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For most of American history, UFOs were relegated to the fringes of public discourse—the domain of conspiracy theorists, tabloid headlines, and late-night radio hosts. Journalists, politicians, and other “serious” people treated the topic with skepticism, if not outright derision. Even asking questions about UFOs, extraterrestrial life, or non-human intelligence would invite ridicule.

That is beginning to change.

In recent weeks, the federal government has released hundreds of pages of previously classified records related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAPs—the term government agencies now use instead of UFOs. The disclosures include military reports, intelligence assessments, witness accounts, videos, photographs, and historical records documenting decades of government interest in unexplained aerial encounters. The Pentagon has described the effort as an unprecedented transparency initiative, with additional materials expected to be released on a rolling basis.

Critics have questioned the timing of the disclosures, arguing that the UAP releases serve as a distraction from more pressing issues, including inflation, the rising cost of living, ongoing conflicts abroad, and the continuing fallout from the Epstein files. For advocates of disclosure, however, the document dump represents something very different: long-awaited confirmation that the government has taken the subject far more seriously than it has publicly acknowledged.

Despite the sheer volume of material, the releases so far have offered more intrigue than answers. The documents contain unexplained incidents, unusual witness accounts, and glimpses into how government agencies have approached the phenomenon over the years. They do not provide definitive proof of extraterrestrial life, nor have they resolved the debate surrounding UAPs.

But there are undoubtedly examples of phenomena that cannot be explained. For example, a newly released report details a 2022 sighting over Colorado in which military personnel observed what witnesses described as a massive, stationary object resembling an irregularly shaped potato hovering above Cheyenne Mountain before disappearing. Government analysts later proposed possible optical explanations for the sighting, but ultimately concluded they had “low confidence” in those theories.

The significance of the disclosures may not lie in any particular document, but in the way the conversation has shifted. What was once confined to internet forums and fringe conventions is now being debated in congressional hearings, discussed by intelligence officials, and addressed by sitting and former presidents. The question is no longer whether UAPs deserve investigation. It is just how much the government knows, and President Trump is willing to share.

That shift was at the center of Shane Smith’s recent conversation with filmmaker Dan Farah, director of The Age of Disclosure, a documentary that follows those pushing to uncover exactly what the government knows. Farah agrees that the changing conversation has less to do with new evidence than with who is discussing it. His goal with The Age of Disclosure was to create what he describes as the most credible documentary yet made on the subject by focusing exclusively on military officials, intelligence personnel, lawmakers, and government insiders with direct knowledge of the issue. That credibility has helped push the topic further into the mainstream.

Farah describes the current moment not as a single revelation but as part of a significant historical process. Disclosure, he argues, is unlikely to arrive in one dramatic announcement. Instead, it is unfolding gradually through ongoing congressional investigations, whistleblower testimony, hearings, official reports, documentaries, and public conversations. “That’s why I call the movie The Age of Disclosure,” Farah said. “It wasn’t the moment of disclosure. It’s this age, this process.”

The government says additional records will continue to be released. But regardless of what future disclosures reveal, the most significant change may already have occurred.

The age of disclosure is here.

In this rare interview, the creators explain why they chose Lego animations to depict war, how they built their audience with limited resources, and why they believe modern conflicts are increasingly fought through algorithms, social platforms, and digital influence campaigns.

The conversation ranges from AI-generated content and online propaganda to the ideas of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, President Trump’s social media strategy, and the future of political storytelling in an era when billions of people experience world events through their phones.

The group also addresses questions about its relationship with the Iranian government, whether its work should be considered propaganda, and why its members describe themselves as “guerrilla soldiers in the propaganda war.”

Andrew Callaghan:

For the people unaware, how would you describe what it is that you do

Mr. Explosive (of the Lego Resistance Front):

We view our work as a sort of civic duty. When you go out in the streets these days and talk to people, you get the sense that everyone wishes they could do more for their country.

A shopkeeper might say, “I wish I could be helping the Red Crescent” or helping with military defense. So we also decided to help our country, using the skills that we already have.

Andrew:

So in your opinion, what is the piece of animation that you’re most proud of so far?

Mr. Explosive:

What we are most proud of is raising the world’s awareness. The world, especially the west, has been under the influence of propaganda for years. For us it is always the reactions from viewers who say we are teaching and showing them a history that their own media doesn’t show them. Or when they say our work has helped to change their opinions on Iran, the war, or politicians. That is what we are most proud of.

Shane Smith:

You use Legos because violence pushes audiences away. But young people are seeing your lego cartoons and saying, “Hey, that’s the real news, instead of what they see on TV.”

