The Pentagon's Secret AATIP: A 2007 UFO Initiative and Its Aftermath
To the point
A secret Defense Department program starting around 2007, called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, spent about $22 million to study UFO reports, run from the Pentagon by Luis Alzando for Robert Bigalow’s Las Vegas company, which collected alleged crash-site materials and even tested witnesses, had only a few senators aware and support from Harry Reid, reviewed a Navy video of a fast oval object near San Diego but released no formal conclusions, was reportedly ended around 2012 with private follow-ons like To the Stars Academy continuing the work, and today the DoD won’t confirm its status or funding while Reid says the truth remains unknown.
The United States Defense Department publicly acknowledged a top-secret program funded in 2007 to examine military reports of unidentified flying objects. The program, named the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), was financed with about $22 million through a line item in the budget for classified programs and run largely from the Pentagon's fifth floor, coordinated by Luis Alzando, with funding awarded to Las Vegas-based Bigalow Aerospace and its founder Robert Bigalow. It was tasked with documenting reports, compiling unverified event evaluations, assessing threats to national security, collecting materials from alleged crash sites via BitelloAerospace, and subjecting witnesses to medical testing. It operated largely in secrecy; only three senators knew of its existence. The effort drew support from Harry Reid, then Senate Majority Leader, who described it as a potentially vital response to unknown technologies. A publicly released piece was a 2004-2005 video of two Navy F/A-18s pursuing a fast-moving oval object near San Diego; the AATIP analyzed it but did not publish formal conclusions. In 2009 Reid promoted the program as a success and sought to designate it as a restricted special access program, while a Pentagon briefing warned that science fiction was turning into science fact and that there were technologies the United States could not yet defend against. The AATIP was reportedly terminated in 2012 for higher-priority funding, but Alzando continued informal work with the Navy and CIA for several more years until resigning in October 2017, urging more serious investigation. After the resignation, some collaborators formed the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences to continue research with private funding, raising more than $2 million and asserting that credible evidence of unidentified aerial phenomena exists and could revolutionize aerospace technologies. The DoD maintains that it takes threats seriously and cannot confirm the program's current status or future funding, while Reid remarked that the truth remains unknown and the public largely stays in the dark.
Source: youtube.com