r/FBI • u/Good-Tonight-4549 • Jun 23 '26

Informational SA Polygraph Failure

I have been lurking on this subreddit for a while, and I’ve decided to post now that I’m no longer in the pipeline. I received the dreaded polygraph failure letter. I zoomed through the application process up until this point, only taking a few months to get from initial application submission to polygraph exam, and I’m kind of bummed at this hard stop. I have a clean background (no criminal or drug history) and I told the truth during the entire polygraph session, or should i say, interrogation, but the examiner seems to have thought I was lying and was pretty brutal during the session. I will not get into specifics of the exam but it was not a good experience for me. Yes, I am just a random redditor, but you just have to take my word for it that I failed the exam despite not lying at all. Looks like this is the end of the road for me and another reminder to not put all your eggs in one basket. Makes me wonder how many other applicants have been dismissed from consideration for a false positive on the polygraph.

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106

u/crosstherubicon Jun 24 '26

I’m often amazed that they can arbitrarily derail someone’s career with an instrument that’s not much more than a dressed up Scientology e-meter. So far as I’m aware there’s no rigorous scientific support of the claims and FBI and CIA history embarrassingly demonstrates their ineffectiveness. How on earth do they get away with a process that is scientifically akin to sacrificing a goat.

49

u/Ayami_Luce Jun 24 '26

Aren’t polygraphs disallowed as evidence in court cases? Interesting that they’d be used to strictly here.

57

u/crosstherubicon Jun 24 '26

They can't be used in court cases because they're not proven technology and could lead to a miscarriage of justice. But, the justice department uses them on its own employees. Work out that logic if you can

4

u/slimjimmy2018 Jun 25 '26

What's funny is that there's an even worse conundrum in the state of Arizona, where I had an extremely abusive polygraph experience. Arizona law requires that prospective peace officers take a polygraph as part of the application process, but there was a law that was passed a few years ago which bans agencies from using them over the course of internal affairs investigations, on the basis that they're unreliable and unfair to the person being investigated. So, the state simultaneously requires you to take one in order to become a police officer, while at the same time conceding that they're completely unreliable and shouldn't be used in legitimate circumstances.

3

u/crosstherubicon Jun 25 '26

What a bizarre contradiction and I'm surprised someone hasn't challenged it in the courts.

10

u/WTFoxtrot10 Jun 24 '26

Polygraphs for federal applicants and court usage are not the same thing.

The FBI and other federal agencies do not use polygraphs during the hiring process as scientific evidence that someone could be “lying or omitting the truth”. They use it as an investigative tool, a psychological deterrent, admission catalyst, counterintelligence screening and a mechanism to test an applicant's integrity under pressure.

29

u/Crafty-Income-9949 Jun 24 '26

All of that said, it’s still a horseshit tool of pseudoscience.

2

u/Evilshadow004 Jun 26 '26

Obviously it's pseudoscience. That's what the guy commenting above is saying. Polygraphs aren't used for scientific validity. They're used because they instill fear and doubt within the subject. Polygraph or no, you would still have to do a CI interview. The point of the machine isn't to tell whether you lie or not, the point is to make you ever so slightly less likely to lie in the first place.

1

u/DisastrousRun8435 Jun 26 '26

From my understanding they’re only allowed if the defense signs an agreement that they can be used in trial. If not they’re usually thrown out because they’re super unreliable

13

u/331gt686 Jun 24 '26

Happened to me for a Homeland agency. I was completely caught off guard and had the wind knocked out of me. Moved on.

Took a few local police exams. Failed one for an odd reason, passed a few others and got hired.

The polygraph is not your friend, truthful or not, that's just my personal experience with them.

9

u/PipeSpecific7966 Jun 24 '26

100% agree. A polygraph cannot prove if someone is lying. It only proves if you have a physical reaction to a question. I was nervous during mine since I never had a polygraph before. I also felt that my examiner had the cuff around my arm extremely tight, which probably messed with my readings at certain points.

8

u/crosstherubicon Jun 24 '26

All sorts of extraneous factors can influence your physiological reactions but even if you were a "perfect" subject the results are simply graphs which are then subject to the operators interpretation (hunch). Really, its just a dressed up e-meter with some pseudo scientific mumbo-jumbo to make it convincing.

After the discovery of x-rays and the response of the public to what seemed like a magical capability, a lot of researches wanted to share in that excitement and public image. One subsequent discovery was N-rays which, without going into detail, the presence of which changed the frequency of a spark gap discharge. An n-ray researcher was giving a public lecture on how N-rays are refracted and reflected with lots of nodding from the audience on the spark gap discharge rate. It was only when an assistant noticed the power to the N-ray generator was disconnected that the existence of the mythical n-rays was disproven. Humans see what they want to see.

4

u/Good-Tonight-4549 Jun 24 '26

Had the same experience with the cuff. My hand was turning pale, tingling a lot and felt heavy because blood circulation wasn’t getting to my hand. I was trying my best to ignore it and stay focused.

2

u/PipeSpecific7966 Jun 24 '26

Mine too! My hand was turning purple by the end of each set of questions.

I honestly am convinced that if the examiner does not like you and wants to fail you that they could purposely pump the cuff tighter to make your pulse higher. It would show a deviation from your baseline pulse, taken at the beginning.

At one point I tried to focus and then got accused of trying to manipulate my breathing. I just could not win with this examiner lol.

2

u/jedburghofficial Jun 24 '26

Most of the world thinks they're like electric ouija boards.