Mr. Explosive:

Yes, that’s correct. And the reason is that as humans, our nature is to seek out the truth. So despite being influenced by years of propaganda, as soon as people are exposed to the truth it is easily understood and recognized.

Shane:

Do you think that the internet has turned geopolitics into fandom culture?

Mr. Explosive:

Yes in my opinion it has helped by removing obstacles intended to suppress the truth.

Andrew:

Some people would say online that what you guys are doing is kind of like government propaganda dressed up as internet culture. How do you respond to that criticism?

Mr. Explosive:

We are completely independent. We come up with our own ideas, and we decide what to create by ourselves. And if we decide to defend our country, it is not because the government or anyone else told us to do so. This is our independent and self-motivated form of supporting our country.

Shane:

You also said the Iranian government is one of your customers. Is that true?

Mr. Explosive:

After we release a video, there are many international media organizations that will pay to license our work for broadcast. Some of those may include government media. That is not strange. They are high quality videos that appeal to many different media organizations.

Andrew:

Thinking about Trump and how the Trump Administration- since the most recent electoral victory-has used AI generated videos all the time. If you saw the video of the Gaza Strip, the Gaza hotel- with Elon Musk throwing a bunch of money in the air. It was supposed to be a country club built atop the rubble. Is this a semi tongue in cheek reaction to counter that narrative by using AI?

Mr. Explosive:

Yes, I think they can be compared and the comparison shows a lot. I think [Trump’s posts] demonstrate both the lack of communication ability, since they are such low quality, and also how illogical he is. For example, how will they bring prosperity to a place which they have destroyed? It shows that blood-drenched hands are incapable of creating ideas that will inspire people. It shows that these stone-hearted people are incapable of humor or fascinating ideas.

Later in the interview, Shane asked Mr. Explosive of the Lego Resistance Front what scares him about AI-generated political media.

Mr. Explosive:

I am worried that [AI] will be used to spread vulgarity and immorality. The same way that TV and film can be used as tools to spread awareness to promote vulgarity and corruption in politics and life.

Andrew:

Do you know how many people have seen your content?

Mr. Explosive:

I think as of two or three weeks ago, we have had about 900 million viewers.

Andrew:

What was the most popular video you’ve ever posted?

Mr. Explosive:

I think that ‘Loser’ was our most liked video. It was our first video to feature rap. That started the ‘Lego Resistant Front’ movement.

Shane:

Nearly a billion people have watched your videos. Obviously you’ve struck a chord. In 1, 2, 3 years- where do you think this AI consumer led content is going?

Mr. Explosive:

The future is very unclear, and AI continues to rapidly develop. We also need to continue moving forward and making progress, not stopping. We know that the enemies of humanity and truth will always be busy with new efforts. So we can only continue with our efforts as guerrilla soldiers in the propaganda war.

Andrew finished by asking Mr. Explosive whether he believed the phone was mightier than the sword.

Mr. Explosive:

There is a verse in the Quran that says ‘A small group can be victorious over the larger group through the will of God.’

As AI tools become more powerful and media becomes increasingly decentralized, this conversation offers a glimpse into what the future of information warfare may look like.

Shane Smith:

I remember you rented a plane so that Izzy (Isobel Yeung) and you could go look at these Chinese islands. For people who don’t know, China had these coral reefs that they dredged and made into islands. They made them into high-tech air and naval bases that you’re not allowed to go near.

So you chartered a plane and nearly got shot at by the Chinese Navy. What happened there?

Alex:

The South China Sea is one of the most important bodies of water in the world. Three trillion dollars worth of shipping goes through there every year. And it’s used by China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines. Of course, the U.S. also has strong opinions about what should be going over there.

Alex:

So it’s this place where all these countries and priorities are colliding. What we wanted to do was explore what is actually going on there from three different perspectives: the American perspective, the Filipino perspective, and the Chinese perspective.

In the Philippines, China says the South China Sea belongs to them- which according to the UN is not a thing because nobody can own bodies of water; oceans are for everybody. But China says: ‘Nope, this is all ours. Everything happening in here belongs to us.’

So what they did to strengthen their claim was just start building artificial islands. They turned these coral reefs and little sand spits into islands. They dredged sand and turned them into giant military bases. ‘All right, if we can’t own the ocean, we’ll just build land there that didn’t exist before then we claim that that’s ours.’

So they’re building these islands across the entire South China Sea, very close to the Philippines, where the Filipinos also own plenty of the islands. It’s a David and Goliath story.

