Today, December 16, 2017 the New York (NY) Times printed an article that the Pentagon funded a UFO study to the tune of 22 million dollars from 2008 through 2011. The study was initiated by retired senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada. The contractor for the study was Robert Bigelow’s Aerospace Company.
The summary of the article follows:
The Pentagon spent $22 million to study UFOs in a 2007-12 program whose existence has been confirmed by the Department of Defense.
An official formerly in charge of the program told media it remains alive to this day.
The secretive program, which the DOD has been keeping under wraps, was brought to light in simultaneous reports by Politico and the New York Times on Saturday, citing interviews with people involved or with knowledge of the program, as well as contracts, and Pentagon and Congressional records.
“The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program” was led by former military intelligence official Elizondo, who resigned from the Pentagon on October 4.
In his resignation letter to Defense Secretary Mattis, seen by Politico and the NYT, he lamented the lack of funding for the project and the fact that it continues to be shrouded in mystery, away from the public eye.
Pentagon spokesperson Dana White, cited by Politico, confirmed that the program existed up until 2012, when it was wrapped up as “there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding,” she said, adding that it was in the Pentagon’s “best interest” to redirect funds.
However, Elizondo said that even without its generous funding, the program was still alive, telling the New York Times that he was working with CIA and Navy officials on the issue up to his resignation.
Upon leaving the Pentagon, Elizondo said he left a successor to keep running the program, but did not reveal their name.
Research within the program, which was initially launched at the behest of Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader in 2007, was carried out by private contractor Bigelow Aerospace, a company owned by Reid’s close friend and firm believer in extraterrestrial life, billionaire Robert Bigelow.
The company and its subcontractors would store supposed pieces of UFO wreckages in specially repurposed buildings, collect witnesses’ accounts and study those who claimed to have encountered the objects to detect potential physiological changes.
Reid enlisted support of two other lawmakers, Ted Stevens, the late Republican senator from Alaska, and Democrat Daniel K. Inouye, representing Hawaii. Stevens, who was the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, claimed to have had an encounter with an unidentified object when he served in the US Air Force.
The program’s funding, Reid believed, should not have not been debated publicly in Congress.
“This was so-called black money,” Reid admitted to the Times.
From 2008 to 2011, Bigelow Aerospace landed nearly $22 million for Congress for the purposes of its extensive research and evaluating threats coming from the objects, according to the contracts cited by the paper.
One of the encounters, examined within the program, was a 2004 incident over San Diego, involving two F/A-18F fighter jets and an unidentified white object.
The detailed account of the encounter was given by Chris Mellon, a former member of Senate Intelligence Committee, who is engaged in a new initiative, spearheaded by Elizondo, called To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science.
“Two F-18s approach, the four aviators see that the object has no wings or exhaust — it is white, oblong, some 40 ft long and perhaps 12 ft thick”, Mellon said, describing the incident at the launch of the project that is aimed at deepening the research into the UFOs in October. As the pilots attempted to chase the aircraft it turned toward to the jets only to take a position behind them in a few moments in what Mellon called “a series tumbling maneuvers that seem to defy the laws of physics.”
On an undated video of another incident, provided by Pentagon and published by the Times, an oval-shaped object the size of a plane is seen rotating in the air at a high speed to the apparent disbelief of the pilots, who say that there was “a whole fleet of them.”
Speaking at the conference in October, Elizondo told the public that during the years of managing the program he became convinced that “the [UFO] phenomena is indeed real.”
Reid, who is now retired, also said that he believed that developing the program was a right thing to do.
“I think it’s one of the good things I did in my congressional service. I’ve done something that no one has done before,” he told the Times.
However, a former staffer working with Reid told Politico that the program failed to find “anything of substance,” but bore “reams of paperwork” instead.
“There was really nothing there that we could justify using taxpayer money.
Second Article – Dec 17, 2017
Source: phys.org/news
Link to Article:
https://phys.org/news/2017-12-revealed-pentagon-secret-ufo-hunting.html#jCp
December 17, 2017
The Pentagon has acknowledged funding a secret multi-million dollar program to investigate sightings of UFOs.
