I hear you on this. Steele impressed Jones enough for Jones to let his guard down. And then Steele slips this little tid bit in about children abducted to Mars in the middle of the conversation and Jones kind of agrees with him, thus in the eyes of the main stream he will lose much credibility. This was a well played tactic and I'm pretty upset with Steele for doing it.
If Steele is on the up and up, (which I've been of that opinion) then he should have known what kind of damage this could do and I have to believe he is smart enough to know what kind of damage this could do to Jones.
Indeed I fully agree with you here.