Shane:

I like the footage of the Filipino islands, which are sort of ramshackle shacks. Then the Chinese islands, which you can’t get as close to, are sort of high-tech military bases.

What happened when you chartered the plane?

Alex:

Yeah, we wanted to see these artificial islands. Nobody had really gotten any footage of them before. Again, that’s why VICE was amazing. We were going to be the first people to get footage from the sky of these islands that the Chinese were building.

So we chartered a plane, started flying over the islands.

Alex:

As we’re getting closer, we get a message on the radio, on the airplane saying, ‘Turn around now, you’re in Chinese airspace.’ Which is basically, ‘If you don’t turn around, we’re going to blow you out.’

Isobel, the correspondent, of course, did not want to let it go that easily. She started confronting them over the intercom.

Shane:

She’s tough. She’s tough.

Alex:

She was like, ‘Well, this is actually international airspace because we’re over international waters.’ The poor guy wasn’t an international waters expert.

Shane

The poor guy was also your Filipino pilot. Because he was like, ‘We’re getting out of here.’ And to Izzy: ‘Tell them again that we’re leaving.’

Alex:

Yeah, at a certain point, Izzy was trying to have a deep conversation with this Chinese Navy soldier, and the pilots were like, ‘No, we’re getting out of here.’

Shane and Alex also reflect on the surprising aftermath of the film, including HBO’s decision not to air the documentary, and what it revealed about China’s growing influence around the world.

Shane:

One of the reasons why it’s maybe not one of our most famous pieces, I believe, is because it’s the only piece ever that HBO pulled. We went, we did the exercises with the Marines and the Filipino military. We did the aforementioned aircraft carriers. You guys nearly got shot out of the sky when you chartered a plane. By God, what a budget HBO had. Chartered a plane to go over the islands. You went to China. We got experts.

Because China exerts so much political power, HBO got scared and said, ‘Let’s pull it.’ I think it was because of CNN, as well. I think that was the first time they did that with us and it was devastating because I loved it.

Alex:

That was bummer. We put the whole thing together, it was a 40 minute special, and a couple of days before it’s going on TV, all of the sudden, it’s not.

I can’t say for sure what what went down, but I remember Googling ‘HBO China’ that day and it seeing ‘HBO launches in China in X days.’

Along the way, they revisit other unforgettable stories from the region, from remote Bitcoin mining operations to the strange realities of reporting inside a rapidly changing superpower.

Don’t miss this conversation about honest journalism, great-power competition, and why many strategists believe the South China Sea could become the center of the next major global conflict.

After reporting from U.S. Africa Command’s largest annual joint military exercise–where autonomous drones, AI-enabled military systems, and robotic weapons were on display–VICE News Editor-in-Chief Shane Smith wanted to talk to someone who has spent years grappling with what can happen when powerful technologies begin advancing at unprecedented speed.

Aza Raskin, a technologist with training in mathematics and dark matter physics, has spent much of his life at the forefront of innovation. The son of an early Apple computer scientist, he grew up at the center of the tech world, contributing to cutting-edge research projects and founding multiple technology companies. But years spent building new technologies ultimately led him to focus on their broader social consequences. Concerned about the potential harms of technology like AI and social media, he co-founded the Center for Humane Technology, a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that society’s most powerful technologies actually serve humanity.

Shane and Aza’s conversation explores some of the biggest questions surrounding artificial intelligence today: how AI could reshape warfare, politics, labor, and everyday life; whether governments are moving fast enough to regulate emerging technologies; and what happens when the incentives driving innovation outpace our ability to govern it. Use these sources to understand the ideas, evidence, and debates shaping the future of AI.

Shane Smith:

I found an article in GQ that says you helped create the infinite scroll, which has become foundational for modern social media. Do you feel any personal responsibility for what those systems became?

Aza Raskin:

I feel responsibility for not having understood the way incentives were going to eat my intentions.

Infinite scroll wasn’t some amazing invention. It’s a pretty simple idea and it would have been invented anyway. But I think there’s a responsibility as a technologist to understand that when you invent a new technology, you uncover a new class of responsibility.

When you invent something like infinite scroll, you should think about how it might be misused, either by bad actors or bad incentives, and try to create norms, rules, or laws that go along with it. I regret only telling half the story because I wasn’t thinking about it.

Shane Smith:

Give us a little bit of how you got to that realization.

Aza Raskin:

I grew up in a family that thought deeply about how technology should strengthen human beings rather than weaken them. My father used the word “humane” to mean technology that is responsive to human needs and considerate of human frailties.

