Pentagon ran secret multi-million dollar UFO programme

[misskit]

The Pentagon has been running a secret multi-million dollar programme to investigate Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), US media report.


Only a small number of officials were aware of the programme, which began in 2007 and was reportedly closed in 2012.


The New York Times says documents from the operation describe strange speeding aircraft and hovering objects.


But scientists were doubtful, stressing that unexplained happenings were not necessarily proof of alien life.


The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Programme was the brainchild of Harry Reid, a retired Democratic senator who was the Senate majority leader at the time.


He told the New York Times: "I'm not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going. I've done something that no one has done before."


Mr Reid - former senator for Nevada, home to the mythologised "Area 51" classified US Air Force base - later tweeted: "The truth is out there. Seriously," alongside a UFO emoji icon.


"If anyone says they have the answers, they're fooling themselves," he continued.


"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."


The programme is reported to have cost the Department of Defense more than $20 million (£15m) before it was shut down in order to save costs.


Although its funding ended in 2012, officials have reportedly continued to investigate sightings of unusual aerial phenomena and suspicious objects alongside their daily duties.


One former congressional staffer told Politico the programme may have been set up to monitor the technological progress of rival foreign powers.


"Was this China or Russia trying to do something or has some propulsion system we are not familiar with?", they said.


Earlier this year, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released millions of pages of declassified documents online.


The records included UFO sightings and a collection of reports on flying saucers.

Pentagon ran secret multi-million dollar UFO programme - BBC News

[misskit]

Former Navy pilot describes bizarre encounter with aircraft with 'no plumes, wings, or rotors' that outran his fighter jet

Commander David Fravor's colleagues made fun of him after learning he encountered what appeared to be a UFO during a standard training mission off the coast of San Diego in 2004.


Fravor was in his F/A-18F fighter jet when a radio operator asked him to investigate a mysterious, white floating object hovering over the sea, he told The New York Times. He made a beeline for the 40-foot, oval-shaped object. But as he approached, it changed course and disappeared.


"It accelerated like nothing I've ever seen," he told the Times, adding that he was "pretty weirded out," and that although he had no idea what he saw, all he could tell was that "it had no plumes, wings or rotors and outran our F-18s."


Fravor's bizarre account comes on the heels of another Times report on a secret government program called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, which was reportedly established in 2007 at the request of then Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. From 2008 through 2011, the Pentagon spent $22 million on the program to research and investigate UFOs and the potential threats posed by them, according to the Times.


Those who urge the government to expend more time and money on investigating UFOs point to Fravor's encounter as an example of the type of incidents that are worth looking into.


UFO enthusiasts believe the government is covering up the truth of the existence of extraterrestrial life. Ever since the famous Roswell incident of 1947, in which a flying disc-shaped object crashed at a ranch in New Mexico, they've been clamoring for the government to release all of its classified UFO documents.


"It occurred to me that it wasn't a scientific problem, but a political one," Stephen Bassett, the first and only person to register as a UFO lobbyist on Capitol Hill, told The Washington Post in 2015.


Once the truth is revealed, he added, you will see "more transparency, more communication among countries, an age of reform."


On Saturday, Bassett excitedly tweeted about the news of the Pentagon's secret program, calling it "significant."

https://teakdoor.com/world-news/18162...ml#post3681091 (Pentagon ran secret multi-million dollar UFO programme)

[misskit]

Sorry for this youtube but NYT won't let me link for this.

If you skip to 2:14, you can skip the narrated version and hear the pilot's voices.

[SKkin]

Here's what Harry Reid was really up to with this:

The shadowy program — parts of it remain classified — began in 2007, and initially it was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who was the Senate majority leader at the time and who has long had an interest in space phenomena.

Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur and longtime friend of Mr. Reid’s, Robert Bigelow, who is currently working with NASA to produce expandable craft for humans to use in space.

[VocalNeal]

Funny that UFO's only seem to go to the US? Or maybe they don't?

[SKkin]

Maybe Reid should have just touched base with Skunk Works...I'd bet money that a lot of these "UFOs" are products of black projects.

https://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/ae...kunkworks.html


Area 51 vets break silence: Sorry, but no space aliens or UFOs
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...liens-or-ufos/

[terry57]

I hope Mad Uncle ENT don't read this thread.

It will set him right off eh.

[wasabi]

Funny that UFO's only seem to go to the US? Or maybe they don't?

And the aliens can immediately speak English .
UFOs are like Angels, if you believe they are real you will see them.

[david44]

As an unidentfied farting object the Thai authorities regard my as an alien, I do my best to reciprocate and deter panic

[pseudolus]

Hardly news.