The shadowy program ended in 2012, according to the Defense Department, but the New York Times reported that it is still up and running—with officials continuing to study incidents brought to their attention by US military service members while performing their regular duties at the Pentagon.
The so-called Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program operated from 2007 to 2012 and had $22 million a year in funding tucked away in the Pentagon’s gargantuan budget, the Times said, quoting program participants and records.
The program yielded documents describing sightings of unidentified flying aircraft that apparently moved very fast with no visible sign of propulsion or hovered with no apparent means of lift, the Times said.
Program officials also examined video of encounters between unknown objects and US military aircraft.
This included one released in August of a whitish oval object about the size of a jetliner, being pursued by two Navy fighter jets from an aircraft carrier off the California coast in 2004, the paper added.
The Department of Defense said in a statement the program is now over.
“The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ended in the 2012 timeframe. It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change,” it said.
It added: “The DoD takes seriously all threats and potential threats to our people, our assets, and our mission and takes action whenever credible information is developed.”
The program was initially funded at the request of then Senator Harry Reid, the chamber’s majority leader at the time and a long-time enthusiast of space phenomena, the Times said.
Most of the money in the program went to an aerospace research company run by Robert Bigelow, a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Reid, the Times said.
“If anyone says they have the answers, they’re fooling themselves,” Reid, who retired from Congress last year, said in a tweet Saturday night.
“We don’t know the answers but we have plenty of evidence to support asking the questions. This is about science and national security. If America doesn’t take the lead in answering these questions, others will,” Reid wrote.
UFOs Northwest Comments on the Above Articles: Many UFO researchers believe that the U.S. Government has in it’s possession crashed alien spacecraft and alien bodies. One then would have to ask the question: Why would the U.S. Government conduct a study like the above if they already had this information? I don’t believe that our government has crashed alien spacecraft, secret space exploration programs (star travel) or alien bodies in storage. I believe that our government knows that UFO’s are real and are a potential threat, but they don’t know much more about them than the average person on the street.
Officially the U.S. Government quit UFO Investigations with the termination of Project Blue Book in 1969. The project essentially went from 1947 through 1969. It was originally titled Project Sign, then changed to Project Grudge and finally to Project Blue Book in 1952. Obviously the government is still interested in investigating UFO’s. One wonders how many other Black Ops projects have been involved with studying UFO’s.
UFOs Northwest may have been a contributor to this study. For a two year period (I don’t recall the exact years) I received several calls from Bigelow Aerospace UFO researchers wanting witness contact information for various UFO cases posted on my site. I requested that the researchers reveal to me their findings, but I never learned that any additional useful information was obtained from the witnesses beyond what was reported to me.
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I think they are still investigating it. Look at what the public have been reporting seeing on this site. I saw the photo of the UFO at the airport that made such a hole in the large cloud that so many people saw that photo does not lie. These ships have been coming to earth for thousands of years and they are still showing up. There are 500 year old paintings that show UFO shaped objects the the artist must have seen as the portrait was being worked on. I doubt that the military have crashed UFO’S either, but you have to ask yourself just how did the military develop military jets like we have now in under 100 years??? None of us have ever been allowed to really take a close up look at the cockpit of any of the newer jets, I wonder why??
I couldn’t agree more that UFO’s are real and have been visiting Earth for a long time. I believe that they have bases on Earth.
Hello Mr, Puckett! My present thought on just what our government knows about the nature of the ‘U.F.O.” phenomenon is that I can’t, but think that though all isn’t known as to their origin and intent, they definitely know of their existence and just can’t do a lot to stop their comings and goings, and it may be that though we could attack them in a military way. This could cause much more harm than they are willing to risk. But that still leaves the questions as to who they are and what their business is here. And a very Merry Christmas to you, sir!
Yes, the military knows they are in the sky and they can’t do anything about it. Happy holidays to you.