Sheep-dipping

Covert removal or alteration of an operative's identity and service records

Sheep-dipping is an intelligence and military practice of disguising an operative's true affiliation by removing or altering their official service, education, and employment records, so that the person can operate under apparent civilian cover with plausible deniability. The underlying records, pay, and standing are typically kept in secret channels while the public trail is scrubbed or rewritten; a fabricated alternate background may be supplied in their place.

In the documentation of deep-program insiders, sheep-dipping is the standard in-universe explanation for why figures such as Bob Lazar and Dan Burisch are found to have blank, missing, or contradictory institutional records: the absence is read not as proof the person never held the role, but as the expected residue of a deliberate scrub by the secrecy apparatus meant to sever the worker from the program once their service ends or their value as a discreditable carrier is spent.