When I created infinite scroll in 2006, I genuinely thought I was building a better interface. If a user gets to the bottom of a page and hasn’t found what they’re looking for, why make them click a button? Just load more. It was a very simple thought.

But then I was forced to watch my good intentions get eaten by incentives. As social media emerged, the goal became maximizing eyeballs, engagement, and time spent on site. Something I thought would save people a few seconds became a system that now wastes something on the order of a hundred thousand human lifetimes every week. And it does it by exploiting an asymmetry in human psychology.

When you’re drinking a glass of wine and you reach the bottom, that’s a stopping cue. Your brain wakes up and asks: do I actually want more? But if the glass silently refills itself, you’ll drink dramatically more because that moment of reflection never arrives. Infinite scroll removes the stopping cue. That’s the lesson I learned: intentions get eaten by incentives.

The two also discussed the societal impacts of AI on humanity.

Aza Raskin:
Social media was really just a baby AI. It couldn’t even generate its own content. It was simply deciding which human content to amplify. And that tiny misalignment, optimizing for engagement instead of human flourishing, was enough to contribute to hyper-partisanship, polarization, democratic backsliding, and a generation experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety and depression.

Now we’ve moved beyond baby AI to something much more powerful. And the question is: have we solved that incentive problem? The answer is very clearly no.

There’s a useful analogy here. The writer Luke Drago talks about the resource curse. A country discovers oil. Suddenly its GDP depends on oil. Its power depends on oil. It no longer derives as much power from its people. So where does it invest? In schools and hospitals? Or in extracting more oil? Obviously, it invests in oil.

That’s how you end up with structural disempowerment and mass poverty. Now we’re moving from the resource curse into the intelligence curse. AI is going to provide double-digit GDP growth, new weapons, new military strategy, healthcare advances, technological advances. Increasingly, all of that will come from AI rather than from humans.

So are governments incentivized to invest in you, your future, and your children’s future? Or in data centers and solar panels? Obviously, it’s the latter.

Shane Smith:
And that’s how you end up in a future where fewer and fewer people have more and more money.

Aza Raskin:
That’s right. And remember, the reason people have power is because corporations depend on us for labor and governments depend on us for taxes. When labor and taxes are coming from AI and not humans, we lose all political and economic relevance forever.

Then we have to trust that the AI companies, the ones that took our jobs, are going to keep paying our bills forever. That does not seem like a safe world.

Shane Smith:
Have you talked to members of Congress and senators directly? And if so, do they actually understand where all of this is heading?

Aza Raskin:
Often they’re vaguely aware. They’ll have used ChatGPT or Claude. But they don’t think deeply about where the game theory is taking us. They get caught in the idea that we have to beat China, or that this will be good for their side. The deeper question is where these incentives lead society as a whole.

They discuss:

• Autonomous weapons and the future of war

• Why AI has become a global arms race

• The race between the U.S. and China

• Whether governments understand what’s coming

• AI’s impact on jobs and the economy

• Social media, Infinite Scroll, and digital addiction

• The future of regulation and governance

• Earth Species Project and using AI to understand animal communication

• Dark matter, intelligence, and human perception

Is AI humanity’s greatest tool, or our greatest challenge?

Shane Smith and VICE News reported on this year’s conference, the first year that A.I. agents are running everything. Two years ago that would have been unthinkable. Now it’s doing everything, including running our wars.

From A.I.-assisted targeting systems and autonomous combat vehicles to suicide drones, robotics, quantum computing, and next-generation military communications, Shane embeds with U.S. AFRICOM and the young soldiers building the future of warfare in real time.

In this episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, Shane speaks with General Davin R.M. Anderson, Commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).

Later, Shane spoke with 1st Lt. Vincent Gasparri of the Innovation Team Lead 173rd Airborne Brigade. Gasparri leads a new generation of military innovators who are developing drone systems inspired by lessons from Ukraine, Iran, and modern asymmetric warfare.

Of the Russia Ukraine conflict, Lt. Gasparri talked about how the spectrum of the battlefield has changed.

The conversations explore:

• A.I. on the battlefield

• Autonomous weapons systems

• Drone warfare and counter-drone tech

• Robotics and future combat

• Quantum computing and encryption

• The ethics of A.I. warfare

• Terror threats in Africa

• How Ukraine changed military strategy

• The future of the U.S. military

As wars become increasingly automated, Shane asks the question everyone is thinking: are we prepared for a future where A.I. helps run wars?

