Chase Hughes--Fake and Fraud?

Stolen Valor?

Why Bother?

I used to have a horrible temper, as a kid and a young man. It was easy to set me off. I have scars, physical and emotional from fights my bad temper caused. I learned long ago, though, to control my temper. Nothing pisses me off now--nothing, that is, except when someone tries to play me for a fool.

My multi-year project exposing the Fox News fraud, Wayne Simmons, was triggered by my anger at Simmons’ sitting across from me and trying to play me for a fool.

I’ve never met Chase Hughes. But he’s trying to play me for a fool--along with anyone else who is exposed to his charlatan babblings about behavior, body language, psyops, or his other fake claims of expertise.

Hughes’ Claims, Scams, Lies

Here’s a partial list of the baby-faced Hughes’ claims and scams (mostly from Zach Elwood’s excellent vetting of Hughes, see below for link to his work):

• An early Hughes scam was a pick-up artist book in 2007 titled The Passport

• Hughes added a supplement scam to his portfolio. In 2007 and 2008, he was selling and promoting his own vitamin supplement called RedShift with Neuridium:

Redshift™ with Neuridium™ technology is designed to drastically uplift your mood and flood your mind with positive reinforcement, intense focus, faster reaction speed, and earth-shattering determination so that nothing stands in your way.

Redshift’s thermogenic blend works without fail to ensure maximum strength fat-burning that removes water under the skin to reveal muscle definition, shape, and cuts while keeping you in a state of mind that is absolutely determined for success.

• Hughes’ scammy career included making ridiculous fighting technique videos under the Red Shift Labs name on YouTube. Hughes shared his special techniques in this 2008 video on choking someone. For some strange reason, Hughes’ super-hero powers led him to make a video solving a riddle of someone being kidnapped. He branched out into assassin techniques, with Hughes’ special punch--the OMEGA STRIKE ( LETHAL), luckily he included a warning: This is for educational purposes only. Do not attempt. This move is possibly fatal and very dangerous. Otherwise, Hughes-enabled ninjas could have been killing people all over the country!

• Reading People: a now-defunct website intended to market Hughes’ profiling techniques and talks. There are many clearly false things about this new project of his, similar to the overstated claims of the RedShift product. Hughes’ lessons for his Non-verbal Communication and Deception Detection talks. Note that the Hughes scam here draws on the Paul Ekman scam:

  • Top mistakes Law Enforcement Officers Make

  • Advanced Detection of Microexpressions

  • Foundation of Non-Verbal Behavior

  • Absolute Importance of Pupillary Dilation and Nostrils

  • Setting up Human Behavior Baselines

  • Class Exercise to Commit Knowledge to Memory

  • Reading Body Parts (fingernails, hair, clothing wrinkles etc.)

  • Developing Advanced Baselines for Deception

  • Non-Verbal Gestures, Signs and Tells

  • Deception Detection (basic)

  • Human Coding System in Action

  • Class Exercise to Understand Behavior

  • Advanced ‘Mind Games’ in Interviewing and Questioning

  • Unorthodox (but legal) Psychology Loopholes

  • VERBAL Detection of Deception

  • NON-VERBAL Detection of Deception

• Hughes generated a new website, Ellipsis Behavior Laboratories in 2012. His bio there is ludicrous enough to quote the whole thing:

  • Chase Hughes, a native of Houston, Texas, has been involved with nonverbal research and innovation for nearly 12 years. The author of three books and reference volumes and over 13 articles covering topics from cult brainwashing to the use of clandestine hypnosis techniques in interrogations.

  • Currently on active duty in the United States Navy; he has been teaching, researching and coaching in body language, nonverbal communication and deception detection during his entire career. His published works on cult victim deprogramming and neurology-based hypnosis have changed the way many forensic and psychiatric practitioners conduct business.

  • Chase now lives in Little Creek, Virginia and has worked with training and coaching interrogators, HR teams and law enforcement. His behavioral analysis of political debates and televised crime testimonies have become the new benchmark for over 29 United States media outlets.

  • The Behavioral Table of Elements was originally developed in 2011 and was made public in 2013. It is being employed by government and corporate agencies nationwide, including the US government and FBI. The Behavioral Table continues to evolve as an organic structure and has proven extremely effective both as a training, and an analysis tool.

