Pentagon's Secret UFO Program Still Active?
It was one of the few long-running secrets that Pentagon would admit. as the secretive agency revealed that they ran a program looking into unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. Given this admission, there are some who are now wondering if the agency is still running this investigation into possible aliens.
The Pentagon revealed on Saturday, Dec 16, that it has been running a long-secret UFO investigation called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program. The agency claimed to have ended this initiative in 2012 as U.S. defense officials moved funding over to other projects, according to the New York Times.
While the program may have been shut down five years ago, the question remains whether Pentagon or another U.S. federal agency is picking up where the AATIP left off. That would be another mystery that is going to be very difficult to unravel, as Reuters pointed out.
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The program was run on about $22 million tucked away under the details of the massive annual Defense Department budget, at about $600 billion every year. The project reportedly started in 2007, largely as an initiative started by Harry Reid, former Senate majority leader and Nevada Democrat.
In an email, Pentagon representative Laura Ochoa confirmed that the program has not been renewed past 2012.
"The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ended in the 2012 timeframe," she said in her message, adding that "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."
What the Pentagon and the Department of Defense have not categorically confirmed, however, is whether they have stopped looking into possible UFOs and alien sightings.
For his part, the newly-retired representative Reid proudly owned up to sponsoring the program.
"I'm not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going," he said in a recent interview, referring to the Pentagon's UFO identification initiative.
"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 added.