These men aren’t any old police officers or soldiers. This is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The mafia of Iran. The guys you never want to run into…

When the war broke out more than two months ago, my reaction was the same I have to every war: this is very bad. For years, Vice News has reported on the brutality of the Iranian regime: the repression, the crackdowns, the everyday reality of living without freedoms many of us take for granted. Before the war, a crackdown on anti-regime protestors killed thousands of Iranians. But none of that changes my belief that war is always the worst case scenario.

Most Western coverage has focused on military strategy and the Trump administration’s justification for the strikes the U.S. launched alongside Israel, including the core argument that Iran must be prevented from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Far less attention has been paid to what life in Tehran actually looks like right now. That’s partly because, for Western journalists, reporting from inside Iran has become nearly impossible.

So when we had the opportunity to travel to Tehran, I knew it was important to get on the ground and speak directly with Iranians about their experience of the war.

I also wanted to speak with government officials to better understand Tehran’s position on its nuclear program. If, as Trump says, the conflict revolves around Iran’s nuclear program—with the U.S. claiming Iran is pursuing a weapon and Iran insisting the program is for energy and development—then in theory, some kind of compromise should be possible.

I had never filmed in Iran during an active conflict, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Being stopped by the IRGC two hours into our trip was an unpleasant experience to say the least. I’ve never gotten used to interactions like these. Iran has always felt like a police state, but now it feels like a police state on overdrive. But you have to be prepared for this when you’re reporting in an authoritarian country. Risk is part of the calculus.

As we ventured on to cover one of the city’s nightly anti-war rallies, we found the streets filled with traffic, the stores at the grand bazaar were full, and construction underway on luxury apartments. It was an unbelievable dichotomy. Despite the fact that the U.S. and Israel have carried out thousands of strikes on the country, Tehran felt, at least on the surface, surprisingly normal. Unveiling unexpected details like these is why it’s always been important to get on the ground- there’s a broader story that the mainstream media can’t capture.

Internet access in Iran is heavily restricted, but using local SIM cards, we were able to livestream portions of our visit. The familiar imagery of Iranian demonstrations was everywhere: flag waving, chants of “Death to America,” “Death to Israel,” and “Death to the Jews.” There were signs maligning Reza Pahlavi, son of the last shah of Iran, who- from exile in the United States- has become a kind of opposition figurehead. Teenagers crowded around booths playing podcasts about martyrdom. Vendors sold miniature Shahed drone keychains as merch.

Yet the people we spoke with were consistently friendly, polite, and eager to talk. That’s something you come to realize when you report in authoritarian places like Iran, North Korea, or Cuba: the people are not the regime. They wanted to connect, and to share with the world their frustrations, fears, and their hopes for peace.

As we filmed, police stopped us repeatedly to check our paperwork, but our fixers managed to smooth things over each time. We were in Iran legally as journalists, and because the regime controls virtually every aspect of foreign reporting, that meant the regime had allowed us to be there. Thus the people I was able to speak with on camera were overwhelmingly anti-war and supportive of the regime. Those that hold different opinions were unlikely to risk speaking candidly to journalists.

Still it was incredible to get the raw opinions of an important proportion of Iranian people. One night, when our friend Andrew Callaghan of Channel 5 News joined us at a rally, I met a man who surprised me. He approached me speaking perfect English and explained that he had spent part of his childhood in Ottawa — the same Canadian city where I grew up. With one child on his shoulders and another holding his hand, he came across as warm, thoughtful, and completely ordinary. But when I asked him about the war, he told me he actually wanted America to attack again. He was “waiting for it.” He explained that he believed another confrontation would allow Iran to finally “finish the job” — by which he meant forcing the United States out of the region entirely, leaving Iran and its neighbors to determine their own future without Western interference. I was stunned by how genuine he came across. This was a happy man.

Later in the trip, I sat down with the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmail Baghaei. We discussed the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, the risk of regional escalation, and Israel’s role in the conflict, before turning to the central issue: Iran’s nuclear program. I asked him a question that many Americans would probably ask. If Iran’s nuclear program is truly peaceful, why not abandon it in exchange for a deal with the United States? Iran sits atop enormous oil and gas reserves. Why not focus on fossil fuels, or solar, or wind energy instead?

