Over the course of at least three years, the Pentagon spent more than $20 million on its Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program—a secret UFO research initiative. Be prepared for your conspiracy-loving uncle to be extra insufferable this holiday season.
For the first time, the Defense Department is acknowledging the existence of this covert program, which the Pentagon says ended in 2012 but which The New York Times reports is still in existence. The program has released documents and videos that describe aircraft that, The Times says, "seemed to move at very high velocities with no visible signs of propulsion, or that hovered with no apparent means of lift.”
Luis Elizondo, who ran the Pentagon’s program, now works at Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science. On Saturday, the company released the Defense Department-approved footage below, which seems to show fighter pilots puzzling over an unidentified object in the sky.
The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was funded at the urging of former Nevada Democratic Senator Harry Reid. Most of the program's budget was funnelled to a Las Vegas-based aerospace company owned by Robert Bigelow, a longtime friend of the Senator. Reid responded to press coverage of the program via Twitter.
