OOUUUCH!
Feds spent $22M a year on Harry Reid’s secret alien search
E.T., PHONE the Pentagon.
The Defense Department has acknowledged for the first time the existence of a farout program dedicated to investigating UFO sightings.
The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program was launched a decade ago at the urging of dedicated space lover and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The top-secret program operated underthe-radar with a budget of $22 million for some five years with the blessing of former Sens. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and Ted Stevens of Alaska.
“This was so-called black money,” Reid said. “Stevens knows about it, Inouye knows about it. But that was it, and that’s how we wanted it.”
Military intelligence official Luis Elizondo ran the alien investigation team in a section of the Pentagon far, far away from its busiest corridor.
Program officials spent countless hours studying video and audio of reported UFO encounters, including footage from a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet showing an aircraft surrounded by a glowing aura flying in an odd pattern at lightning speed.
The bulk of the budget was directed to an aerospace research company led by Reid’s friend Robert Bigelow, a billionaire Las Vegas entrepreneur.
During a May interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Bigelow said he was “absolutely convinced” that aliens exist and that UFOs have visited Earth. “There has been and is an existing E.T. presence, and I’ve spent millions and millions, I’ve probably spent more than anybody else in the United States has ever spent on this subject,” Bigelow added.
Pentagon officials told the Times the program was shuttered in 2012 when its funding was diverted to more earthly needs.
“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 this change,” spokesman Thomas Cross said.
Elizondo said the only thing that ended was the government’s funding. He insisted that he kept working on the program with officials from the Navy and CIA until he resigned in October .
“Why aren’t we spending more time on this issue?” Elizondo asked in his resignation letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis. Reid, for his part, said he considers the program to be among his finest achievements. “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.”