Baghaei rejected that premise. Iran, he argued, is not attempting to build a nuclear weapon but should continue to pursue nuclear energy. Critics point to Iran enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels, but Baghaei insisted the program is about “development” and “welfare.” He reminded me of something I had learned while visiting Iranian nuclear facilities with the IAEA last time I was in Tehran: before the Islamic Revolution, it was American institutions that encouraged the Shah to pursue nuclear energy, with U.S. and European companies helping build Iran’s first reactor. He also pointed out that several Gulf states with enormous fossil fuel reserves maintain civilian nuclear programs of their own, and that the world is pushing countries away from dependence on fossil fuels for their environmental impact.

I was relieved to emerge from Tehran with a mission accomplished: capturing perspectives on this conflict that hadn’t presently been shared. I understood the impasse between Washington and Tehran more clearly than before. The United States sees a regime inching toward nuclear weapons capability and says that military intervention is necessary to stop it. Iran sees itself as a sovereign power and says it’s being denied rights that other countries already possess. And caught between those two positions are ordinary Iranians, waiting to see what happens next.

In partnership with Adobe Acrobat, we’re opening up our reporting from Iran. Using PDF Spaces, you can dig into original documents, research, and source material—so you can follow the story the same way we do.

Step inside our story

Why did I get this? You are receiving this because you previously subscribed to a VICE News newsletter or digital service managed by Vice Media Group. If your preferences have changed or you no longer wish to hear from us, you can unsubscribe below.

In this wide-ranging conversation, the Iranian government responds directly to accusations about its nuclear program, President Trump’s claims that Iran is “begging” for a deal, the Strait of Hormuz crisis, sanctions, regional escalation, and the growing fear of a wider war in the Middle East.

Shane Smith: “Earlier this week Iran sent a proposal through Pakistan aimed at the ending hostilities with the United States. Can you talk through some of the broad strokes of that proposal and does it have meaningful concessions?”

Esmail Baghaei: “Meaningful concessions on the part of Iran or on the part of the U.S.? When we talk about concession, we have to be a little bit careful. We do not want any concession from the United States. We simply want our rights. We want our rights to be restored.”

Baghaei argues that Iran has been unfairly targeted by the U.S. and Israel for decades, blames the U.S. and Israel for escalating the conflict, and warns that continued military pressure could destabilize the entire region.

Baghaei: “We have been under crippling sanctions for the past five decades…There is no nuclear threat from Iran to any actor in the region or globally. So what we demand is the end to the U.S. hostilities—in the sense that their sanctions must be lifted. Our blocked assets must be freed and available to be used by Iran. At the same time, when it comes to the Strait of Hormuz, they need to take measures to end the maritime blockade.”

Shane pushes back throughout the interview, asking why Iran continues pursuing nuclear energy despite mounting international pressure, whether peace is realistically possible, and what the Iranian government believes Americans fundamentally misunderstand about Iran.

Shane: “I was invited here by the IAEA to see the reactors. We saw the first reactor here in Iran which ironically was given by America…Why not just say, ‘We’re sitting on the biggest gas boom in the world. We’re not going to use atomic energy. We’ll use fossil fuels and get into wind, solar—something else.’?”

MFA: “Iran is a big country. As you know, we have a very sophisticated industrial base. In early 1970, the American research institutions on energy proposed to the shah of Iran that Iran will need to build at least 8 nuclear reactors in order to secure necessary energy for its progress; for its industrial needs…We need that source of energy for our basic necessities, development, and welfare.”

Topics include:

• Iran’s response to Trump and U.S. military pressure

• Israel’s role in the conflict

• The Strait of Hormuz and global energy fears

• Nuclear weapons accusations

• Sanctions and frozen Iranian assets

• Regional escalation and Gulf states

• The collapse of diplomacy after the JCPOA

• Why Iran says it does not want war

Shane: “What do you think is the future? What happens in the next couple of weeks? We’re facing a global energy crisis and the longer it goes on, the worst it gets for everybody—including Iran.”

MFA: “What happens next, no one can really predict. We wish for the best to come, but we have learned to be prepared for every scenario. What is going on in our region is not really something that we wish, but it has unfortunately been imposed on our region.”

“No one can really control the boundaries of war. War is like a fire. If you do not extinguish it, it will simply expand.”

Recorded in Tehran.

I’m in Tehran right now.

We just started livestreaming from a massive anti-America rally in the middle of the city.

You should watch it here:

Or just go to vicenews.com.

Americans are told one thing about Iran. Iranians are told another about America. Neither version survives contact with the ground here, where the streets are full, the restaurants are busy, kids are running loose in the parks, and every night, thousands of people gather to chant “Death to America.”

It’s weird. It’s tense. It’s complicated. Which is exactly why we came.

This is what VICE News does better than anyone: go to places other people talk about from far away.

