A video shows what’s said to be an encounter between a Navy F/A-18 Super
Hornet and an unknown object. (Department of Defense via New York Times)
The
U.S. Department of Defense funded a program to investigate unidentified
flying objects until 2012, and the program may well be continuing with
alternate funding, The New York Times reported today.
The
Times says its report is based on a range of interviews with people
familiar with the program — including the military intelligence official
who ran it until a couple of months ago, Luis Elizondo; and the
now-retired U.S. senator who helped get $22 million in funding for the
program, Nevada Democrat Harry Reid.
“This was so-called ‘black money,'” Reid told the Times.
A
share of the federal funding reportedly went to a company headed by
Robert Bigelow, the Nevada billionaire who has long held that aliens
were visiting Earth in UFOs. Bigelow’s company, Bigelow Aerospace, is currently involved in a NASA-backed program to develop expandable space modules, and one of its modules is being tested on the International Space Station.
“I’m
not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going,” the Times
quoted Reid as saying. “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.”
The Times published a video clip that was recorded by a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet and retained by the Pentagon’s UFO program.
The
black-and-white video clip, which dates back to 2004, appears to show
an object moving against a cloudy background and zooming away at high
speed, off California’s coast near San Diego. In an accompanying story, the Times provides retired Navy pilot David Fravor’s account of the encounter with what he said was a whitish oval object.
Defense
Department officials are quoted as saying that the program was funded
until 2012, and Elizondo told the Times that he continued to work with
the Navy and the CIA after that time.
Elizondo left his Pentagon post in October and is now director of global security and special programs for a company called To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science.
In a news release issued today, Elizondo said he was “honored to serve
at the DOD and took my mission of exploring unexplained aerial phenomena
quite seriously.”
“In
the end, however, I couldn’t carry out that mission, because the
department — which was understandably overstretched — couldn’t give it
the resources that the mounting evidence deserved,” he said.
Elizondo
said he left the Pentagon “under very good terms” to join To The Stars,
where the investigation would be “priority number one.” Toward that
end, To The Stars has set up a “Community of Interest” website to serve as a central database and online hub for information related to unidentified aerial phenomena.
The Times quoted Elizondo as saying that his successor at the Pentagon was continuing with investigative efforts.
One
of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s most
provocative — and most derided — campaign pledges was her vow to “get to the bottom” of the UFO controversy. That pledge reportedly came at the urging of her campaign chairman, John Podesta, a longtime advocate for UFO disclosure.
At the time, the UFO comments were lost in the press of other campaign issues, including Wikileaks’ release of purloined emails from Podesta’s personal Gmail account.
The
Trump administration hasn’t said much about UFO investigations, but
current Pentagon officials acknowledged that the Advanced Aerospace
Threat Identification Program was in existence between 2007 and 2012.
“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,” the Times quoted Pentagon spokesman Thomas Crosson as saying in
an email. Politico published an identical comment attributed to
Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White.
Some aspects of the program remain classified, the Times said.
Today’s
articles are likely to return the decades-old debate to the spotlight.
However, the fact that the federal government continues to investigate
anomalous aerial encounters doesn’t prove that extraterrestrial forces
are at work.
An
unnamed former congressional staffer told Politico the UFOs may have
been experimental aircraft incorporating technologies that could
threaten the United States. “Was this China or Russia trying to do
something or has some propulsion system we are not familiar with?” the
staffer said.
“There
are plenty of prosaic events and human perceptual traits that can
account for these stories,” Oberg told the Times. “Lots of people are
active in the air and don’t want others to know about it. They are happy
to lurk unrecognized in the noise, or even to stir it up as
camouflage.
Pentagon Searched For Aliens and UFOs at Harry Reid’s Request: Report
The
Pentagon has audio and video of two very confused pilots staring down
an unidentified flying object that rotated and maintained a “glowing
aura,” as part of a secret program that investigated the existence of
UFOs and aliens for five years at the behest of a former major
Democratic leader.
Between
2007 and 2012, the Defense Department ran the Advanced Aerospace Threat
Identification Program at the cost of about $22 million with the
backing of former U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The
since-retired Reid stated he was proud of the program, despite the fact
many around the world view the search for aliens and UFOs to be the
product of overly stimulated imaginations and conspiracy theorists.
“I’m
not embarrassed or ashamed or sorry I got this thing going,” Reid told
The Times. “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.”
The
Defense Department claimed the program ended five years ago and so did
its funding. However, it still exists and probes “episodes” reported by
current service members, according to The Times. Parts of the program
also remain classified.
The
funding mostly went to Bigelow Aerospace, a Las Vegas-based company run
by billionaire Robert Bigelow, a long-time friend of Reid’s.
Then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) speaks with reporters
regarding a stop-gap funding bill to avoid a federal government shutdown
later this week on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 27,
2016. Reuters
Among
the program’s reported discoveries and investigations of “encounters”
was a 2004 incident off the coast of San Diego. Two Navy F/A-18F fighter
jets chasing down a “whitish oval object” the size of a commercial
airplane.
Another
incident involved a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet following some kind of
aircraft that emitted a “glowing aura traveling at high speed and
rotating as it moves.” In audio and video of the incident, the pilots
said, “There’s a whole fleet of them.”
Though, the date and location of the incident remains unknown.
Bigelow
believes the U.S., unlike rivals like China and Russia, are missing out
on opportunities due to potential “stigma” involved with funding alien
and UFO research.
“Internationally,
we are the most backward country in the world on this issue,” Bigelow
told The Times. “Our scientists are scared of being ostracized, and our
media is scared of the stigma. China and Russia are much more open and
work on this with huge organizations within their countries. Smaller
countries like Belgium, France, England and South American countries
like Chile are more open, too. They are proactive and willing to discuss
this topic, rather than being held back by a juvenile taboo.”
Just when we thought we had reached the peak of his X-Files
adventures, however, he seems to have outdone himself. Over the past
weekend, former Pentagon official Luis Elizondo and a number of others
confirmed the existence of a UFO-related investigative program in
conversation with The New York Times and Politico.
Elizondo no longer works in the Pentagon, but he did recently start
working with a UFO research company called To The Stars Academy of Arts
& Science, a company Tom DeLonge himself found.
Speaking with The New York Times and Politico,
Elizondo said the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program
started in 2007, before it was shut down by the Defense Department in
2012. Of course, it continued to operate unofficially.
DeLonge's company, To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, has now
come out with some scoops of their own.
Taking
to YouTube, the company posted formerly classified footage of what
appears to a UFO. Yes, Tom DeLonge has obtained footage filmed in 2004
from a Navy Super Hornet, ostensibly providing proof of the government's
research into what may or may not be extraterrestrial life. One of the
pilots mentions they think it's nothing more than a drone, but then
things get a little weird.
At first we all thought Tom DeLonge's research into the unknown was just weird, but now we're 100% onboard. Speaking with The New York Daily News when
all the news dropped this weekend, DeLonge said, "All the things
(people have) heard about and seen ar the first step of 20. There's a
lot more shit coming." To The Stars also promise to improve national
security, combat climate change, and harness telepathy among other
goals. We wish Tom DeLonge all the best in his new endeavors.
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