  • The Ellipsis System is available only to specific clients and garnered its first media attention in 2012. Chase’s system has trademarked the term ‘pre-havior’ and the P7 system relies heavily on this concept.

  • The Weaponized Communication Manual has gained a lot of media attention. The new manual, to be released in early 2015, contains the most advanced and comprehensive training and reference system in the world. The book focuses on the use of advanced psychology tactics, interrogation methods, profiling and exploiting human weakness and using neurology-based hypnosis to engineer human behavior.

  • As a recognized jury consultant, Chase has become a specialist in training legal teams to recognize and analyze body signals; from the way a shoe is laced to the inadvertent parting of the lips during questioning.

  • Most of Chase’s work is done at no charge while he is still in the US Navy.

In 2013, Hughes’ website touted his soon-to-be-published masterwork, The Human Codex

Marketing copy boasts that this fantastic volume will allow those who send him money to learn 6,104+ super-spy techniques that only Hughes can share:

• LITERALLY see a person’s entire life and personality by a momentary glance

• Identify wrinkles in a person’s shirt

• Accurately read EVERY body language gesture

• Know intimate secrets simply by observing how objects are placed in a room

• IMMEDIATELY spot insecurity, doubt, neediness, fear, lonliness and deception

• Detect lies with amazing accuracy

• Immediately identify what tattoos mean

• Spot criminals long before a crime

• See meaning behind scratches on fingernails and picked-cuticles

• Interview with more skill than a CIA interrogator

• Break down a person’s ENTIRE life by the contents of their car

• Look at a person’s shoes and be able to ACCURATELY describe their daily habits and lifestyle

• Look at a person’s legs and immediately know if they are trusting or suspicious

• And 6,104 other amazing techniques just like these

• In 2014, Hughes pushed his scams to a whole ‘nother level. He published The Ellipsis Manual. His marketing copy screams that this Book (Non-Government) is By Far, The Most Addicting Experience You Will Ever Have. His pure bullshit summary said:

  • The CIA developed enhanced mind control methods as a matter of public record

  • The CIA programmers experiments ranging from programming sexual slaves to creating hypnotic assassins, even involving teenage girls

  • The methods they used were elementary at best

  • The Ellipsis Manual contains WORLD-FIRST information available no where else on planet Earth

  • A person CAN be hypnotized against their will

  • A person can and will perform extremely violent and anti-social acts under hypnosis, without their consent or knowledge and will disregard safety, morals and law

  • Using the Ellipsis Manual gives an operator complete access to the psychological compromise of almost any human being they encounter

  • The Ellipsis Manual teaches operators a world-first set of methods ranging from covert creation of multiple personality disorder to developing mental slavery scenarios, wherein a subject will disregard all beliefs

• In other blatantly bullshit claims, Hughes marketing says:

  • Named in 2020 top 40-under-40 CEO’s in America

  • Bestselling author of five books on human behavior

  • Member of The Behavior Panel

  • Featured in Entrepreneur Magazine as an Oracle Member

  • Creator of the world’s first behavior profiling tool

  • Creator of the TFCA cycle for violence prediction

  • Creator of the PEACE 4A Police De-escalation model

  • His published works on cult victim deprogramming and neurology-based hypnosis have changed the way many forensic and psychiatric practitioners conduct business

  • His behavioral analysis of political debates and televised crime testimonies have become the new benchmark for over 29 United States media outlets

  • From the first day, you will be able to read the thoughts of people you interact with, and you will eventually learn to control them as well.

  • Ellipsis has the proven ability for trained practitioners to erase memories, and even create new ones.

  • Hughes claimed that his Behavioral Table of the Elements…Quite possibly what will replace and outperform the polygraph. Which is quite hilarious since no body/behavioral method of assessing credibility has shown reliable results. But you’ve gotta give Hughes credit for building a creative group that can produce high-quality marketing nonsense like this.

• In 2016, Hughes’ website proudly detailed his Evergreen Girl project: Every year, we take one beautiful young woman, and teach her the most dangerous, covert and powerful psychological warfare methods on planet earth. The results are always astonishing. . .and fun.

