The "Dire Wolf" Company Has Close Military and CIA Ties

Oaths of silence, CIA funding, high-level military advisors, cult-like secrecy, influencer campaigns, Peter Thiel, fake science...what's really going on with Colossal Biosciences?

Be Scofield is a prominent cult reporter behind the hit HBO series Love Has Won. She is the author of Hunting Lucifer: One Reporter's Search for Cults and Demons. Her work is cited by the NY Times, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, People, Netflix, and more.

By BE SCOFIELD

4/14/25

"We do work closely with the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community," Colossal Biosciences CEO Ben Lamm told Joe Rogan in a podcast. The company is behind the recent viral "dire wolf" de-extinction effort. They aim to fight the coming "biodiversity crisis" by restoring extinct species. Scientists have widely said Colossal's stated goals are not only unfeasible but preposterous. The company's close ties to the government and military raise questions about their true purpose.

The "official" narrative from Colossal Biosciences is so bizarre that it's difficult to believe. Lamm has stated in numerous interviews that the reason they want to de-extinct the woolly mammoth is to fight climate change. He wants to populate them in the Arctic tundra to help the landscape return to its former state. Doing so will increase "plant life and ground cover that could soak up carbon dioxide." He claims it will reduce the temperature of the earth by several degrees.

"I think that the Arctic is an area that needs to be focused on from a methane suppression and carbon sequestration perspective," Lamm says. Methane suppression using woolly mammoths? Who is buying this?

Not scientists. Former professor and evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne says the idea that mammoths will “return balance to ailing ecosystems” is "ridiculous." He calls their effort to de-extinct the mammoth "close to a scam that deludes the public." Coyne further derides Colossal's plans to de-extinct the dodo and Tasmanian tiger as "futile endeavors." Professor Jeremy Austin from the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA says, "De-extinction is a fairytale science...It's more about media attention for the scientists and less about doing serious science."

Duke Conservation Ecology Professor Stuart Pimm calls the dire wolf a "colossal fabrication."

Scientists say these "dire wolves" don't have any dire wolf DNA in them. They are 100% gray wolves, with a few genes mutated to appear the way Colossal imagines dire wolves to have looked. They are putting zebra stripes on horses and calling them zebras. "They cannot do de-extinction," paleontologist and professor Brenen Wynd said in a post that went viral. "They can just tweak living animals to have primitive features. This company is going to make designer zoo animals."

Just a week after Colossal claimed to have de-extincted the dire wolf, their assertions have been widely condemned by scientists as false. There is overwhelming consensus that they have not accomplished what they claim.

"This is insane," said biologist Kristyn Plancarte. Anyone who has dealt with a narcissist knows how crazy-making it can be. They lie, deceive, and manipulate you. Colossal's launch is narcissism on a societal level. It's left chaos and confusion in its wake. People are having to spend a lot of emotional and intellectual labor cleaning up Colossal's mess. Even intelligent people are questioning reality. "People who know better are looking at this story and scratching their heads," Plancarte said.

Colossal's chief scientist Beth Shapiro stated, "Species concepts are human classification systems, and everybody can disagree, and everybody can be right." Plancarte calls this "the most unscientific thing I've heard in my life" and a "very false statement." We also don't know what color dire wolves were, but Colossal says they were white, a deceptive claim that fits their narrative. "So when I saw them born and they were white, I was like, we've done it," Shapiro bizarrely told ABC News. "Those are dire wolves."

Shapiro is making statements that are borderline delusional, which is a serious red flag. It's not normal to twist reality and manipulate people to the extent Ben Lamm and his inner circle are doing. It is pathological. It's what cults do. "Even de-extinction advocates say that Colossal Biosciences claims are misleading," it was reported. If Colossal is willing to forcefully lie on such a grand scale, they are capable of a much more elaborate scheme.

While conservation, combating climate change, and promoting biodiversity are all feel-good ideas, Colossal has hijacked them for an ulterior motive. "Look at all the technology that came out of Apollo," Lamm has stated.

CIA and Military Involvement

One of Colossal's largest investors is US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT). It's an investment firm that backs technology companies with dual-use applications to the commercial sector and defense industry. In 2023, the firm led an investment round of $162 million in Colossal. USIT has funded companies like Shield AI at $200 million, which develops drones and AI fighter pilots for autonomous aircraft.