So we’re doing it again.

Welcome to the new vicenews.com. We’re going to bring you writing, documentaries, livestreams, interviews, and podcasts covering the most important stories shaping the world today.

We were just in Morocco watching robotic weapons lead humans in simulated combat. Now I’m here in Tehran with Andrew Callaghan. Next up, Ukraine. We think. Oh and Andrew wants VICE to go back to North Korea.

As a subscriber, you’ll receive new posts right here in your inbox. You can also log into the website to read the full archives or access a clean, ad-free reading experience in the Substack app.

No panels. No pundits. No ten people screaming at each other from satellite boxes.

Just us. Showing you what’s really happening.

Bango.

-Shane Smith,

VICE News Editor-in-Chief

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Filmmaker and investigative journalist, Jeremy Corbell, returns to Shane Smith Has Questions for a deep dive into what may be the biggest disclosure moment yet. Just last week, the U.S. government released a collection of UAP/UFO files on the Department of War’s website, filled with decades-old scanned files and outfitted with a Palantir-esque user interface.

The site features composite sketches of an “ellipsoid bronze metallic object materializing out of a bright light in the sky,” Buzz Alderin’s account of a “fairly bright light source” while aboard Apollo 11, and an object “making 90-degree turns, doing corkscrews and maneuvering in circles at great rates of speed” over Kazakh skies.

Donald Trump wrote Friday in a Truth Social post: “Whereas previous Administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’ Have Fun and Enjoy!”

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Jeremy and Shane Smith break down the new government “data dump,” the whistleblowers testifying under oath, military footage from Syria and the famous “Tic Tac” encounters, alleged reverse-engineering programs, non-human intelligence claims, and why Corbell believes this is only the beginning.

Corbell: “We’ve been working on this because it’s been a national security issue. I don’t know what it takes. The formal admission of the facts, the formal admission of the unknowns: people need some sort of defining of these terms. We need to know what we’re talking about.”

Corbell continues: “Congress is asking for 46 videos that they know exist. If we can just get that out to the American public, that will start the process.”

Shane: “How does it feel to be part of the community that feels a little less fringe now?”

Corbell: “All I care about is that the truth gets put forward to the public and that there is no further deception. Tell the truth- let’s move on.”

They also discuss:

• Corbell’s new documentary, Sleeping Dog

• The Pentagon’s latest UAP releases

• The 46 videos Congress allegedly requested

• The Syria 2021 footage

• David Fravor and the Tic Tac incident

• Government secrecy and “the military industrial complex”

• Fear surrounding whistleblowers

• Whether real disclosure is finally happening

“If this is all true, this is the biggest story in the world.” — Shane Smith

After overseeing more than 700 investigations into waste, fraud, and abuse during the 20-year war in Afghanistan, John Sopko explains how America spent trillions, empowered corruption, radicalized populations, and repeated the same mistakes over and over again — while contractors, bureaucracies, and political interests kept the machine running.

Sopko warns that future wars will look nothing like Iraq or Afghanistan, and says the U.S. government is dangerously unprepared for the realities of drone warfare and artificial intelligence.

“It wasn’t just military contractors selling boots and guns and airplanes to the Afghan military, police, and government,” Sopko explained. “It was actually about 30 U.S. government agencies operating in Afghanistan.”

This is one of the clearest insider accounts yet of how modern wars actually work, and who benefits from them. You won’t want to miss it.

• Watch the full interview on YouTube

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In January 2026, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told the US military to “accelerate like hell” in the use of AI, robots, and autonomous systems.

Now, just over 100 days later, we’re on the ground in Morocco, where AI-powered “robotic forces” are working alongside human soldiers as part of African Lion, the US military’s largest exercise on the African continent.

“The Russia Ukraine Conflict has provided interesting insight into how the battlefield has changed,” 1st. Lt. Vincent Gaspari told us in a tent at Camp America in Tan-Tan, Morocco. “We now have very low-cost solutions that are precise and effective.”

Indeed, the modern battlefield has become much more lethal with drones, creating asymmetrical warfare where one side becomes substantially weaker than the other. Here at Africa Lion, we’re seeing autonomous ground vehicles that are weaponized. But with anything lethal, a human is in the loop.

As this technology advances further, what are the ethics of of autonomy on the battlefield?

This and more as we cover Africa Lion 2026:

In partnership with Adobe Acrobat, we’re opening up our reporting from the African Lion exercise. Using PDF Spaces, you can dig into original documents, research, and source material—so you can follow the story the same way we do.