• In 2025, when I first heard of him again, Hughes’ marketing efforts reached absurd levels of popularity.

  • He appears on The Behavior Panel, The World’s Leading Behavior Experts Weigh In. Their marketing claims: The world’s top body language and behavioral analysis experts - Scott Rouse, Mark Bowden, Chase Hughes, and Greg Hartley - are together known as The Behavior Panel. They analyze body language and human behavior in videos of public interest. As a non-partisan team, their goal is to educate and entertain with their expertise in body language, behavioral analysis, communication, culture, deception detection, interrogation, and resistance to interrogation.

• They claim that viewing their videos will allow you to:

  • Learn alongside them how to read body language, detect deception, and analyze behavior to help keep yourself and those you love safe.

Evidence of His Powers?

That list of claims of his powers demonstrates that he’s both deceptive and deluded. There’s nothing in his background, or experience to make any of his claims credible. In fact, there’s no possible background that could make his claims real.

Missing from all Hughes’ fantastic marketing claims is any proof that anything he’s selling works. If he can read minds, control people, read fingernails and clothing wrinkles, these super-powers must have resulted in some amazing successes. Yet, funnily enough, there are no records of Hughes’ super-powers solving anything. Well, that’s not right--there is substantial evidence that his powers have influenced many suckers to buy his nonsense. In fact, he seems to have a female-heavy cult-like following. Maybe if he’d just stuck to his pick-up artist claims, he might be believable. But his claims of super-spy powers are ridiculous, with no evidence.

Me and Hughes

I have actual experience as a CIA human intelligence operator and NSA linguist in the military; instructional designer and facilitator for CIA, DIA, Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, FBI in human intelligence, counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, deception detection, assessment, and related topics. I have used techniques to spot, assess, develop, recruit and run human sources of foreign intelligence, and have run and managed covert action operations. I’ve also used those same skills to build a real, successful headhunting business. My experience with less-than-useful deception detection methods, led me to share my own proven-in-the-real-world method--Holistic Contextual Credibility Assessment.

I’ve used my skills and experience to reveal and expose a con man, similar to Hughes, who was in the public limelight for 13 years, as a Fox News expert in counter-terrorism, Islamic extremism, and international affairs. Wayne Simmons claimed a 30 year career in the CIA, under deep cover, in which he had operated against narco-traffickers. I met him and knew at once that he was a fraud. Calling him out created a backlash against me from his supporters. But, in the end, Simmons went to prison.

I am what Hughes apparently yearns to be. And his fake persona, flouted in public, is an affront to me personally, and everyone who shares my background. His con game is a special kind of Stolen Valor. He has no insights, skills, experience, training, or background in the areas he claims. And, as I said, that pisses me off.

Hughes’ Military Career

From Zach Elwood’s research, it appears that Hughes was a career Quartermaster. Quartermasters have a variety of duties--mostly involved in navigation. Nothing to do with human nature, deception, manipulation, or anything else related. Hughes claims that, at some point in his Navy career, he was a jail guard. Jail guards lock doors, unlock doors, give prisoners food, watch prisoners, fill out paperwork. A jail guard escort prisoners to meetings with investigators and interrogators or see those professionals visit prisoners. But a jail guard is unlikely to have actual experience in any of the skills Hughes claims.

Stolen Valor

We’re requesting details on Hughes’ actual military career, but haven’t received those yet. He’s close to Stolen Valor military claims, but doesn’t quite cross that line. He just implies his military experience.

He’s close to crossing the line on intelligence operations Stolen Valor claims, but again skates close to the line without crossing it. His scam claims carefully leave out specific details, and he implies more than he explicitly states his training and experience in intel operations.

My First Awareness of Hughes

I first became aware of Hughes in the early 2020s. My business partners in the United Kingdom shared with me their experiences working for and with Hughes. In their brief relationship with Hughes, they became concerned about his unethical business practices. They went their separate ways after seeing what he was all about.

At that time I did a quick scan to see what sort of information was available about Hughes. It was clear to me at that time that he was a wannabe and had no actual useful expertise or experience, in the intelligence, vetting, or law enforcement arena.