Bloomberg reported in September 2022 that billionaire mogul Thomas Tull was raising $3–5 billion for USIT. Interestingly, Tull was Colossal's first real investor in 2021 at $15 million. Just two years later, the defense industry investment firm he was fundraising for financed Colossal. Tull now "chairs the United States Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), focusing on defense-tech investments."

In October 2022, a month after the Bloomberg report, the CIA's venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel, funded Colossal, now valued at $10 billion. They invest in projects with "military opportunity." A spokesperson for Colossal told me In-Q-Tel sits in on their board meetings. In a now-deleted blog post on In-Q-Tel's site, the CIA venture firm stated, "Strategically, it’s less about the mammoths and more about the capability."

The earliest funding for the project came from Peter Thiel, who donated $100,000 early on to Colossal co-founder George Church. His project then morphed into Colossal. Thiel founded Palantir, a CIA-funded spy-tech firm with a controverisal history connected to mass data collection for surveillance.

Ben Lamm, Colossal's co-founder, has a history of developing projects for the military. His previous startup, Hypergiant Industries, develops AI-enabled decision-making software for military and intelligence operations. Their JERIC2O software brings "world-class technology to warfighters." It provides real-time data integration from "satellites, sensors, drones, radars, and human inputs." It "offers immersive visualization tools, including virtual and augmented reality overlays for the battlefield." Peter Thiel's Palantir develops similar AI technology for the military.

Ben Lamm has a history of developing projects for the military.

Colossal claims to be at the forefront of synthetic biology, employing gene-editing techniques such as CRISPR, cloning, advanced DNA analysis, and developing artificial wombs. They are also developing "biobanking" technology to create a high-tech genetic archive of animals called the BioVault. It's mass biological data collection on a large scale, a system that would undoubtedly be of interest to the CIA and military. We know the "last frontier" of surveillance is people's bodies.

Colossal also has recent high-ranking U.S. military and defense staff on their executive advisory board:

• David Spirk was, until 2022, the Department of Defense's first Chief Data Officer. He is also a "senior counselor" for the CIA-funded Palantir, where he navigates complex issues of national security with governments.
• Andrew Titus was, until 2020, the Principal Director for Biotechnology at the Department of Defense. He led the "DoD’s roadmap toward biotechnology modernization." Titus also worked at In-Q-Tel.
• Rear Admiral Hugh W. Howard III was, until 2022, the Commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command and former director of operations for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and director for Counterterrorism Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
• Victor Vescovo spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence and targeting officer and retired as a Commander. "His principal duties involved operational targeting (Iraq, Kosovo, and Afghanistan theaters) and after 9/11 he was deployed to support counter-terrorism efforts overseas."
• Lauren Knausenberger was, until 2023, the Chief Information Officer for the Department of the Air Force, comprised of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force.

High-level military involvement and $460 million in investment to use mammoths for methane suppression in the Arctic? Journalists should be asking more questions.

What does Ben Lamm really mean when he says Colossal "works closely" with the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community? Why is one of the largest investors in Colossal a venture firm that funds defense industry companies? Why is a senior counselor for CIA spy-tech firm Palantir on the board? Why does the CIA's In-Q-Tel sit in on Colossal's board meetings? Why are the recent commander of the Naval Special Warfare Command and the recent chief information officer for the Air Force on Colossal's board?

If the situation couldn't get any more questionable, enter McKinsey & Company. One of the people advising Colossal on "sustainability" is Hugh Howard. He is a senior advisor at McKinsey. You couldn't pick a more scandal-plagued and nefarious firm to advise your company on anything, let alone sustainability.

McKinsey has received over a trillion dollars in government contracts, most of which are from the Department of Defense. They have worked on projects ranging from "developing technology for the Air Force and Space Force to evaluating the management of the F-35 program." The firm also works with the "planet's biggest polluters," including Exxon, BP, and other oil companies. They were forced to pay $600 million for their role in the opioid crisis. “McKinsey schemed with Purdue Pharma to ‘turbocharge’ OxyContin sales during a raging opioid epidemic," the government wrote. The firm's work with despotic regimes around the world led to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government.

