Pentagon funded UFO identification program for 5 years

Senator Reid's interest in space may have prompted the move.

Recent UFO research isn't just the work of the X-Files or former pop punk stars. The New York Times has learned that the US Department of Defense quietly funded a program (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification) designed to explain UFO reports. The program was initially funded in 2007 at the behest of Senator Harry Reid, and sent most of its money ($22 million per year) went to an aerospace firm run by his friend Robert Bigelow, who's "absolutely convinced" UFOs have visited Earth and has been making inflatable habitats for NASA. The money stopped flowing in 2012, but the program is technically active to this day.

Many details of the program remain under wraps. However, it frequently included videos of encounters between American military aircraft and mysterious objects that defied explanation, such as 'aircraft' that flew at high speed or hovered with no apparent source of propulsion. Also, it wasn't a source of shame for the politicians that supported it. Reid said it's "one of the good things" he did before he retired, while the late senators Daniel Inouye and Ted Stevens also backed the program.

It's not known what conclusions the program has reached. With that said, this doesn't mean that officials were expecting to find aliens. Reid said in 2009 that there had been "highly sensitive, unconventional" discoveries, and one briefing the same year claimed the US couldn't defend itself against what it had seen. However, that may have just meant that what was found couldn't be readily explained by natural phenomena or other known aircraft, and was curious enough to warrant a deeper look. Former program lead Luis Elizondo would only say that the sightings didn't clearly originate from specific countries.

The program probably isn't going to see a renaissance. UFO research understandably has plenty of skeptics who see it as misguided and a waste of money. However, that it has been happening in a significant capacity this century is still notable in itself.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/16/pentagon-funded-ufo-identification-program-for-5-years/

https://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/what-were-mysterious-foo-fighters-sighted-ww2-night-flyers-180959847/

What Were the Mysterious “Foo Fighters” Sighted by WWII Night Flyers?

Toward the end of World War 2, mission updates from the 415th Night Fighter Squadron took a mysterious turn. Along with details of dogfights over the German-occupied Rhine Valley, pilots began reporting inexplicable lights following their aircraft.

One night in November 1944, a Bristol Beaufighter crew—pilot Edward Schlueter, radar observer Donald J. Meiers, and intelligence officer Fred Ringwald—was flying along the Rhine north of Strasbourg. They described seeing “eight to 10 bright orange lights off the left wing…flying through the air at high speed.” Neither the airborne radar nor ground control registered anything nearby. “Schlueter turned toward the lights and they disappeared,” the report continued. “Later they appeared farther away. The display continued for several minutes and then disappeared.” Meiers gave these objects a name, taking a nonsense word used by characters in the popular “Smokey Stover” firefighter cartoon: “foo fighters.”

Reports kept coming in. The objects flew alongside aircraft at 200 mph; they were red, or orange, or green; they appeared singly or with as many as 10 others in formation; and they often out-maneuvered the airplanes they were chasing. They never showed up on radar.

Richard Ziebart, historian for the nearby 417th Night Fighter Squadron, heard many of the stories directly from the 415th crew members: “The pilots were very professional. They gave the report, talked about the lights, but didn’t speculate about them.” Still, the pilots found the sightings unnerving. “Scared shitless” was how a 415th pilot described feeling to Keith Chester, author of Strange Company: Military Encounters With UFO’s in World War II.