Does Pentagon Secretly Still Have A UFO Program?
The answer is a bit mysterious.
The Pentagon said yesterday that its secret UFO investigation program ended in 2012. The Department of Defense's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program had investigated reports of unidentified flying objects for years, New York Times reported, citing Defense Department officials and interviews with participants in the program, as well as records the newspaper obtained.
The program tasked with investigating sightings that the unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, ran from 2007 to 2012 with $22 million in annual funding secretly tucked away in U.S. Defense Department budgets worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Reuters
According to Reuters, the program's initial funding came largely at the request of former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat known for his enthusiasm for space phenomena. A few people claim that the program remains in existence and officials continue to investigate UFO episodes that come to their notice.
¡°The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ended in the 2012 timeframe,¡± Pentagon spokeswoman Laura Ochoa said in an email. ¡°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,¡± she said.
Representational Image - Reuters
But the Pentagon isn't sure whether the UFO program continues to hover in the vast universe of the U.S. defence establishment. ¡°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,¡± Ochoa said. ¡°If you¡¯ve talked to Harry Reid for > 60 seconds then it¡¯s the least surprising thing ever that he loves UFOs and got an earmark to study them,¡± former Reid spokeswoman Kristen Orthman said in a message on Twitter.
The program tasked with investigating sightings that the unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, ran from 2007 to 2012 with $22 million in annual funding secretly tucked away in U.S. Defense Department budgets worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Reuters
According to Reuters, the program's initial funding came largely at the request of former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat known for his enthusiasm for space phenomena. A few people claim that the program remains in existence and officials continue to investigate UFO episodes that come to their notice.
¡°The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ended in the 2012 timeframe,¡± Pentagon spokeswoman Laura Ochoa said in an email. ¡°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,¡± she said.
Representational Image - Reuters
But the Pentagon isn't sure whether the UFO program continues to hover in the vast universe of the U.S. defence establishment. ¡°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,¡± Ochoa said. ¡°If you¡¯ve talked to Harry Reid for > 60 seconds then it¡¯s the least surprising thing ever that he loves UFOs and got an earmark to study them,¡± former Reid spokeswoman Kristen Orthman said in a message on Twitter.