Step inside our story.

As Venezuela continues adjusting to life after the capture of Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, Shane Smith sits down with longtime VICE producer Alex Chitty to look back on their reporting there, from its most chaotic years, to a very different reality today.

They revisit some of VICE’s most infamous shoots, including a trip embedded with cocaine traffickers moving product through West Africa — a story that became legendary during VICE’s early, anything-goes era.

Shane and Alex reflect on filming in Caracas when it was considered the murder capital of the world- covering riots, tear gas, and violent street clashes- and compare it to returning more recently, where parts of the country felt almost unrecognizable.

They also touch on the strange legacy of those early VICE years, from parody to perception, before turning to what the future might hold for Venezuela in the wake of Maduro’s removal and the country’s political transition.

As trials tied to the brutal Assad regime begin this week, Shane Smith talks down with former VICE correspondent Isobel Yeung. They revisit moments from Aleppo and Damascus, where active frontlines and everyday life existed side by side — and reflect on the strange disconnect between what was happening on the ground and what people were allowed to say on camera.

Isobel shares what it was like reporting under constant oversight, navigating government minders, and trying to capture reality inside a system built to control the narrative, along with what didn’t make it into the final cuts.

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Shane Smith and longtime VICE producer Alex Chitty recount their reporting in Iran and the unpredictability of working there. They talk about coming face to face with senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and attempting to turn it into an interview, as well the gap between the official narrative and everyday life in Tehran.

On this week’s episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, Shane and Matt Mahan discuss the reality behind homelessness in California, why housing is so expensive, and how bureaucracy and bad incentives have made it nearly impossible to build. Mahan explains how corporate power, regulation, and political complacency have created a system that continually becomes more expensive without delivering better results.

Mahan lays out why he believes California is at an inflection point and what a more pragmatic, results-driven approach could look like if anyone is willing to take it on.

• Watch the full interview on YouTube

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Jake Burghart joins Shane Smith to talk through VICE’s infamous North Korea trip. They discuss what went wrong behind the scenes, the surreal moments with Dennis Rodman, and how the trip unfolded in ways no one expected.

Jake shares his take on the challenges of filming in North Korea, the absurdity of the situation, and how it all came together, unfiltered and unexpected. It’s a quick dive into the story behind the story.

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Scott Galloway and Shane Smith talk through why the system feels off and why more people are starting to notice now. They dive into how wealth is concentrated among America’s wealthiest, how big tech quietly shapes the rules, and the erosion of America’s middle class. It’s blunt look at where things stand and what could come next if nothing shifts.

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On this episode of Shane Smith Has Questions, Ian Bremmer explains why regime change was a fantasy; how Iran is somehow making more money since the war started; and why the real pain at the pump, at the grocery store, in your portfolio- has not even hit yet.

Bremmer maps out a world unraveling in real time. A world where drone swarms are rewriting the rules of war, disinformation is warping reality, and how miscalculations in the Strait of Hormuz have tipped the global economy into freefall.

• Watch the full interview on YouTube

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The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed, and energy expert Amos Hochstein is calling this the single greatest energy crisis in global history bigger than the 1973 OPEC embargo. With roughly 10 million barrels of oil per day missing from global markets, prices have surged from $60 to nearly $100 a barrel, gas is climbing toward $4 a gallon, and major producers like Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar have already slashed production. According to Hochstein, if the Strait remains closed for just 10 more days, the economic damage could become permanent and very difficult to reverse.

The ripple effects are already being felt everywhere. Food prices, shipping, airline tickets, and everyday goods are increasing. Meanwhile, Republican senators are privately warning the White House that if this continues, they risk losing both the House and the Senate. Hochstein breaks down the best case, worst case, and most likely scenario for how this war ends and what it means for everyday Americans already feeling the squeeze at the pump and the grocery store.

The conversation goes beyond oil- connecting the dots between energy, AI, and the new geopolitical battleground.

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During Shane’s conversation with Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Bernie warns that a handful of the world’s wealthiest men are quietly engineering the most consequential revolution in human history- one that could wipe out millions of jobs overnight and leave ordinary Americans with nothing but unanswered questions. Driverless trucks, automated warehouses, AI lawyers and accountants. Bernie poses the question- “If people do not have work, what will they do all day?”

Sanders is especially critical of the billionaire class that is fueling this transformation, highlighting how- in his view- wealth and power have never been more dangerously concentrated. Sanders believes a federal wealth tax may be the last line of defense for working people. You won’t want to miss this episode.

• Watch the full interview on YouTube

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