video go viral?