A Sleek Influencer Operation

"Colossal carefully orchestrated its dire wolf reveal," writes Science. April 7th was the launch day, which saw Time Magazine feature a cover story. Colossal gave them the exclusive, along with the New Yorker. Ben Lamm's interview on the Joe Rogan podcast also dropped on April 7th, as did posts by influencers like Forrest Galante. His Instagram video comes off as a paid, scripted advertisement.

Choosing the dire wolf, which is a pop-culture icon thanks to Game of Thrones, played brilliantly into the influencer operation. Images of the adorable white pups sitting on a black throne from the series went viral online. "SOUND ON. You’re hearing the first howl of a dire wolf in over 10,000 years," a video in one of Colossal's posts reads. It racked up an astonishing 24 million views. The two young pups, Romulus and Remus, can be seen howling in heart-captivating fashion.

Colossal chooses which animals to bring back from extinction based on their ability to grab people's imaginations. The mammoth, dodo, Tasmanian tiger, and dire wolf all have mass marketing appeal. "They want attention, money, and clicks," an entomologist and biologist said. Scientists have discredited these efforts as not serious or credible.

The sleek dire wolf media campaign was organized by RCPMK, who count Blake Lively among their Hollywood clientele. The company is behind some of the most high-profile media campaigns and has worked with the biggest corporations in America. "We connect brands with popular culture through all scales of INFLUENCE from celebrity to community," their website states. "Colossal has been transparent about their work with influencers," Emily Mailaender from RCPMK told me. She said Lamm sees it as a crucial way to reach younger generations.

The dire wolf story received overwhelming press coverage, much of it uncritically asserting Colossal's claims and touting the next Jurassic Park. "It's press release recycling, not reporting," wrote environmentalist author Rebecca Solnit. "The gullibility of the press in falling for every hyped tech thing is sad and annoying."

Colossal's Attack on Science

Ben Lamm attacked the academic and scientific process as a "complete scam of a system" on the Joe Rogan podcast. "I don't have to write a paper on anything ever," he lamented. "Some of the biggest people that hate us are those that we denied their funding." He continued. "Anytime you do anything bold, people give you pushback." Rogan then added, "This is on par with inventing the internet." The conversation devolved into Lamm calling scientists "these bitchy little people."

“I was warned when I started this business that some of the scientific community will be, if we are successful, jealous and somewhat frustrated," Lamm told the New Yorker.

“We don’t do science by press release in the absence of a paper," says paleoecologist Jacquelyn Gill, who is critical of Colossal. "We don't do science by New Yorker and Time magazine announcements."

Lamm attacked the academic and scientific process as a "complete scam of a system."

Colossal has not published any papers validating their claims. Nor have they provided evidence that the company made any wolves in the lab, let alone dire wolves. Colossal also claims to have cloned four red wolves, for which they have also never provided evidence. Despite calling them a DNA breakthrough, the "woolly mice" the company announced a few weeks prior to the dire wolves were also a deceptive marketing ploy. A company in Maine has been selling similar woolly mice for twenty years.

In a post-Theranos world, every claim made by Colossal should be heavily scrutinized until substantiated. I pressed Colossal's chief of staff, Sarah Grant, for anything that could validate that the dire wolves aren't merely Arctic wolves, a species that is currently living and looks identical. Photos of the surrogate hound dogs? Video of the births? Genotyping data? She didn't offer any evidence. For all we know, the company has not even made gene-edited gray wolves in a lab.

Thus far, Colossal has only offered a media spectacle: a press release touting their extraordinary achievements, meticulously staged images, influencer marketing campaigns, flashy social media posts, and carefully directed videos of some type of white wolf pups. Theranos did much the same with its "revolutionary" blood analysis technology. Like Colossal, they too graced magazine covers and received backing from high-profile investors and celebrities.

Those involved in Colossal have a vested interest in participating in the public façade. A current board member informed me that the scientists and experts on the advisory boards receive payment in the form of stock options. They stand to profit handsomely when the company goes public. This includes Forrest Galante, who is a board advisor.

When Theranos' research was exposed as fraudulent, it was valued at $9 billion. Colossal's current valuation is $10 billion. We shouldn't forget that Theranos' scientists fabricated research and lied in the name of their "world-changing" mission. As more scientists expose Colossal as a scam, their foundation will continue to deteriorate.