He was selling nonsense. Cloaked in long-debunked pseudo-science of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), and other pop science, his schtick was delivered with excellent marketing- -graphics, video, website design, and multi-level marketing style slick and misleading communications.

But, at that time, he didn’t seem to be gaining traction. With a small audience, and no immediate threat to civilization from his scam, he wasn’t worth my time. I made a few notes, and I moved on to other projects.

Fast forward to 2025, suddenly Hughes popped up on multiple influencer channels--Joe Rogan and others. They’re all treating him as if he’s some kind of expert, and they call him the world’s leading expert in whatever it is he thinks he’s doing - - behavioral analysis, body language, whatever he’s calling it today.

In the weeks after the Charlie Kirk assassination, many so-called body language and behavioral experts commented on Kirk’s wife’s media appearances. One of these commenters appeared on X. The post detailed an analysis of an interview with Kirk’s wife.

The post headline screamed: EXPOSED: Military Intelligence Tool Reveals Truth About Erika Kirk’s Anger – Overwhelming Signs of a PSYOP (80/100)! And went on to detail, That interview was evaluated using the NCI Engineered Reality Scoring System (version 8.3). Developed by behavioral expert and former military intelligence specialist Chase Hughes, the NCI system is a rigorous 20-category analytical tool designed to identify potential psychological operations (PSYOPs) in public narratives.

That’s right! This was the NCIERSS version 8.3! not version 7.2! not version 1.7! This is Hugh’s special system version 8.3! It sounds so science-y and official doesn’t it? Hughes is identified as a behavioral expert and former military intelligence specialist….” So, it’s legit, right?

What does this double-naught super-secret Hughes-powered analysis reveal? The widow’s appearance, may have been carefully engineered—potentially to deflect legitimate questions, protect institutional interests, and consolidate narrative control following the tragedy.

Well, golly Sherlock, not sure if you really needed the Hughes-power version 78.8 to figure that out! The lady is the public face of a multi-million dollar organization, built on manipulating media and creating buzz, with a massive staff of public relations, spin doctors, and other media savvy professionals. Everything someone like that does is carefully engineered! No need for a Hughes score of 80/100.

Evidently, only a 20 year military veteran who teaches interrogation, persuasion, and ethical brainwashing to top intelligence agencies in the world could have created a checklist that would reveal such a deep insight into the widow Kirk’s appearance. Ludicrous!

So, Hughes was on my radar again, now apparently accepted by high profile media channels as having something worthwhile to say about events in the news. I resumed vetting and background investigation of Hughes. This guy needs to be exposed.

Zachary Elwood: Vetting Hughes’ Life, Career, and Outrageous Claims

Right away, I found Zachary Elwood’s excellent article on Hughes.

The many lies of Chase Hughes, alleged behavior and influence expert.

And Zach’s video that details Hughes’ lies (details above are largely drawn from Zach’s work):

Who is Chase Hughes? The Lies of the Alleged “#1 Expert in Behavior and Influence”

Zach’s research revealed people from Hughes’ past, including colleagues from the military, and those who spent money on his cult products (training, counseling, etc). And I call it a cult because of the glassy-eyed devotion to their leader his followers exhibit. Regardless of facts and evidence presented, they support and protect their leader from criticism or exposure of his silly claims of powers and abilities, and his true background.

Hughes Cultists Respond to Exposure of His Lies

Zach began a Reddit thread by posting his article laying out the reality of Hughes’s scam:

Chase Hughes exposed: Examining the many lies of the self-proclaimed “#1 expert in behavior and influence”

Several Hughes cultists joined the conversation and responded to Zach’s withering comprehensive revelations of Hughes’ fake and exaggerated credentials:

• MichellelyRose

I can’t believe you’re even putting information like this out you are so wrong. He is extremely professional and has an extensive history and behavioral analysis as well as a very lengthy résumé and credentials. Don’t listen to this guy people

• Historical_Buy_1605

…Sounds and smells like sour grapes to me. I’ve watched Chase, Greg, Scott, and Mark on The Behavior Panel since its inception on YouTube. They, like Dr. Phil are very well educated and extremely observant…. Chase and his cohorts are very good at explaining the nuances in behavior and body language that my hindbrain and subconscious register instinctively but can’t articulate the hows and whys of…. I don’t understand why folks have such a hate on for Chase unless it’s pure envy. Sad commentary on humanity’s response to others’ success. I’m not wired to be pissed off that someone came up with a good idea that was staring me in the face my whole career, but apparently others aren’t quite as appreciative of someone else’s genius. It handicaps us as a society to begrudge someone else’s skills and ideas and their successful implementation of them.

Bottom Line

Chase Hughes is a con man, influencer, and a wannabe cult leader, making fake claims out in the open, preying on gullible marks. He seems to assume that those of us with actual skills will ignore him. And that pisses me off.

Why They Lie

Hughes lies for the same reasons all con men lie--to manipulate gullible people to do what he wants them to do. Buy his sloppy regurgitations of NLP nonsense, or buy his silly pick-up artist nonsense, buy his body language analysis, buy his blue methyl nonsense, buy his Exit retreat package, and on and on. In short, Hughes lies to manipulate others for his own benefit. He’s a standard con man. Like all con men, he’ll never quit until he’s in prison. Exposure will just motivate him to up his claims, and to denounce those who’ve exposed him. Let’s see where this goes. Should be interesting!

Jan. 17, 2026: Addendum

I’d never watched a Hughes video before. But in the vetting for the above article, I had to watch a couple. Now YouTube pops up Hughes videos like baby rabbits in spring-time. A couple days ago, up popped Chase Hughes Life Story.

I’d been piecing together his claims from other sources, black beret, highest level intel collector, blah-blah-blah. Suddenly, he puts up an hour-plus video of him being interviewed by a poor schmuck, seems to be his employee, on drum-roll…his Life Story.

I was more than a little surprised at his seeming honesty about his military career. According to him, he was a flunky seaman, then a navigator in training, then a jail guard, then a navigator, then an underwater drone platoon manager, then a boat-docking harbor dude, then a boat driver, then he had heart trouble, and seems to have been medically discharged.

Sounds totally legit. But, then, where the hell do all his high-speed-low-drag-black-intel ops fit in that mundane, typical Navy career? Even the interviewer was a bit puzzled.

So, at the end of the recitation of his career, Hughes says that, evidently while he was docking boats in the harbor, he was teaching Intelligence Specialists his special sauce mind-reading, or something. And he says that the intel guys were just blown away by his special stuff. And he went on to say that when these intel guys told him what they learned, he couldn’t believe how primitive and useless it was. He further said that if only he’d been able to train all the elite humint collectors, then 9/11 wouldn’t have happened.

I couldn’t help but leave a comment, calling him out on his bullshit:

How to put this nicely? Dude, you’re full of shit!

I was an actual military intel guy. After that, I was an actual CIA human intelligence ops officer. I also designed lessons and facilitated training for the Defense Intelligence Agency junior humint training. I’ve designed and facilitate actual humint ops training for SEALs, Army Special Forces, FBI, and more. I’ve been through the actual training--the actual most elite training. And I’ve actually run humint ops--recruiting human sources of foreign intel, and running covert actions.

At around 54:00 in this video, Hughes says:

“Growing up in the Navy, I’ve been to interview school, interrogation school, SERE school, went through their agent recruiting, VALOR system, basically sales, manipulation, another system, essentially sales, TSS. All of this, apparently the most advanced, was nothing more than a How to Win Friends and Influence People book. Look’em in the eye, use their name, remember their kids’ names. That’s it. Our most elite intelligence operatives were getting, the level of training. I was just stunned. It has to be better than this.”

#1 The only possible reality you could be describing is maybe the classes you took to be a recruiter. That job is sales. So, of course your training had nothing to do with humint ops.

#2 NONE of the jobs you described--swabbing decks, navigator, jail guard, boat driver, robot cleaner--NONE require ANY intel training schools, much less “the most elite intel operative” training.

You may have talked to guys who actually did those schools. You may have dreamed of doing those schools. You have never been in any of those schools. You have no clue what our elite intel operatives train on, or what they do.

You need to retract your claims, and rethink your approach.

Kent Clizbe

www.kentclizbe.com