"Oath of Silence"

Instead of evidence and transparency, Colossal has shown cult-like secrecy and paranoia. Insiders say they had to take an "oath of silence" to protect co-founder Ben Lamm's "secret." The company portrays a false sense of persecution. They've publicized that the wolves are "tended to by a 10-member full-time care staff and monitored using cameras, security personnel, and drones" in a "top-secret" location.

Colossal told the New Yorker journalist which gray wolf genes they allegedly edited but wouldn't allow them to publish it. Coyne finds it bizarre and unusually secretive, considering that the wolves remain hidden, preventing anyone from copying them. Overall, he thinks the company is disingenuous. "Colossal has behaved in a sleazy and overly secretive way with respect to their 'de-extinction' and 'we-are-big-conservationists' claims," he writes.

It's more than sleazy and overly secretive. It's cult-like. Analyzing Colossal through a cult framework is telling. Colossal has a grandiose mission to literally save the planet. Outsiders, in the form of "jealous" and "bitchy" academics and scientists, are persecuting them. They have secret compounds protected by drones, security personnel, and cameras to hide something "revolutionary." The group maintains strict control over real information, or the truth, such as their actual data and research. Instead, they focus on brand and presentation.

Lamm is charismatic and highly intelligent. He also has a superiority complex, i.e., "I don't have to write a paper on anything ever." His numerous grandiose and almost magical claims are similar to those of self-proclaimed enlightened gurus who claim to perform miracles. “Within eighteen months of our putting the name ‘dire wolf’ down on a whiteboard, we birthed dire wolves!” Lamm told Newsweek. His site states, "On 1 October 2024, for the first time in human history, Colossal successfully restored a once-eradicated species through the science of de-extinction."

This whole debacle reminds me of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who repeatedly lied, saying he could actually fly and teach others. Gullible Americans signed up in droves and spent thousands learning the "science" of "yogic flying." Soon we had otherwise rational people actually wondering if humans can fly, just like we do now with people wondering if we can de-extinct a Game of Thrones wolf. The press soaked up the yogic flying, showing images of cross-legged people hopping on mats.

Maharishi also claimed to be saving the world through Transcendental Meditation. He explicitly used science terms to proliferate ridiculous, unproven ideas and create sham spiritual programs that made him millions.

One of the telltale signs of a cultish leader is a fragile sense of self-esteem. Lamm loses his composure with the slightest criticism. When the New Yorker journalist mentioned that a Maine research facility had been selling a woolly mouse for the last twenty years, he became upset. "Lamm was irritated when I mentioned the response to him," the journalist writes. Lamm then told him, “We are the most advanced multicellular-synthetic-biology company on the planet." The journalist says Lamm then reiterated to him that the "science behind the woolly mouse had been extraordinary." Asked when a university lab would recreate something like their dire wolf Lamm replied, "Never."

Lamm and his inner circle, Matt James and Beth Shapiro, lead interviews with the same alarmist jargon. "Scientists have predicted that by 2050 more than half of the species that are still alive today could become extinct," they rehash in robotic fashion. The correct statistic is that half of species could be facing extinction. They also use phrases like, “We have a massive biodiversity crisis that we’re trying to solve," and say their technology will "prevent existing but endangered animals from becoming extinct."

Although it may seem trivial, the inner circle shares these carefully chosen statements verbatim. They are powerful and instill fear and concern in people. They can override doubts you might have about the questionable solutions they propose. They serve to easily align people with their mission. Who would oppose de-extinction or stopping biodiversity loss?

The question the media is not asking is, why are otherwise intelligent and rational people at Colossal behaving so bizarrely? It could be as simple as financial incentive and power. But they could be under some type of manipulative or coercive control from Lamm.

What is Colossal hiding? I won’t be surprised if Colossal’s wolves turn out to be Arctic wolves, which look identical and are still living. There’s no evidence they made any wolves in their labs, let alone dire wolves. They've provided no photos, videos, or other evidence. Nor have they published any papers. What happened to the two hound dogs supposedly used for surrogacy? Perhaps we could validate their existence and examine them for their supposed cesarean scars. Colossal claims to have quietly given the hounds to the humane society without telling them their groundbreaking role in a scientific breakthrough. Gone without a trace. How convenient.

If you have any information regarding this story, please contact Be Scofield at [email protected]